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The AIH Transcript for November 23, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is “As It Happens”.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Behind the curve. Alberta is expected to announce new COVID-19 restrictions tomorrow, but the province's opposition leader says today's numbers suggest it's already too late.

CH: Going back on its word. Usually, the Oxford English Dictionary designates just a single Word of the Year — but given the sheer 2020-ness of 2020, it was forced to choose a whole bunch.

CH: And …rockin' in the flea world. Former Sex Pistol John Lydon is known for biting remarks — but no one expected him to talk candidly about getting fleas from the squirrels he befriended.

CH: It is not a pretty picture. Public health officials in Alberta reported a record-breaking 1,584 new Covid-19 cases yesterday. And another 15-hundred today. The rate of infection dramatically surpasses that of Canada's most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec. And this afternoon, Alberta's chief medical officer of health said it can't continue.

DEENA HINSHAW: The number of fatalities from this virus is growing, and the number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions continues to rise, challenging the health system's ability to deliver the care that Albertans need in the future. This is impacting the care not only for those suffering from COVID-19 but from a wide range of other health needs. To put it as plainly as possible, this is like a snowball rolling down a hill, growing bigger and faster, and it will continue unless we implement strong measures to stop. We must take action. Waiting any longer will impact our ability to care for Albertans in the weeks and months ahead.

CH: That was Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, speaking to reporters today. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has signalled that he will likely announce new pandemic-related restrictions tomorrow. But he and other elected officials were conspicuously absent from Dr. Hinshaw's press conference this afternoon. And the hashtag "WhereIsKenney" was trending over the weekend. Rachel Notley is the leader of Alberta's NDP, which is the opposition. We reached her in Edmonton.

CO: Ms. Notley, what goes through your mind when you hear these words from the chief medical officer of Alberta?

RACHEL NOTLEY: Well, I think it's very clear that she's coming as close as she has to date to almost publicly giving advice to the premier and the cabinet. And I agree. I mean, the fact of the matter is that Alberta has the highest number of daily cases in the country, despite being smaller than BC, a third the size of Ontario and significantly smaller than Quebec. And this case rate is growing very, very quickly. And we're the only province that is really failing to take any significant measures to keep the virus under control and to protect the health and safety of Albertans.

CO: OK, so why do you think that's the case? Why do you think Alberta has numbers that rival Ontario, not just in proportion, but actually numbers of COVID infections?

RN: Well, it's because this government has failed to take any kind of significant action to control the spread. To this day, Carol, we are the only province in the country without a provincial mask mandate. And so this government just has adopted what I would argue is an incredibly unwise narrative, where they are constantly pitting the economy against people's health. You can't protect the economy, frankly, if you don't control the virus. And that's something that this government has abdicated responsibility for entirely.

CO: OK, just on the masks. Is it not the case that the municipalities are initiating the mask mandates? You have them in Edmonton, you have them in Calgary, elsewhere. The premier has said that he doesn't want to limit freedoms, and it seems to have the support of a large number of Albertans who also don't want to have masks enforced on them.

RN: Well, we've actually seen reports today about roughly 80 per cent of Albertans would support mandatory mask rules. But the problem is that we don't actually have mask rules in very large communities across this province. So the reality is, is that leaving it to specific municipalities has not been enough. And then people remain unprotected in those communities.

CO: What we've seen from the premier, from Premier Kenny is, like in other provinces, he's looking for that balance between protecting the economy and protecting citizens. He has said that their data indicates that the largest number of transmission is not happening in restaurants and the public places. It's happening in social gatherings. So what would you do differently?

RN: Well, first of all, I would say that he's saying that, but he's not actually releasing the data. And meanwhile, what we're hearing from Dr. Hinshaw is that in 88 per cent of cases now, we don't know where these cases are coming from. So that is a tired talking point that has been used to defend profound levels of inaction. And moreover, I would say that this premier is not protecting the economy. He’s one of the few premiers who's not really reached out with substantial support for small businesses. That's the way you protect the economy. You take real action to stop the growth of the virus, and then you support those businesses that are negatively affected in the short term. You don't pretend there's no virus and then create a much longer period of challenge for our small and medium-sized businesses.

CO: OK, but data elsewhere, not just in Canada, but elsewhere, it shows that one of the greatest sources of infections are in those private gatherings in people's homes. And so what would you do differently? Would you limit private gatherings, and how would you enforce that?

RN: Well, I think we would do a number of different things based on the data, but we would look at what's been working in other provinces. Our caucus has introduced, I don't know, probably about 15 to 20 recommendations now in terms of things that we would do, would have done earlier on to help prevent the spread. I mean, I think at this point it's clear we do need to engage in targeted lockdowns. But again, it's hard for us to say exactly how, because we have significantly less information that is publicly available in other jurisdictions. But what we do know is that we are getting close to having a case growth rate, which is greater than other provinces by almost an order of magnitude. And so our snowball, as Dr. Hinshaw described it, has turned into a house-sized thing, rolling down a big mountain. And we need to take dramatic action.

