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The AIH Transcript for September 23, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Ali Hassan

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol Off.

ALI HASSAN: Good evening. I'm Ali Hassan. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

AH: Tonight...

CO: Going to Greta lengths. Today at the UN Climate Summit, teenage activist Greta Thunberg put world leaders on blast for their empty words -- so we'll ask the Mayor of Victoria whether she's heard anything at the summit that would change Ms. Thunberg's mind.

AH: Overdue diligence. Her mother died waiting for first responders after calling 911 -- and now a B.C. woman hopes the changes promised by the government mean that no one else will suffer like her mom did.

CO: Long-distance revelationship. More details emerge about U.S. President Trump's phone calls to the President of Ukraine -- and while Mr. Trump believes he's answered his critics, our guest says a lot more answers are needed.

AH: Grounded beef. Hundreds of thousands of furious vacationers are stuck where they are after the world's oldest travel company abruptly goes under -- and the ripples are felt throughout the industry.

CO: Poem poem on the range. Our guest was one of the cowboy poets at an annual gathering of Wild West versifiers in Calgary this weekend -- he'll tell us how he went from herding to being heard.

AH: And exit the dragons. Canadian Paula Fairfield won a sound-editing Emmy for her work on the last season of Game of Thrones -- she'll tell us how she made so many awful creatures such a roaring success. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that's glad at least one person involved in that season showed sound judgment.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Cities must lead the way in fighting climate change, says Victoria mayor

Climate cities

Guest: Lisa Helps

AH: Greta Thunberg put the world's politicians on notice today. The 16-year-old Swedish activist was addressing the United Nations Climate Summit in New York. Mr. Thunberg began by telling some of the most powerful people on the planet that she and her entire generation are going to be watching what they do.

SOUNDCLIP

GRETA THUNBERG: This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean -- yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. Yet I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth...how dare you?! For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency but no matter how sad and angry I am I do not want to believe that because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this -- right here right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming whether you like it or not. Thank you.

AH: That was Greta Thunberg addressing the United Nations Climate Summit today in New York. Lisa Helps was at the summit, as well as part of a panel on the climate responsibilities of cities. Ms. Helps is the Mayor of Victoria, British Columbia. And we reached Mayor Helps in New York.

CO: Mayor Helps, what do you say to those words from Greta Thunberg?

LISA HELPS: I say that she's absolutely right. She should watch us, they should all watch us. One of the messages that I've been giving to youth is watch very carefully the commitments that come out of the summit here in New York and hold us accountable. I can say to Greta and maybe I'll write her a letter because I'm sure she's got lots of fans around the world and I'm one of them -- the sessions that I participated in over the weekend should give Greta hope. The people that I spent the weekend with -- our national, provincial, and city leaders -- that get the urgency of the problem and that are prepared to make new commitments and new ways of working. So I'm actually quite optimistic.

CO: She says that we're headed to mass extinction while governments have fairy tales of eternal economic growth. And that is accurate, isn't it? In this election campaign we have in Canada right now all those remarks about economic growth -- that we have to keep growing otherwise if we stand still we don't live as well. What she says in this and she calls it a betrayal is accurate, isn't it?

LH: It is. And also I was at the launch of a report by Lord Nicholas Stern and others who argue very very compellingly that solving climate change is the best economic opportunity of our generation to create inclusive sustainable communities. And in this 120-page report they've laid out a roadmap to do so. The report is called Climate Emergency Urban Opportunity: How National Governments Can Secure Economic Prosperity and Avert Climate Catastrophe by Transforming Cities. So the key message is it all comes back to cities and a different kind of economy.

CO: What can cities do?

LH: Not only what can cities do but what must cities do. What this new report shows is that fully 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions around the world are generated by cities. So cities need to transform mobility, transform buildings, and transform waste. Those are the three largest sources of emissions. One of the things that I hope gets fed into the federal election campaign coming out of this report is that cities cannot do it alone. Only 2 in 5 national governments around the world have a climate plan that involves cities yet cities are 80 percent of emissions. So that is a conversation shift that needs to happen in our country.

CO: What can municipalities actually do given their limited powers?

LH: Well it's not just a conversation about transferring financial resources it's actually also a conversation we need to have as a country and as provinces about transferring authority. So a perfect example is the City of Victoria's plastic bag case. So we eliminated plastic bags. We passed a bylaw doing so under business regulations. We have all sorts of ways to regulate businesses. We passed the bylaw. The Plastic Bag Association of Canada -- whoever those folks might be -- they kind of sprung up after our bylaw, they took us to court, and the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in our favor. It was appealed. The court of appeal ruled in their favor. So here we are bickering in court about whether a city can or cannot eliminate the use of plastic bags. So this is a very important conversation. It's not only the devolution of financial resources but also -- and this is the beautiful thing -- we can help provinces and we can help the national government but only if we are given more authority.

