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The AIH Transcript for May 23, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

CO: Burned out. With the forest fire spreading in northern Manitoba, one small fly-in community is struggling to get its residents out quickly. Our guest says the military and the province should have heeded their warnings sooner.

JD: Weak about the knees. The NFL announces its new policies on national anthem protests. But already players are saying they're a collection of half measures that don't measure up.

CO: Saving faces while you're shopping at Amazon. The ACLU says Amazon is shopping its facial recognition software to police. Our guest wants it to stop.

JD: He did not go gentile into that good night. From Goodbye, Columbus to Nemesis, the late Philip Roth's frequently brilliant, sometimes controversial books challenge to the orthodoxies of American literature.

CO: Relying on his customers’ gull-ability. Shrieking gluttonous birds are creating problems at a restaurant in Perth, Australia. So the owner is arming diners with water guns and issuing a squirt on sight order.

JD: And…Revenge is tweets. A federal judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional for U.S. president Donald Trump to block people on Twitter. Our guest is not holding her breath waiting to be unblocked. As It Happens: The Wednesday Edition. Radio that is sure the Oval Office is echoing with curses — but that's just blocker room talk.

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Part 1: Manitoba Fire Evacuation, Trump Twitter Ruling, Philip Roth Obit

Manitoba Fire Evacuation

Guest: Chief Raymond Keeper

JD: In east-central Manitoba an out of control forest fire is now nearly twice the size of the City of Winnipeg. And while crews continue to fight the blaze, it has been a huge challenge getting residents evacuated. That's been the story today in Little Grand Rapids, a fly-in First Nation 250 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg near the Ontario border. Evacuations have been slow because planes cannot land in the heavy smoke. And that left 800 residents no other options but to sit tight and to wait for help. Earlier today evacuations did resume and the Canadian Armed Forces have been called in to help. But it still leaves Little Grand Rapids chief Raymond Keeper uneasy. We reached him earlier today in Winnipeg.

CO: Chief Keeper, what have these last 24 hours been like for you seeing this fire rage so closely to Little Grand Rapids First Nation?

CHIEF RAYMOND KEEPER: Well, it's close enough to burn a few houses down already and a lot of my people are still stuck there. The only thing I wish is for all of them to get out of there.

CO: Why are so many of you people still stuck there? What happened?

RK: Because of the planes, they can only carry so many passengers they can't fit six hundred people on one airplane.

CO: Is there no other way out?

RK: No.

CO: When did you realize that this was turning serious, at what point?

RK: Well, we talked to the resources on Monday and they told us they had it under control.

CO: Sorry, who is they?

RK: Manitoba Natural Resources. When I phoned the nursing station they said there was no immediate danger. I called them back three times. I said I believe that people are in danger because of the fire being so close. And they said there we have the fire under control.

CO: And did they have the fire under control?

RK: Obviously not. I’ve seen fires before, I used white fire when I was young and I know that when the fire is out of control I know what it looks like.

CO: You were also concerned that the wind was shifting. Can you tell us about your concerns about the wind?

RK: When I first heard which way the wind was blowing I said well if it ever shifts we are in trouble, I said. And sure enough that's what happened. I have lived in Little Grand Rapids for 62 years. I know how the weather, how it acts.

CO: And you know that that wind could shift and take over your community?

RK: At anytime. Yes.

CO: I know you haven't been there. But can you — what are they telling you about the situation? Describe where people are and how they're dealing with this.

RK: Well, the ones that are left to be evacuated are all holding up but the schools where they were they have sprinkler systems going from the water pumps all night and all day today they’ve been spraying the school and the ground around it.

CO: What are people telling you? Because we're hearing stories from residents — one was describing taking a boat across to the airport where the planes were supposed to be there, the fire getting closer having to go back to the nation and people carrying their babies, people who are ill trying to get them out.

RK: Well, I know that the priority is to make sure the children go first. So far from what I'm hearing that's what's been happening.

CO: But at the same time this is all that smoke. So how are planes taking off and landing at this point?

RK: Well, it’s settled down for a while and that smoke, once that the wind dies down a little bit and the smoke settles a little bit and then they were able to see. To this moment I'm hearing they’re still getting planes in and there's three Chinooks that are going to be coming in their immediately. They’ll each carry 32 people.

CO: But that's still a lot of people, 600 people to get out on those carriers.

RK: If we count those three, 32-passenger Chinooks, our calculation is just slightly over 500. But then there's small planes and so they are constantly taking out nine passengers at a time. They're slowly moving out as we speak.

CO: Chief Keeper, what's your worst fear right now?

RK: Well, my worst fear is not being able to get everybody out of there. I was hoping they’d get everybody out of there today. I don't want to see another person get stuck there one more night. That is my worst fear.

CO: And I know you see you're saying you're in Winnipeg, so far from home, you were there for meetings when the fire became what it is. How difficult is this for you to be so far from people?

RK: I'm very, very stressed out. I want to be there with my people. I’d be the last one to leave if I was there. But I'm already here and they are not taking passengers back to the community they just want everybody out of there.

CO: You have your own family there too, don't you?

RK: I still have my two sons and daughter-in-law and my granddaughter is still stuck there.

CO: Are they OK?

RK: I told them to take their boats and go to our cabins, which is 18 miles from the community. And once they a little ways from the community there was no smoke, there was just nice breeze and clear air.

CO: Are you hoping they get out?

RK: I know they will get out because I have a plane going there form them. They let the other people go ahead of them. They didn't want to be the first ones on the plane.

CO: So you're hoping that the people don't spend another night there. Is that possible that they'll be there for another night?

RK: It's possible. If they did what they did last night they started evacuating and then all of a sudden they stopped and they said they couldn't fly in there anymore.

CO: Can they fly in the dark?

RK: A lot of the planes can, yes.

CO: Is this going to be a hard night for you?

RK: It's already been a hard night. I never slept. I haven't slept all day yesterday, last night and all day today. And if there's somebody still stuck out there I won’t be sleeping tonight.

CO: Chief Keeper, I hope you are sleeping tonight, you need it. And I hope everyone is safe so that you can have some rest and I'm so sorry this is happening to your community. Take care.

RK: Thank you.

JD: Raymond Keeper is chief of Little Grand Rapids First Nation. We reached him in Winnipeg. And in a statement we received after we spoke with Chief Keeper, the Manitoba government states the fire was human caused and that government staff tried to reach band council members on Monday evening to discuss an evacuation. They were not successful. They also said Chief Keeper went ahead with an evacuation yesterday without any consultation with the province.