CO: OK, so one of your concerns is that you don't have the data in order to say what you might do. But, at the same time, does the data exist? Because we've heard from Dr. Hinshaw that the contact tracing backlog is enormous, for the most part, beyond ten days, they can't even check it out anymore. So how do we even know where the infections are coming from in Alberta?

RN: Well, that is partially a problem. I think that some of the data does exist. That’s certainly what we've been told. We certainly know that projections with respect to ICU capacity and hospital capacity, we know that exists. And you are right that we've dropped the ball on the contact tracing. This government bounced back and forth on whether or not they were going to accept the federal government tracing app and has argued that their app works when everybody knows it is an utter failure. And in the meantime, they didn't move to hire more contact tracers until two or three weeks ago.

CO: We know that Jason Kenney has signaled that new restrictions are coming tomorrow, that he is taking this quite seriously. We haven't seen or heard from him recently, but he says that's going to happen. So it does appear that the premier is going to get on top of this. What do you say to that?

RN: Well, I mean, we'll see. I mean, first of all, we haven't seen him for ten days. At a time when we've seen, you know, 73 new deaths, where we've seen just in the last few days, we've seen five thousand new cases in Alberta. We're now leading the country. The premier can somehow show up to UCP fundraisers, but he can't stand up or video conference into presentations by our CMO. So whether or not I believe that he's going to take action, it's hard to say. He claimed he was taking action when he did the very minimalist request that people leave the bars that they're all drinking in at 11 o'clock at night. Honestly, I don't know that that was enough. I think most people understood that wasn't enough then. And so we'll see what his version of enough is this time.

CO: All right. We'll be watching. Ms. Notley, thank you.

RN: Thank you.

CH: Rachel Notley is the leader of Alberta's NDP and the Provincial Opposition. She's in Edmonton.

Puerto Rico observatory

Guest: Ed Rivera-Valentín

CO: What does it mean to you? Why do you have a personal connection with this?

ERV: So I was born in the city of Arecibo. And my family took me up to the observatory when I was a kid. And it’s served as an inspiration to me ever since I was a child. In fact, like after we visited the first time, I made my family take me up there every single year; it was basically my Disney. It was that one trip I definitely had to take. And it's because it's awe-inspiring. It definitely triggers something inside of you to look up to the stars.

CO: And is that why you became an astronomer?

ERV: One hundred per cent it is! If it wasn't because we visited the observatory, I probably would not be where I am today.

CO: Can you describe this place is huge, right? It's just hard to get a picture of it without being there. Just give us a sense of the scope and the size of it, and what it looks like?

ERV: Yeah. So the observatory is located in the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico. And in fact, the location was picked because it was a huge karst sinkhole, and so it was easy to build this huge dish there. And the dish itself is about 305 metres in diameter. It's made up of a bunch of little tiny panels. So it's not one solid object. And then the dish itself doesn't move. But what does move is the platform that is overhead. And the size of that platform is comparable to the International Space Station. So when I used to work there, and I'd look out and see the platform, I was basically looking at the International Space Station.

CO: And this is the platform is what's at risk here. How is it actually suspended over top of the dish?

ERV: So the platform is suspended by a bunch of cables that are attached to three different towers that go around the dish. There are some main cables that hold on to part of the platform, and these extra larger cables called auxiliary cables that hold on to the roof of the platform, all to try to stabilize these 900 tonnes because that's how much that entire thing up there weighs.

CO: OK, what is giving way? What is this possibly going to fall into the dish?

ERV: So back in August, one of the auxiliary cables ended up coming out of its socket, and it fell down and damaged part of the dish. And as we learned earlier in November, one of the main cables ended up snapping. So this one doesn't just come out of its socket. It was strained to the point where the cable itself just snapped off. And that could potentially end up leading to a catastrophic failure.

CO: Yikes! And so what can they possibly do to maintain it, to keep it from collapsing?

ERV: According to the release of the National Science Foundation, it seems that three out of the five firms that were contacted suggested that the failure would be inevitable, and that it's best to do what's called a controlled demolition.

CO: What's at stake here? What would be lost if this telescope is no longer, this observatory is no longer functioning?

ERV: So Arecibo Observatory is one of two radars that are used for planetary defence purposes. Although asteroids are found with optical telescopes, they are best tracked with radar. So once you find them, if you want to make sure that you don't lose them and you keep their orbits known very well, you have to have a lot of optical observations. But with radar, once these objects are discovered, if we ping them with radar, give me like a few minutes on this object, and we make sure then that this object, this asteroid, will not be lost because that's how powerful the radar is. And that's the type of data you want if you want to make sure that you can tell this object its orbit from now, to tens, to hundreds of years in the future to make sure that, you know, if this is the danger to us that we prepare. That's the value of radar.

