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The AIH Transcript for August 8, 2019

Hosts: Piya Chattopadhyay and Chris Howden

Prologue

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hello I'm Piya Chattopadhyay.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight...

PC: Loaded questions. Three years after a bullet took her son's life a Toronto mother is wondering what's being done to stop a new eruption of gun violence in the city.

CH: Driven to tears. An Ontario farmer was at the wheel of a front-end loader when his four year old son fell out of the bucket and died. But today a judge decided a jail sentence would only make his suffering worse.

PC: There is a lot riding on them. But all of those riders who believe electric scooters are totally environmentally-friendly may be unpleasantly surprised to hear about a new study.

CH: As parties go, it was pretty pedestrian. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the photo on the cover of The Beatles' "Abbey Road" hundreds gathered in London to walk across the street.

PC: Raising their invoices in song. After pulling out of Canada, Chase Bank informs its former Canadian customers it's canceling their outstanding debt -- and our guest thinks that's just outstanding.

CH: And pyramid-era scheme. Combining his love of sour dough and his love of ancient Egypt, Seamus Blackley extracts 4,500-year-old yeast from an Egyptian pot and makes bread out of it. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that celebrates a labour of loaf.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Proposed handgun ban is 'nonsense' that doesn't address roots of violence, says Toronto mother

Toronto shootings

Guest: Evelyn Fox

CH: There was more gunfire in Toronto last night -- with police investigating two reports of shooting at opposite ends of the city. And earlier in the day yesterday, two men were taken to hospital following a daylight shooting near the Ontario Science Centre. Those incidents are just the latest in a spate of gun violence that's seen at least 17 people injured in 14 separate shootings over the long weekend. And last week, 16-year-old Hanad Abdullahi was shot and killed at the Toronto Community Housing high-rise where he lived. On Tuesday, community members gathered at the Falstaff Community Centre -- next door to that building -- to mourn and to demand action.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We're tired of watching our kids and our brothers dying for nothing. So if you're going to put people here make sure that they are people who care about what they are doing -- not just to get their cheque and go home because I'm pretty sure all of you go into your neighbourhood they are gated, there are cameras, there are security guards. Just because we are in a disadvantaged community does not mean you need to treat us like we are bottom of the barrel.

[Crowd applauds]

VOICE 1: So let this be the last time that a kid has to die before you all take this so seriously.

CH: Jennifer Boahen was a friend of 16-year-old shooting victim Hanad Abdullahi. She's one of the people who attended a community meeting on Tuesday about gun violence in Toronto. Evelyn Fox was at that meeting too. It's been nearly three years since her son was shot and killed outside the same Toronto nightclub where another of this week's shootings occurred. We reached Ms. Fox in Toronto.

PC: Ms. Fox what goes through your mind when you hear about the kind of gun violence Toronto has witnessed during this past week?

EVELYN FOX: I mean it just re-triggers and re-traumatizes me every time I hear about a shooting like especially with the ones that are with the potential for children to be traumatized then potentially be victims. It really puts me in a bad place mentally because I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder now. It really takes a toll on my mental health.

PC: I'm sorry for that and also for the loss of your son Kiesingar -- and so I want you to be as comfortable and tell me as much or as little as you want when I ask you to tell me about the night your son Kiesingar was killed.

EF: Okay. My son and his cousin/god-brother had gone to a club with another person that was my god-son's friend. And they met up with my son's fiancé say who was having a birthday party for their friends. And when they were leaving my god-son noticed that the friend was, I guess, involved in an argument or standing close to where the argument was taking place and he pulled the car over and got out to go get him and my son got out of the car maybe I don't know two minutes after to make sure that he was okay and as he crossed over the street from getting out of the car he was hit by a stray bullet and died 15 hours later.

PC: Has anyone ever been arrested or charged in the death of your son?

EF: No. I try to keep hope that someone who witnessed will come forward and you know at least give us some kind of closure. It's very mentally exhausting -- mentally and emotionally exhausting. I feel very overwhelmed at times.

PC: So you went to a community meeting that took place in the neighbourhood where 16-year-old Hanad Abdullahi was shot and killed. Take me into that meeting room -- that community meeting. What was the atmosphere there like?

