Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2016

The AIH Transcript for April 24, 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: Long-distance relationship. Nine years ago, one man talked another out of jumping off Waterloo Bridge to his death – and yesterday, they ran the London Marathon together, at the exact same time.

JD: Compound fracture. An audacious assault on a military base in northern Afghanistan kills more than 150 people – the worst attack by the Taliban since they were forcibly removed from power in 2001.

CO: An unexpected left hook. Pat Stogran didn't shy away from a fight as Canada's Veterans Ombudsman – and as he launches his bid to take over as leader of the NDP, he's come out swinging.

JD: The woodwind beneath their wings. Passengers on a weekend flight from Tampa to Los Angeles are treated, or subjected, to an impromptu high-altitude performance by an unexpected sax symbol: Kenny G.

CO: They can survive without oxygen – but barely. I mean, they're naked mole rats, they're always bare – but new research shows the breathtakingly unsightly creatures can breathe in conditions where most of us would suffocate.

JD: And...wearing their heart on their Steve. It's a streak of celestial light that remains a mystery of the night sky – and tonight, we'll find out how this glorious band of illumination in the firmament, this divine line of luminosity, got named Steve.
As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio guesses you could come up with a fancier name, but you'd have Steve competition.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Part 1: London marathoners, NDP leadership candidate Pat Stogran, naked mole rats

London marathoners

Guest: Neil Laybourne, Jonny Benjamin

JEFF DOUGLAS: In 2008, Jonny Benjamin was prepared to end his life. He was on London's Waterloo bridge, and he was ready to jump. But a stranger approached him and talked to him, and convinced him not to go through with it.
That stranger's name was Neil Laybourne. But the two aren't strangers anymore. Yesterday, Jonny Benjamin and Neil Laybourne ran the London marathon together. And they finished side-by-side. We reached them in London.

CAROL OFF: Jonny, I want to start with you. How are you feeling after that marathon?

JONNY BENJAMIN: A little bit sore. Very sore actually. Lots of blisters, but it's a real achievement and I feel good.

CO: And Neil what about you?

NEIL LAYBOURNE: Oh my God. It's, you know, I didn't sleep before the marathon much, and I’d been running 26 miles. I didn't really sleep after it either. So yeah, but I'm feeling good though. I'm just really energized. It had such a great impact.

CO: Whose idea was it for the two of you to run the marathon together?

JB: Neil’s.

NL: I say I think it was my idea.

CO: That’s Neil.

NL: This is Neil speaking, yeah. We’d already met Prince William and Duchess Catherine earlier in the year and we were going to another event of theirs. They were launching their charity, Heads Together. And on the way there, we saw that they were the official sponsors for the London Marathon and I was like oh… we were on the train going there and I said we should run, we should just do it. We’ll run for them.
And we got to the event and we said to them “We're going to run for you. Is that OK?” And they were like “Yeah, OK.” And then there was no going back.

CO: And you raised about £35,000 pounds so far, is that right?

JB: Yeah. Yeah. So myself and Neil have raised 35,000. We were hoping to actually raise a bit more. I mean all the money is going to Heads Together which is royal charity. It's all going to be used for various mental health projects, which is great and it's really needed.

CO: Jonny, can I ask you about the day that you met Neil?

JB: Sure, sure.

CO: Tell us a bit about where you were and what was going on?

JB: Yeah sure. So, I was 20 at the time and this is 2008, January 2008. And I’d just been diagnosed with something called schizo-affective disorder which is the combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I was in hospital. I'd been in hospital for a month. And I was just hopeless. It was really hopeless and I just felt a burden on my family and my friends. I was embarassed. I was really embarrassed and ashamed and I just, I just had enough. So I made the decision to run away from the hospital and to go to this bridge. I thought well, this is my life, I'm going to be over the rest of my life. I don't want to live like that. And it's not fair for my family or my friends. So, I thought it was best for all of us if I just took my life and, you know, that was the end of it for everyone.
And so that was my plan, to go to this bridge and to jump off. And that was it. But then of course, I got to the bridge and I was on the edge, and this stranger appeared and started talking. And that changed everything.

CO: And that stranger was Neil. And Neil, what made you stop and talk to Jonny on the bridge?

NL: So yes, so this was you know, middle of winter. It was January, and it was very freezing cold day. And this is one of the biggest bridges in central London. And I saw this person, this stranger, sitting over the side of the bridge, sitting on the railings facing over the bridge. And Jonny was just wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, shivering in his own world. And so you know, I walked over and I asked him you know, why he was sitting there on the bridge. And I had, I actually had no idea what he was going to say to me. And he told me that he was going to kill himself. And then I was just in the situation and I actually had no idea what to do, what to say.

CO: And what did you say to him?

NL: Well I just listened actually, I think was the main thing. Like I just asked him questions. I didn't… I had no advice to give. So the instinct was just ask.
You know, he didn't really want to talk to me. He told me to just go away and leave him alone, let him do this. But you know, you can’t walk away when somebody’s told you that. And I kept asking more and more questions and he did begin to open up. And I think that was that was it really, the fact that he was you know just in conversation and just talking about his feelings. And I suggested that we go for a coffee, and that was actually what made the difference. And he climbed over the side of the bridge and we were on the pavement and we were about to go for that coffee but we actually got interrupted by the police.

CO: And did the police then, Jonny, did you go with the authorities then, with the police?

JB: Yeah I did. I was taken away by the police and I was taken to the hospital. And yeah, that was the last time I saw Neil, this stranger. We were completely separated and you know, I didn't even get his name, really. We were just kind of yeah, literally torn apart.

CO: How did you find him?

JB: Well when I was, you know, feeling better, I mean it took, you know, it took two years really. And when I was feeling better, I decided to launch a search.
I mean really wanted to start a conversation about mental health and suicide as well, because suicide is a difficult subject to talk about. But we need to talk about it. You know, it takes it takes the lives of so many people every single day around the world. And we need to talk about it. So that's why I launched this search on social media, and it kind of went viral on Twitter and Facebook, which is amazing.

CO: And what was it like when you finally got contact with Neil?

JB: It's really hard to describe it. It was such an overwhelming moment. It was so special. I mean, it was all being filmed for a documentary but I just forgot that the cameras were there. And it was just me and Neil, and we just talked and we talked and talked. And it really, it was such an incredible moment. It really was.

CO: Neil, what do you remember about that moment?