[Music: Guitar]

Trump Twitter Ruling

Guest: Lauren Wolfe

JD: Donald Trump is a fan of the Twitter. Perhaps you've noticed. The president says it is his favourite form of communication. It allows him to speak directly to the people, and the White House has confirmed that his tweets do constitute official statements. So if you're blocked by a @RealDonaldTrump it can be a problem. Well now, he has been blocked from blocking. A federal judge ruled today that the president can't do that because it's unconstitutional. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of seven people who had been declared tweeters non grata by the U.S. commander in chief. Lauren Wolfe is a columnist at Foreign Policy Magazine. She is also blocked by President Trump. We reached her in New York.

CO: Lauren, why did President Trump block you on Twitter?

LAUREN WOLFE: Well, about a year ago, if you recall the terror attacks in London, Trump responded to an announcement made by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, who said there's nothing to be afraid of. And in fact that was not what he wrote. And, you know, Trump was criticizing Sadiq Khan. What Khan had written was there is no reason to be afraid of an increased police presence. So I tweeted at the president, you know, that is incorrect, here's what he actually said. And I called him a liar because when he says something completely wrong, I feel like it's the press's duty to call out someone as a liar.

CO: And then what happened?

LW: And then he blocked me. I was able to get in a few more tweets, but then he blocked me. And I already knew that these were considered his public statements by his press office. Sean Spicer had made an announcement a few months before so this was really to me a violation of First Amendment rights.

CO: Why did it matter that he blocked you?

LW: Journalists should have access to everything politicians are saying publicly. And this was considered his public arena. So if I can't see those then, to me, it's a press freedom issue.

CO: But, I mean, this is his own personal account, is it not?

LW: It is. But Sean Spicer had already declared that these were Trump's public statements. So that kind of moved from the realm of the personal to the political.

CO: Do you know how frequently people, and particularly journalists, are blocked on Mr. Trump's Twitter account?

LW: I haven't seen too many, but he has blocked you know everyday people, he's blocked actors and as far as I know I just know maybe a couple other journalists.

CO: There's one well-known Canadian journalist, Daniel Dale, who has been vigorously fact checking Mr. Trump's activity on, well every place since the beginning of his presidency. When Mr. Trump tweeted that being nice to rocket man — meaning Kim Jong Un — “Being nice to a rocket man hasn't worked in 25 years why would it work now?” Daniel Dale tweeted to Mr. Trump “25 years ago Kim Jong Un was eight years old.” After which, he was blocked from Mr. Trump's account. So what did you think? What does it take to get blocked by the president?

LW: This is a guy who just doesn't like facts. You know, we've seen that in the year he's been president doesn't like criticism. And, in fact, the court did not rule that he now has to unblock us. I am still blocked as of this afternoon and I don't see that he's going to unblock anybody.

CO: And how does it affect your work?

LW: It is difficult to report when you cannot access what people are saying, and especially in terms of politicians, you need to understand how they're responding to things. And since Trump has chosen Twitter to be his main mode of communications it's very difficult. I have to find another way to see things and it takes time out of my day. It is irritating and it's just obviously now illegal.

CO: We also know that from others, from inside sources, if they can be trusted, that he is extremely sensitive and can go off the handle with criticism, watches FOX News almost as a steady diet to avoid being exposed to people who are critical of him. So do you think it's possible that other people in his team are the ones that block people like yourself because he's so sensitive to it?

LW: My understanding is that he has total control over his tweets and he often surprises his own aides. So the night he blocked me I could only picture him sitting there with his phone in his hand and possibly pressing block. And to me I wish my president were doing something else.

CO: But then also, you called him a liar, right?

LW: Yes.

CO: So if somebody called someone called you a liar might you block them?

LW: No, not if I were a public figure. I think there's got to be a higher level of intake, especially if I'm incorrect. If I have did something that is not right that I will say ‘OK you know what, that was the full quote’ and move on. I believe that criticism is an important part of our discourse. And he has the thinnest skin of anyone I think I've ever seen in politics.

CO: I wonder if this is consistent with other things we're seeing with Leslie Stahl this passed day. This is a CBS reporter that when she spoke to Mr. Trump on November 2016 that he had said to her that the reason why he goes after journalists is that he does it to discredit them all, to demean you so that you when you write negative articles about him no one will believe you. Do you think that blocking journalists is consistent with that approach?

LW: Yes, yes. Trump has had a consistent campaign to tear down the press. And in this country I think for whatever reason, different politicians, governors, mayors whoever, have been following his lead and since he came to office there have been violent acts against journalists. One was pushed out of an office to the floor and had his glasses broken by a candidate. Others have been attacked on social media. Everyone is calling us liars. People call me fake news. Not just the places I write for, they say you are fake news. I don't think those people have read anything any of us have actually written. So I don't actually understand this except that they're following the lead of the president.

CO: If you get back on Trump's Twitter list do you have any tweet in particular that you're hoping to put out?

LW: Just happy anniversary to the one year that you have kept me and other critics out of your head. And here we are again. Welcome us back.

CO: All right, we'll leave it there, Lauren. Thank you.

LW: All right. Thank you.

CO: Bye.

LW: Bye.

JD: Lauren Wolfe is a columnist at Foreign Policy Magazine. She has been blocked by the president of the United States on Twitter. We reached her in New York. And we have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Philip Roth Obit

Guest: Hermione Lee

JD: He once said “Other writers hold their flashlights out into the world. I dig a hole and shine my flashlight into the hole.” The prolific, quintessentially American giant of literature Philip Roth died last night. He was 85 years old. As a young writer Mr. Roth shone his flashlight into the void of his own anxieties as a Jewish-American man. And what he illuminated there was compelling, often hilarious, and sometimes shocking. With 1969 Portnoy's Complaint he exposed his narrator's unrealized lust. And he did it with such vigor that the book both galvanized and scandalized of the literary world. And it caused some people in his new Jersey Jewish community to denounce him. Later his themes became broader, but still frequently focused on a singular male protagonist following seemingly autobiographical characters like Nathan Zuckerman or David Kepesh. And in his 60s with novels like American Pastoral and The Human Stain, he shone his light into some of his own country's darker places. Hermione Lee is a writer and was a friend of Philip Roth. We reached her in London.