CO: But a ban on plastic bags -- I mean that's pretty basic entry-level stuff, isn't it? I mean what does it say that you can't get a ban on plastic bags? What does that say to Greta Thunberg and her "How dare you" speech?

LH: Well what Greta would be so proud of in Victoria is we passed the bylaw. It was in effect for a year. All of our businesses came on board. All of the community came on board. And now even though the bylaw has been struck down by the courts I would say 95 to 97 percent of businesses in Victoria are still acting as if this bylaw is in effect. So it's become voluntary. Now that's not good enough. We do need the authority to ban plastic bags, to regulate single-use items, to regulate whether we want electric cars or buses or gas powered ones on our streets. And those are tough conversations we're going to need to have in the coming months. But I think at least in Victoria there is the political will and the social licence to move in this direction.

CO: What else have you done?

LH: Well I don't know if it's made its way across the country yet but just like many other cities we are implementing bike network but we're implementing a very aggressive bike network for our small cities. So it's a 32 kilometre-network. It'll be built by 2022 and when that's built it's projected to reduce emissions by 10,000 tons per year every year. So that's one small thing. We've declared a climate emergency and we've given our staff marching orders to accelerate our current climate goals which are all laid out in the 2018 plan which Greta would agree is out of date. So we will be rolling out over the next couple of months some very very envelope pushing policies which again test the limits of the community charter in terms of the authority that that cities have. So having to do mostly with transportation which is 40 percent of our emissions and buildings that are 50 percent of our emissions.

CO: The question has to be put to is that you are one of hundreds of people taking part in this United Nations summit on climate change. Flights in from all over the world to be in New York for this. What do you say to those who are saying 'what are you doing using all those fossil fuels in order to be at a summit on climate change?'

LH: Well I think it's a good question. In the City of Victoria we've created a carbon tax for ourselves. So for every time that I travel and I obviously take this very seriously we pay 150 dollars per tonne of tax on carbon. It goes into our climate reserve fund. So we're you know offsetting which I don't think is good enough but as I said to someone earlier today it is very easy to -- and you're not doing this -- but it's very easy to point fingers and say you hypocrites. But if we didn't get together to solve the greatest challenge of our time we would be much worse off. So my hope is that sometime in the future these kinds of emergency meetings won't be necessary. But in the meantime coming together to do what Greta and others are asking is absolutely the only way to do it.

CO: Mayor Helps thank you.

LH: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

AH: Lisa Helps is the Mayor of Victoria, British Columbia. We reached her in New York. We have more on that story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Ukraine: Trump/Biden

Guest: Aaron Blake

AH: U.S. President Donald Trump was on the defensive. Now he's on the attack. For days now the president has been responding to reports that he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. He admitted he'd raised the issue but claimed he'd done nothing wrong. Then today at the United Nations he said this to reporters.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: They probably know that Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. They probably know that. Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. All right. But the fake news doesn't want to report because they're Democrats. If that ever happened -- if a Republican ever did what Joe Biden did, if a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said they'd be getting the electric chair by right now. Look at the double standard. You people ought to be ashamed of yourself. And not all. We have some great journalists around but you got a lot of crooked journalists. You are crooked as hell. Okay. Thank you very much.

AH: U.S. President Donald Trump speaking to reporters earlier today. Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter for The Washington Post. We reached him in Washington.

CO: Aaron we were hearing President Trump in the White House last week they seemed to be scrambling to account for what happened on that phone call to the Ukrainian President. Today, the tables are completely turned. What do you make of the way that Donald Trump is dealing with this fallout?

AARON BLAKE: Well there are a couple ways that I would explain it. One is that there are real indications that the president for however much this story might appear to be troublesome for him actually likes the fact that we're talking about all this. If you look even a few months ago Rudy Giuliani was talking to a Washington Post reporter about how he was going to find a way to get everybody to start talking about the Bidens and Ukraine. And for better or worse -- however this might ultimately shake out -- this has put that story on the map in a way that it wasn't previously, that it hadn't been getting covered before. The other explanation is I think in that clip that you played the president sounded a note about the media assembled there that was even a little bit further than he usually goes -- the idea that they should be ashamed of themselves. There are people inside the White House who are genuinely concerned about where this is ultimately going to lead and they're genuinely worried about exactly what the president might have done here. What could be in that whistleblower complaint. And we need to remember that even they -- many of them -- don't ultimately know what is in that complaint. So there is a whole lot of uncertainty here. The president is pushing forward but he really doesn't have many other modes.

CO: Okay. And also in another tweet Mr. Trump suggests the whistleblower who was -- the one who we don't know -- he or she revealed this information is someone that may have been working for some other side. Who is this whistleblower? He says. Is he on our country's side? Suggesting that there's some kind of traitor in their midst.