NL: I didn't realize that you know, when all that time had gone by, that six years gone by, I didn't realize that I had so many kind of unanswered questions that I was looking forward to hearing. And he told me everything about we've been through and what led him up to the bridge. Stuff that he didn't tell me you know, there and then, because we never got that coffee. We were talking, you know, for a long long long time.
And it’s all been built up in my head. Whatever happened to that person? Did they ever go back and did they ever kill themselves? You know, and was he OK, and these sort of things. Then all of a sudden, you know, within a matter of weeks, you know, somebody's looking for you and you get to hear all this. And they’re not in that place that they were. Jonny wasn’t in that place anymore. And it took a few weeks to really set in. But it was very emotional, yeah, for me.

CO: There’s so much more to this story but I just want to go back to the marathon that you ran together and I understand you ran with your arms around each other for support for much of the five hours and 26 minutes it took to complete.

NL: Well somebody had me along.

JB: Well no, I mean it just it was just extraordinary. I mean you know, we ran past the bridge that I was standing at when Neil first helped me. I mean, that was just such overwhelming moment. You know, like to think, all these years ago, Neil helped me on that bridge and stopped me from taking my life. And here we are now, running alongside each other. It made me very reflective and emotional. To think how far we’d come and what a journey we’d been on. Really, just… and to do it together. Just phenomenal.

CO: Well both of you are an inspiration.

NL: Well thank you.

JB: Thank you.

CO: And I'm glad it worked out and it's great to talk to both of you. Thank you.

NL: Thank you.

JB: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

JD: Jonny Benjamin and Neil Leybourne ran the marathon in London yesterday. Nine years ago, they met when Mr. Leybourne stopped Mr. Benjamin from jumping off the Waterloo Bridge. We reached them both in London. And we have more on this story on our website, cbc.ca/aih, including a video of the moment when Jonny and Neil were reunited. And you're also going to find a link to their fundraising page.

[Music]

Pat Stogran

Guest: Pat Stogran

JD: As political death matches go, the NDP leadership race has been painfully polite.
But painfully polite is not Pat Stogran's style. Mr. Stogran is a retired soldier who made his name as Canada's Veteran's Ombudsman, battling the Harper government in fight after very public fight. And now, Mr. Stogran is promising to take the same straight-talkining approach, as he makes an outside run, at running the NDP. We reached Pat Stogran in Ottawa.

CO: Mr. Stogran, when you were ombudsman for Canadian veterans, you were described as having gone rogue within the establishment. Is that what you want to do with the NDP?

PAT STOGRAN: don't want to go rogue so much within the NDP. I'd like to unite the party and recognize that the enemy in all of this is politics incorporated and that I'm going to offer them a way of breaking the stranglehold that the liberals and conservatives have on our government, with a view to actually serving the people ,and turning a corner on the way we've been conducting business and government today.

CO: What is that stranglehold you talking about?

PS: Well it's same garbage, different bag. If you go back to when I first started as a voter, Pierre Elliott Trudeau era and he drove the party into the ground, and handed the autocracy over to Brian Mulroney who did two tours, handed it over to Chrétien, and then we went through. So it's just more of the same and it seems like people have this perception in Canada that the only kind of government we can have is liberal or conservative. You know, the Prime minister himself backed away from his electoral reform promise because he suggests that diversity in the House of Parliament is not a good thing, whereas no, diversity is good and we need more than two parties who are handing the gavel over to one another.

CO: Now, so you have first of all to get into this race and go up against your other NDP members to see if you can become the leader. What is it that bothers you about the contenders for the NDP leadership now?

PS: Well to me this is this is a leadership challenge for me. And what I saw in the debates not only internal to the party that I've signed up for, but across the board, is a perverted definition of what leadership is. If you choose sides, it's about divide and conquer, it's about reaching out to the most votes you can get. Whereas I grew up understanding that a leader has vision and a leader offers a course of action that satisfies a greater good.

CO: But lots of people say that no one on the outside, when they're when they're criticising how government operates. But when you get inside they learn that, well that's not so not so easy, that you have to be a team player. Your have to do a lot of things that perhaps you haven't shown yourself to do in the past.

PS: Sorry Carol I spent 30 years in the military being a team player, and when I saw that things were going south in Kandahar, I saluted and stepped aside and stepped into the Veterans ombudsman's job because I thought it would be a way that I could give back to those soldiers, sailors, and Air Force personnel who make life-shattering sacrifices for this country.
And when I realized that I was just put in there as a figurehead to carry on the status quo, of course I went rogue. But I am very much a team player, and my first challenge is to bring together the NDP team and recognize that we're all in it for the same purpose.
What I like about the new Democratic Party, is that they act as a social conscience. That their platform is based on a greater good. Sadly, the leadership thus far in the party has been one of retrenching and not reaching out to the rest of Canada, whether you're a moderate conservative or a moderate liberal, and say “Hey we're a real alternative.”

CO: I want to ask you one question about your military career, because in military circles you are known to have been the man who defied a very big authority figure. In Bosnia, you contradicted a British General, Sir Michael Rose, who was furious with you but you also prevented a massacre in Gorazde in 1994. And you almost lost your military career for that. Is that the Pat Stogran–

PS: That’s part of being a team player. And it depends what your team is. And I get some real soul searching after that because at the same time I was in the Gorazde, General Dallaire was in Rwanda. And if you take a look at the two approaches that we took are relative crises, General Dallaire did the professional thing, and when General Bari and Kofi Annan told them to salute and carry on observing and reporting on the genocide, he did just that. I came out of my experience recognizing that, like our young soldiers sailors and Air Force personnel sign on the dotted line and very often become casualties that shattered their lives. My career, you know, I'm prepared to sacrifice my career for the greater good and even just stepping in to this race, I find it really distasteful to consider myself a politician now, but I'm doing this, I hope if nothing more, I can be a real catalyst of change. And just one more point on that, Carol. I reached out to certain members in the NDP asking how I could help, how I could be a disruptor, and how we can move the agenda that we can actually get some social conscience into positions of authority. Because let's face it, if you're not sitting at the table with the adults in Parliament, that being the party that forms the government, you might as well be a non-governmental organization, if the odds are that much stacked against you.
So no I'm doing this because I really hope that my message will resonate with all of the moderate Canadians who just want their government to start doing the right thing for everyone rather than buying votes.

CO: I’m trying to imagine you in a debate against Kevin O'Leary and Justin Trudeau. How do you think that will go?

PS: I would so appreciate that. Well, there's a long way to go before, you know, I will readily admit I need some polishing as a politician. I've never really aspired to politics. But I think the truth hurts and I would like, as you know, I speak truth to power. And the Canadians are going to welcome my message because it is really one of effective and efficient government and putting the bureaucracy in a position of transparency and accountability so that they can't hide the truth from Canadians for political expediency.

CO: All right, we'll be watching Mr. Stogran.

PS: Well, I'm looking forward to the fight.

CO: Take care, bye-bue.

