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 May 19, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CO: He was bound; she's determined. An 8-year-old First Nations student is tied at the ankle to another student as punishment. Now, two years, later his great-aunt wants the school board to review its decision to do nothing about it.

JD: The warrant is gone, but he's not going anywhere. Swedish authorities say Julian Assange is no longer the subject of a rape investigation. But British authorities say they will arrest him if he tries to leave the Ecuadorian embassy.

CO: Response time. Another Indigenous child is missing, another body is pulled from the waters around Thunder Bay, Ontario. And Regional Chief Isadore Day says this is the moment for the community to take action.

JD: You know on soap operas when someone gets bad news and frowns silently into space for a while? Well, an Oregon doctor did that when he noticed a suspicious plot twist on “General Hospital”. Now, he has broken his silence.

CO: It was curtains for him before it was curtains for him. Three-and-a-half months before he was fired, Former FBI Director James Comey attempted to keep a low profile at the White House event by blending into the drapes.

JD: And… better elated than never. Noticing how glum everyone looks in the works of art at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a British designer uses a smartphone app to turn those centuries old frowns upside down. As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that guess's app sense makes the art grow fonder.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Tied feet student, Siegfried Park

Tied feet student

Guest: Jo-Ann Nahanee

JD: It was a punishment for classroom misbehavior that one relative says went way too far. In 2015, an eight-year-old First Nations child at a school in British Columbia was tied by the ankle to another boy for an entire day. Afterward, the commissioner for teacher regulation admitted the punishment was flawed, but took no action against the school. Now, one of the children's great-aunts has filed for a review of that decision. Jo-Anne Nahanee says that the punishment was cruel and it reminded her of a similar treatment she received at residential school. We reached Ms. Nahanee in North Vancouver.

CO: Jo-Ann, how did you feel when you heard that your great-nephew was being punished by being tied to another boy at school?

JO-ANN NAHANEE: I was upset that this would happen to a child in our community. Then, it was within a week that I had found out it was my grand-nephew and I was enraged.

CO: How old was he at the time?

JN: He was 8-years-old.

CO: First of all, who did this to him?

JN: It was the principal and the teacher and they did it as a behavioral modification to adjust them because they weren't getting along these two boys. So it was a way that they said was to teach the two boys how to get along.

CO: What upset you about this kind of punishment?

JN: First of foremost, it should not happen to any child for that length of period. Our school system is supposed to be a safe place for our children. I don't consider that as being safe. I consider that as corporal punishment and I've also experienced that same type of punishment and action toward myself and toward his grandmother, who was my sister when we attended residential school.

CO: Can you describe what you and your sister experienced residential school that was similar to this?

JN: For myself, it was a common situation that a supervisor in the school would myself and the biggest in the weight of a boy, or the tallest boy, she would tie us together at the ankle like that and make jokes and everybody would laugh. So I said I was ashamed and humiliated that as a result of that action. And then I also had to observe that this happened to his grandmother, my sister that she was tied together like that. And I myself as a result was forced to punish her because she wouldn't do what they wanted.

CO: So for obvious reasons this had quite a lasting effect on you?

JN: Yes it has. And I'm scared that that's what's going to happen to my grand-nephew.

CO: You say that was the length of a period of time. How long were the boys tied together?

JN: It was eight hours. It was for the whole school day.

CO: What happened at the time? Were there any consequences for the administrators and the teacher for having done this to the boys at the time?

JN: There has been none. And that's why I made a complaint to the teacher’s federation board. And it's taken two years for the commissioner to make a decision. I received the decision 60 days ago because we had 60 days to file in court and that was why I filed in court because on that day was our time limit. So I sought out a lawyer and this is the end result was that we petitioned it in court to reverse the commissioner's decision. Again what I'm hoping is going to happen.

CO: The court documents that have been filed say that the caregivers for both boys consented to this punishment. Can you tell us about that?

JN: Speaking to the mother personally, she had told me that she said yes to the tying up. That she didn't know it was eight hours and she felt pressured to say that it was OK that they be tied. The caregiver for my nephew was in the care of the ministry. So they asked his foster parent and the foster parent was not of the understanding that he was going to be tied together for eight hours. She thought it was going to be for five or 10 minutes.

CO: The school commissioner did an investigation and apparently concluded that this punishment was quote, “flawed”, but that the teacher was new and perhaps didn't think it through enough and that because of that no further action was deemed necessary. Do you have do you have any sympathy for the teacher?

JN: I'm going to say right at this moment, no I don't. Because again, in the commissioner's report it said that said that she did herself feel really uncomfortable with what she was doing and she still did it.

CO: But she was instructed by her superior, is that right?

JN: Yes. Yes. But she was uncomfortable. She knew that there was something wrong.

CO: Do you think at some point you will tell him that what happened to his grandmother, what happened to you in residential school. Does he know about the trauma you went through with your legs being tied?

JN: If the opportunity arises, yes I will.

CO: What will you say to him?

JN: Just the truth. The very thing that happened to his mother and I and why it happened and I'm beginning to cry here. It's still a very touchy subject for me to talk about my sister and I's experience. There are still, again, lots of wounds there. So I know that I would have to be sensitive to him when I talk to him. And to me, I don't know if it's good to be crying when I talk to him or do I need to be healed more? But again, when I sense and that the opportunity does present itself I will tell him, yes. And I'm sure that his mother, I talked to her yesterday, she will tell him about his grandmother and about this very experience if it comes up. That this is what we did to help him, this is what we did to protect him. That this is what we thought was thought and felt was the right thing to do.

CO: Jo-Ann, I'm sorry that you and your sister went through that and I appreciate you telling us the story and telling us about what you're doing. Thank you.

JN: Yes, you're welcome.

CO: Take care.

JN: OK. You too.

JD: We reached Jo-Ann Nahanee in North Vancouver.