AB: Yeah all indications are that not only do we not know who the whistleblower is but also that the White House and President Trump don't know who the whistleblower is. So the president has spent much of the last few days discrediting this person pre-emptively even though he probably doesn't know who this person is either. This very much follows his playbook on these matters which is that you deny, you explain why even if you did something it wasn't actually bad, and you also worked to discredit the people involved here. I think the fact that he's saying these things without actually knowing who that person is pretty much tells you all you need to know about what kind of a basis he's working with as far as denigrating this person's character and their motives here. Everything we know about this person is that they have been in the intelligence community for a long time, not somebody who's been in partisan politics for a long time. And really until we know who that person is to talk about any potential motivations is very premature.

CO: What's the background to this story? What is Joe Biden's son's relationship with Ukraine?

AB: Well essentially late in the Obama administration Joe Biden's son, Hunter, took a job -- a very well-paying job -- with the leading energy company in Ukraine. And that's a company that happened to be under investigation by the prosecutor general which is pretty much equivalent to attorney general in the United States. And depending on who you believe that investigation was either dormant or hadn't really led anywhere by the time Joe Biden intervened in this and along with many other leaders of Western countries and basically said that Ukraine needed to get rid of this prosecutor general who was viewed as being ineffectual when it came to rooting out corruption. So the idea basically is that Joe Biden was pressuring Ukraine to get rid of a prosecutor who happened to be investigating his son's company. But that ignores the fact that this is something that was being pushed more widely in the West. It also ignores that there are signs that this investigation really wasn't of much substance at that point and so there really wasn't a whole lot of risk at least as it appeared at that time to the company that Hunter Biden was working for.

CO: Now this leads to this phone call that Donald Trump had with the newly-elected President of Ukraine. Why does it seem that he raised the issue of Joe Biden and his son in that phone call?

AB: Well the president has been actually kind of intermittently pretty clear on this point and his lawyer in recent months, Rudy Giuliani, has been outwardly pushing for Ukraine to launch this investigation. This is something that they would like to see Ukraine do. The big question here is whether this was something that was part of a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government or whether this was something that the president was expressly pushing for them to do in a very suggestive way -- maybe withholding aid or something like that from Ukraine. That's when we start getting into potential questions of using official government resources for personal gain and things like that. So what we know is that on July 25th the president was talking to the president of Ukraine. We know that they talked about corruption in some way shape or form. The president has suggested a time or two in the last day or so that they did talk about the Bidens. But what we're really looking for is how explicit any potential threats or promises might have been and what other communications between the two countries might have involved because the whistleblower complaint here actually doesn't just focus on that phone call it actually involves a number of communications here. So even as we're all wondering what was said on that phone call it's really only a piece of this larger puzzle.

CO: Meanwhile what does this do to Joe Biden and his political career? I mean we heard in that clip that Donald Trump has said that Joe Biden and his son are so corrupt that if they were Republicans they would get the electric chair. I mean he's obviously not going to stop that it's kind of like the 'Crooked Hillary' stuff. So what happens to Mr. Biden in the course -- no matter which way this story goes?

AB: Right. So one of the more interesting things about this is that it does signal that the Trump campaign seems to view Biden as perhaps their strongest opponent. That is certainly something that's borne out in most of the early polls we're seeing. The idea that they would go to this extent possibly you know doing something that could be seen as corrupt in order to push a story out into the mainstream media is a pretty significant step and I think speaks to how worried they are about Joe Biden.

CO: All right. Fascinating. Aaron thank you.

AB: Thank you.

AH: Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter for The Washington Post.

[Music]

Game of Thrones Emmy

Guest: Paula Fairfield

SOUNDCLIP

[Game Of Thrones Theme]

AH: If you were to ever come face-to-face with a dragon it would likely be very terrifying. But it turns out it's not just their looks that are scary it's how they sound as well. Take for example some of the most famous dragons in Westeros, who sound like this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Loud roaring sound and dramatic music]

AH: The unwelcoming sounds of the dragons from Game of Thrones. Over the years the show won millions of fans, and a fair number of Emmys -- including last night's win for best drama. And this year it also took home the prize for Outstanding Sound Editing -- thanks to Paula Fairfield. The sound designer grew up in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. We reached her outside of Palm Springs, California.

CO: Paula big congratulations.

PAULA FAIRFIELD: Thank you.

CO: How does it feel to be a two-time Emmy Award winner?

PF: Pretty surreal. Feels pretty awesome. It's been a long kind of winding road and a lot of hard work but you know it's really nice to get acknowledged like that.

CO: Now Game of Thrones also won best drama last night at the Emmys. So how was the celebration?

PF: It was great. I think people were excited. It's bittersweet. You know it's the last time sort of everybody will be all together kind of in the same place. But I was really happy to see Thrones get you know the big prize last night. It was great. I was sad some of the actors didn't pick up but I think overall everybody felt pretty good about it.

CO: In fact I think Peter Dinklage won for best supporting actor.

PF: He did. And that was fabulous.

CO: You won for sound editing. What are the sounds that you designed for Game of Thrones?