JD: Pat Stogran is Canada's former Veterans Affairs obmudsman. He's running for the leadership of the federal NDP. We reached him in Ottawa.

[Music]

Naked Mole Rats

Guest: Thomas Park

JD: They're hairless, they are wrinkled, and look like sausages with teeth. I am not talking about radio hosts, I'm talking about naked mole rats who get a bad rap for their appearance. But they have supernatural abilities we humans do not. They are cold-blooded but they are mammals. They are resistant to pain. They are immune to most types of cancer. And now, according to a new study, naked mole rats can survive without oxygen for quite a while by switching to a metabolic strategy normally used by plants.
Thomas Park is one of the researchers behind this study. He's a biology prof at the University of Illinois. We reached him in Chicago.

CO: Professor Park, when did you first suspect that naked mole rats could survive without oxygen for quite long periods of time?

THOMAS PARK: We started to suspect several years ago, and there were some really good clues that they might be super tolerant to oxygen deprivation. The first is that it's known that their burrows had the lowest amount of oxygen of any subterranean mammal. And that's because they live in such large numbers. Their colony size can be two to three hundred individuals.
The second clue, is it's been known for some time that the hemoglobin in their blood is very sticky for oxygen. So even at a very low oxygen environment, their blood can pull oxygen molecules out of the air.

CO: How did you test your theory?

TP: We began by kind of arbitrarily just choosing a low oxygen concentration to try, and we picked 5 percent, because we knew that humans and laboratory mice cannot survive in 5 percent, and that was a very tense experiment. We were ready to pull that guy out if he looked like he was having trouble. And we were amazed because after an hour, there was no sign of trouble. And after five hours, the researchers started to get pretty tired, but the mole rat looked fine. And so we were surprised and we decided to just say five hours is the limit that we're going to go today.

CO: And then you went further, you put them in zero percent oxygen environment.

TP: That's right. We wanted to really push the envelope and see what they were capable of. I think in nature, they would sometimes get close to zero percent oxygen. And we were shocked to see what happened under zero percent oxygen. They rapidly slow their heart rate and respiration rate. They stopped moving around and they go into a state of suspended animation. And at the same time, they release a large amount of fructose. The simple sugar fructose into their blood, fructose is carried to the brain cells. And we then discovered that the brain cells are covered with fructose transporters to move the fructose inside the cells. And inside the cells, they get a huge amount of the enzyme that can convert fructose directly into energy. And the significance is that this pathway can operate without oxygen whereas what we normally use is glucose, the other simple sugar, and it requires oxygen. So that was a pretty cool discovery.

CO: OK so what, if I understand, other mammals like us, we use glucose in our metabolic system. And we need oxygen to burn the glucose. Fructose, you don't need oxygen to burn.

TP: Correct. Because we're in an oxygen rich environment, it's a better choice for us to choose glucose because glucose is actually more efficient than fructose. But for the naked mole rat in an oxygen poor environment, they decided to go strong with the fructose pathway.

CO: Do you know any other mammal that does this?

TP: No it wouldn't surprise me if Mother Nature did this in another mammal but no one's looked as far as I know.

CO: And they've developed this over a period time. Do you think at one point they had a glucose metabolism?

TP: Yes. And kind of important to point out is that we actually have the same fructose pathway. We just don't have as much. We don't have enough of the transporters or enough of the enzymes to save us in an oxygen poor experience such as a heart attack that would starve our brain from oxygen.

CO: Tell us a bit more about naked mole rats. They’re pretty wonderful and strange creatures.

TP: You know I really like them. I think that they're evolved to be very friendly and nice because they have to live in such large numbers and such close quarters. So you can pick up a wild naked mole rat no problem. They're very friendly. If you pick up a wild mouse or a wild laboratory rat, they would probably bite you.

CO: And what else could, I mean I understand first of all they're cold blooded.

TP: That was another clue that they might be very tolerant to oxygen deprivation because us warm-blooded mammals have a lot of energy into keeping our bodies warm, and that energy requires oxygen. So not having to keep your body warm saves you a ton of energy and a ton of oxygen.

CO: And what about how they organize themselves?

TP: They organize themselves much like ant colony or a bee county. There's only one breeding female and we call her the queen, and she is in charge of all the other non-breeding animals. And so she goes around every day, goes through the colony, and make sure that each colony member knows that she is in charge.

CO: And they get those funny little front teeth. What do they actually eat?

TP: Their goal is to find these potato like vegetable roots in East Africa. And I think that's what led to them evolving to have such large colonies, because these root targets that they're looking for are actually spread far and wide. They're scattered. And so a small number of animals digging at random through the soil would probably starve to death before they encountered one. But if you have 300 members, you can divide up into teams and dig in many directions simultaneously and that increases the chance of finding one of these roots. As long as you're community oriented and willing to share.

CO: Now this research, and you love these animals, and they're fascinating, but you're hoping that this might lead you to some discoveries. What do you hope comes out of this research?

TP: So what I'm hoping is that somebody smarter than me, perhaps with a background in neuro-engineering, or bio-engineering would tackle the problem of how do we up-regulate the fructose pathway in humans. Because 99.99 percent of the time, we're fine. We have plenty of air. But when there's a tragedy like a heart attack and we can't get oxygen to the brain, it would be great if we could give a drug or a treatment that would up-regulate the fructose pathway and allow the patient to survive longer. So if I have a heart attack, I really only have about three to five minutes before my brain cells run out of energy and begin to die. I could extend that to tens of minutes or even hours if I can up-regulate the frontals pathway.

CO: Well something that has been around for millions of years should be able to teach us some lessons.

TP: Absolutely. I think that's maybe the main point of the study, is that if we look and see how animals that are challenged by something like oxygen deprivation, how do they overcome that challenge. We can learn a lot.

CP: Professor Park, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

TP: That was so much fun. Thank you.

JD: Thomas Park is a biology prof at the University of Illinois. We reached him in Chicago. And recently he worked on a new study which found the naked mole rats can survive without oxygen by switching to a metabolic strategy normally used by plants. That study was published in the Journal Science. And if you'd like to see some photographs of these cute, in an ugly kind of way, naked mole rats, head to our website, cbc.ca/aih.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Afghanistan attack, 'Steve' sky light

Afghanistan attack

Guest: Wes Abbott

JEFF DOUGLAS: It is a national day of mourning in Afghanistan as the death toll from Friday's brazen attack by the Taliban continues to climb. Today, the defense minister and the Army chief of staff resigned over the attack which took place near the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, at an Afghan National Army military base. Most of the victims were soldiers – many of them young recruits.
Wes Abbott is a security consultant in Afghanistan. He rushed to the base near Mazar-e-Sharif after the attack. We reached him in Kabul.