[Music: Ambient]

Julian Assange

JD: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is no longer the target of an active rape investigation by Swedish authorities. Today, Sweden's director of Public prosecutions announced that the arrest warrant has been dropped. It has proved impossible to detain and charge Mr. Assange while he is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. But that doesn't mean that he can just walk out of the embassy. He has not left since 2012. London police said that, if he does leave, they will arrest him on the lesser charge of violating bail conditions. British officials have not said whether they have received an extradition request from the Americans, who may want Mr. Assange charged over the leaking of secret documents. Well, today, he stepped out onto a balcony to address reporters and although he did refuse to take any questions. Here is part of what he had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, today was an important victory and an important vindication, the road is far from over. The proper war is just commencing. The UK has said it will arrest me regardless. Now, the United States CIA director and the U.S. Attorney General has said that I and other WikiLeaks staff have no rights. We have no First Amendment rights. My arrest and the arrest of other staff is a priority. That's not acceptable. WikiLeaks will continue its publications. Today, In fact, we published new and important material from the Central Intelligence Agency about a system to penetrate and spy on anyone that the CIA happens to be interested in. Such measures are conducted without warrant and the threats towards me, my staff and WikiLeaks as a publisher will not be tolerated and have not been tolerated. Our publications are continuing at speed and that speed in relation to the CIA is accelerating. Finally…

MALE VOICE: Can you just tell us the truth, mate?

JA: In relation to the asylum rights that we all have, we do all have them, the United Kingdom, the European Union Is a party to the 1951 convention on refugees.

JD: Julian Assange, speaking from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London earlier today. Also today, Swedish officials announced his arrest warrant on rape charges have been dropped. A lawyer for one of his accusers, Elizabeth Massi Fritz, said her client was shocked by the decision and that quote, “It is a scandal that a suspected rapist is able to evade the judicial system and thus avoid trial. Evidence in the case is available and that evidence should have been tested in court.”

[Music: Electronica]

Siegfried Park

Guest: Andrew Wilson

JD: Residents of the small Long Island community of Siegfried Park want you to know that they absolutely do not sympathize with the Nazis. Theirs is a welcoming, diverse community. It has changed. They have changed. Of course, the enclave, which today houses around a hundred people, was founded by Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s. It had streets named after Adolf Hitler and flew swastika flags. Well, that symbolism is long gone. But one remnant of the past does still exist: the community's rules on who can live in Siegfried Park. A lawsuit alleged the community only accepts white residents. And now, New York's Attorney General has agreed. This week, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the community to end its quote, “race-based housing discrimination.” Andrew Wilson is the lawyer who represented two residents of the community who filed the original lawsuit. We reached Mr. Wilson in New York.

CO: Mr. Wilson, what does this ruling mean that as New York's Attorney General has said that the rules as to who can live in Siegfried Park are racist?

ANDREW WILSON: I think that the ruling from the New York Attorney General is following up on the work that the Kneers’ and the Long Island Housing Services did in their federal lawsuit. And it really states the obvious when it comes to recognizing what the German-American Settlement League was doing.

CO: OK, you're mentioning this is Philip and Patricia Kneer and those are your clients. And when did they move to Siegfried Park?

AW: They moved to Siegfried Park back in the 90s. They were starting out their family and they were folks who had German heritage and heard about the German-American Settlement League, but didn't really know much about it when they moved in.

CO: What was what was it like when they moved in in the 90s?

AW: When they very first came into contact with German-American American Settlement League, they were interviewed as part of their application process and something strange happened in that they opened the door for their interview and the president of the housing association saw them and said well that's all I need. I don't need to go through the interview. And Mrs. Kneer was concerned by that and she pressed forward to have the interview. But that lingered with her and I think it came back to her when it came time for them to try to leave and they had all the troubles that they did.

CO: And what she determined that is that they were approved simply on the fact that they were white?

AW: Yes.

CO: And that they were the right ethnicity?

AW: That's exactly right. The German American Settlement League started out back in the 30s, as a campground for German-Americans who are sympathetic to the Nazi cause. And a lot of that history was buried just below the surface.

CO: And now, you have learned about what Siegfried Park was like in the 1930s and over those decades when it was this enclave of he sympathizes with. What have you learned? Tell us a bit about the history and the description of the place as you've as you've learned?

AW: back in the 1930s, there was an American political party called the Bund Party, which was sympathetic to the Nazi party and set up camp grounds across the United States where like-minded German-Americans could come and celebrate ideas that were being espoused by their Nazi party at that time. This particular community was set up on Long Island and it's now covered by high hedgerows. It's hard to see in from the street. It's endured to the day. Now, it's comprised of about 50 plots of land, which are all owned by the homeowners association and then individuals who live there own just their houses themselves.

CO: But at the time and for some time after it was established there were Nazi flags and Hitler and Goebbels were street names. I mean how long did this go on?

AW: The outward celebration of the Nazi party was going from the 30s into the 40s. But it was remarkable that Penn Station in Manhattan would be filled up with express trains that would go out to Siegfried Park so that these marches and paramilitary events could take place. One of the haunting legacies of that in addition to the explicit aspects of the bylaws was a flag pole in the clubhouse for Siegfried Park that has the Siegrune on the top of it, which is a single lightning bolt symbol for the Hitler Youth party. It had a shovel across the side of it. And that was the symbol for the German-American Settlement League. What you see is that the children of the families that moved in in the 40s are families who are living there today. And they managed through simple yet effective bylaws to hermetically seal their community like a time capsule.

CO: I mean during some of this period of time Japanese-Americans were being interned in camps. I mean how did they get away with this?

AW: It's a lesson to a lot of us today who value integration and diversity in our communities to recognize the power of certain private bylaws. In this community, Individuals who moved in could not sell their homes unless they advertised on the community bulletin board. New people who wanted to buy homes might never learn that they were for sale and if they did, they needed to be sponsored by a member. There was a sign outside of the community that said it was for members only.

CO: People in Siegfried Park, other residents, say it's ridiculous to say their community is racist. They say that all the Nazi-era symbolism is long gone and that the real reason that your clients were challenging them and their rules was that they wanted a better return on the sale of their home. What do you say to that?

AW: Well, I think there's no question that the bylaws this community had in place expressed in black and white a preference for homeowners who were primarily of German extraction. That's unlawful in the United States under the Fair Housing Act. But I think perhaps more profoundly, the Kneers’ and the Long Island Housing Services didn't take the easy route here. It would have been easier for the Kneers’ to walk away and sell their home and not fight for change in the community. But they took it on their shoulders to start this process. And now, we see that the New York Attorney General has picked up that baton and carried on the work.