EF: They are hurting. They are grief stricken. Like there were people crying and upset like people who were related to that child but also people who the shooting occurred beside their doorway. There was another resident there who said that she had three bullets lodged into her walls and that her 8-year-old granddaughter is afraid to play outside. Like this is the reality in a lot of these neighbourhoods is that these children are terrified to go play outside.

PC: What do you want to see from police and governments when it comes to putting an end to this kind of gun violence?

EF: I want them to address the roots of youth violence. It's imperative.

PC: Just to interrupt there for a minute -- the roots of violence is a report that was presented to the Government of Ontario in 2008.

EF: Right. It recommends positive youth spaces. It recommends trauma counselling and trauma supports to all the communities and victims which is very difficult to find. The education system needs to have smaller class sizes. We need to stop suspending the students and expelling the students for the behaviors that they're displaying and take an actual positive approach to finding what the underlying issues are that that child is dealing with and stop sending them out into the street for the street to then embrace them. I mean there's so many different aspects of it and no one is acting on it.

PC: So your call is for more community centres and addressing the root causes of this violence that we have seen in our city. At the meeting the other night one of the things some people were demanding was more security cameras but Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders pointed out the police have also been asked not to survey people in/at risk neighbourhoods. So what's the solution here?

EF: If that community is asking for cameras in the staircases and cameras outside that are actually functioning then that is what they need to do. If there is another community that says no we don't want the cameras, we feel like they're impeding on our privacy, then don't give them the cameras. The community knows what's needed in those communities for their well-being.

PC: As you know this is an issue that all three levels of government have been talking about and promising to address. And in Ottawa today Canada's Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair said many measures must be taken to reduce gun violence and that a handgun ban may be one of those. So I want to play a bit of what the minister had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

BILL BLAIR: Well I have been asked to look at the efficacy of a total ban and I believe that there are some very effective measures that can and should be taken with respect to additional restrictions to prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals.

PC: Ms. Fox was your son killed by a handgun?

EF: Yes.

PC: And so what is your take on the idea of a handgun ban?

EF: I think that it is nonsense. They'll get access to the handguns anyways. We live beside the border of the biggest manufacturing gun place in the world. So I mean as long as we live beside that border and there is no common sense regulation there, those fire arms are just going to be in greater demand and they'll get access to those. Like yes I hear what some of the survivors are saying in terms of you know ban the handguns so at least they won't have the handguns here to be able to steal and access. But I mean we haven't even tried to address the roots of violence. I think that the ban is an overreaction especially when we know that they'll still be accessing the firearms and it will not deter them from using them.

PC: Those are your calls to the governments. What is your call to us -- your fellow Canadians?

EF: To step up and get involved. Like I mean if you think that you're exempt from a stray bullet...you're not. I can attest to that. My son was a hardworking person. He was a dedicated father and he went out for a night of fun. At 26-years-old we should be able to go to a club and and be safe and enjoy ourselves. I know that I did. So get involved and ask the political leaders to do their jobs.

PC: Ms. Fox again I'm so very very sorry for the loss of your son. And I just really want to thank you for talking to me today. I really really appreciate it.

EF: Thank you.

CH: Evelyn Fox lost her son, Kiesingar Gunn, to gun violence three years ago. We reached her in Toronto. For more on this story visit our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

E-scooter study

Guest: Jeremiah Johnson

CH: The electronics scooter revolution is here -- but not everyone's popping wheelies about it. They're already in cities like Calgary and Waterloo and before the week is up you'll see them on the streets of Montreal. California-based Lime and Bird Canada are the two biggest e-scooter rental companies in the country. And part of their sales pitch is that the scooters are environmentally friendly. They get cars off the road and reduce CO2 emissions. But in a new study researchers at North Carolina State University found the scooter's carbon footprint may be bigger than we think. We reached environmental engineering professor Jeremiah Johnson in Raleigh.

PC: Mr. Johnson what made you want to investigate the carbon footprint of electric scooters -- e-scooters?

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: Well Piya I live in Raleigh, North Carolina and like many North American cities last year we woke up to find hundreds of these e-scooters in our city. And they are very popular with students here at North Carolina State University and others. And these scooter companies are making claims that their rides were carbon free and earth-friendly. So we decided to investigate.

