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The AIH Transcript for July 25, 2017

Hosts: Helen Mann and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

HELEN MANN: Hello I'm Helen Mann.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is as it happens.

JD: Tonight

HM: All gassed up and nowhere to go as Petronas pulls the plug on its multibillion dollar Pacific Northwest natural gas project. We hear from a business owner in the B.C. gas patch who says her community is feeling burned.

JD: Divine Inspiration. A mechanical engineer describes the soft robot his team has developed and his hope that it will be able to save human lives by growing its way through fallen rubble like a plant.

HM: That calls for a cold one. Our story about the discovery of two unopened stubbies in Lake Ontario has listeners popping the tops of some beer fueled narratives of their own.

JD: Eroding memories. An artist in London explains why her statue to commemorate the 100th anniversary of a murderous first world war campaign is sculpted from mud that will gradually wash away in the rain.

HM: Ain't that the pits. Vino Malone loves the food at the Olive Garden so much he started a blog about his dining experiences there. Then he got a cease and desist letter from the chain.

JD: And highways and “bye-bye ways “. Labrador mayor warns that if his province doesn't start fixing up the region's painfully potholed roads his town's going to separate and join Quebec. As It Happens the Tuesday edition. Radio with street appeal.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Part 1: LNG cancelled, mud soldier, "All of Garden" blogger

LNG Cancelled

Guest: Kristi Leer

Jeff Douglas: It was going to be worth more than $11 billion and would have been one of Canada's largest resource development projects. Now the Pacific Northwest liquid natural gas project has been called off. The Indonesian giant Petronas received federal and provincial government approval for the project last September, but now the company says the price of natural gas has been too low for too long. But B.C.’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Michelle Mungall, says Petronas is staying in the province.

SOUNDCLIP

Michelle Mungall: The company was very clear. This was a decision they are making because of the economic challenges in the global energy market place. The Pacific Northwest LNG project as proposed in its current state was uneconomical to move forward. We respect the companies decision and will now move on to support the prospects of British Columbians natural gas sector to create good paying jobs right here in British Columbia.

JD: That was B.C. Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Michelle Mungall speaking earlier today about the cancellation of the Pacific Northwest liquid natural gas project. Kristi Leer was a supporter of that project. Ms. Leer works in the oil and gas sector in northeastern B.C. We reached her in Fort St. John.

HELEN MANN: Ms. Leer what plans had you been making based on the notion that this project would go ahead?

KRISTI LEER: I had plans to work here in Fort St. John, where Fort St. John and Fort Nelson investors like Mullen Oilfield, all the oil field companies, have been working together through the communities. So I came here to keep that bond because not a lot of people can leave and move away from Fort Nelson.

There's lot of people that are starving. There's a bunch of us that are here in Fort St. John trying to hold on to that relationship, so when we do go back with the industry we have somebody that they can contact for workers in the local area. There's a lot of families that are sitting here like me right now I would assume. I don't know what to do now. My plans were to stay here get things rolling stay involved in the industry bring it back home and make the connection so people can work.

Now that that goal is so much farther away, I don't know when we're going to be able to bring it home. We need to we need to wait now till somebody else picks up where Petronas left off, and I don't know how long that's going to take.

HM: Petronas says it made this decision based on market conditions. It points to low prices in both the oil and natural gas industry for the last couple of years. Can you see why they made this decision?

KL: I can see that, I can see that, but I also see patterns in history with the oil and gas, that it drowns, it dies and then it picks back up again. It always has, it's a necessity for our life. I feel like Petronas got scared for other reasons alongside of what they had said.

HM: What do you mean?

KL: I feel like our election that just happened has scared a lot of people into investing in British Columbia. I feel like our new NDP- Green government and our new Prime Minister, or our new Premier sorry. I feel like there's been a little bit of a scare and to feel comfortable in investing in this area due to the history they've had with not supporting the oil and gas sector.

HM: The NDP government said just yesterday that it did back the LNG industry, and of course the Liberals pushed hard for this project. Is there a possibility that the provincial leaders that actually put too much weight, too much hope on a project to create work in the area?

KL: I believe so yes. I believe that relying on our government's support is not the right thing to do and it shows right here right now with no confidence, and I'm not saying I know Petronas had something to do with their decision and the new government rule did have a play. I feel that as a person that lives here and sits here it's been great for years and the push has come to a halt. I don't see one article, one thing going towards anything for the industries in northern British Columbia.I see a lot of changes being made and some people being put in some positions that a lot of people are scared of.

HM: The Greens, who as you mentioned are our partner basically with the NDP government, said today that they feel that the province has lost a lot of time in pursuing opportunities in developing green energy projects that could produce jobs. Do they have a point?

KL: When you live somewhere like in Fort Nelson our area can't survive on that kind of technology. Our surroundings don't allow it. We don't have enough daylight. We don't have enough wind, it's not possible. Believe me if it was possible I'm sure everybody wants a greener tomorrow, and that's where these elections, and these problems you know British Columbia as a whole.

