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The Current Transcript for June 2, 2017

Host: Jan Wong

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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Everything about this movie just have me at the edge of my seat with excitement I am so ready.

We’ve waited for Wonder Woman for eight million years. She’s badass this time.

JAN WONG: Wonder Woman is coming to Hollywood as she leaps onto the silver screen today. Big hopes are riding on the superheroes shoulders. We're asking what impact the Wonder Woman movie will have on her fans, feminism and the future of film that's first step. And then tech titans see the world as a problem to solve, our lives as projects to improve. Take for example the promise of cars that will one day be able to drive themselves.

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If I had a self-driving car I could spend more time hanging out with my kids or helping them with their homework even just tending to them.

JW: There's huge promise in letting technology shape our future. There's also mounting anxiety about the peril. In half an hour we'll hear the concerns about letting Silicon Valley's major players play a major role in how we live, and then, potential trouble at a plan to protest in Portland. Its mayor is worried.

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Our current political climate allows for too much room for those who spread bigotry. Violent words can lead to violent acts.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has called on federal authorities to revoke the permit of a pro-Trump free speech rally scheduled for Sunday. But it's still going ahead. In an hour, we're asking what happens when free speech and hate speech collide. I'm Jan Wong and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Can Wonder Woman be 1st female-led superhero blockbuster?

Guests: Emily Gagne, Megan Purdy, Alicia Lutes

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I used to want to save the world. [Music] This beautiful place. But the closer you get, the more you see the great darkness within.

JW: The new Wonder Woman movie opens in wide release today. It is hotly anticipated the first live action depiction of the female superhero since Lynda Carter put on her best DA and grabbed her lasso of truth for the 1970s TV series. This new version of Wonder Woman stars Gal Gadot. Patty Jenkins directs. Here is what she hopes the movie will inspire in audiences.

The story of someone who wants to be a hero and takes a journey to becoming a real hero and what that is, is like something I think beautiful so I hope they have a great time and I hope they love it and I hope they laugh but I also hope they feel inspired to be a hero in their own life and learn love and thoughtfulness as well as strengths.

JW: In the 1940s an American psychologist named William Marston created a feminist superhero that he called Wonder Woman. Marston felt women were superior to men. He dreamt up the all-female Utopia where Wonder Woman lived. That was controversial at the time and the new movie has been courting controversy too. An independent movie theater in Austin Texas decided to hold women only screenings of the film. Some men objected. They accused the organizers of discrimination. I'm joined by three guests to talk about Wonder Woman's debut on the silver screen. Alicia Lutes is the managing editor of Nerdist and the host of fangirling a web series dedicated to looking at nerdy pop culture from a female point of view. She's in Los Angeles. And with me in our Toronto studio are Emily Gagne a filmmaker and writer whose production company promotes women in film and Megan Purdy a writer and editor and founder of the website Women Write About Comics. Hello to all of you.

GUESTS: Hello.. Hey.

JW: OK let's get this out of the way first. Alicia, what happened with those all-female screenings?

ALICIA LUTES: Well, it's funny they're happening next week and it seems that many of them sold out. So it's a pretty exciting moment for women who are really excited about having time to hang out with their friends and be inspired and surrounded by women that are excited to feel empowered by a very empowering hero.

JW: Emily, what was your reaction when you heard about the backlash?

EMILY GAGNE: Of the screenings?

JW: Yes.

EMILY GAGNE: I mean I wasn't surprised because we've seen a lot of mansplaining in terms of this film to begin with. But I think it's a really positive thing and I would love to go to one if we had one here personally.

JW: So, but I don't get the point why I have an all women screening? What's wrong with having the other guys sitting in the audience?

EMILY GAGNE:As a female moviegoer I've often been in a theater and had men mansplain something to me or I've had to hear them holler and hoot about a woman that's scantily clad. So I think it's kind of a safe space for women to watch this movie. It's just like a perfect island full of women [laughs].

JW: Ah..Right. Like Wonder Woman's Island.

EMILY GAGNE: Yes.

JW: Okay, Megan why do you think there's been so much anticipation about this film?

MEGAN PURDY: Well, it's the first major female superhero movie so obviously that is a big part of what's fueling it. We've also seen, what is it? Like 15 years of superhero films now. We've had one marginally major female character Black Widow, has not been able to continue or lead a film.

JW: I think that’s longer than 15 years.

MEGAN PURDY: She's not even really a leading character in Avengers. So, there's been a lot of anticipation just because of that lack. If you look at the comics reading audience and the superhero film audience it is almost 50 50 male and female. So it's no surprise to me that people you know were clamoring for both men and women.

JW: It feels like it's been way longer than 15 years. I just three I remember growing up and I'm older than 15 years [guests laugh] and no women. No women.

MEGAN PURDY: Absolutely.

JW: Like, where are the women?

MEGAN PURDY:I just it's been a long history of these films and we've never really made that comment. But I'm thinking just you know sort of the Marvel era and they've never really been able to even barely like a love interest.

JW: So, Alicia in L.A. Why has it taken so long to get a movie like this made?

ALICIA LUTES: Well you know this is a very interesting subject. A lot of it has to do with, for a very long time, movie studios and executives have held this erroneous belief that women.. there's only room for one women in a lot of scenarios. You know, be it in front of the camera behind the camera, what have you. And you get one opportunity, right. Versus you look at a lot of men who, you know, Patty Jenkins comes from independent cinema. She directed monster. She has raves and critical acclaim. There are many instances where you see films being made by these men that have small first time indie films. We saw with King Kong we've seen it with..

JW: Everybody's nodding.

MEGAN PURDY: Yeah. You know it's a really interesting thing to exist in that parameter. And it's been such a longstanding issue. And I think that that plays its part in to also the beliefs of movie studio executives for very long time that women don't go to movies they don't like superhero films they don't want to participate in this sort of genre fare which is completely erroneous and completely ridiculous.

JW: And of course by coincidence all these people making those decisions are men.

MEGAN PUURDY: Yup.

JW: Just a coincidence. Emily, you're a filmmaker and you wrote a piece when they first announced this movie and you. And it was titled Please don't “F” The Wonder Woman Movie Up. What were you afraid of?

EMILY GAGNE: Well, I've seen a lot of movies that have a female protagonist or you know, an iconic female character and they just don't live up to my expectations or people use it as an excuse to be like well we shouldn't make more movies about women or we shouldn't have more female filmmakers who create films. I feel like Ghostbusters was a great example where people will probably won't see Ghostbusters 2 because it had so much controversy and so many men were rallying against it.

JW: Did you like it?

EMILY GAGNE: Ghostbusters? I loved it.