PC: Okay. And so let's get to the findings of your investigation. How do e-scooters stack up against other forms of transport: cars, buses, bikes?

JJ: Well so if you are substituting one mile in an average car versus one mile and an e-scooter, the e-scooter is a clear winner -- about half as much carbon emissions as driving your car. One of the challenges however is that's not what people tend to do. Only about one third of the rides that are taken on e-scooter substitute for a car ride -- about half substitute walking or biking.

PC: Okay so stacked up against a public transit -- a bus -- which carries many people. Where do the e-scooters line up -- like how do you rank them?

JJ: So per passenger mile traveled -- so if you think about that fully loaded bus, the e-scooters are considerably higher. A bus that can hold dozens of people going that same mile would require dozens of scooters to commute the same distance.

PC: What about comparing the e-scooter to walking and biking when it comes to our carbon footprint?

JJ: Well so those are very low carbon ways to get around. So if you think about a bicycle for example -- and a personally owned bicycle -- there are materials that go into that. You might have a carbon fiber frame or an aluminum frame. And so there are the materials and the manufacturing burdens associated with that. But there aren't the burdens of redistributing your personal bike. You drive your bike and you bring it home. And so those burdens are very very small. The lifecycle burdens of riding a personal bike is on the order of 8 or 10 grams of CO2 per mile traveled. It depends on how much you use your bike, it depends on the brand. But that gives you a sense of scale. What we found for these shared e-scooters was more than an order of magnitude higher so around 200 grams of CO2 per passenger mile traveled.

PC: So this is kind of mind blowing stuff for a lot of people because electric scooter makes people think like 'look the carbon footprint must be low on this thing.' You're saying, 'not so much.'

JJ: Not so much. And the environmental impacts are a bit hidden. So I use a method called lifecycle assessment to try to understand the full environmental impacts from cradle to grave -- from cradle to cradle -- you might say. And where we found most of the environmental impacts were actually in the materials and the manufacturing of the scooters and the collection and redistribution process of the scooters -- picking them up daily to bring them home largely to charge them and bring them back out into the city streets the next day.

PC: So let's start at the front end of the process you just said. As you said you're dissecting a scooter. What are they made of?

JJ: The frames are largely aluminum. There are some steel components and there's a lithium ion battery.

PC: And how did those things impact its carbon footprint -- the manufacturing process?

JJ: So those materials and the manufacturing associated with that is about half of the carbon footprint of these scooters. And a big reason for that is that these scooters have a relatively short lifetime. So if you think about the per mile impacts, those materials and the manufacturing burdens carry a lot more weight. If you could extend the life of these scooters, if you had more rugged scooters or better anti-vandalism policies stretching the life than those materials would serve more purposes -- cover more miles -- with the scooter riders and then the per mile impact would drop.

PC: Okay. And let's go to the other end of the cycle so to speak. When people rent these e-scooters -- as you said and rally everywhere and there are rental places not only in your city but all over your country and ours -- when people rent these scooters they then at the end of the day have to be gathered up, recharged, you know spread out throughout the city so everyone can use them. What is the environmental cost of that?

JJ: Well so in Raleigh and in many other cities these are independent contractors that are going around and collecting these scooters at the end of the day -- largely to bring them home to charge them. So they're driving their personal automobiles. They're often competing with other independent contractors to collect as many as they can. They're paid per scooter. And the process is not optimized. The cars or whatever the people happen to have -- and so the process can be inefficient. And so we found about 40 percent of the carbon footprint was from this collection and redistribution process.

PC: And then another issue that's raised when it comes to bike shares or I assume is scooter shares is that the cost of these things being stolen and trashed. How often does that happen with e-scooters?

JJ: We don't have good data as to how prevalent the vandalism is but we hear a lot of stories. So it is a big concern for the scooter companies and the cities which host these scooter companies. I do understand that there are efforts being made by cities and by the scooter companies to kind of tamp down on this vandalism and this theft but it does appear to be a big problem.

PC: There are a lot of Americans and Canadians who are looking to e-scooters as you know another way to get around their cities or busy cities, but also as a way of reducing their carbon footprint -- in other words leave the car at home. Instead of taking an Uber, I'm going to hop on one of these e-scooters. If I want to cut down on my carbon footprint, getting around my city or another city, would you advise me to use an e-scooter?