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

HERMOINE LEE: Yes, the world is sorry, I think.

CO: I think so too. And I know that Philip Roth, he would send you his manuscripts and you got to look at them and comment. I mean, that's a sensitive thing for an author. How open was it to getting criticism?

HL: Yes, very. What seems on the page like a great spontaneous outflowing of energy, it was actually worked over and worked over and worked over. There were many, many drafts of every book and he wanted his readers to be extremely brutal and frank with him. As he said to me once, there's no point doing this if you're going to be polite. And one of the things he didn't like about England was politeness — maybe the same would apply to Canada, I don't know.

CO: I think so.

HL: So I would say what I thought and he was very eager to get feedback and very generous with it. But you would sometimes find that your least perceptive comment had been put into the mouth of one of the less sympathetic characters in the novel you were talking to him about.

CO: Everything was material to him, wasn't it?

HL: Everything was material. It was like a gigantic imaginative factory — The Philip Roth factory of the imagination. And he was also like a magpie. So when people accuse him of being tremendously autobiographical, of course he was, but he also was not in the sense that he took absolutely everything he could see and use. He was incredibly observant and it all fed into the transformation process that was his making of fiction.

CO: Those of us of a certain age who, of course, were first introduced to Philip Roth with Portnoy's Complaint and the story of this Jewish man and his obsession with sex and his masturbating in the strangest ways. And it was outrageous, it was wild to read that. Did he know it was going to — did he ever talk about what he thought that novel was going to do to people’s heads?

HL: I think he didn't realize quite what a bomb of shock it was going to be. But of course it came as part of a whole Sixties unraveling of taboos. I think one thing that's interesting is that we for a long time all thought of him as the author of Portnoy, and then more lately he was thought of as the author of American Pastoral or The Plot Against America. So from being someone who wrote obsessively and brilliantly about the male libido and male desire and male ambition, he opened that out in his great big later epic works to becoming a kind of American historian, actually. But there is a link between the masturbation of Portnoy and the terrifying prophetic narrative of Plot Against America, which is a position against taboos. He was always pushing against taboos and conformity and proscriptions and people telling you what you must and mustn't say and censorship. And I think in that sense he's a great voice for our times — and will go on being so.

CO: He often said that he did not want to be — he didn't like a hyphenated title he didn't want a Jewish-American writer — he was an American writer. But the same time Jews and Jewishness are just so much part of the writing no matter what part, whether it’s early or the historic writing. What was so important about Jewish life in America for him?

HL: Well, I think he's completely nostalgically and passionately in love with the world of his childhood. And in the way that Joyce keeps going back to Ireland and Faulkner keeps going back to a particular spot in the south and Katherine Mansfield keeps going back to New Zealand — Phillip going back to Newark, you know, Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey — and that was his primal scene. And so that community of Jewish immigrants who were lucky, who were escaping what was happening in Europe, was where he forged his consciousness and his identity. I mean, these were Democratic Jewish Roosevelt voters who wanted to take America's freedom and make the most of it and work hard to gain their place in it.

CO: You interviewed him. You wrote about him. You knew him. What is it you liked about Philip Roth?

HL: When you were with him you felt more energetic than in your normal life. You just upped your level of concentration and interest, and your rewards were an endless stream of interesting obsessive vituperative extreme funny and often grief-stricken stories. But there was never not a story.

CO: But he was also criticized as being a misogynist. What was he like to you as a woman?

HL: I never had any experience of misogyny from him. I would say about the misogyny in his work, first of all, there's his resistance to taboos and censorship, which I think forms part of his opposition to feminism, which is, you know, that we've been here before — I mean, there was a whole argument about that in the 60s, and he certainly was difficult for some feminists readers. The thing to say about this is that he's not a novelist who writes about the victorious male. You know, this is a novelist whose male characters are always in chaos — they don't get what they want. They are frustrated. They are in a muddle, they are tearing themselves apart very often, as a matter of fact, and people need to reread him for this. It's the women characters actually who are in control and who are more calm, more sane, more determined than some of the men.

CO: He dedicated his last novel Nemesis to you. And that was in 2010 and then to everybody's amazement he decided to stop writing, he was finished. Did he really not have another book in him? He's about that. Do you think that there was something he wanted to say?

HL: I think he really wanted to stop. I think he just decided that was enough. And it was very hard work, it was hard labour. Every time he started a book it did not come easily, it came through blood sweat and tears. And I think he felt he would have some years in which he saw his friends, did a lot of reading he was reading enormous amounts of American history actually in the last years of his life, and did not have to get up and stand at that desk every morning and grapple with the business of inventing another book.

CO: Ms. Lee, I really appreciate speaking to you, thank you so much.

HL: Thank you very much.

JD: Hermione Lee is a writer and a friend of Philip Roth. The great American novelist died last night. He was 85 years old. In 2009 Mr. Roth sat down with Eleanor Wachtel on the CBC's Writers and Company. Here's part of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

PHILIP ROTH: I had written three respectable books prior to Portnoy’s Complaint. In coming up with the situation of a man talking to a psychoanalyst, I gave myself a freedom that I value so much. Because in the game of psychoanalysis the patient is invited to say anything. So I now had that same liberty as a writer as I was pretending to be the patient. And the result was explosive.

ELEANOR WACHTEL: The publication of Portnoy’s Complaint was a turning point for you. How did it change your life?

PR: Well, I had to escape it. No sooner did I publish it, that I had to escape it because it was a colossal success, and a colossal notorious success. I was typecast, as a result of that book, as a crazed sexual madman and I'd lost my anonymity. I used to walk along the street like anybody just thinking my own silly thoughts and whistling. And if I whistled on the street now somebody would say “Stop whistling Portnoy.” So I disappeared at that point. I left New York, which I wouldn't have done, I think, had I not published that book. I left New York and bought a house in the country and moved there and stayed there really for the rest of my life much of the time.

EW: When you interviewed Primo Levi you talked to him about those infamous words above the gates of Auschwitz, Arbeit macht frei — Work Makes You Free — and what a horrifying parody of work it was but that it was possible to view Primo Levi's entire literary labour as dedicated to restoring to work its humane meaning. I was thinking the same about you in a sense because you have worked virtually nonstop writing. Can you say what you want to be freed from?