CO: And this observatory, it has been in existence since 1960, some really major discoveries that led to Nobel Prize-winning physics, right? Tell us a bit about what it's actually accomplished.

ERV: Yeah. So the Nobel Prize in physics was actually when they used the observatory to detect, rather, to infer the existence of gravitational waves. So a few years ago, there was a press release, you know, we detected gravitational waves with LIGO. That was detection, like, seeing the gravitational wave hit the earth, basically, the true first evidence we had of gravitational waves, that was with Arecibo.

CO: There's also been studies, research around the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations, right? They might be communicating with us?

ERV: So the observatory is famous for what's called SETI — Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. And back in the 1970s, for what's called METI — Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence — where the so-called “Arecibo Message” was sent out to see if we could contact ETs. Nothing has been observed yet. That's still ongoing.

CO: If they dismantle this observatory, and you said that this is what led you to become an astronomer. It's also a construction that you're a family, your grandfather was involved with, right?

ERV: Yeah. Actually, when I first started working on the observatory, and I was walking by the control room that had a bunch of pictures taken during its construction, there was a picture of my grandfather's truck. So at that time, he was a truck driver, and he would bring materials from the port up to the observatory and back and forth. So he took part in building it.

CO: Is there any chance it will be salvaged, that they will find a way to safely reconstruct this and keep it alive?

ERV: My personal opinion is that as long as that platform is suspended up in the air, there's still hope. We just need to be able to act on it.

CO: Well, Ed, I hope you're right. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

ERV: Thank you.

CO: Bye.

CH: Ed Rivera-Valentín is an astronomer who has worked extensively with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. He was in Houston, Texas.

Florida man dog rescue

Guest: Rick Wilbanks

CH: A few weeks ago, Rick Wilbanks went out for a stroll by his Florida home, with his new puppy Gunner. The man and his small dog owner were passing a pond when an alligator decided to start gunning for Gunner. That's when the 74-year-old Mr. Wilbanks sprang into action. We reached him in Estero, Florida.

CO: Rick, how is your puppy gunner doing now?

RICK WILBANKS: Gunner is doing wonderful. He is completely recovered, and he's just running around acting like a puppy should.

CO: And is he a bit wary of getting tangled up with alligators?

RW: Well, no. You know, it’s part of we live. They’re a part of our community. Just, hopefully, we don't have to do this very often.

CO: I hope not. Take us back to what you did when you were walking with Gunner. At what point did you realize that an alligator was going for Gunner?

RW: You know, I heard Gunner yell, and then I turned around. I was only about three feet from him, and I turned around and saw the alligator had him in his mouth, and he was swimming out into the pond. So I just jumped in the water and wrestled alligator to the bank and pried his jaws open to get Gunner out.

CO: I've seen the video of this, and it's not a big alligator, but he’s a tough fellow. And so he really has Gunner in his jaw, doesn't he?

RW: Oh, he does. He had a vice grip on him, a death grip. And, you know, I was fortunate that the alligator was not any larger than it was. Gunner was fortunate that it wasn't. And, you know, it was just one of those things that worked out OK.

CO: Now, but listening to Gunner yelping like that as that alligator had it, that must have given you that extra adrenaline to get in there?

RW: Oh, it did, it did. It was just a reaction, just instinct and adrenaline kicked in. And, you know, before I had a chance to think, I just reacted.

CO: And how did you react? Because maybe you can describe for people what you did. You got in the water, and you had to go under, didn't you?

RW: Yes, I did. I went under ‘cause the alligator had already carried Gunner at that point. And I just was fortunately to catch up with the alligator and get my hands on him and, you know, work myself up to where I could get him, you know, behind his front feet and then wrestle him to the bank.

CO: what kind of a puppy is Gunner?

RW: He's a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. He's a beautiful, just wonderful little puppy.

CO: So as soon as you got that vice grip off of Gunner, he scampered away. [chuckling He knew what to do. But did you have any more trouble with the alligator?

RW: Well, I had to get my hands out of the alligator's mouth after I got Gunner out. And then I had to get the alligator away from myself. And Gunner was in shock at that point. So I just grabbed up Gunner and ran to the house and told my wife, Louise, that Gunner had been attacked by an alligator. And I was dripping blood from my hands. And we just wrapped him up in a blanket and rushed him to the hospital.

CO: And what did they do at the hospital to help Gunner?

RW: Well, they, of course, gave him an initial examination and he did get some water in his lungs, and they had to keep him a couple of days and give him antibiotics. And they took x-rays of his chest and stomach and hips to make sure he didn't have any internal injuries, which fortunately he didn’t. That was my biggest concern, was that the way the alligator had him, that he might have some internal injuries. But we were just so fortunate that he didn't.

CO: What were your injuries? Because you said you were bleeding. How did you get hurt?