CAROL OFF: Mr. Abbott, it seems that this is the Taliban that got deeply into a military base that should be quite fortified and protected. How is it possible the Taliban gained access to this fort?

WES ABBOTT: That's correct. The reports we've heard on the ground is that they had four former soldiers who served within that unit, and within the actual camp itself. And they recently joined the Taliban and they were instrumental in orchestrating that particular attack.
I would believe this to be true because having entered the camp myself today, it would be very hard for an attacker who’d never actually been there to know exactly where the men would be congregating at that particular hour. And that particular hour, they capitalized on the fact that there were men eating their lunch in the canteen, and then 100 yards across the road, you had a mosque area.
So something like that could have only been planned by men who knew the routine and the layout of the actual camp itself.

CO: But this is, I mean, this is a military base. So, to get in there, and spend five hours under rampage that killed at least 140 people, it looks like it may be more before the final count and many people wounded. It's extraordinary that a place like Mazar-e-Sharif should have such an attack, is it not?

WA: It is. And the frightening thing there is that these guys were able to get access deep into the heart of the camp itself. I counted three major checkpoints on our way in today before we actually got to this sort of epicenter of the carnage. So you are talking about a lack of security on the front gates. This, coupled with the fact that they had Afghan national army uniform and the Afghan national army vehicles, and the fact that they had played on the goodwill of the fellows at the initial checkpoint. That's what really assisted these guys to actually get such access into the camp.

CO: We've seen other attacks, Taliban attacks recently in Afghanistan, including one hospital in Kabul that looked a lot like there was, they had help on the inside. That there was an inside job involved. Does it appear that the same thing that's happened in this military base in Mazar-e-Sharif?

WA: Absolutely. Absolutely yes. I would have suspected an insider job. I also believe that the Taliban released a statement saying that four soldiers who were previously at that camp were involved in the attack.

CO: And these are men who probably knew the layout of the place and knew when they would be very vulnerable as in a mosque or having their lunch in the canteen.

WA: That's right. Yeah.

CO: How are the, I know the families are obviously very distressed by this, and they are reclaiming the remains of their loved ones. The New York Times reports that there was a shortage of coffins just to deal with all of these soldiers. How are families responding to this?

WA: I believe the families are very very angry. They haven't been really get much information on what happened. And there's also been some confusion as to how many were killed. There hasn't been an official figure released yet. The most consistent figure that we had today was around 160 aside. But we also heard a rumor that it was up as far as 200 dead. So the families are confused and they're angry.

CO: And I understand that at this point the defense minister and the chief of staff of the army have resigned. There may be other resignations. Is that going to help at all? Do those who have lost loved ones and also recognize with a security breach this is?

WA: Will this help? I think it's important that somebody takes ownership of this. And I think maybe a fresh change of military leadership may assist in putting new procedures in place that will hopefully improve the security situation. But at the moment it's too early to say whether that will actually help.

CO: You know what kind of a place that is Mazar-e-Sharif and Balkh province. How extraordinary is it that this place which is, as I understand, relatively peaceful, I mean it hasn't been a center of this kind of activity, ehat is the significance that Mazar-e-Sharif military base has been attacked this way?

WA: I think the main significance here is the fact that the Taliban have demonstrated that they have the ability to attack anywhere, particularly places where they wouldn't traditionally be seen to have a big sort of a support base.

CO: And because we've seen in neighboring Kunduz, there's been an attack there. There have been other obvious signs that the Taliban is gaining strength. What message does it send to the government in Afghanistan that there should be such strength in this part of the Taliban?

WA: Well I'd like to think that these attacks underscore to the government that there needs to be a change in the tactics with how they're attempting to combat the Taliban at the moment.

CO: Any sense of what public opinion is at this point about it

WA: The public are very angry. They're extremely angry that something like this, coupled with the attack that occurred at the hospital last month has actually happened. And the other thing that I'd speculate too, is any sort of young Afghans joining the Army, this would probably give them a second thought and that sort of a career choice.

CO: And it's been hard enough for the government to recruit young men into the military. So this is probably going to discourage them.

WA: Absolutely.

CO: Mr. Abbott, I know it's very late and I appreciate you speaking with us. Thank you. Good night.

WA: Thank you very much.

JD: Wes Abbott is a security consultant in Afghanistan traveled to the site of this weekend's attack by the Taliban near Mazar-e-Sharif. We reached Mr. Abbott in Kabul.

[Music]

MMIW mother

JD: Wendy Carlick was an advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women in Whitehorse. She took that role on after her daughter, Angel Carlick, was murdered in 2007. She was just 19 years old.
Now, it appears Wendy Carlick herself has become one of the missing and murdered women she advocated for. Last week, her body was found, along with another woman's, in a Whitehorse home. The police are treating their deaths as homicides.
After the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women was announced in January of last year, Dave White interviewed Ms. Carlick on CBC Yukon's afternoon show, Airplay. Here's part of that interview, from the archives.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVE WHITE: Can I get your reaction to, you know, when you heard that there would be an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women?

WENDY CARLICK: I said “Yes, right on.”

DW: Yeah?

WC: I've seen it on the news, on TV. I said right on, finally.

DW: It's been a long time since Angel went missing.

WC: Yes eight years. I always think about, I want to know what really happened and why.

DW: You know the whole issue about an inquiry became a real political thing.

WC: I know. Big time.

DW: How did that make you feel?

WC: I was really happy that, you know, First Nation was pushing for it. Really happy and we finally you know, we have our rights noticed, and I’m glad for it a lot of First Nations. It's still happening today. People are missing in other cities. I hear about it on the news all the time.

DW: How do you think an inquiry would help?

WC: Well would help is buying, get more resources, investigators. More input for help. And you know, politicians can't do it alone. And First Nations, they have not much resources to you know help their families as it is.

DW: I mean how do you cope with it?

WC: Just keep looking at the cop station, and walk by, wondering what are they doing in that building?

DW: What's your favorite memory of Angel?

WC: My favorite? Oh so many of them. She was just excited. Her graduation. She was just happy. She was finally going to graduate. That was her favorite moment. She was just dancing around “I'm going to graduate soon.”

JD: That was Wendy Carlick on the CBC Yukon program Airplay in January of 2016. Ms. Carlick died last week. She was 51 years old. The RCMP are treating her death as a homicide.
Wendy Carlick became an advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women after her 19-year-old daughter, Angel, was murdered in 2007.

[Music]

Steve skylight

Guest: Eric Donovan

JD: Amateur sky watchers have captured images of a stunning ribbon of purple light streaking across the night sky for years. But it turns out that this Aurora-like spectacle is a bit of a mystery to scientists because they are just beginning to learn about it. As with all remarkable new discoveries, it has just been given a remarkable new name, and that name is “Steve”. Eric Donovan is the University of Calgary prof has been looking into “Steve.” We reached Mr. Donovan in Calgary.