PF: Well I had the fabulous honor of doing all the fun stuff. My job was to do all the fantastical elements so the dragon, the white-walkers, the wolves. Kind of all the crazy stuff. So yeah very fun job.

CO: Crazy...but all the scary stuff. Come on. [Laughter] The things you just mentioned I still have nightmares about.

PF: [Laughs] Well the dragons aren't so scary always.

CO: Well it depends -- at the beginning the dragons weren't so scary. And you had to create sounds for them from the time that they're born to the time that they're most scary iteration. So how did the sound of the dragons evolve in your creation?

PF: Well I actually came on in Season 3 so I took the dragons over when they were toddlers. And it was fascinating because it was really the first time we've ever seen creatures that are kind of characters have to grow up over time. So I had to kind of like literally grow the sound design for the dragons which was very -- I didn't realize until like Season 5 or just before Season 5 when they said oh and they're going to be bigger this year. And then of course they got bigger and bigger and bigger. So it kind of developed very organically. I knew that I had to maintain the essence of their voices as they were young. You know Drogon in particular who was the lead and was the main dragon that we heard the most of. We certainly got to know Rhaegal a little bit this season. But trying to maintain an element of the vocal quality for Drogon so that you always knew it was Drogon you know. And I'm quite proud of the fact that when you compare you know the later seasons with the earlier seasons you can still hear an essence of the younger dragon in the older dragon. At the same time I had to keep adding things to kind of properly articulate the physicality of the dragons as it was changing -- as they got bigger and bigger and bigger. And as their emotional palette started to widen which is sort of what happened in this season because we spent a lot more time with the dragons. We were riding around on the dragons, the dragons were flying around burning things down and doing all this stuff. You know there was a very emotional scene with Drogon and Dany at the end and so the the emotional palette really widened this season which was interesting because I had to add more elements to be able to kind of articulate those emotions.

CO: How did you do that? Because the idea -- I mean you could just have I guess created mechanical sounds but they're not. To get that realism you turned to nature. Where did you go to get the sounds that you incorporated into the dragons?

PF: Over the years I've used a lot of different elements -- by this season there are approximately 30 animals or so that are part of the vocal palette. So I used my dog, Angel, who was this beautiful soul very powerful creature to actually add some elements to the dragons. But I also went and recorded at White Oak Conservatory in Florida. They have one of the largest rhino populations in North America. I recorded Mississippi sandhill cranes and a lot of other animals as well. Those were added in this year. And then I have the fabulous opportunity to record these two orphaned bear cub that were in rehab at the Cochrane Ecological Institute in Cochrane, Alberta. They built a hibernaculum for the cub to hibernate in and we placed a recorder in with them and we got a lot of breathing and snoring and even some farting [laughter] and you know kind of play and tumbling and all kinds of stuff. Lots of shake too -- big old bear shakes. And that stuff made it in -- in particular to that last scene with Dany and Drogon -- the sniffs, the beautiful sniffs, and groans, and pushes are from these bear cubs as are the big big shakes that Drogon does.

CO: So it's extraordinary to hear how many animals went into creating that sense of realism. And now just for last night -- let's go back there -- your mom was this you at the end of the evening. How did she...

PF: She came for the whole thing. She was here for the last weekend when our award night was happening and then we hung out and we went to the big HBO party last night -- and enjoyed that and it was fabulous.

CO: Did she get to meet any of the stars?

PF: She got her photo with Kit Harington which is all she ever wanted and she got a great one. And that was great. So we really had a wonderful time.

CO: So you were with your mom and she got to meet Kit Harington who's John Snow I understand.

PF: Yeah she got to meet Jon Snow, she got to meet Emilia [Clarke], she got to meet Peter Dinklage. She was in her heaven. [Laughs]

CO: And you got your Emmy.

PF: And I got my Emmy so everybody had a good time.

CO: Paula thank you.

PF: Thank you. Appreciate talking to you.

AH: Paula Fairfield took home this year's Emmy for Best Sound Editing on her work on Game of Thrones. We reached Ms. Fairfield near Palm Springs, California.

[Music]

Part 2: Vancouver first responders

Vancouver first responders

Guest: Chelsea Brent

AH: When Tracey Gundersen called 911 back in November of last year she pleaded with first responders to hurry. It would take 35-minutes for crews to get to her. They had trouble getting into the building. And when they got to her apartment, Ms. Gundersen didn't have a pulse. She died that day. Now the results of an external review into Ms. Gundersen's case have been released. Ms. Gundersen's daughter Chelsea Brent has been calling for changes since her mom's death. She's a 911 operator herself for the police in British Columbia. We reached her in Langley.

CO: Chelsea how does it feel to hear your Health Minister say that all 14 recommendations in this report are going to be implemented?

CHELSEA BRENT: Excited and hopeful. I find that with government it's always unknown what's going to happen when things are recommended or put forth. But the fact that he is telling me with faith that it's all going to happen gives me hope for the future of BC citizens at least.