PR: You're freed from the gag in your mouth. All your freedom is in your words and this is the compensation — that you eventually do make an object out of yourself, a book, on your own with no barriers and nobody standing in your way. And you buy that freedom at a steep cost, which is the work itself, but you do get a kind of freedom.

JD: From 2009 that was Philip Roth in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel. Philip Roth died last night. You can hear that for Writers and Company interview and read more about Philip Roth on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: 90’s Hip-Hop]

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Part 2: NFL Anthem Policy, Amazon Facial Recognition

NFL Anthem Policy

Guest: Stevie Baggs

JD: It doesn't matter what you're protesting or why you're protesting — it's how you're protesting that matters. That is the gist of the NFL’s new policy on player protests during the national anthem. Broadly, if players don't want to stand they can stay in the locker room. If they're on the field and they kneel or otherwise fail to quote “show respect for the flag,” their teams will be fined. Furthermore, the teams themselves are empowered to make and enforce whatever policy they want. Owners of all 32 teams approved the new policy — players were not consulted. The National Anthem protests started when former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt in 2016 as a statement against police brutality and racial inequality in the justice system. Players around the league soon followed his lead and that led to a national debate. Stevie Baggs is a former football player who has played in both the CFL and the NFL. We reached Mr. Baggs in Atlanta.

CO: Mr. Baggs, what's your reaction to the NFL new policy on the national anthem?

STEVIE BAGGS: Well, my reaction is quite simple. It’s just going back to what we used to do before they implemented the rule for us to come out in 2009. So for me, you know, I think it gives players an even greater opportunity to protest.

CO: So the policy is that you cannot kneel. You can't think you can't do what Colin Kaepernick started in 2016 and take a knee during the anthem, but you can stay back in the locker room. What do you make of that?

SB: That's my point. If I can stay in the locker room then you don't get my energy. That's more of a protest to me, in my humble opinion, than going out and having to hear something that I don't want to hear in the first place. So not only am I not going to stand or sit or kneel, I'm going to stay in. If the other players on the team feel compelled to support their teammate, imagine how powerful it would be if the whole team stayed in? And now everybody during the national anthem is looking like ‘Where are the players?’ What type of impact will that make? I think it will be a greater one than just kneeling.

CO: But do you think that the NFL owners say this was their policy. Do you think that they implemented this because they want you to be able to make a stronger statement or do you think they're trying to avoid having you make any kind of a statement?

SB: I think it's a way for them to try to avoid players making a statement, but if the players leverage it right they can make an even more impactful statement.

CO: Why do you think the NFL owners are doing this?

SB: To me, it goes back to economics. You know, I don't think we're fighting a war on race and I don't believe we're fighting a war on drugs, we're fighting a war on economics and ideas. So how do you come up with an idea? You come up with an idea through imagery, the imagery of players kneeling is appalling to some, but empowering to others. So as opposed to the imagery of seeing that division, they decided ‘OK well if the players don’t want to come out we don't make them come out.’ And watch how the networks don't show the national anthem as often as they did, especially as the players decide that we're staying in. Watch.

CO: You think they're going to stop showing the national anthem altogether, that won't even be on before the game, they’ll go right into the game as far as what the television viewer is concerned?

SB: I believe they will, especially if there's not a Super Bowl or the big playoff games. The regular season games it won't have as much fanfare. And if the players decide that they're not going to come out, the majority of them, I guarantee they’ll stop showing it.

CO: How much of this decision on the part of the NFL owners do you think is because of what Donald Trump tweeted about how you should be fired if you take a knee and then and then seeing the vice president walk out of a game? Do you think that had a lot to do with the decision today?

SB: No. No, I don't believe that the NFL, Which is the number one grossing money sport in the world — over soccer and everything else — the NFL doesn't care about Donald Trump or any president thinks. They're going to run their business just like any other business. These players were not kneeling because they want to disrespect the flag, they were kneeling because there was some injustice. They were kneeling to bring light to police brutality.

CO: Going back to the decision by the NFL owners. How united do you think they are? I mean, you said it's about money. They see that they're losing money. There were boycotts of teams. This was creating a problem for them economically. But there were some owners who supported, that outwardly supported the movement, the protest, like Jerry Jones or Arthur Blank. Where are those people? Where those voices among the owners today?

SB: I don't believe that there's a ton of synergy within the owners as well. I believe that the majority is going to rule. And I also don't think all the protests that we saw were as genuine as we may think they were. You see Jerry Jones protest but on the flip side Jerry Jones comes out and says ‘If anybody kneels they’re going to be fined or suspended or cut — that’s not fair.

CO: So you just think some of these owners are being hypocritical, that today they're really showing their true colours by agreeing to this?

SB: It’s true hypocrisy. It’s definitely hypocrisy, all the way.

CO: What do you think the players — how are they going to react to this new policy?

SB: There’s going to be a number of different opinions from the players. I think more players nowadays are becoming more conscious of what's going on, but I also think that if a player feels that if I don't come out with the national anthem, and especially not a superstar, I'm talking about a guy who's on the bubble, a guy who is on the practice squad and he's trying to make the team. If this guy decides he's not going to come out to the national anthem because I might get cut, released, traded, laid off — they're not going to do it. The teams know that. So they can say that it’s free rights but if a guy is afraid of losing his job or his work they're not going to do.

CO: What do you think is going to happen with Colin Kaepernick? Do you think he'll get be able to play again?

SB: Yeah, if he comes to the CFL. He's not playing in the NFL, he's blacklisted.

CO: Do you think we might see him playing in Canada for the CFL?

SB: Well, you know, I would sure hope that if he wants to play football that he would play. And, you know, if he wants to play in the NFL doesn't want to sign him for whatever reason, I would hope that he would take his talent somewhere and expand his platform because it helped me. It helped me go see another country, it helped me go meet people and get a different perspective on life. If he doesn't want to play, if his heart is not playing the game of football any more, then he should continue being an activist and being a social, I like to say agitator.

CO: Mr. Baggs, I really appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

SB: Thank you very much, Ms. Off.

JD: Stevie Baggs is a former pro football player. He played in both the CFL and the NFL. We reached him in Atlanta.

30-year-old Son Evicted

JD: A pair of Camillus, New York parents should be enjoying the absence of their 30-year-old son tonight, following a ruling from a state supreme court judge. Mark and Christina Rotondo took their son Michael to court yesterday after he refused to leave the family home despite being repeatedly told in writing to get out. Michael told the judge that his parents were acting prematurely. He just needed a little more time.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL ROTONDO: I'm not a burden to them in the home. They don't provide laundry or food. It's really a moot point for them to seek me to be ejected.