RW: Well, I had some cuts on my hands. And I went to the doctor and got a tetanus shot, and they gave me some antibiotics. I came home and put some superglue in the cuts to close them up. And they wanted me to go get a few stitches in one place. And I just, you know, I was more concerned about Gunner and what was going on with say and the hospital stayed in touch with me about every six hours on how he was doing, which was just fantastically wonderful of them.

CO: Did you say you put superglue in your injuries?

RW: I did. [both laughing]

CO: Is that a thing?

RW: It closed them up just like stitches.

CO: Does it work?

RW: It does. It does. You know, I grew up in the country and I've been doing that for a while.

CO: OK, well, I’ll bear that one in mind next time I need some help. [laughing] Now --

RW: If you cut yourself with a knife, just take some superglue and put it in there and push it together. It’ll hold.

CO: OK, um, I've learned something from this. Now, another thing I've learned, it's possible for somebody to go underwater wrestling an alligator, come back up and still have their cigar in their mouth, as you did.

RW: [chuckling] You know, I did not even realize that I still had that cigar in my mouth. And everyone has commented on that.

CO: And your rescue was caught on tape by something called the Florida Wildlife Federation, and organization called fSTOP. They run a project where they keep an eye on wildlife and watch how Animals share the landscape with humans, so I guess they really scored with this video.

RW: Well, you know, it's intended to just show the wildlife. We live in an area that has a preserve behind the house, and we have a lot of wildlife. We have bears and panthers and bobcats and deer and all kinds of native birds, eagles and hawks. And when they came and took the film out and downloaded it, they called me and said, you won't believe what we have on film. And I said, I think I got a pretty good idea of what it is.

CO: [chuckling] You said elsewhere, though, that you were worried that there might be a plan to destroy that alligator. Is that going to happen? Is that a possibility?

RW: The alligator is in the pond and doing well, swimming around. And we do not wish that alligator to be destroyed. It was just doing what’s natural in its life. You know, I was just fortunate that Gunner didn't make a meal for it.

CO: Are you going to keep Gunner on a leash now?

RW: I do keep Gunner on a leash now. And I keep him at least ten feet away from the pond.

CO: All right. Well, happy ending to this story. Rick, it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

RW: Thank you very much.

CO: And thanks for the tip about super glue.

RW: [chuckling] You're welcome.

CO: Bye-bye.

RW: Bye-bye.

CH: Rick Wilbanks saved his puppy Gunner after it was snatched by an alligator. We reached him in Estero, Florida.

[Music: "Submission" by the Sex Pistols/punk]

John Lydon squirrels

Part two: Atlantic bubble gone, Oxford Words of the Year

Atlantic bubble gone

Guest: Kristie Simpson

CH: The Atlantic bubble has burst. Today, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador announced that they're pulling out of the so-called "Atlantic bubble" for at least two weeks. The system was praised for its ability to allow Atlantic Canadians to travel freely among Canada's four eastern provinces, without self-isolating. And since it was put in place in July, cases have stayed low. But as numbers rise across the country, they've also been rising inside the Atlantic Bubble. Here's Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey, announcing the change in his province.

ANDREW FUREY: The Atlantic bubble has been a source of pride, and people outside our region have taken note. I commend you all for following public health guidelines throughout Atlantic Canada and doing your part to allow for some semblance of regular life within the COVID-19 pandemic. But the situation has changed. After careful consideration and consultation, I have made the tough decision to implement a circuit breaker effective 12:00 or 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 25th, 2020. People arriving in Newfoundland and Labrador from within the Atlantic bubble will be required to self-isolate for 14 days. This is not an easy decision, but as you're premier, as a physician and as a concerned father and citizen, I must do what I promised, protect the best interests of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

CH: Kristie Simpson was dreading this news. She lives in Stratford, Prince Edward Island. But her parents live in New Brunswick. And when the bubble came into effect in July, she was able to introduce her son to his grandparents for the first time. We reached Ms. Simpson in Stratford.

CO: But your parents live in New Brunswick, which has seen not just two cases, it's seen a lot, right? It’s the highest single-day count on Saturday, 23 new cases. Again, other provinces will be envious of that, but still concerning in a place that has been so good at handling this, keeping the numbers down. That's 77 active cases now in New Brunswick. Even though you'd like to see your mother, do understand why she can't come?

KS: Yeah, absolutely. Like, I obviously am torn. I do fully agree with the bubble being closed. And if it wasn't for my parents being there, I would obviously be, you know, I would have absolutely no issue with it. And I do think regardless that it's the right thing to do.

CO: What chances are there that you think you'll have Christmas with your parents?

KS: I don't know. I'm like I'm 50/50 at this point. I could see it not happening. So I guess I'm starting to mentally prepare myself for that. And, you know, we'll have to tell Poppy that people are still sick. And the doctor says that Nana and Papa can't come over for a little bit. And she's usually pretty good with that. She's kind of understood what's been going on.

CO: Well, as long as Santa Claus is coming! [laughing]

KS: Exactly! [chuckling] Papa is not Santa Claus, so she's fine.