JW: I loved it too. I heard about the controversy so, why I shan’t I go. Well this is really funny.

EMILY GAGNE: Yeah it was.. I love it so much. I have a ghost tattoo so I'm all about ghost, and I love Paul Feig. I think he's great and he does a really great job with female characters but I think people wouldn’t want to give it a chance. So, I was really afraid that if something went wrong with this Wonder Woman that people were just going to do the same thing over again. And you know, but like I trusted any female filmmaker that was attached to the project and I really trust Patty Jenkins and I really do think she did a great job.

JW: So the film is just opening. Any of you seen it or have you just watch the trailer?

EMILY GAGNE: I saw it last night, yeah.

MEGAN PURDY: We’ve seen it.

ALICIA LUTES: I’ve seen it.

JW: Okay, you both saw it, Megan and Emily.

ALICIA LUTES: I ‘ve actually seen it twice.

JW: Oh, so, okay. Good. And, your take?

EMILY GAGNE: I liked it. I didn't think it was perfect. There are definitely some big issues.

JW: That’s okay, it’s okay not to be perfect.

EMILY GAGNE: Like she had sort of a band of ethnic stereotypes as her sidekicks. That was like a major downer in my books.

JW: Oh well we're talking action films. You know, we're talking a different standards, you can foreget..

EMILY GAGNE: [Groans]

JW: Oh, you don't want to forget that. Okay.

JW: Alicia you saw it twice.

ALICIA LUTES: Yes so I have a very interesting relationship with this film where for work, I went to the edit [unintelligible] back in February and saw parts of the film with Patty Jenkins. I saw it again at a screening a couple weeks ago and then I actually saw it last night. So I've sort of experienced seeing the film in three different parts which I think is really interesting. I liked it more the second time. I will fully admit that. I do think that there are parts that are slow. There are some interesting mechanical.. like third act things that feel very kind of DCEU. You know the extended universe like..

JW: Sorry, what is DCEU?

ALICIA LUTES: The DC Comics Extended Universe.

JW: OK thank you. All right, comics in a while. Okay. All right.

ALICIA LUTES: But I think that something that was really exciting for me watching it especially the second time is you almost feel felt as this catharsis of, we have a female superhero that not only is she strong and she's powerful and she has this drive about her that moves past you know sort of, the more generic superhero things. She's a demigod. You know she's in the comic books she's a goddess she's literally a demi god. And that gives her a strength that I think you see in the fact that we have a female director. There's no female .. the female gaze is very strong with this. There's no male gaze is with this.

JW: And what do you mean when you say there's no male gaze.

ALICIA LUTES: Yes so, the male gaze is something that is sort of the point of view from which a lot of our culture comes from is a male point of view because for many hundreds of years men have largely been making culture and making the decisions about which ways culture will go.

JW: So, expand on male point of view.

ALICIA LUTES: Yes how they experience the world how they see it. You know when a guy looks at a woman oftentimes in film you will see there's a very elongated glances at the physicality of her in ways that are just sort of not how other women always see other women, you know. And you see a lot of the strength of women in this film in such an effecting way especially with Amazonians.

JW: So you mean more about strength and less about sexuality? Even though she is feminine?

ALICIA LUTES: Yes.

JW: Okay. So Megan, how has this Wonder Woman evolved from the original. Can you talk a bit about the Creator William Marston.

MEGAN GAGNE: So William Arsen is actually a really interesting character. He was a psychologist and he's the creator of the Lie Detector which is actually why shows the truth.

JW: Ah, I get it now.

MEGAN GAGNE: Yeah. He was also a feminist and he was in a polyamorous relationship with two women. And they also practiced PDSM. And that's also why the early Wonder Woman comics feature so much bondage, funnily enough. And his intent with Wonder Woman was very much to create a feminist response to the growing superhero comics movement. And he called Wonder Woman his sort of model of the new woman who should rule the world essentially. And Marston died a few years after creating Wonder Woman from skin cancer. And it was just sort of taken over by a rotating stable of various writers. And over the years she's changed a lot. She hasn't really had too a stable of an identity. She's had a period of time where she was a spy. She's had a period of time where she ran a boutique and basically like a boy chasing fashionista.

JW: Oh. Great, great.

MEGAN GAGNE: And then she cycled back to being sort of what we know of today as Wonder Woman.

JW: Okay. So Emily speaking of fashionistas, she once ran a boutique.

EMILY GAGNE: Yeah.

JW: What do you think of the clothes that she's wearing? Can you describe it and then tell me what you think about it?

EMILY GAGNE: In the movie?

JW: Yeah, in the movie.

EMILY GAGNE: I'm going to have a controversial stance on this, in that I kind of love like the older style of Wonder Woman like a very colorful sort of bodice that she wears.

JW: You mean when we think of the blue and red?

EMILY GAGNE: Yeah like almost like the Lynda Carter like sort of Wonder Woman outfit. I love that. I mean that's just like from a fashionista thing point. I love that. I'm very into duo tones.

JW: But in the movie she wears…

EMILY GAGNE: In the movie she wears, it's more of a really like warrior kind of bodice that she's wearing. And it's very strong it's very metallic. It looks like you know she's ready for battle. And I think that is really important in communicating like this character to this large audience. You know she's not a fluffy character she is a goddess and she is a warrior. And I think that that outfit communicates that there's even like a joke in the movie where she like looks at some lingerie, and she's like is this what that bo.. like is what they wear here. And I just thought that was really cute. I mean I know somebody will still say it's like kind of like a quote unquote you know scantily clad outfit. But I think like that's the tradition of Wonder Woman. And I think like this is the strongest sort of look that I've seen from her.

JW: Alicia, what do you think of the clothes? This is such a shallow conversation. I apologize.

ALICIA LUTES: No. I don't think so. OK good. What do you think?

ALICIA LUTES: Patty Jenkins has said this and I think that part of the idea of super heroes is you are looking at somebody who is your ultimate fantasy it's everything that you want to be. And if men get to have Tony Stark with his cool hair and his cool money and his cool outfits and I’m just gonna keep saying cool. But why can't you have a super hero that you know, foresee people to tell the truth and looks amazing doing, it and is strong and powerful and can deflect bullets. Why can't she be all those things, if ultimately we are playing at is a fantasy game.

JW: Yeah.

ALICIA LUTES: And I think that's something that Patty sort of believes is absolutely valid. And she looks amazing doing it. And they look strong.

JW: She looks like a gladiator. That's what her costume tells me it doesn't look like lingerie. She looks like a gladiator. So I just want you to listen to a clip. Speaking to an online entertainment show about the film last week the star Gal Gadot said this about depicting the feminism of Wonder Woman.