JD: But his parents lawyer didn't think that his clients had a duty to explain themselves to their son.

SOUNDCLIP

LAWYER: My clients don't really have to express a reason why they want the respondent to leave their residence. There is no requirement that they keep him there or permit him to stay there. They have no obligation to provide support. He's well over the age of 21.

JD: And in the end the judge agreed. He made it clear that the 30-year-old was to leave immediately and ordered what he called ‘Adult Protective Services’ to supervise. Michael is reported to own multiple firearms and the judge said that he was worried about what is going on at the house. But none of that seems to have made much of an impression on Michael Rotondo. He spoke to reporters as he left the court.

SOUNDCLIP

MR: I mean, it seems to me like I should be provided with 30 days or so because generally you get 30 days after you're found that you have to vacate a premises. So I’m expecting something like that, but realistically if somehow that's not the case, I don't know. But the reason I had you guys over here like this is because he didn’t read my case and I asked him to rule on an adjournment and he ignored it. So, I mean, I guess.

REPORTER: So you plan to appeal this case?

MR: I do plan to appeal it. But I'm wondering — how it sounded.

REPORTER: It sounded like he said you need to vacate today.

MR: It sounded kind of like that too but that’s just so ridiculous, I mean.

JD: That was 30-year-old Michael Rotondo speaking yesterday outside a courtroom near Camillus, New York. He has since announced that he will appeal.

Amazon Facial Recognition

Guest: Nicole Ozer

JD: It started out in the book business. But now critics of a new facial recognition technology from Amazon say that the company has officially entered the surveillance business. The American Civil Liberties Union in California has just released records showing that Amazon has been marketing and selling its controversial new software, which is called Recognition, to law enforcement agencies. Now the ACLU chapter, along with more than two dozen other civil rights organizations, is leading a call for Amazon to stop providing the technology to the police. Nicole Ozer is the technology and civil liberties director for the ACLU of California. We reached Ms. Ozer in San Francisco.

CO: Ms. Ozer, what exactly is this technology of Amazon's capable of doing?

NICOLE OZER: You know, what we're talking about here is really supercharged surveillance. We were really shocked to see Amazon's marketing materials and to see just how powerful this surveillance technology can be and how really primed it is for abuse. It can search against tens of millions of photos in real time. It can identify up to 100 people in a photo. It can recognize and track people in public spaces. And Amazon was also urging customers to think about pairing it with body cameras, which body cameras are supposed to be a tool for government accountability, and this would really turn police body cameras into dragnet surveillance devices.

CO: So who do you understand is using this? What law enforcement agencies are actually doing a test drive of this Amazon facial recognition technology?

NO: I know that other reporters asked Amazon who else was using recognition and Amazon refused to answer that question. What we do know from Amazon's own marketing materials is that a county in Oregon is using it and Orlando is using it. And we followed up with Freedom of Information Act requests to really try and find out more about what was happening and what kind of protections are in place to protect community members. Amazon really highlighted how Orlando has been using recognition in it’s city cameras for real-time tracking of persons of interest. And, you know, we don't know are protesters persons of interest, are immigrants persons of interest? Right now our coalition has far more questions than answers. We asked both Oregon in Orlando for any kind of rules that were in place to protect community members. And they sent us back nothing.

CO: Why do you say that this is particularly dangerous or fraught for minorities in the United States or any place where this technology might be used by law enforcement?

NO: Right now we're at a time in the United States where the government is targeting activists and immigrants. And so the dangers of this face recognition surveillance are very real. You know, Amazon tried to dismiss the dangers of this face recognition by highlighting how it was used to identify and track people in real-time at the recent royal wedding. But if you just replace royal wedding with the Women's March or the Muslim ban protest or people attending a religious event — it's even more clear just how primed this is for government abuse. We know that the government is trying to get access to as much information as they can to identify and target immigrant communities. Just recently, the Federal Government's Immigration and Customs Enforcement signed a contract with one of the nation's largest license plate reader vendors to get access to this data to learn more about who people are and where they go. We also know that the federal government has been trying to get much more information and do continuous monitoring of immigrants through social media surveillance. And so face recognition just be the next piece of that. At a time when we have so many people engaging in public protest and so many people that are being targeted by the government for deportation, it's incredibly dangerous to have government be able to know who we are, where we go, what we do when we're in the public streets.

CO: What are you asking Amazon to do? I mean, Amazon is developing this technology. Are you telling them they shouldn't, that they should destroy it, it shouldn't exist?

NO: This is not about banning it technology. What this is about is making sure that Amazon's not providing recognition to the government and isn't supercharging government surveillance. What this is about is whether Amazon is going to be a responsible company that deserves customer trust. And right now we've found out that they're selling face surveillance to the government that it knows can be used to track protesters, that it knows can be used to target immigrants and spy on entire neighbourhoods. And right now Amazon is doing nothing to protect customers and communities across the country.

CO: Well, how do you stop law enforcement from using a technology that is going to be available for purchase, it's commercially available? I mean, law enforcement uses Facebook, they use Twitter, they follow people through IP addresses. There’s all kinds of ways the technology that's readily available to all people can be used by law enforcement, so how can you stop them from using it?

NO: Amazon can restrict how it service is used. It can make sure that it's only used for particular purposes. Actually you mentioned Facebook and Twitter, Facebook and Twitter prohibit use of its data to build tools for surveillance. Last year it was revealed that a lot of local law enforcement was actually using social media surveillance to spy on activists, particularly activists of colour. And Facebook and Twitter both updated their international laws to make sure that none of their data could be used for surveillance purposes. So Amazon can and should, be making sure that its products are being used in ways that are not coming back to attack its own customers and communities.

CO: What do you say to the argument that it well, if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to fear from having your face recognized?

NO: Well, the burden shouldn't be on us to make sure that our information is not taken and collected. I mean, we should have the right to be able to walk down the street and innocently live our lives without the government collecting information about who we are and where we go and what we do. The burden should be, and has always been on the government, to not invade our privacy and invade our rights to free speech unless they have good reason to do that.

CO: We will leave it there. Ms. Ozer, I appreciate you telling us about this. Thank you.

NO: Thanks so much.