But there's so many different parts and ways of living in each sector that need to be addressed, and they don't, they don't get addressed. When we have an election like what we had, when a majority of people vote for a certain party it shouldn't matter how many seats they got all over the province. Whenever I've seen a vote if you've got the more votes you won, and I just think that that needs to be addressed. And it's sad it does go back to our government system and it plays on our lives and it has me sitting here right now wondering where I'm going to go. Should I go back home, or should I stay here and wait? I don't know how long or what to do.

HM: It sounds like you are questioning that the company is doing this purely for business reasons?

KL: Petronas business, yeah I don't blame them. Business to business owners, if you don't feel comfortable and the market's not there I understand it, I do. And hopefully there's a bunch of others waiting. I know there are about 20, from what I understand, that could potentially pick up where Petronas left off. But now we've got to start all over again. So my question is yeah what's our government going to do to help make this a welcoming place, and will they recognize the fact that it had a little bit to do with what their decision was. Because in business those are two things you look at. Is it a safe investment, and does it have a future?

HM: When you look more short term what are your plans? What are you going to do next?

KL: I'm going to stay here this winter and see how things go. I know these projects here are shutting down, this decision doesn't seem to be phasing some of the big players in the oil and gas in Fort St. John is where I am right now. I'm going to stay here and I don't have anything else to do. If I don't, I don't even know what else I would do if I didn't have these jobs here right now and I'm just going to hope they stay and they hang on and they continue with their completions that they're shooting for and just wait day by day.

HM: All right Ms. Leer, thank you for taking time to talk to us.

KL: Oh for sure. Thank you for contacting me.

HM: All right. Take care. Bye bye.

KL: Have a good day.

JD: Kristi Leer is a business owner and she works in the oil and gas industry. We reached her in Fort St. John, British Columbia.

[Music]

John McCain healthcare

JEFF DOUGLAS: The U.S. Senate voted to begin debate on repealing Obamacare. Today Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act have struggled so far. And today's vote was a very close one, 50 to 51. Vice President Mike Pence cast the tiebreaker, but it was Republican Senator John McCain's vote that drew the most attention.

Less than a week ago of course Senator McCain revealed he has brain cancer. Still he did make it to Washington and he voted with his party to proceed with the debate to repeal. He was greeted on the Senate floor with a standing ovation, but not everyone was so impressed. Outside the Senate chambers protesters could be heard chanting “shame,” and MSNBC commentator Joy Reid tweeted quote, “So it happened. McCain returned to the Senate to a standing ovation and promptly voted to take away millions of people's health care.

As a member of the U.S. Senate, incidentally, John McCain has health insurance. Here's part of what Senator McCain had to say in the Senate today.

SOUNDCLIP

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: For the record let's trust each other. Let's return to regular order. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.

That's an approach that's been employed by both sides mandating legislation from the top down without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires. We're getting nothing done my friends, we're getting nothing done. And all we've really done this year is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Our health care insurance system is a mess. We all know it, those who support Obamacare and those who oppose it, something has to be done. We Republicans have looked for a way to end it and replace it with something else without paying a terrible political price. We haven't found it yet, and I'm not sure we will.

All we've managed to do is make more popular a policy that wasn't very popular when we started trying to get rid of it. I voted for the motion to proceed to allow debate to continue and amendments be offered. I will not vote for this bill as it is today.

JD: Republican Senator John McCain speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate today. That was for the record. The senator was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. Today he voted to begin debate on repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.

[Music]

Mud soldier

Guest: Damian van der Velden

JEFF DOUGLAS: We are approaching the 100 anniversary of the beginning of the battle of Passchendaele. A three-and-a-half month fight it, was among the most deadly of the First World War. It cost hundreds of thousands of soldiers their lives, and bombs and bullets were not the only killers. There was also the mud. Endless rain turned the battlefield into a sea of mud that would drown soldiers and then swallow them up. Well now the city of London is remembering Passchendaele with a sculpture made of mud. The mud soldier went on display today at London's Trafalgar Square. In the coming days it will slowly dissolve from the rain. Damian van der Velden is one of the artists behind the mud soldier. We reached her in London.

HELEN MANN: Ms. van der Vel den describe what a mud soldier looks like.

DAMINA VAN DER VELDEN: This soldier was made from sand and mud from the battlefield of Passchendaele. We created a soldier that is really exhausted, putting his life to the limits and expressing sadness and hurtfulness to. It’s leaning back, all his energy is gone. That’s basically what it looks like when you see it for the first time.

HM: How large is it?

DVDV: It’s around two metres; the whole sculpture.

HM: And It’s place in a very prominent place.

DVDV: Yeah middle of London is next to the natural gallery.