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At the beginning we were worried about like how do you really deal with talking about feminism and about gender and about these kind of things without doing it too much on the nose.

JW: Okay, Megan. I want to ask you why you hope that girls little girls and little boys take away from this version of Wonder Woman.

MEGAN PURDY: I think the most important thing about this version of Wonder Woman is that it's very much about love, and it's strength from love and care for humanity and for the earth. So I love that this is a depiction of a superhero who is not really a power fantasy as we think of Batman or Superman who are punching their way through problems, but rather a role model and a heroine who solves problems through care and speech. And I mean obviously there's a war aspect to her but the more important aspect is her care for others.

JW: She has a heart.

MEGAN PURDY: Yeah absolutely.

JW: She has a heart and I remember as a kid growing up reading Superman comics and not identifying at all with the men still I identify with Lois Lane the only female.

MEGAN PURDY: Amazing character.

JW: That’s why I became a reporter. But I feel I saw a few of the clips and I felt really happy watching. Usually I don't like violence but when she was kicking ass I thought yes that's great.

MEGAN PURDY: There’s a protective element, right?

JW: Yeah. Alisha How did you feel about that?

ALICIA LUTES: I, you know I thought the fight scenes were some of the most interesting and dynamic parts of the film the way that they're shot is they're strong and they're powerful and the camera really uses tricks to kind of emphasize that. And it is it's exciting and it's you know you get your blood pumping to see these women flipping around and fighting in , I would say the very kind of feminine where you know it's strong and it's a dancer [unintelligible] And I thought it was really fascinating and exciting to watch.

JW: You thought it was feminine, hmmm.

ALICIA LUTES: Yeah. I would say that I would say that that's the sense of poetic movement.

JW: Oh , I see.

ALICIA LUTES: In how I see it around on hourses...

JW: It was good.

ALICIA LUTES: Yes [cross talking].

JW: Didn’t you really love Robin right, House of Cards. She was the aunt and I think of the heroine and she's really, like she's leaping and she's over 50. So I like that.

ALICIA LUTES: She's incredible.

JW: So Emily.

EMILY GAGNE: Yeah.

JW: You make films.

EMILY GAGNE: Aha.

JW: How big a deal is it that this movie was directed by women how big are the stakes?

EMILY GAGNE: I mean I think it's a huge deal that his movie was directed by a woman for me as well as a little girl going back to sort of this impression this going to have on little girls like, I never thought I could be a director because all of my favorite directors were men. I love Tim Burton. I love Steven Spielberg. I loved Quentin Tarantino. So to see a woman directing a blockbuster is a huge deal because I think that a young girl that maybe is like I don't know if I can be a filmmaker like yes I can be a filmmaker, and I can make a movie about a strong woman and people will like it and people will go to see it.

JW: Thank you. We're out of time. Alisha Lute's is managing editor of Nerdist. She joined us from Los Angeles. Emily Gange is a Toronto filmmaker and writer and Megan Purdy is the founder of the website. Women Write About Comics. They were both with me in our Toronto studio. And stay tuned for q. They'll be talking to Greg Rucka. He's the writer behind the Wonder Woman comic books for the last 10 years. And I can see Megan getting all excited. He brought the superhero back to her no nonsense morally certain routes much loved by critics and fans. Now here's a little throwback to the Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter.

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[Music: Wonder Woman Song]

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.

All the world is waiting for you.

And the power In your satin tights,

Fighting for your rights

And the all Red, White and Blue.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.

Now the world is ready for you,

And the wonders you can do.

Make a hawk a dove..

JW: The CBC news is next then, the future is arriving now.

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Our kids and grandkids they may never have to learn to drive. Driverless cars are being touted as one of the most disruptive technologies of our time.

JW: But some are concerned about where that future is taking us from cars to philanthropy. The tech industry wants to change the world. Some worry it won't be for the better. I'm Jan Wong and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current

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From cars to philanthropy: Tech industry's promise of a better world needs a second look, say writers

Guests: Eric Reguly, David Callahan, Alexandra Samuel

JW: Hello. I'm Jan Wong and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Musci: Theme]

JW: Still to come a planned free speech rally in Portland has the city on edge. What will happen if free speech morphs into hate speech. But first Silicon Valley giants have long been promising their technology will make our lives better. What happens if they are wrong?

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[Music]

It will take all of us working together to bring the benefits of technology to everyone. I believe we are on the verge of solving some of the most important problems we face.

Machine learning artificial intelligence it is a renaissance. It is a golden age. We are now solving problems with machine learning and artificial intelligence that we're in the realm of science fiction.

How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online. And how about personalizing education so everyone can learn. These achievements are all within our reach. Let's do them all in a way that gives everyone in our society a role.

The fundamental value long term value I see Tesla as having as a catalyst to accelerate the transition to sustainable transport in.

JW: The biggest players in the tech industry say they want to make the world a better place. From Google CEO Sandar Pichai to Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to Tesla's Elon Musk all have spoken of how technology can change the world and disrupt it for the better. Today as part of The Current season long project the disruptors were asking whether that promise will live up to the hype and how much influence the tech industry has in shaping our collective future. Whether it comes from the company's products themselves or through side projects like Google's plan to tackle aging and extend our lives or even through their big philanthropic projects. One example is self-driving cars. Many tech leaders think cars drive themselves might solve many of the problems of urban living. Eric Reguly the European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail isn't so sure. He and I used to be colleagues at the paper, and one day we had to share a car on assignment. Eric Reguly joins us from Rome. Hi, Eric.

ERIC REGULY: Hi Jan.

JW: Remember the last time we were in a car together I think it was 9/11. The planes were grounded and The Globe and Mail was sending us to New York City. I was driving 160 kilometers an hour through upstate New York. And you were kept yelling at me to slow down. You thought you were going to die. Do you remember that?

ERIC REGULY: Yeah. I think my head was bruised from you hitting speed bumps at twice the speed limits. But well done, I'm still alive.

JW: So that brings me to our topic self-driving cars. Maybe it would have been better if we had a self-driving car you might not have been bumping your head so much.

ERIC REGULY: Back then you know, I don't think the concept existed maybe in Popular Mechanics magazines.

JW: I want to know from you what's the latest in self-driving cars?

ERIC REGULY: Well [unintelligible] they're going to come on I think quite fast. And this is my concern. I don't think, Jan that there's any debate or any analysis among cities especially transport ministers, mayors, anywhere in the world as to whether the hype surrounding these cars is real and the hype says that these cars will make cities less polluted and less congested more livable and I just don't buy it. I think the hype is just completely out of control. You've got to remember these companies Google, Uber

Tesla that are big in the game on self-driving cars. Their primary goal is to sell products expensive products.