JJ: Well if you are leaving your car at home and your goal is to reduce emissions then I would say yes because the emissions associated with driving -- that average automobile is about twice as high. Where I would caution if your goal is to reduce your emissions and the alternative would be walking or biking while the e-scooter doesn't stack up so well.

PC: Mr. Johnson thank you. I appreciate your time.

JJ: My pleasure Piya. Thank you so much for having me on.

CH: Jeremiah Johnson is a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. We reached him in Raleigh. We did receive a response from both Lime and Bird. The statement from Bird reads in part, quote, "Since our founding less than two years ago, we've seen people around the world choose e-scooters instead of gas guzzling cars. In addition we've committed to tracking the carbon footprint of our service." Lime's statement says in part that the study is, quote, "...based on assumptions and incomplete data that produces high variability in the results. With one in every three scooter trips replacing a car trip we believe micro-mobility will reduce pollution and mitigate climate change." For more on this story go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Chase Bank debt forgiveness

Guest: Paul Adamson

CH: It's like winning the lottery. If you owed the lottery money. Canadians who held credit cards owned by the U.S. based Chase Bank were recently greeted with a really implausible surprise. After the bank decided to fold two of its visa cards last year, the company decided to forgive thousands of dollars of outstanding debt owed by its customers. Paul Adamson is one of those Chase customers. We reached him in Dundalk, Ontario.

PC: Paul how did you hear that Chase Bank was forgiving your credit card debt?

PAUL ADAMSON: Well yeah I was paying my bills as I normally do at the end of the month and I found that I couldn't pay this one. The payer option was gone from my online bank. I called support and they said well you need to call the bank. So I called Chase and they said that I had a balance of zero dollars owing. I kind of scratched my head doubting what they said was real and did a little bit more digging and found yeah -- in fact that that is something that has happened.

PC: And how much did you owe on this particular credit card if you don't mind my asking?

PA: No that's fine. On my Chase Amazon rewards card I owe 1,645 dollars.

PC: And they said actually you don't owe 1,645 dollars -- you owe us exactly zero dollars.

PA: That's what they said. I had to repeat it twice and check with the supervisor just to make sure.

PC: And when you heard them say that you don't need to pay this back sir, you thought what?

PA: I didn't know what to think. I've never heard of this situation. I was sure someone was wrong or something had broken somewhere.

PC: It is pretty unheard of Paul as you probably know for a bank to forgive people for their outstanding debts. Why did they tell you they were doing it?

PA: The letter they gave they said that they just were leaving Canada and this made sense for their business.

PC: Okay I have to ask you did you intend on paying your credit card bill in full and on time or over time?

PA: Absolutely. Yes. So last May I got a letter from them saying that the credit card company program was closed, so I couldn't use the card anymore to make purchases and I started to pay off the balance -- at that time it was about 3,200 dollars. Not great. And it was a tail end of a spending spree that I had. So it was nice to kind of -- all right, time to rein this in. So I set out a payment plan and was fully prepared to pay this whole thing off. It would've been done by the end of the year or by spring next month or next year.

PC: Now there are some people and perhaps some of these people are just jealous that you've gotten your credit card debt forgiven but they're saying look you're being rewarded for irresponsible spending that you should have to pay it back. What do you say to that?

PA: Just my lucky situation. I wouldn't have wished to have this happen because I don't want to go out and bilk anyone out of money. I don't want to steal anything or do anything that isn't rightfully mine. I had racked up this charge -- I guess I just got lucky.

PC: Knowing that your debt has been forgiven, does this change the way -- we all have credit cards -- but does this change the way you think about credit cards and spending and having that debt?

PA: Actually that conversation I've had with myself started when they closed this program a year ago.

PC: And what did that conversation with yourself sound like?

PA: That this debt was irresponsible of me to escalate to this point.

PC: It was 1,600 bucks right. I think a lot of people probably had more debt on their credit cards than that.

PA: That's right.

PC: So now that you don't have to pay this 1,600 dollars in some ways you're 1,600 dollars richer. What are you going to do like with that fluid money now?