HM: So how long do you think the sculpture will hold up if it is supposed to dissolve over time with the weather?

DVDV: We put it actually in a conceptual way and then installation. We push a little bit the limits with bringing also water on it by raining on it. The soldier’s there in that fight were exhausted also by the amount of nonstop rains that they have to observe. So we want to do that in this area as well, so we put a sort of hose system above it. At the same time, of course you have like rains, it is open air. But we are not so scared with extra rain on top of it.

HM: You have a shower head you can press and see it dissolve as well as counting on the natural elements.

DVDV: When the sun shining We put extra water ourselves.

HM: Have you put water on it already?

DVDV: Yes. Yes. Every day it's this morning [untelligible] and from there we started with a timer to put quite a lot of water on it. I think we’ve overdone it now with now with an amount of let’s say two hundred litres or something.

HM: So what is it like for you to watch the sculpture disappear?

DVDV: Yeah. This is actually amazing. At the same time, of course, this is sort of sad because you put so much hard work in it and make it so fine and clear and all these details are slowly disappearing. At the same time this was already in the concept itself, so as an artist you know already that you will make something that will disappear. It has to be sort of painful to watch.

HM: Now you mentioned it's made with mud and sand, and it's from the material from Passchendaele, Flanders Fields Belgium. What was it like for you gathering that material as you were researching and planning the project?

DVDV: Yeah. We visited of course the founding of parts of the field to collect a bit, because we were not allowed to bring the whole amount of what we needed but bringing part of it in the sculpture that makes something, I don't know, this is the heart or the soul of it.

HM: The soldiers and the horses many of them you know mired in mud some drowning in that mud.

DVDV: Yeah, exactly. You know that, now you cannot really see anything else anymore, but if you walk on it you know that you're walking on the death field. That's strange.

HM: How much was that on your mind as you were sculpting the piece?

DVDV: Actually I was trying more to get that emotional and exhausting feeling that the soldier has to have in that moment. And you bring that up to deeply connect with other souls in that.

HM: How have people in London been responding to your artwork today.

DVDV: There are lots of different directions but the most beautiful reactions, they were very touched. There were a lot of stories told by grandfathers or at least the families that know the stories from the battlefield and they wanted to share it with us. But most of the time they were very thankful and touched me like you were amazed that you did this. And especially for us they were very touched.

HM: Well Ms. Van der Velden and thank you very much for talking with us about the work today. All the best. Congratulations on it.

DVDV: Thank you very much.

HM: Bye Bye.

DVDV: Bye Bye.

JD: That was Damian van der Velden and she is the artist behind the mud soldier sculpture that now sits in Trafalgar Square in London, and we reached her in London. If you'd like to see some photographs of the mud soldier go on over to our website www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music]

“All of Garden” blogger

Guest: Vino Malone

[Music]

JEFF DOUGLAS: On his blog’s ‘about me’ page Vino Malone alone makes his objectives plainer than a bland Alfredo sauce. My name is Vino and I'm going to eat all the pasta. He goes on to say quote, “No man's hand will stay my fork. No woman's love will sway my heart. No doctor’s order will restore my cholesterol.” But there is one stumbling block that Mr. Malone, the creator of a blog reviewing pasta dishes from. Olive Garden did not anticipate. He did not anticipate that the restaurant he loved with all his taste buds would send him a cease and desist letter. We reached Vino Malone in Los Angeles.

HELEN MANN: Mr. Malone, is there anything on the Olive Garden menu that you haven't tried?

Vino Malone: So every year they come out with new combinations and new pastas and new sauces so there's always something new every year it's different.

HM: Does anything ever surprise you on the menu?

VM: I'm surprised that they're keeping some of their more unattractive options, particularly the Italian sausage. It's just a really un-photogenic topping. It’s just this big uncut sausage that just sits on top of your food. It’s very unappetizing.

HM: Somebody must like it.

VM: Someone other than me I guess, but they really should care mostly about me I would think.

HM: What is it that keeps you coming back for more?

VM: There's a feeling about Olive Garden that's not really captured in any other restaurant. It's this kind of, there's like this American spirit to it. No matter what you're ordering, no matter what kind of person you are, you can always get way more food than you need. To me that's like what makes American restaurants so great.

HM: Given your love of Olive Garden you must have been pretty surprised to get this cease and desist letter a few days back?

VM: I was really shocked because I've actually been in contact with Olive Garden before this happened. They follow me on Twitter, sometimes they like my posts. So for me to wake up one day and get a cease and desist from their legal department was really shocking.

HM: What did it accuse you of doing?

VM: They said that I violated their trademark and used it without express written permission.

HM: What did you make of that?

VM: I was pretty shocked because I felt that it was very fair use of their trademark. I mean, I described the food as being from Olive Garden, but I don't say that I'm an Olive Garden website. I don't use any sort of search engine optimization tricks to make people think that my site is the Olive Garden’s website or anything like that. And I have a kind of a unique style that wouldn't really fit in with very many corporate websites.