JW: But all technology is that way isn't it? I mean we're all very happy with our iPhones. But what's wrong with having someone else do the driving? I know that I would like it. I would like someone else to parallel park I've never mastered that, to my deep shame. I'd like to read instead of having to drive. What's wrong with this?

ERIC REGULY: You nailed it. I think you've answered your own question. It's convenience. Whatever is convenient and cheap is going to become much more popular. And my point is if these cars take off and I think they will, because of their convenience you're going to see more cars on the street. Now whether a car is electric or not or self-driving or not, there are still cars and you know from living in Toronto and elsewhere and I know from living in Rome in London in New York, you can't put a single more car in the street. The cities are beyond capacity and right now you and, I we want to get to work we have to have slept through the snow for a few hundred meters to get to the subway or the streetcar, the bus. Now, a self-serving car is going to come to you is going to come right to your door. You're going to use it more often and it's going to be cheaper. Why is it going to be cheap? Because there's no driver. Roughly half the cost of a taxi for example is just paying the salary of the driver. So it's not to that cheap let's say it's half the price of a taxi so it's going to be used more often. The convenience factor is going to make everyone want to use it. If you're sharing it, you have to have this and the number of cars on the road to meet peak demand. Peak demand is going to happen during rush hour on the morning, rush hour or evening. So, you're going to have you know hundreds of thousands maybe millions of cars that are going to have to meet this peak demand. And then where do they go? And more importantly if f all this energy and resources and demand goes in the self-driving cars public transportation is going to suffer. You know, it could take years or decades but I worry that the public transportation, collective transport is going to become an afterthought. What we need in big cities is public transportation.

JW: I can hear your argument if we have our own self-driving cars but if we share them. To me isn't that just a new form of public transportation?

ERIC REGULY: You know what, public transportation is so much more efficiently you still, well, this is a self-driving car note the maximum number of people you can get from the self-driving cars four or five, and most of them will be used by one or two. You know in a subway car you can get a hundred people you know.

JW: Yeah, and that's when it gets really uncomfortable.

ERIC REGULY: Well that's my point, Jan. If you have the option of being comfortable or uncomfortable you are going to go for comfortable.

JW: So how big has the technology industry's influence been on our vision of the cities of the future?

ERIC REGULY: The vision promoted by the tech companies is more livable cleaner cities because of self-driving cars. That theory is unproven untested. It is merely a theory but I see all these urban planners and mayors. I've talked to a few of them in North America and Europe and they're just dazzled by the prospect of cleaner quieter more livable cities. I just don’t think they've looked at the high potential for the dystopian view which is a more congested city and I just worry that these mayors and local regional governments are going to give up on public transportation when the self-driving car you know makes a splash in these cities, and that really is my big worry.

JW: It's been great talking to you. Thank you so much.

ERIC REGULY: Thanks Jan. Bye bye.

JW: Eric Reguly is the European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. He was in Rome. Tech entrepreneurs certainly love to talk about changing the world. But some say this desire to make our lives better isn't just rhetoric. It's a fundamental feature of the tech community. Haim Mendelson.is a professor of electronic commerce at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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A lot of today's tech leaders came from an engineering background and the engineering mindset is one where people look for solutions that improve life, improve the product, improve a process. And as a result of that the engineers tend to operate in a way that is consistent with making the world better. Engineers in particular have a mindset which I, let’s think about improving the world first and thinking about money later. A lot of the tech leaders of today that mindset.

JW: That mindset is worrisome to some people they fear there's a danger in the desires of high powered Silicon Valley players to shape our futures. Jathon Sadowsky is a lecturer in the ethics of technology at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

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There is no one idea what making the world a better place looks like. Just as there's no one idea, one progress or one kind of linear way of progress. Instead when I hear when people say that they want to make the world look more like what they want it to look like they want to create the kinds of things and the kind of world that they want that will benefit them while also calling it progress or calling it Utopia.

JW: As many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have made fortunes through technological innovations they've been looking beyond business for ways to improve the world. Big names from Mark Zuckerberg to Bill Gates to Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and beyond are giving away million,s even billions to charity becoming some of today's biggest so-called mega philanthropists. And in doing so they're disrupting how social change happens. David Callahan has been looking at their influence. He is the founder and editor of Inside philanthropy an online magazine that covers the world of giving. He's also the author of The Giver's Wealth Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age. David Callahan is in Santa Monica California. Hello.

DAVID CALLHAN: Hello.

JW: What amount of money are we talking about when you talk about charitable giving how many dollars are we talking about?

DAVID CALLHAN: Well the Gates Foundation gave Gibbs out over $3 billion a year in total about 375 billion dollars goes to philanthropy in the United States. So it's a pretty serious amount of money. And more and more of it is coming from these tech leaders.

JW: What is the model how are they giving this money away?

DAVID CALLHAN: In a few different ways. So you know in the old model of giving you set up a foundation you make grants to non-profits in the new model. You have a foundation that makes grants but you also invest in for profit social enterprises. So Pierre Omidyar is a great example of this. He is a billionaire who made his fortune through eBay. He created what he calls a philanthropic investment, Firm which both makes traditional grants and lots of different investments in companies that promise to solve problems around the world.

JW: And how does this echo how they run their own businesses?

DAVID CALLHAN: You know many of them are people who made their money through innovation. They have gotten rich by disrupting some existing industry and they're looking to bring that big bold thinking that swinging for the fences mentality to philanthropy. So Mark Zuckerberg is a great example. One of his goals is to try to cure or manage or prevent all diseases by the end of the 21st century. You can hardly get more ambitious than that.

JW: They got a lot of criticism Mark Zuckerberg and his wife got a lot of criticism when they first in announced giving away 99 percent of their Facebook shares, Is that right?

DAVID CALLHAN: That's right. And why did they get criticized it sounds it sounds generous to me?

DAVID CALLHAN: Many people thought it was an effort to evade taxes and others including myself worries that you know that's a lot of power in the hands of a very young couple at the time the stock was worth $45 billion. It's now worth over $60 billion. They've said that they want to use advocacy and public policy to try to put forth their ideas for a better world. And that's a lot of influence that a couple Not yet you know still in their 30s have just because they're wealthy now.

JW:A lot of the tech companies have gotten headlines in the past year or so for not paying taxes. They found loopholes. So now they're giving back which is also tax deductible?

DAVID CALLHAN: Mark Zuckerberg I don't think his goal is to evade taxes. He really wants to give away all of this money along with his wife who by the way is a pediatrician who spent her life working with disadvantaged communities. But the tax issue is interesting because many of these tech companies do engage in elaborate tax avoidance schemes to move their profits offshore beyond the reach of the Treasury so that tax avoidance is costing a huge amount of money for the government and yet then they turn around and give a few hundred million dollars maybe or tens of million dollars to philanthropy. And you wonder well, do they really deserve any credit for that?