CO: By declaring Siegfried Park’s rules are racist.

AW: I don't know whether the Attorney General has used that phrase in as stark terms, but I think that what you see coming out of the reforms speak for themselves. The AG’s resolution of their case has removed the president and treasurer. You see application screening processes and augmented reporting requirements that are all signals to everyone that the state of New York has held that the status quo was unacceptable.

CO: OK, well it’s only 2017, so I guess not a minute too soon.

AW: Indeed.

CO: Mr. Wilson, thank you.

AW: Thank you for having me.

JD: Andrew Wilson is an attorney with Emery Celli Brinkerhoff and Abady law firm in New York City. And that is where we reached him.

[Music: Guitar]

Face App

Guest: Olly Gibbs

JD: Face App is a smartphone app, that at the mere tap of a finger, transforms the faces and your photographs into something that they are not. Such as faces that grin creepily from ear to ear. Olly Gibbs is a digital designer who recently took a trip through the famous paintings at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. You put the two of those things together and you get an internet gallery of glum old master portraits that are now grinning from ear to ear… creepily. We reach Olly Gibbs in London.

CO: Olly, for our listeners who haven't seen these images, just describe what you've done to the Rijksmuseum?

OLLY GIBBS: OK, so I went in with my girlfriend and we walked around and we saw all these great art masterpieces. You’ve got Rembrandt and Van Gogh and we were just looking around and we were just like these paintings don't look particularly happy. And we had this app called Face App. And my girlfriend told me that with this app you could change faces on people. So we went round and just used it on the paintings. It’s as simple as that really.

CO: Well, not physically on the paintings. What did you do?

OG: So we did it live and on the phone. You put the camera up and it showed you the painting with a smile.

CO: Describe some of the glum faces that you cheered up?

OG: We did do a self-portrait of Rembrandt as the finale because we thought that would be a funny one to end on. So I mean they all look miserable. Iimagine you'd be sitting there for five hours waiting for someone to paint you, you’re not look particularly happy. So imagine yourself in that situation and you'll probably recognize that face.

CO: I mean some of masterpieces are of ordinary people, but a large number of them are famous people or at least famous at the time: cardinals and princesses and God knows how many knights and ladies. But sometimes I think that they're supposed to have those very straight faces. What do you think?

OG: Well, they’re meant to be regal and they’ve got that importance to them, which of the time that's exactly what you’d expect. But I guess you get used to this you know in this modern world everything is kind of Photoshopped. Everything is a little bit false you know and this is why this app has come out to kind of make everyone a bit happier than they actually are.

CO: But these aren't just little grins they have on their faces, this is kind of a Mona Lisa look. This is like big, toothy smiles.

OG: They are toothy smells, yeah. They are very exaggerated. There is a couple that are a little bit subtle, which worked pretty well. But it can turn some of them a bit creepy, which we realized. So it went from fairly normal and depending on the painting, there is one in particular, which looks a little bit creepy.

CO: Can you describe the creepy one?

OG: So yes, this guy is wearing this red regal jacket and a hat and he's got two cherubs above him. And he's looking very miserable, he’s looking particularly unhappy. But he's got his hands out like he's holding something and there's nothing in his hands. He's pointing at something and it's all a bit odd in the first place. But then when you add a Face App over the top it adds this proper, big, toothy grin, which gives this creepy look that he's pointing at something with his hands. It kind of completely changes the feel of the painting. That actually seems to be the funniest one.

CO: So what kind of reaction have you had from people since you put these out?

OG: It's been pretty huge actually. From the press point of view and from just generally people on Twitter, it's all being positive though, which has been amazing. And the majority has been saying that this put smile on my face or they they've been encouraged to go to museums themselves, which is I think the biggest thing out of this. If I’ve got more people going to museums and galleries and get inspired that’s really cool. Especially as an artist myself that is somewhere I’d visit to try and get inspiration and especially that museum in particular. It is just full of such great art that it's hard not to get inspired.

And how has the Rijksmuseum responded?

OG: They actually tweeted me back and said it was nice to see the paintings smile. It is so familiar to them to walk around and see these glum faces that must be in a way of family to them and then they suddenly see these kind of different outlook and it's quite interesting for them. I was a bit worried that maybe I’d something bad about the paintings or kind of disregarded the intention of the original artist, but they seem to have taken in good jest.

CO: And do you have any other plans for you for doing another Face App exhibition?

OG: I don't think so. I mean I've developed them slightly with doing some funny animated GIFS. So kind of doing the before picture of them looking miserable, I tell a joke, a really bad joke, and then they suddenly smile when the punchline hit. So I was kind of trying to adapt it in a funny way. But I don't think I'll be doing anything further with it. Other people from the sounds of it from my tweets are going to do the same. So you might see a lot more from others, which would be great.

CO: It's good to talk to you, Olly. Thanks.

OG: Thank you very much. Cheers.

CO: Bye bye.

OG: Bye.

JD: Olly Gibbs is a digital designer. We reached him in London. And you can check out his Face App masterworks on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Thunder Bay deaths, General Hospital cancer drug

Thunder Bay deaths

Guest: Isadore Day

JD: Police discovered Josiah Begg’s body in Thunder Bays, McIntyre River last night. They had been searching for the 14-year-old, who had gone missing during a visit from the remote K.I. Big Trout First Nation. The discovery comes less than two weeks after another Indigenous teenager was found dead in the river. And it follows an inquiry into seven previous deaths. We reached Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day earlier this evening in Serpent River First Nation.

CO: Chief Day, what are you hearing from people in the area since this body was recovered from the river?

ISADORE DAY: Well, we're hearing reports now that the family has identified the body as Josiah Begg. Nishnawbe Aski Nation has also confirmed that the body is in fact of this young man.

CO: And what are police saying about how Josiah Begg died?

ID: They haven't determined that yet. I think these are some of the things that they determine in their investigation. So we're still in early times on this one.