HM: It's also the matter of spelling right?

VM: Yeah. So it's so ‘All of Garden’ that's A-L-L , space, O-F, Garden, rather than Olive Garden.

HM: And why did you choose that spelling?

VM: Because back in 2014 when I first started the blog, my initial goal was to eat every possible combination of the never ending pasta bowl. And so I want to eat all the pasta, ‘All of Garden.’

HM: Given how much you promote the place, you obviously like it just keep going back. What do you think motivated them to go after you in this way?

VM: Well that's what I was wondering too. When they got back to me they said that it actually wasn't sent out by one of their lawyers at all. It was actually sent out by an automated system. I guess they have some sort of automated system that's internal that doesn't actually have a human review of the emails it sends out, it just automatically sends out any cease and desist letter to any Olive Garden related websites it finds.

HM: It sounds like you know you see this place as a cozy comfortable place to go-- a happy place. And yet they kind of strong armed you in this kind of corporate fashion. What do you make of that?

VM: That really bothers me, especially since even though this turned out OK for me, I feel like they could easily strong arm many people into just rolling over and doing as they're told regarding their trademark. It makes me wonder if we should maybe look at trademark law and the influence larger companies can have, because they can just send out these threats to people and I feel like 90 percent of time people are just going to comply rather than risk a lawsuit or the, you know, just the trouble and strife and money.

HM: So you mentioned 49 days of eating Olive Garden. How does that work?

VM: So if you're familiar with the Olive Garden they have a promotion called the never ending pasta bowl, which is you can go in there and you pay that $10 or what have you, and you can get as much pasta as you, and you get it refilled and it's free. But that promotionally last seven weeks, so that's forty nine days of pasta. So this is strictly a seasonal blog. I only do it for the 49 days of the never ending possible promotion. And then I take a break for a year and then the next year I come back and do it again.

HM: Right. And one of those things is that you sometimes produce reviews in rhyme right?

VM: Sure yeah, I’ll do like poems or like kind of parodies of famous poems.

HM: Can you share one with us?

VM: Sure. So I've got one that I did for a combination of angel hair pasta with marinara sauce and shrimp fritta on top and I entitled it, with apologies to Samuel Coleridge, Rhyme of the Ancient Marinara, and it goes as such. it is an ancient marinara and shrimp tapas two or three. By thy thin strands and flakes of basil, now wherefore eaten thou by thee? That’s it. So it's content of that nature, sometimes it's reviews of the food itself sometimes it's little cutesy things like that, sometimes it's little bit weirder. And so there's all sorts of different stuff on there.

HM: Now you wrote a conclusion blog post where you explain how things at Olive Garden did get resolved. Can you read us a little bit of what you wrote?

VM: Sure. So in my initial response to them I request that they, I responded to their legal threat with a demand that they respond to me in kind. But in limerick form and they didn't do that. So I felt a little a little slighted, so I did write my final resolution in limerick form to kind of make up for it. And it goes thusly. As of 6:35 in the p.m. I wrapped up my talk with the Chieftains. They were misconstrued. I'm not getting sued and I needn't write out any TMs. Yes an official who represents Garden has granted me a total pardon. We reached resolution, I received absolution for daring to print Olive Garden.

HM: Excellent.

VM: Thank you.

HM: I think they owe you a limerick.

VM: I think so too, but so far I've gotten nothing but we'll see.

HM: I know you don't like the dish with the big sausage on top. What's the best thing to eat at Olive Garden?

VM: I like anything that has the plain marinara sauce I feel like it's the least overly heavy, and complex, and salty sauce that they have, and I really like their grilled chicken. I guess those are just the two lightest options you can get because a lot of their food is really, heavy it's really salty, and that's what I feel like a lot of people say that I don't like good food it's just too much. I feel like if they try something a little lighter they might like that.

HM: Thank you. Thank you very much for telling us about the whole experience.

VM: Thanks for having me.

HM: OK bye.

VM: Bye.

JD: Vino Malone is the creator of ‘All of Garden,’ a blog that reviews pasta dishes from the Olive Garden restaurant chain. We reached Mr. Malone in Los Angeles, and for more on this story as always go to our website www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Stubbies

JEFF DOUGLAS: 1983. Helen's hair was huge, so were her shoulder pads, and Michael Jackson was number one on the charts. It was also the last year Canadians got to drink out of the original brown stubby beer bottle. And that is when production stopped, replaced with the long neck bottles that we are cracking open still today. Yes there have been remakes in the years that followed but there's nothing quite like that classic Canadian stubby. And last night we told you about a beachcomber who found two, unopened, original Stubby's submerged in the water of Toronto's Cherry beach. Cameron Thompson told us that he thinks the bottles could be more than three decades old, and he says he's got plans to try one, soon, with friends.