CO: Professor Donovan when did you first hear about this light show they're calling “Steve”?

ERIC DONOVAN: It came about, I went to a talk in Calgary given by a friend of mine. She leads a citizen science project for the U.S. NSF, and they've developed some social media tools that connect scientists with people who observe the night sky, people who take pictures of the Aurora, people who just happen to see the aurora and so on. The project is called Aurorasaurus. I invited the PI, Elizabeth MacDonald up here to give a talk. And when she came here, there was a group of people in the auditorium that I didn't recognize. And normally, for a physics talk, there's no one there I don't recognize and so I asked you know, “Who are these people?”, and it turns out they're a Facebook group called the Alberta Aurora Chasers. And for them, my friend Liz is a bit of a rock star because she works for NASA and she studies the Aurora. And so afterwards, Liz and the Aurora Chasers and I went over to a bar near campus, had some beer, and talked and we got a good discussion, and one of them said I took a picture of the proton arc last night. And we got a little back and forth. And I said “No you didn't.” He said “Yes I did.” I said “No you didn't.” We went through that. And I finally said, show me what you took a picture of?Because I knew it couldn't be the proton Aurora because the proton Aurora is never visible to the naked eye. And so when he pulled out the picture on his laptop, I was just stunned by how beautiful this thing was. I didn't know what it was. It was obviously auroral.

CO: What did it looked like?

ED: It was it is like a big bright purple stripe across the sky. You know I mean very vibrant. You know mauve purple color, and very narrow and extending from horizon to horizon. And again it was like nothing like I'd ever seen before. I didn't know what it was. I knew what it wasn't which isa proton Aurora.
And so you know in science, we kind of had this idea that if you're going to call something something that has a physical meaning, that that physical meaning should have something to do with the process you're talking about. And so since we didn't know what this thing was, I said don't call it proton anything, because that implies protons have something to do with this. Call it something else. And so looking to a children's story about the thing on the other side of the hedge, which kids called “Steve”, this guy Chris Ratzlaff said “I'm going to call it Steve” and the name caught on.

CO: And what exactly is Steve? I mean since you've not seen it before. What is it?

ED: People have been taking photographs of this for decades it turns out. And the really interesting thing in the story for me is that the social media, like the Alberta Aurora Chasers, has given us a bridge between these amateur but very passionate, and very energetic, and very competent photographers, and the scientific community.
And so what we've done since then, is we had a meeting in Santa Fe a group of scientists, and we decided to try to figure out what this thing is. And we had a plan. The idea was to see Steve in our data our scientific data. But in order to do that we had to find something that might be it. And then find out by looking to the photographs from the citizen scientists, if it was it.
And it took about a month after we had that meeting which was June in 2016 and July of 2016. We've got an event over a place called Lucky Lake in Saskatchewan, where we have a camera, our group has a camera. And a friend of mine brought me a picture saying I think this could be something weird, like Steve.
And then I went on to Facebook and posted, you know, anybody see Steve last night on the Alberta Aurora Chasers? And within about five minutes, pictures started coming in and it was this phenomenon. And so then we were off to the races. I mean we had it in our data, we knew what it looked like in our data. And then we found out for that very event, there's a European Space Agency set of satellites called “swarm.” And one of the swarm satellites flew right through Steve, like right while we were taking those images. And we found out that it's in this case a river, like a little 20 kilometer wide river of very very fast moving gas, about 300 kilometers altitude. And it's moving westward. And so it goes all the way from Hudson Bay or even further east, all the way across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta. You know through B.C. up into Alaska. This gas is moving at seven kilometers or six kilometers per second, which for reference, is about as fast as the International Space Station is moving. And it's also super hot so when swarms flew through, the Calgary instruments showed that the gas was about 6000 degrees Celsius, which is as hot as the earth's core, actually.

CO: Putting these two things together. These amateur Aurora watchers, who saw this, and then putting it together with the data you get from space, you've actually been able to identify what Steve is.

ED: Yes. And for me this is really, kind of, the dawn of a new era. Because we have, there's always been people who are fascinated by various aspects of nature. People who go out and birdwatch, people who go out and take pictures of the night sky and so on. But the social media and the ability to move information and data around very fast has given a bridge between scientists who sort of, we tend to focus on problems that we know we want to solve or we're working on those. We're writing proposals to get money to buy equipment, to attack those problems. But now, really kind of in our spare time, we can be connecting up with these other groups of people who can show us things that are really very interesting that we wouldn't see otherwise.
And so I think, looking back an old photographic records, I mean people have been taking pictures of this thing for decades. But that's not really made it into the scientific community until recently.

CO: And by the way, what's the scientific community's thoughts on calling this “Steve”?

ED: So people are having fun with it. You know I mean, and one thing is that if you look to the particle physics community, I mean they call things properties of particles, things like charm and color, and objects like quarks and so on. And the idea of calling things sort of nonsensical whimsical names when you don't know what they are, is not new. And it turns out we have acronyms or you know, in some cases we have back-ronyms, which is you have a word and you want to go back. And so when I gave a talk on this in San Francisco in December, a person in the audience stood up, when I described what I think it was, he said “Sudden thermal emission through velocity enhancement.”

CO: Perfect.

ED: And actually I think it's a great back-ronym. And so we might just leave it at Steve and turn it into an acronym.

CO: This is a great story. Professor Donovan, thank you. It's great talking to you.

ED: Thanks a lot Carol.

CO: Bye-bye.

ED: Bye.

JD: We reached Eric Donovan in Calgary where he is a professor of physics and astronomy. He was explaining how an amateur Facebook group helped him discover a new night sky phenomenon called “Steve.”

[Music]

Robert Pirsig obituary

JD: When Robert Pirsig first shopped his story around in the 1970s, it was turned down by more than 100 publishers. And admittedly, the story didn't necessarily seem promising: Mr. Pirsig had written about the motorcycle trip he and his 12-year-old son had taken through America's Northwest.
And yet, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was more than just a road trip tale. It became a handbook on how to live. And it sold millions of copies.
Robert Pirsig died today. He was 88 years old.
In 1975, he appeared on CBC Radio's Ideas. Here's part of what Robert Pirsig said, from the basement of his home.