CO: How are people feeling about this?

ID: Well, people are feeling obviously torn. They're very much frustrated. I think that there is a growing fear that you know perhaps there's a pattern here. Why is it that all of these bodies that keep turning up in Thunder Bay are all Indigenous? And why is it that the vast number of these bodies that keep turning up or being found in the McIntyre River or near the McIntyre River? So there's frustration, fear and you know people are people are getting weary.

CO: And what are the conclusions people are coming to?

ID: Well, I think people are afraid that you know the foul play is a scary thing first of all, but if there is foul play in all of these deaths and they are related to the river, then you know you know I'm not making any assumptions here at this point. But these are questions that aren't answered yet then certainly people are going to be left to their own conclusions. And you know fear can do a lot to an individual's perception about things. And in this case, I would be afraid for my children being out at night, being left in the city and possibly being at the hands of somebody taking their lives and them ending up in the river. That's a real fear that people have.

CO: The CBC reported that the volunteers — First Nations volunteers — who were looking for the boy were discouraged from searching the river. That the police said that there was no evidence the boy had gone near the water. What do you make of that?

ID: Well, I think this is where there are questions and legitimate questions. You know the office of the Independent Police Review director right now is investigating the Thunder Bay police service and complaints in dealing with indigenous people. And you combine that with people being discouraged from looking in the river like you know you can only draw conclusions based on those types of immediate facts and you know they don't add up well for the police.

CO: Now, the fear that people have that there might be something that is killing or being dangerous to young people. Have the police said the possibility that there is foul play? What are they saying about to address the fears people have that there's there might be a killer there?

ID: Well, it is sketchy. There is not a lot coming from the police like there is nothing that we're hearing that is at least quelling the fears of the people. There is a lot of apprehension and you know undocumented issues. Again, take for example Josiah Begg, you know this young man went missing and you know the fact that there is nothing standardized in terms of protocol and procedure when a young person goes missing you kind of wonder why is it that the police haven't taken the initiative to you know start to work with the Indigenous community to build protocols like you know connecting communities up north and working with local agencies or striking up some sort of a process that is similar to an Amber Alert if you will? It's just speculative right now, but it's clear that the police just haven't been doing enough.

CO: When you say that something like an Amber Alert, some kind of protocol. I know you're saying that you’re just thinking out loud here, but what do you think might be done in order to take this to another level of when a child or a young person is missing or when there's when there is a search on what more do you think has to be done?

ID: I think if you look at the history here you’ve got now seven young people that have been found in the river. You've got nine of them that have died in Thunder Bay since 2000. So this is a high number and you know there would be some consistencies and when kids go missing in times of the day. There would be possibly extended family. There would be other agencies that could come in and assist. But so far, there hasn't been anything concrete that the police have done to try to respond to these issues when there is a missing young person. The fact that the consistent characteristic of these being Indigenous youth, there is something to build on there. So obviously some sort of a task force or immediate development of a protocol where you know you can start to deploy certain measures and means whether it be curfews or whatever. There is obviously things that can happen that simply the police haven't worked on yet. I believe that these measures just aren't enough and it is certain that there needs to be more done to possibly investigate why.

CO: Do you think police are slow to respond when they hear an Indigenous young person is missing?

ID: Well, I think that's what we're seeing so far. But the fact of the matter is we haven't heard too many non-Native young people go missing or turning up in the river. So obviously there is an issue here and it should give more reason for the police to say we've got an urgent matter on our hands.

CO: We will leave it there. Our condolences go to the family and community of Josiah Begg. But Chief Day, thank you for speaking with us.

ID Thank you.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: That was Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day. We reached him in Servant River First Nation.

[Music: Ambient]

Comey in the drapes

JD: It's pretty tough to hide in a crowd when you're taller than the average NBA player. It's even tougher if you're the head of the FBI and you are visiting the White House. But according to one of James Comey's friends, that is exactly what the now former FBI chief did in March at an event at the White House. Mr. Comey’s tactic: trying to blend in with the curtains. Benjamin Wittes is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. He says that Mr. Comey told him about the incident over lunch and he related the story to New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt. So here is Mr. Wittes on “The Daily” podcast produced by the New York Times. You're also going to hear the voices of Mr. Schmidt and his Times colleague Michael Barbaro.

SOUNDCLIP

BENJAMIN WITTES: So the first is the incident around hug

MICHAEL SCHMIDT: Is the hug

BW: DO you remember the hug?

DONALD TRUMP: Oh there’s James, he’s become more famous than me.

MS: Two days after Trump is sworn in, there is a ceremony in the Blue Room at the White House for law enforcement folks who provided security for the inauguration.

BW: He was uncomfortable being there.

MS: Comey didn't want to go.

BW: And he really didn't want to see it want there to be any sort of sign of intimacy with the president.

MS: Comey knew that the perception was that he had helped Trump get elected. He never wants to have a close relationship with the president regardless of who it is and…

BW: H wanted to re-establish the norm that the president and the FBI directors are not buddies. They don't communicate on investigative matters at all.

MS: But Comey realized that he had to go. He represented the bureau, the bureau had provided security. You know if you're invited to the White House…

MICHAEL BARBARO: You go to the White House.

MS: You go to the White House. So Comey goes over there you know a bit concerned about it.

BW: When he went into the room, you know there was a large group of people there.

MS: Comey’s wearing a blue suit, dark blue suit, and he specifically told me that he kind of went to the part of the room where there was like the same coloured drapes to try and sort of like spent and tried to blend in with the background.

MS: And he's trying to sort of blend in with the curtains in the back of the room because he doesn't want Trump to see him.

MB: He's trying to blend into the curtains in the White House and basically blend into the walls.

MS: The idea of Jim Comey trying to blend into anything is pretty funny. But I think he was just scrambling.

MB: Why?

MS: Well, he’s six-eight.

BW: When you're six-eight, like blending in is a lost cause.

MS: So he's standing in the back trying to blend in with this thing thinking Oh God, I hope I don’t get called on.

MB: Right.

BW: You know being there and really trying to blend in and kind of getting away with it or thinking he'd gotten away with it for a long time and then…

MS: Trump spots him.