And after that interview we heard from you. Al Woodward wrote to say that he has a two-four of his dad's empty stubbies upstairs in the family's cottage garage. Doug and Gail Scorgie told us that they also found a waterlogged study, but this one was cooling off and Banff’s Lake Louise.

HELEN MANN: On our website Luke Thomas commented, “I'm glad to see they finally found the two-four we buried in the dunes after an unsanctioned party at the Sandbanks Provincial Park. That was after we graduated high school one warm June evening in ‘78.” Thanks for that Luke. Rick March had this to say, “if anyone finds a silver 10 carat gold ring inscribed with quote thirteen years plus at Lake cottaging in Ontario it is my wedding ring and I would like it back.” Thanks Rick. We'll keep an eye out.

JD: And finally we received this email from Nick Neirotti. “My first beer was a stubby borrowed from my father in my younger days in Kenora Ontario. Your interviewee said Stubby's were available in Australia, but one country that has remained true to the cause is Jamaica with Red Stripe. I've traveled a lot and whenever I go into a reggae bar there is always a symbol of my past and the good times. May I suggest some music for your show Admiral Bailey and Chaka Demus’ version of ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”

[Music: Admiral Bailey and Chaka Demus – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer]

JD: Admiral Bailey and Chaka Demus with their version of ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.’ Sounds like lunch here at As It Happens. In case you missed last night's interview and you'd like to see some pictures of how those old stubbies have held up check out our website www.cbc.ca/aih. That is it for part one of this program, but we will be right back with more coming up.

HM: Time to hit the road. A Newfoundland and Labrador mayor says that if the province doesn't start patching the holes that are destroying cars in his communities highways he is going to call for a vote to separate and join Quebec. I’m Helen Mann with my no longer big, permed head.

JD: But you've got the bourbon. I’m Jeff Douglas.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Vine robot, Labrador roads

HELEN MANN: Welcome Back Hello again and welcome back I’m Helen Mann.

JEFF DOUGLAS: And I’m Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens, the Tuesday edition part two.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Coming up.

HM: Rise of the Grow-bots. A mechanical engineer says his invention definitely isn't a traditional robot but he hopes a soft little automaton will be able to save lives by reaching its way through tiny little cracks like a fine.

JD: And please reach out to our own machines. You can share your thoughts about anything you hear on this program through the Twitter or the Facebook CBC As It Happens, both those accounts as it happens both those accounts. We do have a Web site as well, believe it or not. How “1998”of us. www.cbc.ca/aih Our Talkback machine is 416 205 5687. Stay tuned.

[Music: Theme]

Vine robot

Guest: Elliot Hawkes

Jeff Douglas: It's a vine. It's a balloon. It's a robot. Mechanical engineers have created a new device that creeps along the ground like a growing plant. As it extends it creates a tube that could be used to lift heavy objects or deliver life-saving water or oxygen. Professor Elliot Hawkes was part of the team that developed this robot. We reached him in Stanford California.

HELEN MANN: Elliot Hawkes we all have ideas I think about what robots look like. Describe yours for us?

PROFESSOR ELLIOT HAWKES: Over the course of a few months, it slowly grew around the corner of the bookcase to try to get to the light in the window. And it was this interesting case where you know I think often you'll see a plant kind of grow, maybe a tomato plant or something, and yeah grows up. But this was an interesting case where it was going around an obstacle in getting to somewhere that it wanted to go. And I had this kind of realization that well, gosh, even though the thing didn’t really move, I mean the pot didn't move the base didn’t move, it was it was navigating its environment. It had gotten around an obstacle. And I think that was kind of this was moment like well gosh, ‘this is a different way to move around your environment than we've been thinking about a lot in robotics. These roots that it’s modeled after, or the cells that it’s modeled after, they start as these small circular cells and elongate at one side turns into a very long tube. And so that's basically what our robot looks like. It looks like an inflated plastic tube. What's interesting is all the controls in the pump, in the computer, at the power, all that is situated in a base which remains static and then the part that's moving through the environment is very simple. We have just a long plastic tube. At the tip of it is mounted a camera, and so that is what allows us to see the environment and make choices about which direction to go.

HM: I've seen it described as if you have a sock that's turned inside out and basically you're pushing it back into the proper position. So the inside is coming out.

EH: Yeah and that's how the mechanism works. We're using this unfurling exactly like a sock being turned back inside out. And so basically you can imagine that tube is inverted inside itself. And then as this air pressure, so we pump air into the base, pressurizes the body and then the material is everted, we call it so it’s basically unfurling from the tip like this sock turning back inside out.

HM: So how do you envision it being used?