JW: But it is still a donation. So what's so bad about health and helping education? What's the risk in this?

DAVID CALLHAN: Well there's, I mean there's a lot of potential upsides and there's some potential downsides. You have private individuals who are coming into to public life. Their education is a great example. We think of education as being an area where the citizens call the shots. So when you have billionaires coming in with big ideas for changing educational systems like Bill Gates whose foundation gives over half a billion dollars every year to try to improve education in America. With that large comes a lot of influence. And the Gates Foundation has been criticized for disrupting public school systems. The Newark public school system is philanthropists led by Mark Zuckerberg put a lot of money into trying to improve public schools in New York, which were terrible. And that effort generated a tremendous amount of community pushback. People felt like they were not consulted that the locals were kind of locked out of the process.

JW: So if we extrapolate from education into democracy which is a big even bigger than education. What is the risk for having these huge philanthropists, mega philanthropists I think you call it exerting influence on democracy on choices on people's choices?

DAVID CALLHAN: Well these people act this sort of super citizens. They not only have a voice through their philanthropy and their charitable gifts but they also give a lot of money to politicians and to try to sway elections. Bill Gates is a good example of this in his home state of Washington. He his foundation has financed charter schools. But Gates himself has also given money to change the laws around education so that more charter schools can be set up. You know we're all concerned about money and politics for good reasons, which is that most ordinary citizens don't have millions of dollars that they can put in. And that's the thing we ordinary citizens have very limited means to get our voice heard. But if you're wealthy you have a lot of different tools to get your voice heard.

JW: Which way did the tech industry go in the most recent presidential election? I thought they supported Hillary Clinton.

DAVID CALLHAN: They did support Hillary Clinton there.

JW: So they don't have that much influence right.

DAVID CALLHAN: Right well it's yeah it is their influence comes and goes and you need to avoid generalizations here.

JW: Okay. So what does the ordinary citizen do in the face of this.

DAVID CALLHAN: There's not a lot of easy ways to solve this problem of the influence that comes with philanthropy. Our society generally thinks of philanthropy as a good thing. There's not much support for efforts to limit that power in it because philanthropy does produce some positive results. People are reluctant to kind of rein it in or even rein in that that charitable tax deduction. The clearest solution would be to try to reduce those huge fortunes that pile up at the top to begin with.

JW: Well thanks you so much for talking to us today.

DAVID CALLHAN: It's great to be here. Thank you.

JW: David Callahan is the founder and editor of Inside philanthropy an online magazine that covers the world of giving. And he's the author of The Giver's Wealth power and Philanthropy in a new Gilded Age. He was in Santa Monica California. It's not just the tech giants who have visions of changing the world. Many of those working in tech on a much smaller scale also go into the field with the same goal. Confident that if we just shape technology the right way there is powerful potential to make positive change. Alexandra Samuel is an independent technology researcher and contributor to The Wall Street Journal. She is in Vancouver. Hello.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Good morning.

JW: We've just been hearing about how some in the big tech entrepreneurs have turned into mega philanthropists. Do you see this as a good way for the tech industry to make the world a better place?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well it's certainly one piece of it but you know I think we need to look at the social impact of the tech world in three dimensions. I mean we need to look at the philanthropic piece and we certainly need to look at the impact of technology products. But then of course there's this third piece which is the impact of technology companies as companies and you know again that impact can be positive or negative.

JW: So how would you describe the impact of companies, of high tech companies?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well you know it really depends on the individual company. I mean there are some companies that have made a real effort to build a corporate culture and a corporate footprint that is socially beneficial. You know companies like [unintelligible] and Hoot Suite have become be corps which means that they are pledged to a certain kind of approach in terms of their social and environmental impact. I think we need to applaud frankly that aspect of tech culture, that encourages companies to think about what kind of employers they are to think about what kind of corporate actors they are, and also be extremely wary of the many companies that have

deeply problematic practices. You know I think we have to look at that in terms of Facebook's impact on privacy. I think we have to look at that in terms of Apple's manufacturing footprint.

JW: So why did you get into the tech field.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well I actually started as a political scientist and I was really interested in how the rise of the personal computer was changing some of the fundamentals around the power of workers. And you know it's been a long time coming to see that impact pay off. But I think actually the kind of world that we live in now with the rise of the sort of gig economy for good and ill is really where we see finally, the impact of technology in terms of allowing people to maybe step away from those assembly line jobs or the corporate assembly line and to have more independence in how they create their working life. You know at its best the impact of technology has been decentralization putting power back in the hands of individuals whether that's something as banal as you know for someone like me because I work on them online. I can be there when my kids need me after school or more profoundly allowing people to have access to the communications technologies that allow them to have a political impact.

JW: When you move from political science to technology did you want to change the world. Is that why you did it.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Yeah.I mean I would say that was and is still my primary interest in the tech world. I've made my career in the sort of intersection between technology and social change and worked with a lot of non-profit organizations that have used technology to really scale up their impact.

JW: Can you give another example of another positive element that's occurred because of the changes in technology?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Absolutely. I mean of course people always come back to things like, you know, the Arab Spring. But you know a lot of the things that I see that excite me are much more frontline. So I've worked with an organization in the U.S. called Complimentary Tech Soup. They created an app that allows people who are in crisis like women who've just left an abusive situation to find emergency housing. These are the kinds of problems that used to be really tough for frontline support workers to address. And I think when we could take some of the innovative mindset and technologies of the best of the tech world and combine it with deep knowledge and understanding of a specific kind of social challenge, then we can get really powerful solutions. Where things get really dangerous I think is when you have people who have that maybe innovative mindset, that problem solving engineers mindset and the deep pockets to back their inspiration. But who don't have perhaps the depth of understanding the experience, the relationships in the social space that they're going into. There is this kind of problem of democratic legitimacy. We have traditionally solved

social problems through government as well as private intervention because we think it's important for all of us to have a take in that approach and a voice in how we tackle those challenges, and because we recognize that those kinds of solutions work better when the community is engaged and invested.

JW: So how do we make sure that technology improves the world and doesn't create more problems, and doesn't undermine democracy doesn't take away the power of the individual?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Well you know I think we have to look at multiple solutions. I mean for sure one piece of this is just about the imbalance between the private sector and the public sector. But I also think that you know those of us who are technology users need to think about where we spend our resource. And I don't just mean dollars. In fact if anything I mean time more than dollars.