CO: I think in particular there are some that matter to you more than others. Can you tell us what you see in this report that should be implemented that would have made a difference for your mom?

CB: The biggest one I find would make the difference is my mom when she called them and told the call-taker very obviously she wasn't going to be able to answer the buzzer. And one of the recommendations based on that comment in itself is focused on if there's any suspected possible access problems or issues to automatically advise fire who has access to all the buildings in Vancouver or the majority of the buildings. So I think that's the most impactful one that would have played out in my mom's situation differently than it did.

CO: Recommendation 5 -- I'm going to read it: Fire departments should be dispatched where there is any suspicion of access delay or at the first sign that access might be a problem.

CB: Yes.

CO: What happened to your mother?

CB: My mother called 911 on November 8th, pretty early in the morning -- around 8:15 -- bleeding profusely from her groin. She asked for help and she quickly declared in the phone call within four or five minutes she was getting blurry and dizzy and wasn't able to get to the buzzer and made that very obvious. And then when the paramedics did arrive on scene they ran into quick access problems in that building. It's a double intercom building so the first front door is intercom locked unless the owner in the residence approves access. And there's a second door with the same problem. So the paramedics ran quickly into issues getting into the building as she was blurry and unable to answer the buzzer properly.

CO: And she was on the phone with 911 -- what was she telling them at the point while they were trying to get into that building?

CB: Right when you heard the sirens in the background on the phone call you could hear it through her window, she started to say "Are they there yet?" And then the call-taker responded with "If you can hear sirens that means they're pulling up and they're turning them off." She made it very obvious she was getting blurry and dizzy and had lost so much blood that she was getting that blurry and then said I think at two different points that she wasn't able to answer the door which she was then correcting herself saying the buzzer. She was expressing that she couldn't get there. And either they heard it and didn't relay it or something was missed along the line.

CO: How did they finally get into the building?

CB: They called the fire department -- requesting the routine which is non-emergency response because they assumed the hall less than a block away was going to be attending not realizing that hall only went to emergency calls and so a fire truck from approximately seven to ten minutes away did attend and gave them access. Vancouver fire fighters have access to lock boxes by the front door underneath the intercom that have fobs and keys to the building. So my mom called them at 8:15, the paramedics were on scene at 8:20, the fire department was not called until 8:32.

CO: So you've heard that phone call many times -- that 911 call -- what does it tell you? What There was just so much that was wrong in that moment, wasn't there?

CB: There really was. I mean she wasn't getting the help she deserved. Unknown if that was coming from a place of assuming -- judgment based on where she lived. She did live down on skid row in the downtown eastside in Vancouver. Or something was just missed. I mean I don't know. It was very obvious she was struggling and deteriorating very quickly in the phone call.

CO: What assumptions do you worry they had given the fact that your mother was living in the downtown eastside?

CB: I have a concern that maybe there was a thought that it wasn't as urgent as she was saying -- I mean I don't really know. I mean I can't prove it but I mean I feel like her lifestyle definitely played a part in her care. I would assume someone with a lot of money and lives in a very rich neighborhood might get a better response but that is my assumption. But I'm curious if maybe they thought it wasn't as urgent as she was saying it actually was.

CO: And what lifestyle issues do they were taking -- they were assuming?

CB: I mean she does live in the downtown eastside and she was a drug addict although that was not said on the phone call. It wasn't mentioned to be something drug related but my concern is that they went with maybe that thought process in their head and didn't believe it was that urgent.

CO: You were trying to help your mother with health issues and dealing with her needs, her urgencies. But you couldn't be there to help her that day. How was it for you to know that had they done things differently, had there been these policies in place that she would have survived possibly?

CB: That's the hardest part for me. I mean I don't know if she would've survived and I want for my own sanity to kind of think she might not have. But I at least would have felt more comfortable if she wouldn't have died alone. She died scared and alone waiting for -- knowing help was outside her building but not able to have it in beside her. So that's kind of the hardest part for me. It makes me sad that I wasn't there to able to rescue her. Our relationship was quite complicated but she's my mom and I would have been there if I could have been. And knowing the situation I just wish someone had been by her side despite even if she hadn't lived in the long run I wish someone would have been there trying to save her.

CO: There was no one that could have -- when they finally got in to see your mother, there was nothing they could do?

CB: There was nothing they could do. They did attempt to revive her and get her heart going. For almost an hour they worked on her but when they found her she was pulse-less.

CO: These recommendations, this report, you had a lot to do with it, didn't you? I mean your demand for answers, your arguments that more could have been done. This has led to really important recommendations that we believe will be implemented now. Does that give you some space now to grieve your mother's death?

CB: It does. I think knowing that there's going to be a change and people in the province of B.C. are ideally not going to go through what my mom did -- there's not going to be another Tracey Gundersen that's going to suffer the way she did and there's not going to have to be another daughter trying to fight for what happened, that does give me space in a hopeful way to be able to process what happened and start moving forward with that comfort.