BW: Kind of right at the end rTrump goes over to him

MS: And Wittes describes to me that Comey is basically determined not to hug Trump. He's like this is going to be bad.

BW: What he said is like there couldn't be a hug, there wasn't going to be a hug. I tried to make it a handshake and he tried to grab me.

MS: Comey goes in for a handshake, Trump goes in for a hug and looks like Trump kisses Comey.

BW: This made Jim extremely uncomfortable. And he definitely interpreted that as a specific effort to compromise him with a show of closeness.

JD: That was Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. He was speaking or he spoke to New York Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt and that interview was featured this morning on the paper's podcast “The Daily”. And this afternoon, the Times reported that the day after President Trump fired James Comey, he spoke to Russian officials at the White House and said quote, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.”

[Music: Ambient]

General Hospital cancer drug

Guest: Vinay Prasad

JD: It's been on for more than 50 years. There have been more than ten thousand episodes and that makes it the longest running soap opera in the U.S. I am talking about “General Hospital”. And when a show has been airing for that long I guess I can imagine it might be difficult to come up with new and dramatic storylines. So for some it wasn't surprising when a character named Anna was diagnosed with an uncommon type of cancer. But Dr. Vinay Prasad was surprised and he was intrigued. So he started to do some research and he learned that the show had teamed up with a pharmaceutical company. Doctor Vinay Prasad has co-authored an opinion piece about this for the journal “JAMA” and to tell us about it, we reached Dr. Prasad in Portland, Oregon.

CO: Dr. Prasad, are you are one of the loyal fans of “General Hospital”?

VINAY PRASAD: Well, unfortunately, I don't fall in that category. I heard about this sort of indirectly. I heard about it from a fellow who heard about it from a nurse who had fallen ill and actually took the day off and ended up staying at home and watching the show. The fellow told me that one of the characters on the show had something called polycythemia vera, which is a type of cancer. But you know it kind of set off a little bit of a warning bell to me because you know it's a very unusual cancer. It's extremely rare. It only happens to about two people for every 100,000 people out there.

CO: And what did you find out?

VP: So we found that one of the companies that makes a drug in this space. The corporation insight was actually in a partnership with the producers of General Hospital to drive this specific plot twist on the show.

CO: And to what end?

VP: Well, that's a good question. And so in our article I don't think we answer it because we don't know what the intent was behind it? But I think we lay out several potential reasons why this might have happened and why it might be a little bit worrisome.

CO: What are the restrictions on having this kind of relationship between the media and a drug company?

VP: You know there are only two nations in this world that allow direct to consumer advertising of specific branded pharmaceutical drugs, prescription branded drugs. And that's the United States and New Zealand. Most nations don't allow that. But in the United States, you can do it if you're regulated by the FDA. But what was happening here on the TV show, “General Hospital”, wasn’t direct to consumer advertising because the show never named the drug by name. Instead it was something called “disease awareness”. And disease awareness efforts that are funded by the pharmaceutical industry are actually quite common. They happen in many nations, even nations that otherwise ban direct to consumer advertising. And that's what we had here: a case of disease awareness.

CO: Isn't that just a form of a public service announcement?

VP: I think some people view it as a public service announcement, but I guess I wouldn't call it a public service announcement because I'm not sure that the benefit is to the public. I worry that the benefit of these campaigns is to the company and the public may in fact be harmed. As we worry in this particular case that the public may be harmed by this kind of message.

CO: But if only two people in every 100,000 get this disease then what possible benefit can it be to the drug company to have this kind of disease awareness?

VP: So I see there are two potential ways in which this kind of messaging might benefit the sponsor, the owner of that very lucrative drug. One is of the people who have this condition, the backbone of therapy, the sort of way we've been treating these patients for many years has been the use of bloodletting. This is one of two conditions in medicine where bloodletting is actually the standard of care and really does take care of the problem and some older drugs. That's the standard way we treat these patients. The drug company’s drug is approved only for people who are intolerant to some of the standard treatments. But the show had some lines that would make people who had the condition may be more likely to ask about other treatment options.

CO: And I think what you're referring to I think we actually have a clip of “General Hospital”, the scene with Anna when she's finding out about this. Let’s play that.

SOUNDCLIP

MALE VOICE: We’re going to start you on a mild blood-thinner and then get you on a regular regimen of phlebotomy and see how you progress from there.

ANNA: phlebotomy?

FEMALE VOICE: Think of it this way, you’ll be donating blood on a regular basis.

ANNA: OK, fine, I can do that. But this protocol sounds like you’re treating the symptoms of this cancer. How do we beat it?

CO: What is it about those lines in the script that alarm you?

VP: Yes, I guess the worry is that is that language a subtle promotion of the company's drug? Because unlike all of the other ways we treat this condition, which may arguably be thought of as treating the symptoms of the disease. Only this company's drug treats what many people believe is the underlying genetic driver of the disease. And I should add that you know it's a common misconception that treating the underlying genetic driver is always better. It may be better, but it may not be better. And the only way to know for sure are well-done clinical studies. But unfortunately, those have not happened in this disease. So we can't say for sure that this company's drug is better than any other option. The second reason why this may benefit the sponsor is that even though this condition is rare, there is no single diagnostic test that makes anybody sure they have the disease or they don't have the disease. It's still a disease that requires the judgment of a doctor and all of the things that make you think about the disease, which is one you have to have a high blood count as measured by the hemoglobin. One of the ways we measure blood. Two, you have to have this genetic mutation. And three, you have to have one of these other signs or symptoms of the disease. There's a little bit of wiggle room in all of these things. You know if you go for a run one day and you came back really dehydrated it's possible that just by chance alone your blood count was in this elevated range. And we know from some recent studies where we've done the genetic sequencing of healthy people that this mutation that we thought really went hand-in-hand with this disease it actually has prevalence in all of us. So if you got everyone who watches this TV show to go to their doctor and say hey, test me for this rare condition you will find a lot of people who look like they have this rare condition, but they probably don't really have it. And this is what doctors call “over diagnosis”.

CO: But they never mention the name of the drug. They may be over diagnosing, but what benefit goes to the drug company in that?