JD: Nicole Ozer is the technology and civil liberties director for the ACLU of California. We reached her in San Francisco. And if you would like to hear more about facial recognition technology and the concerns it raises about privacy and security, listen to The Current tomorrow morning. They’re going to be looking at how American schools are adopting the technology to prevent school shootings. That is again on CBC Radio One right after the 8:30 news.

[Music: Trance Bass]

Brandi Chastain HOF Plaque

JD: It is a great, great honour for American soccer player Brandi Chastain to be inducted into the San Francisco Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. As you would expect, it comes with a plaque detailing her many, many achievements. As you perhaps would not expect, above that plaque is an image of someone else's face. On Twitter people have identified that face as Jon Voight, Babe Ruth, a stoned Jimmy Carter. But the plaque itself seems to believe that it is identifying the face as Brandi Chastain. Now if I were being kind, it's not a great likeness. If I were not being kind, I would say, as Sports Illustrated has said, it is bad, really bad. Ms. Chastain’s Hall of Fame plaque now joins a Hall of Fame a famously terrible depictions of famous people, like a horrifying Frankenstein monster statue of Lucille Ball and the startling bust of soccer star Christiano Ronaldo. But last night Ms. Chastain put a brave face on the face on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Here's some parts of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

BRANDI CHASTAIN: I didn't want to make a scene and one of the gentlemen I had been working with came over and I said ‘Hey can you look at the nose? I don’t have a bridge on the nose on my plaque. Look at all the other ones.’

JIMMY KIMMEL: Or the hair or that ear. And I don't even imagine you wearing that collar to be honest. Do you know who this artist is and why he or she hates you?

BC: No. I mean it's been a good laugh. It's been a great day of laughter. I’m going to tell you something, people have been saying ‘What's the best thing you've heard about what name and who does it look like?’ I’m goint to have to say that yours — the power lifter is pretty good.

JK: It is. There's a grimace there that is reminiscent of some kind of physical exertion going on. Who do you think it looks like? Is there anyone that pops to mind when you see it?

BC: Well, too many unfortunately, not my name, but Mickey Rooney he was so sweet.

JK: Are they going to redo the plaque?

BC: I've been in discussions with them and they're gracious. They obviously didn't want this to happen and they didn't and controversy. And for me the most important thing is not so much the plaque, is the great work that they do, but they did say that they would like to give it another chance. And I'm sure it'll be great.

JK: Will you get approval before they release the next one?

BC: They did say that that would be possible.

JK: What are they going to do with the old one? Will you get to keep that?

BC: Oh, good question.

JK: You should have that because that's a real memento.

BC: I might want to hang that in my garage.

JD: Get it off the street. That was American soccer player Brandi Chastain on Jimmy Kimmel last night.

Top ten new species 2018

JD: An Amazonian tree weighing 62 tons and bearing a woody fruit that can grow up to 18 inches. A humpback crustacean named Quasimodo. A snail fish that looks like a tadpole but preys on other creatures at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. These are just a few of the world's top ten newly discovered species, chosen from 18,000 contenders by the International Institute of Species Exploration with help from taxonomists around the world. And I'll tell you it turns out that this radio program knows well, what's going to make the charts. Because we have spoken to several of the people behind the discoveries on this list — including Christoph von Beeren one of the scientists who discovered a Costa Rican beetle that made today's top 10. When he found it it was clinging to an answer rear end.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRISTOPH VON BEEREN: We suck the animals into a little vials and then looked at it from the side. And that was the moment that we realized that something is really weird here because it looked like the ants had two abdomen. And then we shook the vial and then the beetle detached. And once it detached it was clear that it’s a beetle, before that we just did not know what kind of animal it is because it just looks like a ball.

HELEN MANN: So it's fair to say you were surprised when you shook the vial and another creature fell off?

CVB: Quite surprised, it was Daniel Kronauer and me and I can still remember the situation and remember exactly at which place we were have collected and I don't know how many hours from now how many times but I still know the specific moment because it was quite exciting. If you look at the ant from the side you just see that it has two backsides or two butts, if you like. And that’s just not normal. It’s actually very difficult to see if you look form the top because from the top it just looks like the ant had one butt only. So it’s very similar to the ant abdomen.

HM: Why are the beetles attaching themselves to the ants?

CVB: Because it has to keep up with the host ant and the host ants are nomadic, they are army ants and they migrate to new nest sites almost every night. And all the guests have to find a way to somehow participate in these emigrations otherwise they would be left behind and would need to search for a new host colony every time. And are different strategies and this is the most remarkable one.

JD: OK, so that is one that was As It Happens guest host Helen Mann speaking Christoph von Beeren about a beetle with a fondness for hitching a ride on the back end of an ant. Mr. von Beeren is one of the researchers whose discoveries are being celebrated by the International Institute of Species Exploration. The Institue just released a list of the world's top ten newly discovered species and as it happens, he's not the only scientist to make the list that we have spoken to on As it happens. Michael Krützen is another. He helped discover a top 10 orangutan. We spoke with him in November.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL KRUTZEN: In the olden days new species were mainly described by morphological differences. So you look at differences in the skull shape for instance. But for the Tapanuli orangutan now, we really could look at genetics and genomics. So we have genomic evidence, we could look at morphological evidence. So we measure skulls of orangutans and compare that to the Tapanuli orangutan and we also look at behaviour. And all these things are quite different for the Tapanuli orangutan and, you know, that makes us confident enough to call it a new species.

CO: And where do Tapanuli orangutan, where do they live?

MK: Yeah, so basically it's an isolated population it’s at the southernmost tip of the range of orangutans in Sumatra. It's very hard to get to. You can’t go by car so you have to actually take a six or eight hour hike to get there. And there's also a highland area, so it's also unusual for orangutans. Most orangutans occur in one swamps, but these guys almost exclusively occur in these fairly high areas. There were reports from the 1930s that there were some orangutan sightings in that area but these reports have been forgotten and they were in Dutch, so, you know, people wouldn't read these kind of documents. We went back to all these old references and we had seen that you know in that area there was supposed to be orangutans so he went back in 1997 with some other people and indeed they found orangutans there. So we went back and looked at the evidence live it more closely and it is sort very nice to bring the data together and then realize while we have something potentially you know very, very novel here that has not been described before.

JD: Michael Krutzen speaking with this program back in November about the Tapanuli orangutan. And that is one of the world's top ten newly discovered species one of two that we have spoken to According to a list published today by the International Institute of Species Exploration.