CO: Chelsea thank you.

CB: You're welcome. Thank you.

AH: That was Chelsea Brent speaking about the death of her mother Tracey Gundersen. We reached her in Langley, British Columbia.

[Music]

Carrot Ring

AH: Sometimes, when an idea is planted it can take a while before it actually takes root. For Deejay Squires' boyfriend John that meant buying an engagement ring, burying it, and waiting a few months to finally pop the question. But the wait was worth it. And I'm not sure what it's made of, but it's at least a one-carrot ring. Here's Deejay Squires telling her proposal story to Gavin Simms host of "Newfoundland Morning."

SOUNDCLIP

GAVIN SIMMS: Tell me the story of how your engagement ring was discovered on the weekend.

DEEJAY SQUIRES: We had planned to cook a chicken for supper because we have a little homestead so we got a couple of potatoes and a cabbage and then proceeded to the bucket of carrots that we had there and he picked one and my son who's three he picked one and then they asked, did I want to pick a carrot out? I started to wriggle it out and as I was pulling the carrot out John had said I love you very much. And as I pulled it out and had it in my hand he was on one knee in front of me and asked me to marry him.

GAVIN SIMMS: So it was grown into the carrot.

DEEJAY SQUIRES: Yes. Yeah. He put the ring in the dirt and put a pencil down and put some more soil around that and planted the seeds inside where the pencil was and just hope for the best.

GAVIN SIMMS: Oh my God. So when did he do that? That was a while ago I guess.

DEEJAY SQUIRES: He planted it in June. I think it was mid-June when he planted that carrot.

GAVIN SIMMS: So that's a real waiting game.

DEEJAY SQUIRES: Yeah yeah. And just not being sure you know for a while you wonder was it going to bust the ring or did it grow in the ring. And we didn't know until I pulled it out today.

GAVIN SIMMS: So you could pick this carrot out at any time. How did he know you were going to choose it last night?

DEEJAY SQUIRES: I don't know. I guess I don't normally go around -- like I've pick some strawberries we've had and a few tomatoes but he's usually the one to say okay let's go harvest some vegetables. So I just left it alone and was very shocked.

GAVIN SIMMS: The ring I assume is no longer on the carrot.

DEEJAY SQUIRES: No no -- my son ate some of the carrot, and then when you manage to get the ring off and it's now on my finger.

AH: That's Deejay Squires from Pinchgut Lake, Newfoundland speaking about her very patient fiance with Gavin Simms host of CBC's "Newfoundland Morning."

[Music]

Thomas Cook folds

Guest: Michalis Vlatakis

AH: Hundreds of thousands of vacationers around the world woke up to extremely bad news this morning. They learned that Thomas Cook -- the world's oldest travel company -- had declared bankruptcy. That means those travelers are now stranded everywhere from Tunisia to Cyprus to Sweden. The UK government has promised to bring them all home in the country's biggest ever peacetime repatriation effort. But how, when, and at what cost are just a few of the unanswered questions.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Come to the airport literally just walk for the doors and we got handed this leaflet saying that we haven't got a flight and we haven't got a holiday. There's no one of us on the holiday and we've got nothing. We're gutted -- absolutely gutted.

VOICE 2: What's happened is our Thomas Cook rep has actually just walked out -- we've got now left in the dark. Thomas Cook has not paid the hotel yet as well. They have warned us about it. They've not been paid -- we are left in the dark.

VOICE 3: My only worry is that I've got a heart condition and I should be out of tablets. I was warned by the family not to come in the first place but I was determined to come for the wedding.

VOICE 4: To be honest we found out today. So I heard a few things on the radio about Thomas Cook but I wasn't really listening to be honest.

VOICE 5: They should have emailed us to let you know about it.

VOICE 4: There was no communication about it whatsoever. Their website doesn't say anything whatsoever.

AH: From the Guardian and the BBC, some Thomas Cook clients reacting to today's news that the tour operator and airline had collapsed. This morning, Peter Fanhauser -- the company's chief executive apologized to Thomas Cook customers and employees and to many thousands of hoteliers and tourism operators who will be affected by today's news. Michalis Vlatakis is the president of Crete's Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies. And that's where we reached him today.

CO: Mr. Vlatakis what was your reaction to the news that Thomas Cook had folded?

MICHALIS VLATAKIS: The first thing that I thought is that this is an earthquake and we were expecting a tsunami. And the damages from the tsunami are usually much more than the earthquake.

CO: Wow -- so an earthquake and then you're waiting for the tsunami. Let's talk about the earthquake first. How has this shaken tourism in Crete?

MV: Really very much because in Crete we have about 500,000 tourists coming with Thomas Cook every year out of 4 million -- as you understand this is a very big number.

CO: When did people in your industry start getting an idea that things were heading in this direction for the Thomas Cook agency?

MV: The first time was in 2011. But since then there was absolutely no problem. And we received payments until the end of July. So we were never expecting that such a strong tour operator was going to collapse.