VP: Well, if the number of people who have the condition expands by chance alone, the number of people who end up on this drug will also expand. That's a product of the prevalence of this condition: the number of people who end up on it. Only a fraction of people with this condition will end up on that drug. But if that condition is more common that will be a bigger number, that fraction. I should also say this is a drug company that's made you know several billion dollars from this medication. It's their only drug product that they have on the market in cancer in the United States and the people who work at these companies are you know they're smart people. I think they have thought about whether or not these kinds of promotion will have a return on their investment? I would find it hard to believe that they're truly doing this solely out of the goodness of their heart.

CO: So as far as you know, did Insight pay any money to the producers of “General Hospital”?

VP: I don't know for sure that happened. I've only read that this was a partnership and I think that “General Hospital” can answer that question if that was if that was true.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there, Dr. Prasad. Thank you.

VP: Thank you.

JD: Dr. Vinay Prasad is an associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University. We reached him in Portland, Oregon. If you'd like to hear that interview again or it you can find it on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih. And we did reach out to ABC and the pharmaceutical company Insight about Dr. Prasad’s article. We did not receive a response before our deadline today.

[Music: Ambient]

Powwow regalia

JD: They slashed shirts, shawls, skirts and moccasins. They could not slash their spirit. Just a week before the Fourth Annual Creston Valley Youth Powwow, held today incidentally in Creston, British Columbia, students at Erickson Elementary School were crestfallen to discover their handmade clothing had been vandalized. Many of the students in the school's Aboriginal Education program had spent a year or more working on their outfits. Ten-year-old Nyla Perry is one of those students. Her mom, Anita, joined her this morning on CBC's “Daybreak South” out of Kelowna. And she told guest host Jamie Kehler how the kids were able to band together to overcome such aggression.

SOUNDCLIP

ANITA PERRY: At the beginning it was devastating because of all the work they've put into it, because of what it means to them. And so finding that this close to the powwow kind of took the wind out of their sails a little bit and within minutes they were rallying. You know the kids were all running, the teachers of the school all came down to the Aboriginal Education room. Everyone was pitching in, sewing and putting things back together. And the maturity that they dealt with this, let's move on, let's make this an amazing powwow is such a beautiful statement to how strong they are. And now it's all patched up, it looks beautiful and I get a little bit choked up. It's just another sign of who they are. I'm so proud of them all.

JAMIE KEHLER: Nyla.

NYLA PERRY: Hi.

JK: Hi, Nyla, what did you think when you saw what happened to your regalia?

NP: Well, I actually felt like I couldn't breathe, but I've been getting better over the days.

JK: Do you know who did this or why they might have done this?

NP: Well, we don't know who it was, but we think that somebody must have been very hurt inside. So we are hoping to help them. And our Aboriginal Education teacher talks to us and we realize this is just another way to show how proud we are, how strong we are and that whoever did this can’t bring us down.

JK: How will it feel dancing in that regalia at the powwow?

NP: I think it will be amazing. It'll change my life.

JD: That was Nyla Perry, 10-years-old and her mom Anita speaking with guest host Jamie Kehler this morning on CBC's “Daybreak South”.

Back To Top »

Part 3: Mexican journalist killed, whale heart

Mexican journalist killed

Guest: Adrian Lopez

JD: On Monday, award-winning reporter and author Javier Valdez was shot repeatedly outside the offices of his newspaper in the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Mr. Valdez was 50-years-old. He was known for covering Mexico's drug cartels and for being acutely aware of the dangers facing journalists in his country. Last year, at the launch of his latest book on the drug war, Mr. Valdez said quote, “even though you may have bulletproofing and bodyguards, the cartels will decide what day they are going to kill you.” Unquote. Adrian Lopez is a long-time colleague and friend. He's the editor of Noroeste, a newspaper Javier Valdez worked at for years. We reached Adrienne Lopez in Culiacan, Sinaloa’s capital.

CO: Mr. Lopez, first of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

ADRIAN LOPEZ: We are very sorry all of the colleagues here and a lot of the people here in my newspaper because he used to work here.

CO: Can you tell us what you've learned about how Javier Valdez was killed?

AL: Javier Valdez was killed with twelve shots. Investigations are trying to figure out if there are different sizes in in the bullets. He was killed like two blocks from the newspaper. He was killed when he was intercepted in his car. And we have not so much information about it. The prosecutor has been very prudent and very careful in what information they are giving to the media. They're trying to maintain the investigation very, very close.

CO: But we know from the past, and this has been widely reported, that there not only are many journalists killed in Mexico. It is one of the most dangerous places to be a reporter in the world, but that there are there are a lot of people most of them get away with it, those who do the killing. They do so with impunity. Do you feel that police are investigating this seriously? They're actually looking for who might have done this?

AL: We had a very tough meeting about the assassination of Javier. And we had a very concrete agreement about opening specialized commission for the investigations. Also a journalist commission to keep following their investigations and try to settle accountability for the investigation and the reasons and motivations for the killings. On the other side is like you said that the impunity is maybe the root and the reason why the killers, organized crime and the politicians can kill journalists every day in Mexico and attack the media with nothing happening. The impunity in talking about these cases is 99.75 per cent in Mexico according to Article 19 last year. We really don't trust the police. We really don’t trust in the authorities. We really don't trust in the prosecutors. And with that level of impunity it is very logical.

CO: And we know where you are in your province this is El Chapo Guzman’s territory. This is very, very serious cartels. And we know that Javier, your colleague, had said that he believed the cartels would eventually kill a journalist and they would decide when they would do it. Are you thinking that it's possibly because of his reporting on the drug trade that he was killed?

AL: I think that the first line of the investigation has to be the journalistic work of Javier. I think like you said, Javier wrote about this organized crime and this violence for 15 to 20 years. And so in the other side, I really would like to be very careful about these kind of speculations because in states like Sinaloa, with maybe the most powerful cartel in the world like in warning the U.S. government says, we have to be very careful because when you have these kind of situation and these kind of contexts it is very easy for the politicians and for the political power to attack a journalist and emulate or imitate the procedures of the organized crime. And with these kind of attacks, they can make simulations of an organized crime attack and it's very easy to have nothing investigate these kind of cases. So I think the investigation will have to be very, very, very careful and we have no more information.