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Part 3: Michael Kaan, Seagulls At Diner

Michael Kaan

Guest: Michael Kaan

JD: A few years after Michael Kaan’s father died his mom gave him a gift that changed his life and suddenly made it possible for him to write the novel that he had been thinking about. It was a gift that, as they say, keeps on giving, because last night Mr. Kaan's The Water Beetles won the $40,000 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. We reached Michael Kaan in Toronto.

CO: Michael, big congratulations.

MICHAEL KAAN: Thank you, Carol.

CO: I saw you receive your award last night. What was going through your mind as you stood there?

MK: I was completely surprised. I wasn't expecting to win. I was also thrilled. I knew about the other books and I knew there were great books and began reading one of them already. And you just never know.

CO: It was it was a very strong list, that's true.

MK: It was.

CO: Now this story, the backstory of The Water Beetles is really interesting and it begins with something that your mother gave you. And you said on stage last night you said if your mother had not given you your father's diaries you could never have done this. Tell us about that.

MK: Well, my father died in 2006. A few years later my mother came by one day and she gave me a plastic shopping bag full of paper and it was the original typescript of my father's memoirs of his experience as a child during the war. And it was around the time and I'd been thinking that I'd like to try my hand at writing. And of course when I got this kind of material I realized that it would make a fantastic book, a fantastic story.

CO: Had your father talked about his experiences in the war before he died?

MK: Almost never. I knew a few stories that were mostly sort of trivial joking stories. But no, I truly didn't know much about it. I think he talked to adults about it, he talked to my mother about it but I didn't know the extent to which he had experienced. And that was I was a novelty for me.

CO: And before we get to this story that you wrote, what is the story that the diaries told?

MK: The story that the diaries tell is pretty close to the book actually, it's about a wealthy family in Hong Kong who are trapped in their house for a while following the Japanese invasion and they decided to split up and send the younger children into the countryside for a while. The book is a fictionalized version of that. But, you know, most of the things that are changed are sort of names and places and the number of children in the family and so on.

CO: Your novel The Water Beetles is about Chung-Man Leung and it's told from that point of view of he's a grown up, he's an adult, and he's talking about what it was like as a child. Why did you set it up that way?

MK: Well most of the action takes place at the time that he is a child, but there are some passages that flash forward to him as a much older man really almost at the end of his life. And it's there for a number of reasons. One of them is simply to give the readers some hope to understand that he did in fact survive off the terrible experiences and go on to live a normal life. It also gives some aesthetic depth, I think, to the book in terms of giving multiple perspectives and creating a bit of complexity in terms of understanding the character's identity and how he's been affected over time. That's one theme in the book is how this affects yourself, your sense of identity, how whole you feel and how that changes over time.

CO: Because the book is principally about the effect that war has and what war is, what it does to people and it must have been very difficult to be writing about some of the horrible things that happened to your father. Can you just describe a bit of what you know he went through and your character goes through?

MK: I think — I know that what my father wrote down I was really only a fraction of what actually happened. And when I wrote the book I really only took a small amount of what was in the memoirs to make it into a story. There were many books about awful things like war or domestic violence, so on, that I’m not fond of because they tend to be sort of a parade of awful things, they tend to be focused on the idea of, you know, you need to know that this is awful. Whereas I think what's interesting in this story is not to point out the obvious things like we're being awful, but to talk about how this would affect a person and how they come to understand themselves over the course of a lifetime having experienced these things the past. And one of the ways that I deal with that in the book is to sort of move back and forth between perspective and also sort of the discover that part of the character that that finds the ability to cope and even in very small details like noticing a horse on the other side of a field or watching some insects crawl up a stick. That’s just part of being human.

CO: And part of being a kid.

MK: Yes, very much.

CO: And so the older Chung-Man Leung is looking back at this. Were you thinking of your own father and the lasting effects that had on him?

MK: I thought to some extent of him, but I also saw many older people I’ve known that survived the kinds of experiences and how they would see themselves over time. Because my dad never talked about it I didn't have a direct sense of how he felt over time, but I know so many other people who lived through the war or other kinds of traumas as children. And, as you know, many people survive these things and go onto really happy lives. And it's interesting to think about how that can happen and also how they manage that over the lifetime because we don't forget these things. We just find a way to live with them.

CO: I wonder — because you have a day job. What is it that — you're not a full time writer?

MK: No. I manage a couple of mental health clinics for veterans in the military and the RCMP, primarily dealing post-traumatic stress disorder. But I do have to say it really didn't overlap very much with the writing of the book. I mean, the writing of the book, I was very much focused on my father's experiences and that particular generation of civilians in war. I didn’t bring a lot sort of technical knowledge of PTSD and that sort of thing into the book. It's more about managing this stuff over a lifetime.

CO: And so you're keeping your day job, you think, even as you win this award?

MK: Yeah, I've managed to find a way to write sort of in my spare time that works for me. And I don't really see a need to try and make a huge shift my life.

CO: Well, Michael we look forward to seeing what comes next. Thanks so much for speaking with us and congratulations again.

MK: Thanks, Carol.

JD: Michael Kaan is the author of The Water Beetles, which just won the $40,000 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. We reached Mr. Kaan in Toronto.

Larry Nasser: Kerry Perry USA Gymnastics Apology

JD: The testimony at Larry Nasser’s sentencing hearing earlier this year was heartbreaking. More than 100 of the women that he had abused described what the former doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University had done to them. He pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting several girls and to child pornography charges. But his 60-year sentence is not the end of the story. USA gymnastics is still facing some very serious criticism for how it handled allegations against the doctor. And today for the first time since taking over as president of USA Gymnastics last December, Kerry Perry spoke publicly about that scandal. Here is some of what she said in her opening remarks.

SOUNDCLIP

KERRY PERRY: Like all of you, I was appalled and sickened by the despicable crimes of Larry Nasser. We must do better. I came on board at USA Gymnastics in December from outside the sport and the Olympic movement. My singular goal, and the reason I accepted this mission, is to create a supportive and empowering culture that helps our athletes achieve their gymnastics dreams and an empowering culture. First, I want to apologize to all who were harmed by the horrific acts of Larry NASSER. I was in the courtroom to listen to the incredibly courageous women explain in vivid and painful detail the damage he did to their lives. Their voices will not be forgotten. I commit to you that I will keep their words and experiences at the core of every decision I make every day as the leader of this organization. Their stories have broken my heart but they've also strengthened my resolve. Let there be no mistake, those days are over. USA gymnastics is on a new path, with new leadership and a commitment to ensure this never happens again. Since December 2017 we have embarked on a mission to implement a culture that puts athletes first. To that end, we are working hard to regain the trust and confidence of our athletes, their families and all who are a part of our gymnastics community.