PA: Well it's just money I don't have to pay. So on my monthly budget I've shifted that to my mortage fund. So I'm saving up to buy a house. That's why my wife and I have moved into the country in a house that my parents already rented.

PC: Well Paul it's been good to talk to you. Thank you very much I appreciate it.

PA: You as well Piya. Thanks for your call.

CH: That was Paul Adamson, a former Chase credit card holder. We reached him in Dundalk, Ontario.

[Music]

Part 2: What does bread from 4,500-year-old Egyptian yeast taste like? Rich, with 'overtones of brown sugar'

Farmer sentencing

Guest: Douglas Grance

CH: A lot of people in the rural community of Grey Highlands, Ontario believed Emanuel Bauman had suffered enough. Today, a Justice agreed -- and gave the farmer a suspended sentence with three years probation in the accidental death of his son. It came after Mr. Bauman was found guilty earlier this year of criminal negligence causing death. Mr. Bauman was using a front-end loader and had two of his kids in the bucket. One of the kids fell out injured his head and died. Douglas Grace is Emanuel Bauman's lawyer. We reached him in Owen Sound, after the sentencing.

PC: Mr. Grace what were your thoughts when the judge handed down the sentence today saying your client would not be spending any time in jail?

DOUGLAS GRACE: I would say I was about as upbeat as I have been in years.

PC: I know Mr. Bauman is quite a quiet man. Did he say anything to you after the decision was handed down on what it meant to him?

DG: No. He just (is) very very quiet and shy. He smiled a bit and shook my hand. And we really didn't have much of a discussion other than that.

PC: Now the Crown had been pushing for jail time two years less a day saying that this case should act as a deterrent to others. But what did the judge say in court today about why she decided against jail time?

DG: Well legally there's two types of deterrence -- general deterrence and specific deterrence. Specific deterrence i.e. Mr. Bauman himself was never ever an issue. The only issue was is generally deterrence -- a factor and/or something to consider -- yes it is, but given all the good things about Mr. Bauman and the level of his misconduct compared to some of the more outrageous car racing chases that result in death that general deterrence would be served by Mr. Bauman helping out in the community -- his own community.

PC: In other words general deterrence is the idea that you send a message to other farmers to be careful -- more careful -- on their farms.

DG: Exactly. And part of his probation involves him dealing with safety issues on his own farm and other farms in the community.

PC: It's believed that this was the only case in Canada where an accidental death of a child on a farm has led to a criminal charge. What did the judge say today about how she came to this decision that he would not go to jail but have a suspended sentence and probation?

DG: Well her decision on whether he was guilty or not guilty of a crime that was handed down I think in May. So since then we've been dealing with the sentencing aspect of it.

PC: So when she came to her decision in May, can you remind me of what her sort of...

DG: Just made the decision that letting a child ride in the front bucket of skid steer or any other implement for that matter and not paying complete attention and the end result was she decided that not only was it an accident but it was a crime as well and that's the basis for her convicting him.

PC: And in the spring when she made that decision how surprised were you?

DG: I was surprised. I won't say how surprised, I'll just say I was surprised.

PC: And why were you surprised?

DG: Well I thought I had enough legal ammunition to convince her that there was a reasonable doubt that it was a crime. She didn't accept my argument but that's her decision. That was what we had to deal with in sentencing today.

PC: People in the community -- from his community -- have spoken to us about this case and say -- and farmers across this country will tell you it is common to you know take some risks on farms if I can put it that way, that it's not the same as urban dwelling and sometimes there is risky behavior on farms and sometimes kids do things that they wouldn't otherwise do say in the city. Do you think this case could change that? In other words do you think this might make farming families think twice?

DG: Those that hear about it, I'm sure it would make them think twice.

PC: What are you hearing from the community if anything?

DG: I haven't polled the community so I don't know. I know what was in the pre-sentence report which was that people in the community were learning from this and Mr. Bauman was already helping people with safety issues.

PC: What do you say to some of the experts who have said you know what riding in the bucket of a skid steer is never safe and that Mr. Bauman should have never allowed his two children to be in the front of that?

DG: Well that was the Crown's position and the judge accepted the Crown's position of the not guilty stage of proceedings and convicted him. The issue today was or when we argued sentence which was ultimately handed down today -- it was you know should this man go to jail for this criminal act committed in these circumstances.