SOUNDCLIP

ROBERT PIRSIG: A lot of the stuff that was associated with the whole, we’ll call it the romantic movement of the 60s was just plain impractical. You know like not fixing your motorcycle. Or that motorcycle and Easy Rider that had the gas tank the size of a football you know. Yeah, and these fellows are, or it seemed to me as a motorcyclist that they're not going to get much farther than San Bernardino on that gas tank unless they keep refilling it every 25 miles because a Harley is a notorious gas eater. And this tank was so smart they couldn't have done cross-country with it.
That's not a good example of what I mean by the impracticality of the 60s. When my wife and I were first married, we went out to Reno and became dealers in the gambling casino. Saved 3000 from that, went down in Mexico and started to build a sailboat. And I was going to write a book down there. We were leading the romantic life.
The romantic life by itself, as we led it at that time, seemed to get kind of thin. I don’t know if you know that feeling. It just seemed like we were sort of detached and ethereal and we weren’t really meshing gears with our own lives. But eventually we ran out of money which is far more serious than running out of ideals, and had to come back and get a job. And I got one General Mills here in the research laboratories doing magazine articles.
I did this in this period of the 60s where I kept my hair short and worked in the factories and took orders and did all that. I found that that you can take a typical factory job and enjoy it. And my technical writing has certainly got to be considered one of the more boring of factory jobs and yet I felt that as I applied the principle of quality to this, and said I'll do the best I can and enjoy it for its own sake, that this was successful and did in fact make for a good working day for me. You know, I joined the professional society and worked for the upgrading of people. But I said, it's no good for me to shout you know, well the government's got to do something, or the of the factory’s got to do something, or somebody has got to do something, when it’s so obviously available for me to do something through the increase of quality of my own work.

JD: That was Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He was speaking on CBC Radio's Ideas back in 1975. Robert Pirsig died today. He was 88 years old.

Back To Top »

Part 3: Maldives blogger killed, Michelle Obama artist

Seniors poker

JEFF DOUGLAS: Some seniors in Richmond, British Columbia are setting aside their poker faces, and going all-in after their Texas Hold'em games were cancelled.
For ten years, a group of about 40 people had been playing at Minoru Place Seniors' Centre for 10 cents a chip. But recently, the city put a stop to that, saying that it, the game, violated provincial gambling regulations. But the group is not ready to fold.
Marilyn Berger is a member of the group. Today, she spoke with Stephen Quinn, host of the CBC Vancouver afternoon show On the Coast. Here's part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

MARILYN BERGER: They are about five groups at the Senior Center who played for small amounts of money. We're not the only ones who been told no we can't play. Apparently there is no money to be exchanged on any city property. But nobody ever seems to really care. It's very small small stakes, but it is a city bylaw.

STEPHEN QUINN: Now what difference does it make? I mean obviously it's a great way to get together with friends. Playing cards is entertainment in itself. Why does there have to be money involved?

MB: Ever play poker?

SQ: I'm not a poker player. I'm not a poker player.

MB: Well, you know what, there are many games like Mahjong is played there. We play, I play Mahjong privately for 25 cents a hand. Poker, if anybody is playing poker, it's more fun if you play for a little bit of money. It makes it more interesting. We're not playing from large amounts of money. It's not about gambling. We're not gambling, we’re playing for fun. But if there's no money involved then, it's like playing I don't know if he ever played Rummoli, where you play put pennies on the–

SQ: Yeah.

MB: It's like that you know.

SQ: So where are you playing now instead?

MB: Well we're going to different people's homes but we have 40 people who came and joined together. We all had, we had Christmas parties, we had summer barbecues. We can't fit 40 people in a home. People are being alone and isolated. You know, studies show that seniors need to be active and using their brains. And instead, we're being told to sit home and watch television and do nothing. So it's very sad for many people.

JD: Marilyn Berger is a member of a senior's poker group in Richmond, British Columbia. She told CBC Vancouver's On the Coast how the city has cracked down on their game for violating gambling regulations.

[Music]

Maldives blogger killed

Guest: Daniel Bosley

JD: In the world of media in the Maldives, everyone knew Yameen Rasheed.
He was an I.T. professional by day, and ran a wildly popular political blog on the side called The Daily Panic – very very popular. The Daily Panic, well he took shots at politicians and the country's religious establishment. And over the weekend, The Daily Panic, and Mr. Rasheed's Twitter feed, went silent. Mr. Rasheed was found stabbed to death in the stairwell of his apartment building.
Daniel Bosley is a journalist in the Maldives, and a friend of Yameen Rasheed. We reached him in Fuvahmulah, Maldives.

CO: Daniel first of all I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

DANIEL BOSLEY: Thank you. It’s a difficult time.

CO: How did you learn that you Yameen had been killed?

DB: On Facebook I think. It was very typical, the way it happened. I mean I almost didn't need to hear the details, because this is the way these groups always seem to operate. Everyone was worried that this might happen to Yameen at some point.

CO: When you say “these groups”, because no one has been arrested, the police are not saying very much if anything about what they know, or think they know. What do you mean by “these groups”?

DB: Well I say “these groups”. I think even that is too much of a plural on it. You know it's a very very small place not a law goes on without people knowing about it. And the same characters pop up time and time again. I mean Yameen had told me in recent months that he’d seen certain a individual who was also seen foaling a former colleague of mine and Ahmed Rilwan. I'm not sure if you’ve heard of him. He’s a good journalist who was abducted two and a half years ago. He was seen being followed and he was threatened by a certain individual, and the same individual was seen by Yameen multiple times and multiple places, and he was convinced that the same people were now actively following him.

CO: This this is the case of Ahmed Rilwan, who disappeared in August of 2014. Police, after 18 months, finally said that he'd likely been abducted. And so you're saying that Yameen saw some of the same people who have been following Ahmed Rilwan were following him?

DB: Yes. The threats he’d been getting in recent months, the tone he told me had changed in that they weren’t anonymous anymore so much before you know, you get through all the anonymous people online targeting… you never know if it's a 12 year old or if it's a serious individual who intends to do harm. And these threats have been coming fairly regularly to Yameen for maybe five years now. It’s just the way life is here if you write about those things in this country.

CO: But recently the threats were and were not anonymous.

DB: Yes, he was a bit surprised that that general accounts, people had been targeting him. And I mean, people are now questioning why, why the timing now. I mean Yameen has been posting more frequently recently and maybe perhaps he let his guard down. I don't know you know, you've become I think de-sensitized once you have been receiving these threats for so long. And he started posting on a regular, more regular basis recently.

CO: It was really popular. This blog he was writing. What were the things that he was writing about?

DB: He just hammered anybody that deserved hammering. The institutions, politicians, hypocrites. Everything was fair game, it's not like he had a particular axe to grind. He was just a smart guy and he always had a way with words and he would just call things out when he saw them and he’d just cover everything, all the events of the week in Maldivian news.