CO: Given what you're describing, do you think that the authorities would have the courage to actually investigate and to prosecute someone for killing your colleague?

AL: Of course not. Journalists in Mexico don't believe in the authorities and don't believe in the prosecutors and don’t believe in the specialized office for these kinds of crimes. But on the other side, I think it's very, very important that as journalists, we have to make constant accountability of the investigation. I think it depends on us, we have to be very, very hard and very disciplined with the following of the case because we don't trust. So we have to be like the watchdog in being very concerned.

CO: Just finally, we know that just a few months ago, Miroslava Breach, another Mexican journalist, was also killed. And your friend, Javier Valdez, wrote about Miroslava, He said, “Miroslava was killed for saying too much. Let them kill us all if death is the penalty for reporting the truth about this hell.” Why do journalists in Mexico continue to do their work given the conditions?

AL: I think we'd have this very, very complicated context. We have no guarantees for our safety. This organized crime pressure and censorship and I think that's the root and main reason because the media in Mexico is not achieving its function in a democratic system. So journalists are in the middle in this. Poor journalists are all really are being paid less than they deserve. And also of course, in these kinds of attacks, there is no guarantees for defence for journalists.

CO: Mr. Lopez, once again, I'm sorry for your loss. But thank you for speaking with us.

AL: Thank you very much for giving me opportunity to share this.

JD: AdrianLopez is the editor of Noroeste, that's a newspaper in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico. On Monday, his friend and his colleague, the award-winning journalist Javier Valdez was murdered.

[Music: Pianio]

Whale heart

Guest: Jacqui Miller

Jacqui Miller is used to working with animal hearts the size of peanuts. And thus, it would be an understatement to say the biologist’s latest project was on a much larger scale. For nearly three years, Ms. Miller has been working to preserve the heart of a dead blue whale, the same blue whale that we've told you about before on this program, the one that died off the coast of Newfoundland in 2014. back however to the heart, a massive organ, it weighs 400 pounds. it is roughly the size of a golf cart and getting it out of the whale was no simple task. Getting it preserved even more daunting. It took a trip to Germany and bubble wrap as far as the eye can see. But the hart did finally go on display at the Royal Ontario Museum yesterday. And we reached Jacqui Miller in Trenton, Ontario.

CO: Ms. Miller, how did it feel to stand back and look at this massive blue whale heart on display?

JACQUI MILLER: Well, you know there was quite a bit of catharsis there for me, a great sense of relief that the project was completed and also humbling you know with all the work that went into this with the nature of the specimen itself. It was hard to describe, but yeah, it was a big relief to see it finally up there and finally accessible to the public.

CO: We have covered when the skeleton of the whale was preserved and then installed at the ROM. There's a lot about that and we talked about it on the show as well. But the heart, it must be extremely difficult to try and take a whale's heart and put it on display. What did you do in order to preserve it?

JM: Well, the most important thing at the very outset was to make sure we stop any further decay. And that was basically the process of fixing it with formaldehyde. The tricky thing is there is when you have a hollow organ like a heart once something is fixed you probably remember your old college days when you pull something out of a jar like a pickled frog or something and it's kind of misshapen. It's because whatever the shape that goes into formaldehyde is basically the shape is going to come out. So in the case of a hollow organ like a heart, you want to try and shape it as close to its natural condition so that it actually will stay in that condition and is much easier to shape and sort of bring back to life. And that meant we had to dilate the heart or inflate it. This was quite an adventure. It involved three of us, a lot of formaldehyde, a big tank and lots and lots of plugs and buckets and corks. The idea is you want to close all of the blood vessels that can go in and out of the heart except two: one for the right side and one for the left side. With those two that are left open you attach a hose and that's what you're instilling your formaldehyde in to make the heart pump up. Given the fact that no one had done this on something so large it was exciting, but very nerve-wracking.

CO: Now when you describe the mass that had to be extracted from the whale before you could even begin this, how did you do that?

JM: Actually when we got up to the chest cavity, the heart was still completely intact and that was very, very exciting. Now the heart is kind of unique in the sense that everything is decaying. The intestines are decaying, there's a lot of a lot of mush. But the heart sits inside a sack in the chest cavity that's kind of isolated from everything else. It separates it from the lungs, it separates it from the diaphragm and from the intestines. So while most of the whale’s organs were gone, the heart was still intact, so that was really exciting. But you're in the whale and there’s anatomy all around you. The heart is there with all the other remains and it's really kind of hard, the colours are pretty much the same and it's hard to make sense of where you are with things, particularly getting it out. Because it's in the sack, you liken it to a glove. The heart is sitting inside a glove and the blood vessels are like fingers going through the fingers of a glove. So in order to get the heart out intact, you want to separate off all those blood vessels far away from the heart enough that you're not damaging the heart. And that's kind of like trying to extract the fingers out of a glove without inverting the glove back as well. It took four of us actually to get the heart freed up from the rest of the blood vessels and push it out the side of the whale and into a big dumpster bag, which we then brought it back to Trenton in.

CO: Now because there's so much that was involved in this, but one of the things was that in order to preserve it, there's no place in Canada that was going to do it. Where did you send the whale?

JM: First was drying up the heart with acetone. The acetone replaces all the water. So you want to now replace the acetone with polymer and you do that by putting the whole tank into a vacuum chamber. Now a vacuum chamber large enough to take the tank and the heart we had would have been phenomenal and there was nothing in North America in any of the medical facilities that could accommodate that. The only place was in Germany. And most people would be familiar with some of the elaborate dissections they've done. So the hart went to Germany after we had preserved in formaldehyde.

CO: So I can’t imagine the amount of paperwork that must be to send a whale's heart to Germany?