CO: [both chuckling] Kristie, I’m sorry all this is going on. But I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

KS: No problem. Thanks so much for calling.

CO: Bye-bye.

KS: Bye-bye.

CH: We reached Kristie Simpson in Stratford, Prince Edward Island.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

Oxford Vaccine Group

Oxford Words of the Year

Guest: Casper Grathwohl

CH: The Oxford English Dictionary prides itself on summing up an entire year in a single word. In 2016, for example, the word of the year was "post-truth." Which was...prescient. And in 2019, it was "Climate Emergency." Also hard to argue with. So there was a lot of anticipation for what they'd go with for 2020. And it turns out, not surprisingly, the Oxford English Dictionary team felt just as overwhelmed as we did. Instead of picking a single word, they picked several. Casper Grathwohl is the President of Oxford Dictionaries. We reached him in New Milford, Connecticut.

CO: Casper, I would have thought that pandemic would be the Oxford English Dictionary word that would sum up 2020. Why isn't that sufficient?

CASPER GRATHWOHL: We could have chosen a word like pandemic or coronavirus. But actually, the point of the Word of the Year is to pick a word that captures the mood or the ethos of the last 12 months. And as we've been tracking language over the course of this past year, what was most remarkable wasn't a single word that we found interesting, but just the sheer amount of linguistic change and evolution that happened so rapidly. And we wanted to call attention to that.

CO: As far as trying to capture the mood and preoccupations of the year, as you usually do with your words, how different is this year?

CG: Well, this year is different only in that everything about our lives changed. And so it makes sense that the language we use reflects that. In every subject area we would review, we would find a huge amount of linguistic innovation trying to capture all of this change that's upended our lives. And so we saw from politics to economics, to medicine, whole new vocabularies were emerging. Or words that we had used in a certain way in 2019 all of a sudden took on a completely different significance in the mainstream in 2020.

CO: Can you give us an example, or a few examples?

CG: Sure. I mean, remote is a good example. So if you look at 2019, the words that were most closely associated with remote, when you look at the statistics are village, island and control. You look at 2020. And of course, remote is learning, working and workforce. There are a huge number of words that have had that kind of a transformation this year. And that's not even to mention the fact that there are so many new words, new coinages that have come about trying to describe the situation we're in.

CO: And can you give us some examples of those?

CG: Just this morning, I was participating in a little bit of doom scrolling. You know, doom scrolling is where you are just going through the headlines of, you know, the coronavirus headlines and what's happening in the world. And we've all gone into that rabbit hole occasionally and found ourselves exhausted and hopeless at the end of it. Also, a fun word that I've been thinking about this morning was coronials, sort of like the term millennial, but this in this instance describes babies that are born, I guess, kind of right about now, [CO chuckles] which tells you a little something about what we're all up to in lockdown.

CO: Wow, I'm not sure I would want my baby or even me over the years to be identified as a coronial. Maybe people want to drop that one.

CG: [laughing] We might want to stop using that term. We'll see what happens.

CO: What you did this year that's interesting is that you were tracking the use of the words in real-time. So, and I guess, there must have been some words that suddenly erupted, like I'm thinking of the word superspreader. Anything like sort of an historical moment when you saw that suddenly spike?

CG: Yeah, superspreader is an interesting example. So that, we saw a real spike in usage of superspreader in October. And you can see exactly how that correlates to the social events that happened at the White House, where after which, quite a few public officials came down with coronavirus. And that term superspreader came out of that event. And we see a spike in usage in October during that time. And that right there is a signal of what makes a good Word of the Year. We just saw these spikes happening all over the place in a way that was really unprecedented.

CO: And there's the acronyms, PPE. I’d never heard of PPE before, and now I say it several times a day. [laughing]

CG: I know, I know. Everything from PPE, to Black Lives Matter, BLM, in a way that we saw BLM start to really surge starting in June, when a lot of the racial protests and the like started to erupt both in the US and around the world.

CO: The coronavirus certainly dominated this past year, but there were other really extraordinarily important things like Black Lives Matter, particularly since the the killing of George Floyd. And also, you did not give up on climate emergency. That was the 2019 word. What were some of the climate-related phrases or words you came up with this year?

CG: There were some really interesting examples of where climate was still a preoccupation on people's minds. One is the term anthropos, which anthropos describes the fact that during this period of lockdown, there's so many recorded places where we're polluting less because we're not traveling, there's no air travel, there's less human activity. And that is, for a short period, pausing the trend around how humanity is treating the environment. And so anthropos captures this moment right now. It's also been a very interesting thing for scientists to study.

CO: Well, you certainly had an embarrassment of riches as far as language goes --

CG: [laughing] We did! We did!

CO: As far as Oxford Dictionary. But, I mean, are you kind of like anybody secretly hoping not to have so many great words next year, that maybe we should have a quiet 2021?