JW: So final question what's your ultimate vision of a better world? If we use technology properly how would it look?

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: I think we have to be really cautious about techno utopianism because I do think that guides a lot of the misguided efforts that come out of Silicon Valley the idea that you know because we've figured out how to build a really big social network we can figure out how to solve the world's problems. But I do think we can think very carefully about how to harness the next wave of technologies in a way that is informed by some of the mistakes frankly we've made today.

JW: Thank you very much for talking to us.

ALEXANDRA SAMUEL: Thank you.

JW: Alexandra Samuel is an independent technology researcher and contributor to The Wall Street Journal. She was in Vancouver. Coming up in our next half hour Portland Oregon is still fragile. A week after the murders of two men defending two women from a racist tirade on a light rail train. Now. All right supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump are planning a rally in that city for free speech. It has many worried that violence could explode once again. I'm Jan Wong and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current

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Vancouver pharmacist makes house calls to Downtown Eastside residents

Guest:

JW: Hello. I'm Jan Wong and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Today Craig Plain will be presented with a Canadian pharmacist of the Year Award. He's being recognized for his unique work in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, home to one of the most vulnerable populations in the country. The community has been hit hard by the opioid crisis which has claimed the lives of hundreds of residents over the last two years. Craig Plain sees his clients in the pharmacy and he also does house calls, delivering and administering medication to people living in shelters social housing and sometimes in alleys and parks in the neighborhood. Producer Anne Penman went along on those rounds with Craig but first they spent some time at his pharmacy.

SOUNDCLIP

I had friends tell me how great it was here. You never know where to go to. And he came in, I came here in the afternoon at the quiet time. And so he got into this room saw me, and he shook my hand. And I’ve never had a pharmacist shook my hand before.

My name's Craig Plain, pharmacy manager for Health Resource Center. This is where the front area of the pharmacy up here. People can kind of hang out there whether they're waiting for meds, or if you just want to come sit down have a cup of coffee before they come in and chat with staff, that's fine. Then they come back through here, and these are basically out intake booths, here. So, we generally have pharmacist right up front. You kind of see there is chairs on both sides. So, most people come in they just without even thinking they just sit down. Pharmacists are sitting down on the other side it’s not they are standing behind on a little step, you know looking down on people here. So we're always sitting down on the side here, giving people as much time as we can. You know trying to promote more of a face to face conversation contact with patients as opposed to, you know, we're here to give you pills. That's all we do. I mean you know we'd be a lot more than that.

I only pick up three times a week. But a lot of people pick up every day. So you know. It makes a difference in their day when they get treated properly, you know. It's a disease not a moral deficiency.

We’ve got these automated machines that will bring up the methadone for patients. They're calibrated every day like they're one of the most accurate ways that dispense it. And then they can take the dose right here. Sort of semi-private booths as well which is important.

And even when I graduated 2005, I think was, we were actually taught through school , we were sort of one of the newer programs it brought out at UBC at the time. And it was really about this kind of face to face interaction more about consultation. Unfortunately, when I actually graduated and went on to practice. It was still kind of the old school. You know no, don’t fills many prescription as you can but it was it was still more, but you didn't have the time. Pharmacies weren't set up for that kind of interaction. And there was no way to sort of get compensated for it, too. I mean. I hate to say it but pharmacies kind of get paid the same amount whether it's a very quick 20 second consultation or whether it's like a five minute consultation. So I think when I first graduated it was still.. We had all this knowledge to do patient interviews but then the practice was actually just lots people lined up at the counter, you know it was counting pills in the back, sticking labels on bottles and then doing that, so [unintelligible] this knowledge. But we were really doing all this technical work in the back that didn't really need to be doing.

You can resolve a lot of drug therapy problems. You can make great relationships with clients without coming in. So I think what's been good here is it's really hard for me to be in the back counting pills. I really have to be up front here. So I think a lot of it comes down to design. And then just investment from ownership to like I say, it's a little more expensive to have extra staff to run it this way. But obviously with opioid crisis going on just sort of chatting with local doctors around here, like what else can we do in the pharmacy. And one of the doctors asked us to sort of try, it's an injection project here. It's not brand new. There was there's been other things at the local clinics doing it but not so much of community pharmacy doing it. Where they've done opioid injections, whether it's you know, heroin or hydromorphone. So right now it's you can't get heroin it's not legal we can't prescribe it, we can't obtain it. So we're doing hydromorphone injections here for just a small group of people. The idea is these are people that have failed multiple times on methadone or suboxone or other therapies they just don't work. Whether their body doesn't respond to it, or it just whatever the reason is. It just hasn't worked for them. So they're out using and it's very expensive for them to do it. They have to do a lot of things to try and get the money to cover it. Also they don't know what they're getting. I mean they're buying off the streets so, they don't know if this Fentanyl in it, or how much. So it’s this way here. It's prescription medication that's just quality control behind it. They know what the dose they're getting. So basically, they're titrated and then monitored in the doctor's office for the first few days, until they're stabilized on a dose and then they can come into the pharmacy with a prescription. And right now it's twice a day. They come in the morning and then they come in the afternoon and do an injection right here. Basically, they do self-injection, we’re pharmacists were not doing it for them. We're basically just making sure they're getting the right dose, and just watching that they don't have any bad reactions in the pharmacy. So it's a very small group of people at this point. I mean every week or so we get another one or two people. We're just going to kind of see how it goes and then from there hopefully we can maybe expand it to a larger project. We don't know what it's going to look like down the road, but we're just documenting everything we're doing and definitely anything we can to help with the opioid crisis here. I had one guy in particular just sort of came in and after a few days of coming in, he just looked at me and said, you know, this is the first time in about 20 years that I don't feel like a criminal. And actually you know it's been prescribed by a doctor. So the last time he used outside before he got into this program he's going into a gas station bathroom. I'm just going to a small hit. Next thing you know he woke up in the hospital overdosed in the bathroom somebody found him. So he's he spent his whole life trying to hide it. But now for the first time he can actually, you know, he’s chatting with his doctor she’s getting prescriptions for him, he’s coming in and he sort of feels like he's actually getting treated as opposed to being pushed aside. So, I think it's important for pharmacy to basically just expand their roles a little bit. He's added services that we're doing don't really have added ways to get compensated for it. So we're spending a lot of time with one person doing an injection. It's really just one prescription. I mean if it was an antibiotic. You could get in and out pretty quickly. Whereas we're spending a lot more time, with actually a lot less volume. It's [unintelligible] compensated for. So, I think funding is a tricky thing as we want to try and add these extra services they need to work with the ministry and figure out ways to show them that it's that is beneficial for them that it's saving money so that we can operate this way.