JM: Yeah, there was quite a mountain of it. I mean when you're shipping the heart over. First of all, it’s been in formaldehyde, so that's a substance that has to be shipped in a particular way. There are standards in the aviation industry that require you to double seal it in plastic with enough absorbent material between those layers to absorb any fluid that might leak off the specimen. This is what we normally do when say we're sending tissue samples for instance to other institutions. We’ll heat-seal some vials of tissue and alcohol with absorbent material and bundle them up and away they go. But something the size of heart was not easily done. And especially because we thought OK, we'll just put out a couple of layers of absorbent material and another layer and just roll the heart up in it. But when we got the heart out of the tank, there were six of us from the museum, and we couldn't budge that heart. Basically the best thing we could do was kind of rock it back and forth and try to you know squeeze the poly underneath it, much like you would if you were you know a sick person in bed trying to change the linens underneath, that same kind of idea.

CO: But you also had what looks like a mountain of bubble wrap.

JM: Yes, we had so many layers around the heart that I think the bubble wrap was kind of the vengeance coming back. And how many later layers had to be unwrapped to get out the heart when it got to Germany. But yeah, there was certainly a quite a quite an excess of bubble wrap coming back and rightly so, there's a lot of fragile structures on the heart even after it's been preserved and it deserved to be protected.
CO: Do you think that when people go to see this heart and see this the whale skeleton, does it give them a sense of respect and admiration for these creatures?

JM: I certainly hope it does. I mean for me it does. This was a tremendous effort. There was a lot of anxiety as to whether this would preserve or not? It's the only specimen of its kind. But it also was a living, beating heart of the animal that housed it in life. And the blue whales are an endangered species and particularly the population in the North Atlantic is very, very vulnerable and still has a lot of challenges that they have to deal with. And that whole event in 2014, likely had a devastating impact on the North Atlantic population. Given that tragic opportunity, we're doing our best to you know connect people back to that event. Back to the blue whales. Back to the issues of conserving Canada’s endangered species.

CO: Ms. Miller, I really appreciate hearing this story. Thank you.

JM: Oh, you're very, very welcome.

CO: Take care.

JD: Jacqui Miller is a biologist with the Royal Ontario Museum. We reached her in Trenton, Ontario

[Music: Ambient]

Chris Cornell obit

JD: He had a voice that could flatten you or elevate you. He had an ear for melody that enabled him to write everything from monster rock songs to James Bond theme songs. He was impossibly handsome and he looked good with his shirt off. By any standard, Chris Cornell was an archetypal rock star. He was like the platonic ideal of a rock star. But before he became one, he couldn't imagine becoming one. Yesterday, he was found dead in his hotel room after he played a show in Detroit with Soundgarden. He was 52-years-old. The city coroner ruled it suicide. Today though, his family released a statement calling that ruling into question or at least questioning whether he had intended to take his own life. In his own statement, the family's lawyer wrote quote, “Chris, a recovering addict, had a prescription for Ativan and may have taken more Ativan than recommended dosages. The family believes that if Chris took his life, he did not know what he was doing and that drugs or other substances may have affected his actions.” Unquote. Mr. Cornell's wife is hoping the toxicology test may provide some more answers. And the list of artists who have shared their grief at his death is long and it is varied. Elton John, Jimmy Page Perry Farrell, St. Vincent, Nile Rodgers dozens more and Marc Maron, host of the podcast “WTF” re-posted at his 2014 conversation with Chris Cornell. And here's an excerpt from that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRIS CORNELL: I never thought of myself as being in a rock band or being you know I didn't have dreams of being a rock star ever.

MARC MARON: What were your dreams?

CC: I didn't have any.

MM: You just wanted to hang out?

CC: I was just sort of I was a wild kid.

MM: Just like running around, driving around, smoking weed, drinking.

CC: Climbing trees, swimming, running around in parks and then listening to music.

MM: Right.

CC: So like I learned some chords on acoustic guitar. I learned to read music and play piano when I was like 10, but then I quit because it was like school to me.

MM: Right.

CC: And nobody encouraged me to keep it up. I regretted it really soon after that. Of course, I regret it now, but…

MM: It’s hard to focus. I've been playing a long time and I'm not even a real musician. I'm just a hobbyist, but you know there are guys who are will nerd out and they'll noodle and figure all that out. And then there are guys who just want to get out what they want to get out.

CC: Well, I probably had the personality to sit in a room and noodle, but probably not the raw talent to pick up a guitar and go I can do this. I never had that thought of I can do this until I was literally doing it. And drums kind of did that for me.

MM: Well, what was your what were you saying about the way that punk you know I was this sort of cure?

CC: Well, when you hear and I'm not putting down Van Halen, I think that they had elements of that same just simple straightforward rock that was in punk rock as well. But Eddie Van Halen is a musical genius. And I think there was a period in commercial rock music where it kind of came from Led Zeppelin and that period where commercial rock became you know a singer with five octave range and a guitar player that has two necks on his guitar and can play both of them somehow kind of at the same time. You know and his biggest influence isn't another guitar player it's actually like Bach or something.

MM: Right, that's what they say publicly.

CC: Yeah, and first of all, I didn't think Seattle produced people like that I thought you had to like be born and grow up somewhere else.

MM: England. They only make those in England.

CC: Exactly or something like that. I don't know and you couldn't be blue-collar. I didn't understand the blue-collar part of rock because I think that confused it too. And so punk rock changed everything you know for me.

MM: Anyone could do it.

CC: Yeah, I could be in a band. I was in a band within like three days of the first time I ever played the drums. I was a drummer in a band. And the funny thing was that at that age, I was probably 16, I had no aspirations to do or be anything. Once that week was up, I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my whole and it never went back.

MM: It was that good.

CC: Yeah, it was great. It was like there's nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, rock band. I guess that's what I'm doing. And by the time I was 24 or 25, that's when a lot of my friends were you know we'd be hanging out getting drunk and they would say you know I just don’t know what I want to do with my life. And it occurred to me then how lucky I was that I never had that moment. I was figuring I’ll mow lawns and wash dishes until I'm 100-years-old, but all this is what I will do.

MM: Did you mow lawns and wash dishes?

CC: Absolutely.

JD: Chris Cornell, in conversation with Marc Maron on the back podcast “WTF”. In 2014, you can stream that whole conversation at: www.wtfpod.com.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

May 19, 2017 episode transcript

More Stories Like This