PC: And what were your sentencing submissions?

DG: Well I asked for three years or I said two or three years of probation. She wound up giving him three.

PC: And why did you ask for that? Help me understand what your argument was.

DG: That he's -- to borrow a line from Bob Dylan, he was an un-harmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail. And I didn't want him to see the inside of a jail.

PC: In other words this was a tragic mistake or decision...

DG: It's a tragic mistake on his part. He's paying a price. He's living a life sentence of grief and remorse. He's going to have to explain this to his other five children, members of the community already know about it. I mean that's my personal opinion.

PC: Mr. Grace thank you for your time today. I do appreciate it.

DG: You're quite welcome.

CH: That was lawyer Douglas Grace in Owen Sound, Ontario.

[Music]

David MacNaughton

CH: Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said today that if it wasn't for David MacNaughton there would be no new NAFTA deal. Ms. Freeland wasn't the only one to heap praise on Canada's ambassador to the U.S. who announced his resignation today. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Ambassador MacNaughton's contribution, quote, "historic." But the Ambassador who navigated an unpredictable president -- and the renegotiation of a massive complicated trade deal -- will leave the post before the deal is ratified by the U.S. Congress. At a press conference today the ambassador told reporters he is looking forward to spending more time with his family and finally getting a reprieve from 11th-hour trade negotiations.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID MACNAUGHTON: In my life that has been as difficult as this -- physically, emotionally, and part of that is just realizing what the stakes are. Like the Prime Minister had me go right across the country to meet with provincial governments and with business leaders and community leaders -- and I got to understand what small changes might mean to small communities in Saskatchewan or Alberta or Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. And you're not just dealing with numbers or a balance sheet or whether it's a profit and loss statement you're talking about people and communities. And so you feel an extraordinary burden to do the best you can. And it was intense. I mean we were 24/7. I mean as we got down to the end you know I flew back from Alberta overnight on the red-eye and I got to Ottawa. We basically stayed up for four days in a row. Having said that, I wouldn't trade it for anything because you know it's an honor and a privilege to represent your country anywhere anytime. But to have been here at this time in this place under these circumstances has been extraordinarily special. So it's been an interesting experience. [Laughs] But you know I'm looking forward to you know the next chapter in my life and doing something hopefully I can continue to do -- something that helps Canada. But I'm also looking forward to spending a little bit more time with Leslie and my kids and my grandkids because I haven't seen enough of them in the last three and a half years.

CH: That was Canada's Ambassador to the U.S. David MacNaughton announcing today he would be stepping down at the end of the month to return to the private sector.

[Music]

Ancient Egypt bread

Guest: Seamus Blackley

CH: Seamus Blackley is a lot of things. He's a video game designer and the so-called father of the Xbox. He's a physicist. He's an amateur sour dough bread baker and he also happens to be extremely obsessed with all things ancient Egypt. It would be hard to think of a group of passions that have less to do with each other. But Mr. Blackley decided to force two of them together. He decided he was going to bake like the Egyptians did thousands of years ago. And he went the extra mile. He extracted dormant yeast from an ancient Egyptian pot. He fed that yeast and this week he used it to bake a loaf of bread. We reached Seamus Blackley in Pasadena.

PC: Seamus first of all what does this ancient Egyptian bread taste like?

SEAMUS BLACKLEY: I baked a lot of sour dough and I'm not bad at it. And I've made a lot of cultures and it was different. It tasted and smelled different. It was new. It was very exciting.

PC: Different good or different bad?

SB: Different great! [Laughter] And I hate to be so nerdy but bear with me. I think it's really interesting. And by the way I'm surprised. I mean my hobby is like collecting spores and I'm incredibly surprised that other people are tolerant of this and excited about it. But this starter culture the leavening that was used in the ancient world existed before modern wheat before modern needs before any of the things that we really consider to be bread. This is really old stuff. And so these yeast spores if indeed that's what we got have never been exposed to wheat. They ate [inaudible] corn and barley. That's what the Egyptians used. And so I fed them this old grain and it immediately woke up and it started to bubble and go crazy like sour dough started to do and it smelled yeasty but different. It had overtones of brown sugar -- it is really interesting and cool.