EH: You know so there's a few applications we've thought of so far. So search-and-rescue is one that we're very interested in. It's very robust at moving through cluttered and constrained environments. It always seems to find a path. It runs into something and it'll bend and make its way around. So this can be really helpful for moving through rubble, or collapsed buildings or something like this. And in contrast to a lot of previous search-and-rescue robots that are maybe larger and individually, you know they'll be a single robot that they're trying to get to a location, we imagine you can maybe make a hundred of these and send them all in and maybe only one of them finds something useful, but because the robots are so cheap we're able to say well the rest could just be thrown out basically.

HM: Would they survive going through areas where there might be sharp surfaces though because they're just plastic right, inflated plastic?

EH: It's a very good question. So in one of our videos we grow it through a forest of nails to show how it can handle this. What's interesting is even when it gets punctured it doesn't really lose much pressure because the body isn't sliding over the environment. And so when it gets punctured the nail doesn't make a gash in the body instead it just pokes it in and then remains in that hole. And so it's kind of this weird self-sealing behavior and we're able to grow, and you can see in the video. I don't know maybe it gets punctured 10 times and continues to keep growing.

HM: What is the advantage of the fact that it's hollow.

EH: Yeah, the two properties that make it good for search and rescue first is that it can make it through these tough environments, but second that as it's growing and going places it’s actually building a conduit or a tube with its motion. And so once it gets to a survivor, now you basically have a connection between the outside world and the survivor. You could imagine passing oxygen or maybe even food and water while rescue teams try to dig the person out.

HM: Are there other applications?

EH: You know, so other things we're looking at on a much smaller scale, is surgery. So we're working with a neurosurgeon at Stanford who does the endovascular surgery, basically pushing putting catheters through vessels to do surgeries. Often they'll start in the leg, put a catheter all the way through the abdomen, past the heart through, the neck and all the way into the brain. So he's looking at removing clots to help in the early stages of a stroke and also working on aneurisms. And this is actually a really challenging surgery. You can imagine putting these catheters through this very complicated twisty vasculature, and so we're very excited to try this technology in that application as well.

HM: One of the things that caught me by surprise watching the video is this looks basically like, you know an inflated lunch bag, and yet as it’s being inflated it is lifting very heavy objects. How is that?

EH: Yeah that’s a really interesting thing that we kind of discovered on accident after making this, is that you can apply huge forces in the environment. Again another nice thing is that the search and rescue application you could potentially even lift rubble. So we have a demo of lifting a crate. We coil the robot under inhabit a fairly substantial area. You multiply that area times a fairly low pressure and you can get enormous forces.

HM: So given how simple it is, is it likely to be cost effective to produce these?

EH: Yeah absolutely. We get the rolls of the plastic we buy, I think it's something like a thousand metres for $20 or something like this.

HM: Wow

EH: they're not expensive. You know the parts are very, very cheap, but we're building it all by hand. And so that's definitely the next step, is looking into automating the fabrication.

HM: It's a fabulous idea and it's very cool to watch it on video as well.

EH: Thank you.

HM: Thank you for telling us about it.

EH: All right thanks so much.

HM: Bye Bye.

JD: Elliot Hawkes is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. We reached him in Stanford California. And if you would like to see the vine robot in action go to our Web site www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music]

Margaret Bergmann Lambert obit

Guest: Margaret Bergmann Lambert

JEFF DOUGLAS: Margaret Bergmann Lambert could jump higher than her country's best. The high jumper jumped five feet three inches at a meet in June of 1936. That was high enough to win a gold medal but she was not welcome on the German high jump team for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin because Margaret Bergmann Lambert was Jewish. Ms. Lambert died today at her home in Queens. She was one-hundred -three years old. As It Happens spoke to Ms. Lambert back when she was invited to be Germany's special guest at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. She had rejected a previous invitation to attend festivities in Germany, as she had taken a vow after the war to never return to that country. Here is Ms. Lambert in conversation with former As It Happens host Michael Enright. This is from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: You were in the 30s you were probably the best the best high jumper anywhere.

MARGARET BERGMANN LAMBERT: Well, I was among the best. I think about the fourth best.

ME: You were pretty good.

MBL: Yeah.

ME: And it would have been utterly natural to have you go to the Olympics.

MBL: Yes. Had I not been Jewish.

ME: Had you not been Jewish. There were of course no Jews competing for Germany in those Olympics.

MBL: There were two half-Jews competing. My joke of the week is, “saying well there were only half as offensive as I was being a whole Jew,” you know. But they did. They did have a fencer up by the name of Helene Mayer, who was a very tall, very blonde ,very blue-eyed half-Jewish lady and nobody would have known whether she was Jewish or not. And then there was one playing for Germany on the ice hockey team, and he was you know as being a member of the team he would not have been quite so offensive as I would have been.

ME: You got out of Germany before the war did you?

MBL: Yes. I left in 1937. The day I left Germany I said I will never set foot on German soil again.

ME: Really?