JD: That was USA Gymnastics President Kerry Perry speaking today as part of a subcommittee hearing called examining the Olympic community's ability to protect athletes from sexual abuse. The heads of other sport governing bodies answered questions and times during today's hearings things got heated. Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan said she was not reassured because she did not hear a sense of urgency in their responses. She said quote “The time for talk is over and you need to walk your talk.”

[Music: Oboes]

Texas Shooting Victim Father

JD: Sabika Aziz Sheikh planned to go home to Pakistan in a few weeks. Instead, her funeral was held today in Karachi. Ms. Sheikh is one of the victims of last week's school shooting in Texas. Nine others were killed. The alleged gunman, 17-year old Dimitrios Pagourtzis is facing murder charges. Ms. Sheikh was also 17. She was an exchange student at the Texas School. Her father Abdul Aziz Sheikh has said that he thought his daughter would be safe in the U.S. He spoke with NBC ahead of the funeral and called on President Donald Trump to stop teens from getting guns.

SOUNDCLIP

ABDUL AZIZ SHEIKH: I would like to see the Trump administration finally stop this type of incident. Your government can make rules and laws, you can amend the Constitution and you can change the laws on guns and finally take serious action on this. Nobody under 16 years old can buy tobacco or alcohol, but her or she can buy a gun. What is this? I expect the Trump administration to make laws for this and I hope that they will make a law in the name is Sabika Aziz Sheikh.

JD: That was the father of Sabika Aziz Sheikh speaking to NBC. The 17-year-old died during a mass shooting at a high school in Texas last week.

[Music: Industrial Pop]

Seagulls At Diner

Guest: Toby Evans

JD: I guess you could understand why they'd gather around and yell at you while you're eating wings. That's fair enough. But otherwise seagulls interrupting your dinner seems kind of unfair and very annoying. And if you run a seaside restaurant, the hungry noisy, constantly defecating birds are a real problem. Toby Evans has come up with a solution. But in order for it to work he will need his customers to lend a hand. Toby Evans is the owner of Three Sheets restaurant we reached him in Perth, Australia.

CO: Toby, just how bad are the seagulls at your restaurant?

TOBY EVANS: Well, at the moment it's usually like any other sort of seaside restaurant a little bit pesky but over the last 10 days they’ve got really bad. We don’t know why they went to commando school and learned some tricks and they were just getting pretty aggressive towards the customers over the last 10 days and then yes obviously we didn't want to have customers getting paranoid by the seagulls we tried every deterrent we came up with all the various devices you could borrow from the hardware store. Nothing seemed to work.

CO: So what did you decide on?

TE: Well, one morning I sort of woke up with this epiphany you know Three Sheets, we’re a family restaurant and we wanted to do something that was sort of humane and not harm the seagulls, so I just had this epiphany one morning and thought water pistols. It ticked all the boxes. Our customers can have a bit of fun with them. So I went down to Toys R Us and put them one on each of our outdoor tables and put them in the note so that the customers know to use them and away we went.

CO: And how did it work?

TE: Well, it’s been fantastic. The seagulls really got the hint. More importantly the customers knew that we were trying to have some fun and do what we can and they’ve embraced it. And we’re blown away that it’s reached Canada of all places as well. I had someone e-mail from Sweden, that the news over there as well, so it's obviously a world-wide problem. The customers can fight back.

CO: Are these those kind of high powered ones that really can set a stream?

TE: No, we didn’t want to do that. We are very sensitive. We didn't want to appear to be cruel so that it just sort of basic ones but not the high power ones.

CO: Now I know people who have tried this before in Canada with raccoons who are trying to get into their food. We have this big problem in cities in our backyards and whatnot, but eventually the raccoons just to figure out how to get around it. They say ‘OK I know I'm going to get sprayed, but I'm still going to get that food.’ So do you think at some point the seagulls will catch on your idea and get used to it?

TE: I don’t think so because the last two or three days there's certainly not as many as they were and this is sort of you know not as bad as they were and so I'm figuring that they've gone somewhere else and they’re probably somebody else's problem at the moment and they're probably cursing them thinking ‘Where did these seagulls come from?’

CO: Do you have any idea why they're worse this year than other years?

TE: I think in Perth, especially in western Australia we’re experiencing a real late what we call an ‘Indian summer’ you know where it's just been really warm. We’re just a few days away from winter officially winter. It's just been unseasonably warm. We'll have a last ditch attempt to get sort of fucked up for winter or cost.

CO: Doesn't it also sort of come with the territory? I mean, people like to dine outside by the sea, I guess so do the birds.

TE: That's right. We know that. Having a restaurant by the sea is part of it. Actually a lot of people like it when you go down to the restaurant by the sea, the sights, sounds, smells. It's all part of the dining experience. So we would sort of hoping to sort of retrain the seagulls yeah you can get the bit that falls onto the floor, but not come in and sort of brazenly hop onto people's plates and have to be shooed away. So yeah we're just hoping this is working, which it is, it's been fantastic.

CO: Is that what they were doing, they were right on the tables?

TE: Yeah they we're terrible. Usually they’d hang around like bin chickens that would wait until the customer was gone and then they'd be opportunist, but they were really getting brazen and coming up while the diners are still there.

CO: So I guess people kind of the only thing you do is get the water pistols?

TE: Yeah, I mean the whole thing of it. But we wanted it to be lighthearted fun as well. The main thing is that we just didn't want to appear to be cruel, we didn’t want it to be perceived as a sort of a cruel thing because you know what it could be like win this day and age with things going viral like this has, imagine if it went viral for the wrong reasons. We’re very aware of that. Thankfully people are seeing it as what it was meant to do. It was a humane way of dealing with the situation.

CO: All right Toby, it’s good to talk to you. Thanks.

TE: No worries. B

CO: Bye.

JD: Toby Evans is the owner of Three Sheets restaurant. We reached him in Perth. If you'd like to see a video of diners and their water guns go to our website.

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May 23, 2018 episode transcript

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