PC: So you brought up the smell. Because one of the best things about baking bread is when you open that oven door and the beautiful aromas just overwhelm you. Did this smell that delicious?

SB: It did. And just to me emotionally it was such a comforting and amazing and rich and sweet smell. And I try to describe it I say 'oh you know it had overtones of caramel and brown sugar.' Which it did but really it was emotional. I mean I was surprised that it worked at all.

PC: It is clear to me that you are very enthusiastic about baking bread. This is a passion. And I'm wondering about the ancient Egyptians -- were they as enthusiastic? Were they pretty well known for their bread baking abilities?

SB: Oh yes. And they were very accomplished bakers. And we have loaves of bread that we found in tombs and buried. We have the bread molds. We have of course lots of writing about bread. They loved bread.

PC: I understand you recruited some expert help in order to do all this. So who did you recruit?

SB: Yeah I'm a theoretical high energy physicist which means that I have trouble getting a job waiting tables, right. And when I first went about doing this I had got a sample of quote unquote "ancient Egyptian yeast" from a beer brewing friend of mine. And you know probably thinking back to it, it may at one point have been scraped from a pot but there's no provenance and it hadn't been fed grains so who knows what it was. And I baked with it and it really took off on Twitter -- this was a few months ago. And I realized that I was being disingenuous because I didn't know if it really was even Egyptian yeast and what the hell was I doing. So I had a lot of people asking questions on Twitter and being pretty critical which they should have been. Then two of the people who were most critical were Dr. Serena Love who is an Egyptologist, who has a lot of knowledge about Egyptian pottery and bacon. And a guy called Richard Bowman who's a microbiologist at the University of Iowa. I thought you know I should really do this right. And so I asked them if they would help figure out a way to do this for real. And that's why we're here.

PC: And where did you and your teammates so to speak -- where did you find an Egyptian pot that still had yeast in it?

SB: Yeast is incredible as an animal. It can survive in space and in vacuum. You can freeze it -- you can do all sorts of abuse to it and it will still bounce back. It can hibernate for thousands of years -- maybe hundreds of thousands of years, we don't really know. But certainly a thousand. And because of that property and the fact that the ancient Egyptians and a lot of other ancient peoples used really porous natural clay pottery to do their baking and their brewing we thought it was likely that vessels that have been used for doing that would have some of these yeast and bacteria -- the symbiotic sort of mixture of starter culture kind of pounded into the pores and it would go to sleep in these porous safe. If we can get inside those porous and get to those microbes we could get this goodness out. And so you need a microbiologists like Richard who understands how to safely and carefully extract and make up these microbes and then analyze them. And so I sort of unintentionally spoke to the right people.

PC: How do you wake up yeast that's been dormant for thousands of years?

SB: Well it's actually pretty easy. You know it does all the work. You just kind of get it wet and feed it. What we developed was a method sort of a microbiological tracking technique in which we inject a fluid with a lot of nutrients and amino acids and yummy stuff for the kinds of microbes we're looking for carefully into the ceramic matrix like the porous structure inside of these pots. And we let it sit for a little while. Everybody starts to wake up, stretch, you know sleepy eyes. [Laughter] And then we immediately suck it out really hard so that we get all the microbes coming back and the fluid. And then the microbes are happy because they're swimming in a sea of food. And then I FedEx-ed those samples to Richard and he does a lot of work separating them and understanding what's in there.

PC: Is there any of the original loaf left?

SB: Yeah it's been partially curated gastronomically by my wife over the past couple of days [Laughter] because it's really good. You don't have to be a bread-nerd to smell it's different. And that's one of the exciting things. But the half of the loaf is sitting -- because I'm going to be meeting Dr. Love for the first time, she's in from Australia, and I'm going to see what she has to say about it.

PC: There are lots of people listening who are you know sour dough enthusiasts, amateur bakers, and all they want to know is can I have some of your sour dough starter? Is there any to share around?

SB: Not yet. But the full intention of this in fact the point of the exercise is to share it as far and wide as possible. As soon as we're done with the hard work where we can look everyone in the eye and say yes we promise this is the ancient stuff we're going to share it. In fact I already do share a bunch of yeast on another Twitter page that I have called Ancient Yeast Club which again I am stunned that something called Ancient Yeast Club has thousands of followers but it does and we're going to share it far and wide.