MBL: Yes. Because I still remember being at the railroad station on the way to Hamburg. I still see my family standing there. I see my younger brother, who was 12 years younger than I, crying his eyes out. Why do I have to say goodbye to all the people that I love so much? And it tore my heart apart. And I said I will never set foot on German soil again.

ME: Do you think this puts a kind of cap to it all you think that that's behind you now finally?

MBL: Well it will never be completely behind me. I will never get over the hardship I've been through. I mean this is not only my own, but it's a steady reminder of what happened to the Jewish people in Europe. And you can never erase that from your memory no matter what.

JD: From our archives that was former high-jumper Margaret Bergman Lambert. She spoke to as it happens in 1996, after being invited to be the special guest of the German contingent at that summer's Olympics in Atlanta. As a Jewish woman, Ms. Lambert had been barred from participating in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Ms. Lambert died today she was 103 years old. To hear more of that 1996 conversation with Margaret Bergman Lambert go to our website www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music]

Labrador Roads

Guest: Mayor Hedley Ryland

JEFF DOUGLAS: For many towns in Labrador Highway 510 is the only way in and out. If you want to drive the 510 it is, but it is a very rough drive and residents have been lobbying the Newfoundland and Labrador government to fix it. And they say that their concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Even as traffic from the Muskrat Falls hydro-electric projects it makes the road worse. Well now one Labrador Mayor is making a radical proposal. He wants his town to leave the province and join Quebec. We reached Mayor Hedley Ryland in L'Anse-au-loop Newfoundland and Labrador.

HELEN MANN: Mayor Ryland describe for us what it's like to drive on Highway 5 10 right now?

MAYOR HEDLEY RYLAND: Probably if I was to say that this road is in a deplorable state right now would be understatement. We’re to the point right now where we only drive that road on an emergency basis and we out at night-driving if there’s any fog lying around at all, we will not venture on that road and not at dark hours.

HM: So when you talk potholes, how big are we talking about?

HR: We've had potholes like six feet in length and three feet and width.

HM: That's pretty big.

HR: And that is pretty big. I can assure you.

HM: So how far do you have to drive before you hit one of these potholes?

HR: You don't. You don't have to drive at all [unintelligible] on your way to five.

HM: Five really? Five they’re just jammed up?

HR: Absolutely. There is a steady line of potholes. Actually I drove the road yesterday morning, and there’s a section on that road where I had to pull off on the shoulder the road and drive it.

HM: How is this affecting local businesses and people in your community?

HR: Well, businesses are starting to start to feel it right now. Because this is a stretch of road, you know, you travel from one community to another, and one community probably had a business that the other communities don't have and vice versa. And in all we do the traveling for the business, and now the people won’t travel because of the deplorable state of this high road.

HM: Are auto repair business is doing particularly well?

HR: That is the biggest business right now. I talked with one garage owner there and he told me his business is fabulous with undercarriages, bended drums blowout tires, there’s no end to them.

HM: So someone doesn't want the road repaired?

HR: Well, he gotta drive that road too he said. Even though his business is good, but he said you know he certainly commends us for what we're doing.

HM: Is it really bad enough though to make it worth leaving Newfoundland and Labrador?

HR: It is. It is. We have an option. We have an option. We have been, just let me tell you there's nobody listening to us, OK. The government of today is not listening to us. We have an option, either to slap it all down and join into Quebec . When I say join into Quebec just let me tell you, today if I wanted to travel to Newfoundland on Island of Newfoundland, where do I go? I go to Quebec. If I want to fly out today where do I go? I go to the airport in Quebec. If I want some cheap groceries today here on the coast of Labrador where do I go? I go to Quebec. If I want a cheap beer today, where do I go? I go to Quebec. So we're already, enjoying the benefits of Quebec Lower North Shore.

HM: This isn’t just about potholes then is it?

HR: Listen, this is a situation that where the pot is boiling crazy and are starting to boil over.

HM: So do you really think that people in your community would be open to joining Quebec?

HR: Anything to the make living worthwhile.

HM: Yeah, you're not just doing this to get the attention of the government in St. John's?

HR: Well, if it works why not.

HM: Do you think Quebec would take you?

HR: I'm sure they would they would with our resources. And I’m even wondering why the border’s there anyway, because I'd love to be able to take the map right now, and just take it and white that border out.

HM: Does the border really matter all that much? Is the road that much better on the Quebec side?

HR: Once we cross the border in Quebec we're on new pavement.

HM: Can you use that to shame the Newfoundland government?

HR: We've done everything in a book. I am totally, totally ashamed of them already. We’ve done everything in the book. We've done everything, we can’t do no more. Nobody listened. There’s nobody listening to us. Absolutely nobody is listening to us. We tried everything, everything that we can think of, and there’s nobody listening to us. All we're asking for right now is nine kilometres of extra levelling. Skimming of pavement to cover over the potholes headed to the 11 kilometres that they promised us. That was caused by a $14 million, $14 billion project right now in Muskrat Falls $14 billion project right now, that's costing the Newfoundland government and it has caused our road to be in a deplorable state like it is. We're asking for nine kilometres which is in the vicinity of $1 million, and we can't get that from the government? There's something wrong with this picture.