CO: Now there are places that Thomas Cook has tourists who are running into a lot of problems, aren't they? Because the hotels are saying well we don't know who's going to pay your bill, we don't know if we're going to get the money for your visit. They're even saying in some places we're not going to let you go until we figure this out. What is happening to people who are already in Crete?

MV: Not in Crete. We are all trying to offer our world famous Crete hospitality. We are all trying to help the people finish the holidays and return home with the best memories. And this is what we are all trying here. And this will not happen here -- obviously the insurances were activated in such cases they have to give in written that they will cover the stay of these clients. And we are going to do everything that is necessary to get these confirmations. Asking money from the clients -- this is absolutely the very last us thing that we are going to do. And I'm telling you it will not happen in Crete.

CO: So you're going to make sure that everyone who is in Crete on a holiday they're not going to feel the pain of what Thomas Cook agency has done or what conditions it is in. But what does that mean for the tourist operators? I mean are they going to be out of pocket for this?

MV: This is something very difficult because we face a process -- all the tourist market not only the hotels but also the buses, and the roads, and the restaurants, and everything that has to do with tourist services and taking on the consideration that the whole August and part of July has not been paid and the amounts are huge. A friend of mine -- a hotelier -- told me that the last two weeks he is over one million euro. Another hotelier had one and a half million euro. So this is the amount that actually we think we're going to lose.

CO: Those are huge sums of money for a hotel -- a million, a million and a half. And what expectations do those hotel operators have that they will ever see that money -- even when the insurance settlements are done?

MV: The insurance is covering only from the day that bankruptcy is announced until the end of the holiday. It doesn't cover tourists who have left already from this nation. So the hope to hoteliers to get money is fairly small.

CO: Okay so you say it's an earthquake and the tsunami is yet to come. What is the tsunami? What's going to happen now that you fear is going to be equally as devastating or perhaps more so?

MV: We still have over 45 days of season -- six weeks of season -- and all guest who are booked to come until the beginning of November they cannot come. And the other part and most serious part of the tsunami is the contract which have been signed for next year and obviously they do not exist anymore while the tour operator has been bankrupt.

CO: We should just remind people in case they're just tuning in that the earthquake and tsunami in Crete -- it is a metaphor we're talking, in case people think something like that has really happened. But right now at this point, how many people are actually in Crete that might not really know how they're going to get out?

MV: We have about 22,000 passengers in Crete. I am expecting that all of them are going to be covered by their insurance company of the other countries. We speak about the package tourist -- those who have airplane ticket and hotel because those who have only flight these people they have to or they are not covered by the insurance and they have to use the travel insurance or a credit card insurance.

CO: What a mess.

MV: Indeed.

CO: Mr. Vlatakis I am sorry this is happening to you and the others. But I appreciate that you'd speak with us. Thank you.

MV: Thank you.

AH: Michalis Vlatakis is the president of Crete's Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies. He's in Crete.

[Music]

CPA Exam

AH: Most dream-analysis websites agree on two things. First, that grammar is not important. Second, that dreams about taking a difficult exam reflect stress in your waking life. Earlier this month more than 8000 Canadians all had the same bad dream at once. They were taking exams to become Certified Professional Accountants. There's more. The software didn't work. No one knew what was going on and everyone freaked out. But it wasn't a stress dream. They were awake. It's called the Common Final Examination or CFE. It's an exhaustive three day test held once a year in locations across Canada. Students pay 1,500 bucks to take it. It's the last hurdle before becoming a CPA. But this year CFE wasn't so much a hurdle as a wall behind which was another higher wall. It turns out the organization that runs the exam used new software called Surpass, which didn't. On the first day glitches and problems connecting to Wi-Fi caused a two hour delay. On the second day, the delay stretched to five hours -- in some locations there was no food available. When the delay ended some students had access to working computers and reference materials, some had to write the test by hand. Staff had no idea how to handle any of this and there was anger, weeping, according to one report stress-vomiting. CPA Canada has apologized for what one person called "Fyre Festival for accountants." But so far it hasn't announced what it will do to fix things. Not the kind of order you might expect from a test for accountants and a real nightmare for anyone who expected safety in numbers.

[Music]

Rob Watson

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Can I see all those in favor for the NEC statement on Brexit?

[People cheering]

VOICE 1: And can I see all those against? Okay that is clearly carried.

AH: That is the sound of Jeremy Corbyn getting his way. But it remains to be seen if voters will back the UK Labour leader's Brexit strategy at the polls. At the Labour Party's annual conference today delegates voted for the party to remain neutral on the issue of Brexit during a general election which shocked a lot of Labour Remainers in the party who want to see their leader take a clear stance. Today several UK political analysts wondered aloud whether by sitting on the Brexit fence the party was throwing away its shot at winning a forthcoming election. Here is the BBC political correspondent Rob Watson speaking with BBC host Tim Franks earlier today.