CO: You say that he is a secularist and he was critical of politics which is what happened to the same as the blogger who disappeared. Do you know who the groups are? Do you know what their orientation is? The ones who went after the former blogger and also went after Yameen.

DB: It's very difficult to identify anybody clearly because nobody's ever brought to justice. You know everything that the face of these groups is always some kind of online presence and it's linked in some point to people who are being recruited to go off to Syria.

CO: Were they Islamists? Religious hardliners?

DB: They are both [unintelligible] are a big gang problem and the gangs frequently get radicalized and the blurred lines between the politicians and gangs. You know, such a small place, there’s no six degrees of separation here. It's two degrees of separation so often the same gang will have to drug dealers and Islamists. You know all mixing together. It is a very confused place.

CO: What motivations might these groups have then to go after Yameen?

DB: Well the motivation is that they accuse him of being secularist, and accuse him of mocking Islam. In their minds, it’s a justification for doing that.

CO: Was he doing that?

DB: No I don't think he was. I think he was mocking them as individuals and he was mocking them for being hypocrites quite often. But no, he wasn't someone who would go on a mock religion. He's too smart a person for that.

CO: The family of Yameen has issued a statement saying that the police did not protect their son. They said that Yameen told the police many times that he was threatened. He filed formal complaints with the police and they did nothing to investigate. They’re asking in the statement that at least if you failed him in life, then at least do not fail him and death. Start to investigate what happened.

DB: Is that likely to happen? Are police going to go after those responsible for what happened to Yameen Rashid.

DB: I would think it's very unlikely if you look at the response to what happened to Rilwan. They just seem to be operating with great freedom to do what they want to who they want whenever they want. I'm not really sure when or when the line is going to be crossed.

CO: In your view, what have, what are people in the Maldives lost with Yameen Rashid’s death, with his voice gone?

DB: They've lost, probably the country's best writer. They’ve lost a really intelligent ma and someone who wasn't afraid to say what was on his mind, which is fundamentally lacking here.

CO: Do you think it will discourage others from being outspoken and being bloggers or journalists?

DB: Honestly, yes. But I mean a lot of journalists have been asking me in the last couple of days, can we speak to other bloggers who have had similar threats? There really are not. He was he was the last one. And people have been steadily scared away and basically forced to be quiet, unless they want to stay in the country. That's been the deal that many people have had to… people get told if you stop talking about this, we will leave you alone. And people, at some point, they do have to stop talking about it because they have lives and they have families and they have lots of other commitments and it's quite sad to say but you can really see like an entire population being scared to silence.

CO: Daniel, once again I'm really sorry for your loss and I appreciate you telling us what was going on.

DB: OK.

CO: All right, good night.

JD: Daniel Bosley is a journalist in Maldives and a friend of Yameen Rashid, a secular blogger was found dead over the weekend. We reached Mr. Bosley on the island of Fuvahmulah, in the Maldives.

[Music]

Fish finger candidate KGB

JD: If Tim Farron believed he'd wrapped up his win in this June’s UK elections in June, he's just un-wrapped it to take a second look – and discovered the fickle finger of fate inside. A finger that's deep-fried, crusty on the outside and flaky at its core. Because that finger is made of fish – and it has just dragged Mr. Farron's re-election campaign into uncharted waters.
Tim Farron is the leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats Party. He's the incumbent MP in the constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale. And he is now having to contend with an opponent whose entry into the race he could not have possibly foreseen: a deep-fried fish stick, also known as a fish finger. Also known as Mr. Fish Finger.
Mr. Fish Finger's entry into the political fray began online, after the now-terminated Twitter account @SkipClaus launched a poll, which, according to a subsequent crowdfunding site, revealed that voters have more faith in the frozen dinner item than they do in Mr. Farron.
A statement on the site reads as follows,: "This seat has been held since 2005 by Tim Farron, who lost to a fish finger by a margin of around 99% in a poll of over 1,000 people, when asked 'Who would you trust to lead you more?'".
Since then, Mr. Fish Finger's fundraising campaign has garnered well more than the 500-pound minimum deposit required for a candidate to officially enter the race. More than 2,100 pounds have been collected to date.
The site stipulates that, "any funds raised above 500 pounds will be used for the campaign, and will ensure that Mr. Finger looks dashing as he embarks on his new career."
So yes, expect a jumbo-sized fish finger to appear on the campaign trail. Time will tell if Mr. Farron can keep his head above water and ensure more votes are cast his way than the fish's. But his new opponent has already shown he can withstand the heat. And while he may come out beaten and battered, the electorate may ultimately eat him up – with relish.

[Music]

Golf ball hash browns

JD: Potatoes are starchy tubes encased in a thin skin. Golf balls are dimpled rubber spheres encased in an ionomeric resin. Potatoes contain Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, and niacin. The nutrional value of golf balls is unknown, but I've found that even after ten hours in a Crock-Pot, they haven't softened enough to not shatter your teeth.
My point is this friends: you cannot eat golf balls but you can eat potatoes. And McCain Foods USA has come to the same conclusion.
On Friday, McCain ordered a recall of two brands of frozen hash browns, because they may be, "contaminated with extraneous golf ball materials, that despite our stringent supply standards may have been inadvertently harvested with potatoes used to make this product." [/lb] Is it just me, or is the word "extraneous" extraneous there? Didn't we all assume "golf ball materials" were inessential to the production of hash browns?
In any case, a McCain spokesperson explained that a thorough investigation may have revealed the source of the problem. "We believe the cause might be that the field where the potatoes were harvested was adjacent to a golf course."
Now I also believe that might be the cause. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say it definitely is the cause. Or at least, that I very much hope it is. In the meantime, if you're in the U.S. and about to fry up a batch of Roundy's or Harris Teeter brand hash browns, maybe don't do that. Especially not in a wok. Because, as they say about golf itself, that'll be a good wok spoiled.
Of course, not many people would eat a golf ball on purpose. But non-human people occasionally do. And it's just possible that one of those non-people – Libby the German Shepherd – would take issue with my saying you can't eat golf balls. Because she really had a taste for them.
Guest host Mark Kelley spoke with Libby's owner, Mike Wardrop, back in 2004. Here's part of their conversation, from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK KELLEY: So Mike Wardrop, tell me, when did you notice that something was wrong with your dog Libby?

MIKE WARDROP: Well the first signs that we got was that round about a week ago, when I took her for a walk, and she got to the stage where she just started coughing, and a little bit of blood came with it. So obviously brought her straight home. And my wife took Libby to the vet and realized that there was something seriously wrong with him. So of course when we took him to the vet, it got to the stage where they did an examination and found that there was something in his stomach and didn't quite know what it was. So they gave it a drink of water which was quite bizarre to me. And what happened was that they found the belly started rumbling and rattling. And they said “There’s something seriously wrong here.”
It got to the stage where they said they would have to operate straightaway. They operated, and apparently they found the first Gulf War. Then they called another vet in and ended up with all four vets going into this one operation center, taking side bets saying how many would be inside his stomach.