CG: You know, I am the first after having spent this year trying to keep up with how language is evolving, and only doing an OK job at times, I would love to have a year next year that was not half as eventful as it was this year. And give us all time to catch up in a variety of ways.

CO: Maybe we can do less doom scrolling then.

CG: You know what? I hope that's the case.

CO: Casper, it’s good to talk to you. Thank you.

CG: Nice to talk to you too. Thank you.

CH: Casper Grathwohl is the President of Oxford Dictionaries. We reached him in New Milford, Connecticut. And you can find more on the Words of the Year on our webpage, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Moose licks car

Joshua Wong

[Music: Ambient]

CO: Pastor Luis, what are the conditions near your church?

LUIS LUNA: It's been pretty rough. Our city, Villanueva, has at least 13 thousand people in shelters and camps. A lot of people lost their homes because of a hurricane. They lost everything, their material possessions. As of right now, it's rough, to say the least.

CO: And what does it look like? I know you you're not in your city right now, in your town. What does it look like in Villanueva, and on the road to San Pedro Sula, where you are now?

LL: Driving down the road, you can see families besides the road, small children. It's hard. It's overwhelming at times. And so, yeah.

CO: Those people you say that you saw along the road, do they have any place to stay, any place for shelter?

LL: Some of them do, but shelters are crowded. Some public schools, some churches and spaces like that are being used as shelters. However, a lot of these shelters are crowded. Whenever you drive down the road and pass through toll booths, you can see families, people living in small tents. Yeah, that's been a big challenge.

CO: There's one network that was reporting on numbers of people who are living underneath a bridge as the only shelter they have.

LL: Yes. You can see that on the way out of San Pedro Sula. There's a big bridge, and there's people literally living down the bridge.

CO: Being hit with two hurricanes of this force back to back, how much damage is done? Is there still water around?

LL: A lot of cities in the Sula Valley, the Sula Valley is a large portion of land in the country that has several municipalities. And so a lot of cities have had structural water problems even before the hurricane. Like, in my city, in Villanueva, not every community has running water. So the effects of the hurricane, in a way, they have made this particular crisis worse.

CO: So what have you been able to do? How are you able to help your people?

LL: I have the privilege of serving the local church, our local church in a Church of God in Villanueva. We've been serving hot meals to people in shelters as of right now. Gosh, we've probably delivered about two thousand hot meals for people in shelters. I also have the privilege of serving in a humanitarian organization called Convoy of Hope. We've distributed about five thousand food provisions in twenty five communities that were affected the most. We've seen an outpouring of solidarity from your average citizen, from regular people, from people that don't have much as well, but are very much willing to help.

CO: But you were already dealing with, as the rest of the world is, dealing with the issue of the pandemic, of the coronavirus, even before these two hurricanes. So how are people able to keep distance or can they wear masks? Are they able to do anything to help prevent the disease from spreading in those crowded shelters?

LL: Right. So in a way, it's been like if these past two hurricanes have completely made us forget about COVID-19. Of course, COVID hasn't forgotten us. [laughing] The virus is still lingering here. People are just overwhelmed to the point of everybody just trying to pretty much do what they can to stay afloat. And there aren't much proper protocols from public safety guidelines in the shelters. Not everyone is using masks. Not everyone is distancing. There are a lot of shelters, as you say, are overcrowded. So a lot of government officials and public safety authorities estimate that we will have upticks in an increase in cases.

CO: You're dealing with so much in Honduras, aren't you? I mean, there are lots of people out of work because of the pandemic. People were sick. Now, these storms, and so do people have what they need? Are they going to be able to, once they get over the initial shock of all this, what do they have in order to rebuild their communities?

LL: Hope, I would have to say. [laughing] Hondurans are a very resilient people. There’s a saying that goes around, it says only the people saves the people [repeating the saying in an alternative language]. It basically communicates the idea that we shouldn't or we can't expect anything from anyone else other than our fellow neighbour.

CO: And how are you holding up personally? You've been going at this for four days now.

LL: I guess I would have to say I kind of feel guilty in a way, it's kind of odd, guilty in the sense that by God's grace and providence, we were safe, me and my wife. We were not directly affected by this hurricane. So we're trying to help as much as we can with what we have. But, yeah, whenever I lay down my head, I think I kind of feel guilty, to say the least. I feel privilege of not being directly affected by the wake of this hurricane.

CO: Well, Pastor Luis, I'm glad you're there for your people. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

LL: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye-bye.

LL: Bye.

CH: Luis Luna is a pastor at the Victory Church of God in Villanueva. We reached him San Pedro Sula, Honduras. You can find more on this story on our webpage, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Glassy guitar riff]

England out of lockdown

CH: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants people to enjoy Christmas this year. Just...not too festively. Next week, England will come out of a four-week national lockdown. Today the prime minister spoke about what will replace it. There will be a three-tier system of COVID restrictions that will run until spring -- when he hopes the country's most vulnerable people will be vaccinated. Today, the team working on the Oxford vaccine announced promising results. The announcement of the government's Covid Winter Plan came with a warning from Prime Minister Johnson.