PC: Seamus thank you very much. I appreciate your time today.

SB: It's great talking to you.

CH: Seamus Blackley is a video game designer, a physicist, a sour dough bread baker, and a self-proclaimed "gastroegyptologist." We reached him in Pasadena, California. And we've posted more on the story of this millennia in the making bread on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Abbey Road Photo

CH: It was the album that told people to "Come Together." And today, in greater numbers than usual, they did. Hundreds of Beatles fans descended on the famed zebra crossing at Abbey Road this morning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the photo that graced the cover of that record. It was taken by Scottish photographer Ian Macmillan who had about ten minutes to make it happen. While he perched on a step-ladder, a police officer held up traffic behind him. Today, traffic was stalled for much longer than that, while fans from around the world took photos of their own -- accompanied by Beatles tribute band Fab Gear and a psychedelic Rolls-Royce.

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowd cheering]

VOICE 1: We are coming from Mexico. And this is special because we are really big fans of The Beatles.

VOICE 2: It's absolutely incredible. I've been a Beatles fan all my life and to do this and ride up in John Lennon's Rolls-Royce was one of the biggest thrills of my life.

[Crowd applauding]

VOICE 3: I'm coming from Belgium. All my life nearly -- because the Beatles are special.

VOICE 4: They like to be here because of the message of the music give to everyone.

[Music being played]

VOICE 5: It's a great record. I mean it's still the end of the Beatles career but they didn't go out with a whimper. They went out with a bang! And I think that's why it's such an enduring album.

VOICE 6: Well normally it's an easy picture to replicate. I mean 300,000 people come every year to have their picture taken on the crossing.

VOICE 7: Now it's one of the most iconic covers. I think the thing people love about it is it's a simple thing that anybody can do. We all cross the street. The Beatles are human just like us. They cross streets.

[Music being played]

CH: Some sound from today's gathering of Beatles fans at the Abbey Road crosswalk in London. They were there to mark the 50th anniversary of John, Paul, George, and Ringo crossing that very same street while Ian Macmillan took a photo for the cover of the album Abbey Road.

[Music]

Matthew Lehtinen

CH: Matthew Lehtinen is an American pilot and miner who is very lucky to be alive. A couple of weeks ago he was flying from Labrador to the U.S. when something went terribly wrong about 20 minutes into the flight. He had to crash land in the boreal forest not far from Port-Cartier, on Quebec's North Shore. And thanks to a parachute affixed to the aircraft itself he survived to tell his story to Marika Wheeler on CBC's "Quebec AM." Here's Mr. Lehtinen describing his frightening descent.

SOUNDCLIP

MATTHEW LEHTINEN: When I first noticed the readings I knew right away it was wrong and instantly my heart was pounding. And then when I lost power it was just tunnel vision. It was just complete focus on flying the airplane. I haven't heard the air traffic control tapes of what I said but I do recall telling them I was going down. They approved me to land at Sept-Iles. I remember saying no -- unable and I'm going down. And then I remember repeating several times my coordinates because I was very fixated on and concerned about being rescued if I survived on the ground. So I was flying the airplane. I was immediately doing a 180 degree turn because there was a large body water right in front of me. And I did not want to land in that. And then I'm trying to stuff the G.P.S. in my pocket because I knew that was my lifesaver. And at about 2000 feet above the ground. So I had lost about 4000 feet altitude. I pulled the parachute. Parachute deployed as normal. And the first stage of the deployment is you're pointed straight at the ground so that's a little bit of an uneasy feeling waiting for the airplane to level back out. It did level out and then I just began to descend at about 20-25 kilometres per hour. I remember noticing the tree line just getting closer and closer and as I started to descend into the top of the tree line that's when I heard basically a huge explosion of bark and dust into the cabin and noticed the tree trunk come through the corner of my left eye. And then a moment later I was on the ground and I was unbuckling my seatbelt trying to scamper away from the aircraft as fast as possible worried about a fire.

CH: American pilot Matthew Lehtinen speaking with Marika Wheeler on CBC's "Quebec AM."

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August 8, 2019 Episode Transcript

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