MK: I like that you had a foursome of vets going in there.

MW: Exactly. That's right. They [unintelligible] shot to see how many golf balls there is. So they got to the stage where they stopped counting at 11, and ended up with 28 coming out of his stomach.

MK: Unbelievable.

MW: Quite bizarre.

JD: From our archives, that was Mike Wardrop, speaking with guest host Mark Kelley on As It Happens on April 23rd, 2004. Vets had just discovered that Mr. Wardrop's German Shepherd, Libby, had eaten 28 golf balls.

[Music]

Michelle Obama artist

Guest: Gelila Mesfin

JD: A mural was unveiled in the South Side of Chicago last week. It's a portrait of Michelle Obama, in a gold and green Egyptian-inspired headdress. [lv] The man who painted the mural, Chris Devins, told local Chicago media: "I wanted to present her as what I think she is, so she's clothed as an Egyptian queen. I thought that was appropriate."
What Mr. Devins failed to mention was that fellow artist Gelila Mesfin felt the same way and that she had created the same image, more than six months ago. And until she called Mr. Devins out, he'd given her no credit for her work. We reached Gelila Mesfin in New York City.

CO: Ms. Mesfin, what were your thoughts when you first saw your depiction of Michelle Obama on this wall in Chicago?

GELILA MESFIN: Well initially, actually, when I saw the image of the mural, I thought it was pretty cool. I didn't know that anyone had taken credit for it or created a GoFundMe page.

CO: Just so people who haven't seen it, we're going to put, we're going to post a picture of your picture on our website. We’ll give you full credit for it too. But just describe this piece for us. Describe how you have depicted Michelle Obama.

GM: You know in the image, you know, I just wanted to portray her as a queen. And I'm inspired by her because she's a strong black woman. And you know she was just such a class act and she inspired a lot of black women, black girls to be strong, to be educated, and to stand their ground and you know, to fight for what they love. So I just wanted to draw a design that was colorful that had African heritage. And yeah pretty much, she was just an inspiration.

CO: How similar is your image to the one that's on the wall in Chicago that this man Chris Devins created.

GM: I mean I haven't seen it in person of course, but from the images that I saw and from the color scheme, the line work and everything, it’s pretty identical. It's pretty much the same, almost line by line accurate.

CO: And at what point did he, did you realize that he didn't attribute any of this to you? That he in fact was taking credit for this being his creation?

GM: People just started sending me messages through social media, specifically Instagram. And then one specific person was like someone is taking credit for it. And they sent me the link of the article in DNA Info of Chris. And then, when I opened it I saw that he made a statement saying that the reason he depicted her as an Egyptian queen was that’s the way he saw her and something along those lines that was very suggestive of him taking full credit of the design.
So after I thought that after I saw that, after I saw the GoFundMe page, and then after I saw his signature on the actual piece, I realized that, wait a minute it looks like he's taking credit for that work. And even on his GoFundMe page, I just read that he was going to send people that donated money prints of the image with his signature. So you know, when I saw all that, that's what motivated me to post my initial Instagram post.

CO: And what did you say in the Instagram post?

GM: Well you know, just saying that I was very disheartened. You know, I just felt like it was disrespectful and that from one artist to another, it’s a code. You know? Like at least don't take credit. Just say you don't know who the artist is. That would have been one thing. But you know to take credit for it.
And that's what I said on my Instagram post. Saying that it was wrong and that was my original work.

CO: How did Chris Devins respond to what you said, what you wrote?

GM: Initially after I wrote that, I guess a lot of people started contacting him, so he tried contacting me. I will commend him on that. He contact me the same day after a couple of hours. But initially I was obviously, you know, very upset and I didn't want to say anything that was really bad. I wanted to take time and talk to someone that can give me advice on what to do. But right now our attorneys, they’re communicating, and we're trying to come to a professional agreement on a way to negotiate and settle and you know, get recognition for my work.

CO: Why do you think it takes lawyers to do this? I mean isn't it pretty straightforward? This is your creation. He has reproduced it on a wall. Can he just say “Oops, sorry I shouldn't have done that. I will right this wrong.” Why are lawyers now involved?

GM: I mean, I seek legal help and legal advice. You know, because some things, the business side I can’t articulate myself. I don't know all of the things that go into building such a huge mural and all the funds that went into it. And what is appropriate. Like I want it to be professional. I don't want to say something that's emotional and that's not civilized just by communicating directly to him.

CO: He said in order to produce this, he started to GoFundMe page and raised him $11,000. He said that he didn't profit from it. He just needed that to make the mural. He's also said that because of the controversy created, that you have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars of free publicity. What do you say to that?

GM: Honestly speaking, anything that he's been posting on social media, I know some people are commenting saying that you know he's not being civilized about the whole situation. But I try to ignore the things he's been saying online because I think he's just under pressure and all this criticism is getting to him. Because you know with that, like how can I make money in two days? How can I get business? I'm a full time graduate student. I am on finals currently. I don't know how he would think that I'm making money in this situation.
Did I get followers? Did I give people reaching out to me because of the whole situation. Of course I did. Like that's pretty obvious. And all this media attention of course in a way, I was promoted, but it wasn't because I was trying to get promoted because I was shedding light on an injustice that was done to me as an artist.

CO: What are you hoping as a resolution what do you what do you want out of this?

GM: I mean honestly speaking, the first thing of course, I would appreciate recognition. Like “That it's her artwork.” And I think he did say that the whole thing was a bit sloppy, the way he did it initially. I think he did post some things saying that, but initially when he did the GoFundMe page, he said it was for the community. So even though his intentions initially might have been good, the way he continued with the situation was just not proper.
I just want positivity. I just want to respect each other's boundaries and you know, to move past that situation. Because that's all. We all as artists want our work to be acknowledged and to just bring joy to everybody else then.

CO: Ms. Mesfin, I appreciate speaking with you and we'll see if we, see how this turns out but thank you.

GM: Thank you so much for contacting me.

CO: Take care. Bye-bye.

GM: Bye.

JD: Gelila Mesfin is an artist based in New York City. That's where we reached her. We did reach out to Chris Devins for comment. In his statement, he said that he did give Ms. Mesfin credit for the piece, once he learned her name on April 21^st, and that he hopes she will accept his apology. For pictures of Ms. Mesfin’s depiction of Michelle Obama, and the mural in Chicago, check out our website: cbc.ca/aih.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

April 24, 2017 episode transcript

More Stories Like This