BORIS JOHNSON: Look, this is not the moment to let the virus rip for the sake of Christmas parties. Tis the season to be jolly, but it’s also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives. And working with the devolved administrations, we will set out shortly how we want to get the balance right for Christmas, and I will be sending that out later this week. Christmas this year will be different. And we want to remain prudent through Christmas and beyond into the new year. But we will use the free tools that I've described to squeeze the virus in the weeks and months ahead. tiering, testing and the rollout of vaccines, employing all three techniques together so as to drive down the infection rate. And I really am assured now that things will look and feel very different, indeed, after Easter.

CH: That was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaking today in London.

[Music: Electronica]

Jargon study

Guest: Zach Brown

CH: Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the team here efforted some great stories today. I know I'm impressed with their outside-the-box thinking. Seems like they really elucidated some game-changing topics. And hey, if you don't agree, we can always circle back. Ugh, or better yet, we can try to avoid using that kind of jargon ever again because it hurts my mouth and ears. And heart. Still, according to new research out of Columbia University and UCLA, I may want to cut jargon-prone speakers some slack. They could just be feeling insecure. Zach Brown is the paper's lead author. We reached him in London, England.

CH: Zach, first of all, I know you've been studying jargon for some time. Just personally, what's the most annoying jargon term that you have found?

ZACH BROWN: The most annoying for me is probably the one I encounter in my current social group, is when academics elucidate antecedents and consequences. And when I was working in finance, I hated when people would leverage and disintermediate with disruption. But now that I'm in academia, I can't stand it when they elucidate antecedents and consequences, instead of talk about causes and effects.

CH: Well, it is moving forward. If I could just orientate you towards your core competencies. What exactly were you studying?

ZB: Right, right. Broadly, I'm looking at human peacocking, and all the beautiful ways that we show off status and affiliation and that sort of stuff. And language is, I think, one of the more beautiful ways that we do that.

CO: Now, who are the people who are most inclined to use jargon according to your research?

ZB: So in this project, we're looking at how people who are lower in status are using words not really to communicate, but for social purposes, to want to get acceptance and respect within their desired in-group. So low-status people in particular.

CO: Right. But aren't those the very people who would want to be able to communicate clearly, to show their merits, and want people to know that they can string sentences together?

ZB: Well, sometimes those goals are the same. Sometimes understanding what I'm saying is the same as you respecting me, but sometimes they're very different. And if you're not sure who I am, or if you're not sure what my credentials are and where I am, you might look to these secondary signals like, I mean, everything from what you wear to what groups you're affiliated with, what schools you come from. And language is one of those signals that we use. It's also a status signal.

CO: I know you started off by looking at more than 64 thousand different dissertation titles. Why did you do that? What did they tell you?

ZB: Well, so we wanted to find, in addition to experimentally manipulating status and seeing if that leads to a preference for jargon, we wanted to find real-world examples of this. And academics are a great example because we know what academic jargon is, which is this linguistic complexity. We have a way to measure it. And we also have a way to measure school status. And so we found this quite large scale data set which allowed us to look and say, do we actually see this effect in the real world? And yes, we do.

CO: Huh, you know, the place I have encountered most frequently, the use of acronyms and jargon and words that nobody else knows but those who are on the inside is in the military.

AB: Yes.

CO: But that's to sort of shut the rest of the world out, to be exclusive within your group. So isn't that part of why these words come about? Because in different groups of different professions, it becomes a way of being part of the club and excluding others?

ZB: Absolutely. And those are two separate things. One of being part of it, and definitely does that. Using shared words sort of creates a sense of shared reality and shared meaning and belonging. Absolutely. But also, exclusion and the sense of at the individual level, if I don't know the word, the feeling of embarrassment that I had. So absolutely. It can be used to exclude as well, particularly if the person doesn't know it and you can highlight to the group that they don't know it. It's draws a very strong line of who's in and who's out.

CO: You mentioned also you did some experimental research. And so this is when you were actually manipulating how people perceive their own status in a group. How did you do that?

ZB: Well, so we manipulating status is there's lots of different ways you can do it. We often use social comparison. We simply tell them, for example, if they're MBAs, they're lower in status than graduated alumni and successful entrepreneurs. So we tell them you're competing against those. They really don't care about undergrads because undergraduates are lower status than them and they don't feel threatened by them. So we can tell them you're competing against alumni and entrepreneurs or undergraduates. So that social comparison is one of the ways that we measure or manipulate status threat.

CO: And then what happened when they did that?