So we're just doing our morning routine. So we've got a group of people on this one for in particular.. It’s.. Basically, they can't get out to get their medications so, with their methadone and suboxone pharmacist has to do it. So, you just [unintAnne Penmanelligigble] on foot, now. We're close enough, so we just walk there. And then we are just going to see them, say hi to them, see how they’re doing. And then if everything's good we'll give them their medication for this morning. The pharmacy delivery isn't a new thing down here. It's actually been around for a long time. But again our goal is to sort of be a little more comprehensive, and chatting a little more about how they're doing and then if there's any issues or concerns, again if we can resolve them ourselves, great. If not that we can send a just a quick note to the doctor and see if they can adjust something.

How are things going today?

[Unintelligible]

Here it goes, here is your six mills there.

I am surrounded by greatness.

We do what we can.

Yeah, I mean I am great addict.

You've been, yeah, you're one of our first clients

Do you have any questions or concerns at all today?

Not one [unintelligible]

Cool. You still got lots of time in your scripts, so no worries there.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I’ll just take this out of here.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, you’re welcome.

Okay, have a great day.

Yeah, thank you.

[Sound: Knocking on door]

Pharmacy

Hello, Lana. How is it going.

[unintelligible]

It’s okay to go out?

Yeah, come on.

Right on.

How are you?

Good, good.

He is so awesome.

He just.. his attitude you know, towards clients, us, I didn't even say clients because you know he treats everybody equal. He treats everybody like they're human beings like they should be treated. You know. And he's just. So there's so many words that I would say but really because you know, there's days where you just feel really crappy and down and you know, Craig will come by, he always makes you smile or laugh and just makes you feel you know, it changes you afterwards. Like you just feel better you know, and he's a very compassionate kind man. He really is. He is a very compassionate kind man. He's not just a pharmacist. He's somebody that you can talk to if you're having a bad day.

JW: Craig Plain is this year's Canadian Pharmacist of the Year. He's receiving the award at the Canadian Pharmacists Conference in Quebec City tonight. He works at the Pier Health Resource Center in Vancouver's downtown Eastside.

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Portland mayor wants pro-Trump 'free speech' rally cancelled after train attack

Guest: Tom Hastings

JW: A week ago today two men were stabbed to death on a light rail train in Portland Oregon. They had come to the defense of two teenage girls who were being verbally attacked by a white man over the color of their skin and the hijab that one of them was wearing. One of those girls is 16 year old Destiny Mangham.

SOUNDCLIP

He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia. And he told us we shouldn't be here and to get out of his country. He was just telling us that we basically weren’t any thing, and that we should just kill ourselves. This white male came from the back of us came and he was like he's talking to you guys? And he was like, you guys, you can’t disrespect these young ladies like that. Then, they just all started arguing and me and my friend were going to get of the [unintelligible] and then. We turned around while they were fighting and started stabbing people and there was just blood everywhere. We just started running for our lives. I just want to forget about it. Not even remember it happened. Because it is just haunting me.

JW: The man shouting at the two girls stabbed and killed two men who came to help the girls. A third man was slashed but survived. The mayor of Portland was quick to condemn the attack. In the wake of the tragedy, the mayor asked the federal government to cancel a permit for a rally taking place this weekend in the city. The Sunday gathering which was planned before the train attack is being organized by a group called Patriot Prayer. They're calling it a Trump Free Speech Rally. One of the scheduled speakers is Kyle Chapman a member of the so-called alt right who was arrested at a rally in March for breaking a wooden sign over the head of an anti-Trump protester. Here is Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler followed by Patriot Prayer Founder Joey Gibson.

SOUNDCLIP

I live in the world of reality and the timing on the parts of these right wing groups to come into our city and preach their message. This is the wrong time and it can only lead to a bad outcome. And that's why was using every opportunity I had to protect the public. You’re not shut them down or tell them they can't be heard or express their opinion but to make it clear to them that this isn't the right time.

I think it's extremely ironic that on June 3rd in the exact same park that we're going to be in there having an anti-capitalist rally and march, and he didn’t say one thing about that. Not one word. And so, obviously this guy is extremely biased and he's doing everything he can to keep the Conservatives out of Portland. He's obviously afraid of what we've got to say. He's awfully afraid of having an opposing view in downtown Portland.

JW: The permit has not been canceled. And there is still heated debate over whether this rally should go ahead at such a tense time in the community. Tom Hastings is a long-time activist in Portland and an assistant professor of conflict resolution at Portland State University. He supports The Mayor's call to have the permits revoked for the Trump free speech rally. We have reached him in Portland. Hello.

TOM HASTINGS: Hi Jan. How are you today?

JW: I'm good. I want to know why you agree with The Mayor that the rallies permit should be revoked?

TOM HASTINGS: Well I think all the reasons that the mayor gave are absolutely accurate. This is not a moment to come into town with basically the identical rhetoric. I mean it's called a trump free speech rally. And in this moment when we are very sharply grieving and some people are very angry. This is not a great moment to come in, I think just about anybody with common decency would say okay, we'll wait a few weeks and then we'll have a rally. So to me The Mayor is exactly right in saying that this is not a free speech issue. We have free speech all the time in Portland. I teach on a very urban campus right in downtown Portland. We routinely have these sort of outlier old right types staying on the park blocks which is a city owned green strip that runs right through our campus. And they will harangue us and we'll just kind of walk by. It's part of the background of an American town. But this is not this.. is an issue of public safety at this point because you've got, as you correctly mentioned, this guy they call the stick man or Kyle Chapman, he's the invited main speaker. This is completely outrageous. That you invite somebody who's out on bail on felony assault charges from California to come into our state of Oregon. Then the main organizer you quoted this Gibson fellow he's from Washington state. This is not indigenous to our town let our town be for this period of time. Instead we hear from those organizers the typical Trump rhetoric we're the victims. That’s just completely outrageous.

JW: Okay. I hear what you're saying. I hear you say it, say outright, but the American Civil Liberties Union has come out in support of allowing the rally to go on and we invited them to join us this morning. But no one from Portland Seattle or the national office was available. We did talk with Matt Dos Santos yesterday though. He's the legal director for the Oregon chapter of the ACLU. Here's why he says they do not support The Mayor's call to cancel the rally.

SOUNDCLIP

Why this is so wrong for the mayor is that he's not just any Portlander, he's a government official and he swore to uphold the United States and to Oregon constitutions. And that swearing is true even when it isn't politically popular. And I think it's crucial for people to understand that when The Mayor called for this he didn't say that the event should be canceled because there was a specific threat to public safety. He called on the events to be canceled or rescheduled because of the viewpoints being espoused.