HM: Now you say a lot of work is going on around you but the government says Route 5 10 will be fixed. The problem is really that there's a delay in opening an asphalt plant, and that those issues with the contractor, otherwise it'll get done.

HR: Absolutely. Listen they've been telling us that two years ago, and we sat back, we sat back and we said, “OK what's going to happen this year?” It never happened last year. We're sitting back again. The construction season happened, it was here and gone past. Here is it now, soon to be August month, and nothing. No signs of anything happening. And I know that separation isn't going to happen overnight, absolutely not. I'm 60 years old, but I want to tell you something, that once that day comes I'll die a happy man knowing that I did this for the youth of today, and a youth of tomorrow.

HM: I have to ask though, where is your Newfoundland and Labrador pride?

HR: I want to take the name out of it. I'm a Labradorean. I'm absolutely a proud Labradorean, and I’ll die a proud Labradorean. But at the same time the way we’re being treated by the Newfoundland government, is being treated as second-class citizens. We are sick and tired. They are taking our resources from us and not giving anything back. Nothing.

HM: All right. Bonne chance.

HR: And thank you.

HM: Okay bye bye.

HR: Bye bye.

JD: Hedley Ryland is the mayor of L’Anse-au-Loupe Newfoundland and Labrador, for now.

[Music]

New Brunswick mystery box

Guest: James Rogers

JEFF DOUGLAS: It is a mystery that is 55 years old. In 1962 David McPherson was walking in the woods west of Monckton when he came upon this big old box attached to a parasite, a parachute rather. He got some buddies to help him haul him out to help him haul it out of the woods. And they tried to figure out what it was. They didn't have any luck. And within days the army came and took it away. David and his buddies have wondered ever since. James Rogers was one of those friends who helped Dave McPherson drag that box out of the woods in ‘62. He told the story to CBC New Brunswick.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES ROGERS: I thought it might be a small aircraft that had crashed, but there was no sign of any aircraft parts or anything around. Then he came across this antenna. So he decided the best thing to do would be contact the RCMP. They didn't seem to be too interested in it. So he proceeded to build a road so he could get it out. It was quite a bulky piece of equipment and it looked like it probably had cameras or something as sort of a dark lens on the two front sides of it. So we didn't want to open it. It had snaps on the boat midway. So we thought if there's film in there we don't want to destroy that. So we brought it out intact. And when he got it out to his house Sunday morning the newspaper came out, and of course the RCMP came out then, and on Monday the military arrived on the scene. It disappeared after that and nobody really found out anything about it. The military said well, ‘it was a weather balloon and that was all was.’ But there was no balloon or no indication of how it got there, nobody really knows, but that would be very good to have an answer.

JD: That was James Rogers speaking with CBC reporter Shane Fowler. Now if you think you might be able to help solve this 55 year old mystery go to CBC and Brunswick's website where there are photographs of it, taken just before the army took it away. Feel free to send in your theories.

[Music]

Premier Horgan glass drop

Jeff Douglas: Canadian politics isn't well known for its physical comedy, but John Horgan is just hitting the national stage. The brand new B.C. Premier made his debut in Ottawa today. He had serious issues to raise with the prime minister. Take the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion Mr. Trudeau's government says the project should be all systems go. Not Premier Horgan. Both his NDP and the Greens that they rely on for power, say that the risk of spills is simply too great. They have promised to use every legal mechanism at their disposal to block the proposal. So, what happened when the issue came up at the two Leaders’ press conference this morning? Well the first thing you’ve got to know is that Premier Horgan had a glass of water by his hand. The second is that he was standing on a hard tile floor. So, if Mr. Horgan were to accidentally bump that glass you can imagine the sound that might make, but actually know what you don't have to imagine. You can just listen. We're going to begin with a question from Sean McCarthy from the Globe and Mail.

SOUNDCLIP

SEAN MCCARTHY: Premier last week Kinder Morgan said that.

[Sound: glass falling to floor]

PREMIER JOHN HORGAN: whoops.

[Sound: laughter]

JH: Didn’t know that was there. Spills can happen anywhere.

PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We’ll get people to clean that up right away

JH: There’s a federal response for that.

JD: So that was Prime Minister Trudeau. Before that you heard Premier John Horgan responding to a question about the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. We are at the end as it happens for this Tuesday July 25th.

HM: Coming up next on CBC Radio One it’s Sleepover with host Sook-Yin Lee.

JD: As It Happens will be back again tomorrow. I’m Jeff Douglas.

HM: I’m Helen Mann. Goodnight.

[Music]

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July 25, 2017 episode transcript

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