ZB: They would choose. We often give them an option of you have two particular, if they're MBAs, they’re in a pitch competition. And your two partners have chosen one of two different pitches, and you have to choose one. When they feel lower in status, they want the really jargony pitch. We leverage the competitive advantage gained economies of scale and disintermediate existing retail channels, right? Fledgeling members, aspirational members. These people who want to be part of the group, they will often use this particular linguistic status signal for social reasons. They're communicating for social reasons and not really for communicative ones. They're using these words for social needs.

CO: You know, the other area where one finds as a journalist, where a lot of jargon is used is when you're interviewing people, [chuckling] present company excluded. But if you're doing an accountability interview, they will use a lot of jargon and acronyms in order to avoid answering the question. It's not about their status or whatever. It's just a way of not communicating and getting through the interview.

ZB: Right. And there's two things that it does for that. One is there's an obfuscational type of thing where it's using these words that it's hard to pin them down. But it also establishes a credibility and sort of a competence. The chairman of the Fed, when he being questioned by the Congress in the US, spoke impenetrably with huge amounts of jargon for exactly that purpose, a mix of obfuscation, but also sort of establishing themselves as this unquestionable authority.

CO:” [laughing] So next time someone is doing it, if I say you're being obfuscational, will they understand what I'm saying? Or is that jargon?

ZB: Well, you can say that to counter their attempts. That’ll be you replying in turn. [CO laughs] So yep, absolutely.

CO: Where are you going to take this research next?

ZB: So next, we're looking at consequences. You know, in particular for this fledgling group member, aspirational group member who wants to be part of the group, what happens when they use it? And we know from a lot of status-signaling literature is that these signals can often help on competence. So if I go to a networking event and I have some sort of fancy status signal, people might want to be my LinkedIn contact, but they don't want to be friends. It hurts on warmth. So it depends on what your goals are. If you're low-status and you use it, people really react negatively, unfortunately. They judge you like, your low status and you're doing it to show off. And so they call you out for doing it, not to communicate, but to show off status and belonging. So low-status people, it seems there might be a double bind that they face when they trying to show they belong in the group and they get hurt for it.

CO: All right. Well, we'll circle back and touch base later then, Zach.

ZB: Great. Thank you so much.

CO: [chuckling] Bye.

CH: Zach Brown is a PhD student in Columbia University's Management program and the author of a new study on jargon — along with Columbia's Adam Galinsky and University of Southern California professor Eric Anicich. We reached Mr. Brown in London, England. And you can find more on this story on our webpage, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Indie rock]

Alberta street checks

CH: The province of Alberta is officially putting an end to a controversial police procedure. But it's leaving a similar procedure in place. And critics say one out of two is still bad. The government says carding — when police stop people on the street and ask for their IDs — is no longer allowed. But street checks — during which officers stop and question people, even without suspicion of a crime — will continue. At best, critics say that's a case of half-measures. Because, they say, both practices disproportionately target racialized people. Ubaka Ogbogu is a law professor at the University of Alberta. He spoke with CBC Edmonton today.

UBAKA OGBOGU: It turns out it's really just a fake ban. It’s visual-signaling. Because the minister has allowed street checks to continue. And street checks are carding. Street checks and carding are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. It involves the police stopping individuals randomly to collect information, such as their name, their date of birth, their height, your weight, or other personal information. This information is being stored and evaluated by the local police forces. These are people who are not committing a crime, are not under suspicion of committing a crime, just stopped randomly, and their personal information is collected by the police.

MARK CONNOLLY: Now, the justice minister, Kaycee Madu, said the new rules around street checks are when police say there's a specific reason to stop and question a member of the public. And will include a requirement for police services to review street data four times a year and report to the province. Do you think this is an extra layer here that gives you any comfort at all?

UO: No, it doesn't, because they can't just look at data however they've collected it. And how did they even get that data in the first place? They can’t just look at data and then decide whether to start targeting people, Street checks and how you do it is problematic. This practice disproportionately affects racialized minorities. And in fact, the police target communities where racial minorities live. So it is a form of profiling, in essence. I have met too many Black and Indigenous people who have been profiled this way, and who have been stopped even just because they are going about their business every day. Before we even get to the question of whether or not they are asking you questions or collecting your I.D., which is the carding part of it, the streey checks itself is problematic because it is racial profiling. It is harassment of citizens who are going about their business. And then collecting information to put them in a database to track them for more harassment. If the minister is committed to ending police harassment of racialized minorities, and targeting of certain communities in Edmonton and in Alberta, what the minister should do is end police street checks. There is no justification for it.

CH: Ubaka Ogbogu teaches law at the University of Alberta. He spoke with Mark Connolly on "Edmonton AM".

The AIH Transcript for November 23, 2020

Prologue

Puerto Rico observatory

Florida man dog rescue

John Lydon squirrels

Part two: Atlantic bubble gone, Oxford Words of the Year

Atlantic bubble gone

Oxford Vaccine Group

Oxford Words of the Year

Moose licks car

Joshua Wong

England out of lockdown

Jargon study

Alberta street checks

New socialization bar

October 23, 2020 Episode Transcript

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