JW: Tom Hastings, what's your take on that? Is the mayor justified in not wanting all viewpoints espoused?

TOM HASTINGS: I respect Del Santos I think he does wonderful work. And I think he's cherry picking right now and choosing words that The Mayor.. I agree with him that The Mayor in his original proclamation did not frame it properly constitutionally. Since then he has however. His first statement was incorrect. He said the Mayor's statement, he said that hate speech is not protected speech. Actually it is as Del Santos properly says, hate speech is protected speech. But it is a question of, and The Mayor has been clear on this in subsequent discussions about it in the press conferences, is that this is a matter of public safety that is a temporary problem. Hopefully we can work behind the scenes to allow some time for healing. Now that that's not going to happen these people are coming in. I don't know if you happen to see the numbers that, the current barometer of everything I guess is how many people go on Facebook and say I'm going to come and how many people say I'm interested. So we've got three competing demonstrations coming up this Sunday which will all be in view of each other which is a recipe for catastrophe.

JW: What are the three?

TOM HASTINGS: Yeah the three include this Trump Free Speech Tally. And as of yesterday morning 373 people had signed up to attendance 726 said they were interested. The second demonstration is a so-called AntiFa, the people who believe in punching a Nazi. Their slogan is this is: Defend Portland no Nazis on our streets. You have a much smaller number 162 planning to attend, and 562 interested. The third one which is again right across the street. This is like a triangle all in view of each other, and the third one is called Portlands StandsUnited Against Hate. That's much more representative of, I don't know if the mayor will be there it's a Sunday, but it's much more representative of the widespread feelings in town and the general support in our town for Mayor Wheeler's [unintelligeible]. In that one, we've got a thousand people planning to attend and 3300 interested. This is clearly a much more majoritarian viewpoint. All we want is a moment to step back and allow this or allow this to be processed without the incendiary emotions that we see being expressed online right now.

JW: Okay. I hear you saying that three competing demonstrations is an issue of public safety but I want you to listen to this again. Here again is Matt Dos Santos with the Oregon Chapter of the ACLU on the issue of upholding the First Amendment of free speech.

SOUNDCLIP

The First Amendment is not absolute. The freedom of speech is not absolute in the United States either. Generally speaking a person's first amendment rights stop when they incite violence, present an actual an imminent threat or engage in other criminal behavior while speaking. But it has to be shown with concrete evidence and the threat has to be a true threat. That’s why I think we held The Mayor to such a high standard., you know when he made this statement, because not only did he not make any allegation that there was a threat to public safety at first, when he then sort of made us a follow up statement in response to the ACLU statement. He just said something about you know, being concerned about public safety, but because that freedom of speech is so important. You know courts have over and over again said that it has to be more than that. It has to be a very specific concrete evidence of individuals and what acts they are about to take out.

JW: So what's your reaction to that?

TOM HASTINGS: I mean, concrete evidence is clear as a bell. You go on YouTube and with head banging music for there's video alt right you tubers. You can see this guy who they've invited to be their main speaker bashing somebody over the head and then they produce it so that he gets to do it repeatedly and then they say somebody asks him: So how did it feel to break a stick over the head of a human? He said I wouldn't know. I just break it over the head of communists and Antifa people.

JW: Okay.

TOM HASTINGS: So could this be more clear? What does Matt need in terms of evidence of a threat to public safety?

JW: So what will you be watching for on Sunday?

TOM HASTINGS: I'll be there as part of the nonviolent security force serving the largest march or the largest rally, which will be the only one that will be diverse. I think we will have Iranians, we will have Mexicans, will have plenty of Portlanders from all backgrounds. That will be the nonviolent event and that's where I will be standing with my friends as part of the nonviolent security force.

JW: Okay. Well, take care on Sunday.

TOM HASTINGS: Thank you so much.

JW: Thank you very much. Tom Hastings is an assistant professor of conflict resolution at Portland State University. We reached him in Portland Oregon. The rally is scheduled for Sunday in downtown Portland. In the seven days since the deadly attack on the Portland train more than a million dollars has been raised to help the families of the two men who lost their lives, the man who was injured and the two teenage girls who were verbally attacked. Asha Deliverance is the mother of Taliesin Namkai-Meche one of the men who died. Here is a reading voiced by one of our producers of her open letter to President Donald Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

Dear President Trump I'm writing to you today, Memorial Day to share my heart after losing my son. Taliesin died a hero like many other Americans who have died defending freedom. He was just 23, a year out of college with a degree in economics, working he had just bought his first home and was thinking about starting a family. Our family grieves but we are proud that through his selfless action he along with the other two men, has changed the world. When in the face of hate he did not hesitate to act with love. Two precious lives were lost this Memorial Day weekend in Portland and one more nearly so. All three were strangers to each other and to those they were defending. They fearlessly risked their lives for two young women who were threatened by an act of bigotry and terror. These brave men saw the immediate injustice and didn't hesitate to act. They recognize the truth. We are more alike than we are different. To ride the train home without being assaulted because of the color of your skin or your religious beliefs is an inalienable right. You have said that you will be president for all Americans. So I ask you Mr. President to take action at this time. Your words and actions are meaningful here in America and throughout the world. Please encourage all Americans to protect and watch out for one another. Please condemn any acts of violence which result directly from hate speech and hate groups. I am praying you will use your leadership to do so. It would deeply honored Taliesin sacrifice which has been amplified by the millions of voices who have supported our family in response to this tragedy. With peace in my heart. Asha Deliverance.

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ALLISON MASMON: Hello, I'm Alison Maseman, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Howard Goldenthal, Inas Colabreze, John Chipman, Lara O'Brien, Ashley Mak, Shannon Higgins, Sujata Berry, Kristin Nelson, Karin Marley, Liz Hoath, Samira Mohyeddin, Catherine Kalbfleisch, Willow Smith, Eunice Kim and Pacinthe Mattar, filling in as writer. Special thanks to our Network Producers: Anne Penman in Vancouver, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, and Mary Catherine McIntosh in Halifax. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Lisa Ayuso is our web producer and Ruby Buiza [Bw-EE-za] is our interactive producer. Transcriptions by Rasha Shehata. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Josh Bloch. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.

JW: That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. There's only one person in the world who can write a line like this and mean it. Quote senators certainly do a lot less drugs than we did on Saturday Night Live. And that person is Senator Al Franken. He'll talk about his new candid memoir. Tune into the current Monda,y Anna Maria Tremonti will be speaking with Canada's minister of the environment and climate change, Kathryn McKenna. As the U.S. pulls out of the Paris accord there are lots of questions about Canada's role on climate change. I'm Jan Wong Thanks for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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June 2, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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