SOUNDCLIP

ROB WATSON: It seems to me it is the absolute key question or one of them in British politics -- I mean is it this attempt to sit on the fence, is it a stroke of political genius or is it an act of total political suicide? Because you could take the view that in a country that is now as extraordinarily polarised in Britain entirely on remain-leave lines. No longer about class, geography, or age -- it's along those lines. You could say that Mr. Corbyn's position was a bit like in a market where all the people want to either buy oranges or apples suddenly he's coming along with bananas. So I guess the short answer to your question is we'll find out whether in the general election whether it's a stroke of genius or an act of madness.

TIM FRANKS: The opinion polls Rob suggests that Jeremy Corbyn isn't much liked or appreciated by voters. What's his position within the party? Is it rock solid?

ROB WATSON: That's a very good question. I would say that the adulation, the adoration, is just not what it was when he first took over four years ago...it's just not the same. And I think even those in the party that do admire him they will be aware of what you were just talking about -- this business and the opinion polls in which actually he's doing worse than any other opposition leader since that question was first asked by pollsters back in 1977 and they know that. So the love is not as strong.

AH: The BBC's political correspondent Rob Watson commenting on today's move at the Labour Party convention to back Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit strategy which seems to be no strategy at all.

[Music]

Part 3: What inspires this former bull rider to write cowboy poetry

Fukushima court

Guest: Aileen Mioko Smith

AH: The 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan was the biggest nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Triggered by a tsunami and earthquake, the nuclear explosions forced more than 160,000 people from their homes including dozens who died during the chaos. But it's looking increasingly unlikely that those evacuees and their families will have somebody to blame. A Japanese court has acquitted three former Tokyo Electric Power Company executives accused of criminal negligence in the disaster. Aileen Mioko Smith is the executive director of Green Action Japan -- an NGO working to end nuclear power in Japan. We reached her in Kyoto.

CO: Aileen what do you make of this verdict and the acquittal of these executives?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Well it's really a travesty of justice. We are still unable to prevent another Fukushima type accident. And the criminal justice system would still allow for top executives to get away with it.

CO: We know that thousands of people were killed by the quake and tsunami. There were people who died in the chaos surrounding the evacuation of the area around that nuclear plant -- and 160,000 people had to evacuate. What are the people who survived that evacuation or the families of the victims -- what are they saying about this decision? Because those are the people that were pursuing this, right.

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Yes. And they feel absolutely that justice was not meted out. They are distraught. They're absolutely distraught. And many of them attended the court case. There were 37 sessions and it very clearly stated that the executives had been warned. They knew that a big tsunami could hit and they had still even hid the assessment that they had made that a tsunami larger than they were prepared for could hit. And yet they got away with it right in front of their eyes. And so they're very distraught.

CO: The verdict dealt with the idea that the men could not have planned for the possibility of this kind of a nuclear accident -- that it was one possibility among many, and that you can't run a nuclear plant unless you are able to pursue it without considering all the possibilities. What do you say to what the judge had to say about this?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Well it's ridiculous because the judge stated that if the executives had taken this assessment seriously they would have had to stop the plant. And that was just not feasible from a business aspect. That was one of the reasons why they were acquitted. Another one is that even if the executives had taken action it probably wouldn't have been done in time. That was another reason given by the court. I mean those two reasons are absolutely ridiculous. So basically what the court did is sort of give a bunch of reasons and said this is why we're acquitting them. But overall this prosecutorial system it's very very difficult to actually finally find them guilty. And so there is a serious problem with the criminal justice system.

CO: With this acquittal though these former Tokyo Electric Power Company executives -- does this mean there is no chance of anyone being held criminally responsible for this disaster and those who are affected by it?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Well there's contracts -- you know there were two electric utilities in the same coastline and the Japan power company -- the top executives were much more directly in line with the people in the company that were in charge of tsunami. And they did take measures and they did prevent a disaster whereas just up the coast TEPCO, this huge company, the executives basically stated in court well you know that was the responsibility of our nuclear department not us. And so it's an issue of if you have a huge company where the line of responsibility is vague you can get out of being found guilty. This is really not a just system you know. But now after Fukushima, top executives have to know what kind of investments are being made. They're the ones that decide the kind of investments that are being made for nuclear safety so they're directly much more in line with saying yes and no to safety measures. So in the future top executives could be more liable for negligence.

CO: But there are also civil cases pending, right? I mean there are 30 lawsuits against TEPCO and the Japanese government for their failure to prepare for this size of an emergency. What state are those cases in?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Well many of those cases -- and this is very important, TEPCO has been found guilty and they're having to pay compensation. The problem is the amounts are so small. And also the problem is that TEPCO appeals the case. Of course the citizens do too because the amounts are ridiculously small. What's really important about this case that just has happened is that a lot of material that was hidden before got revealed. So there's a lot of information that can be used for these civil cases so it was really good that this case did happen. So it will help these civil cases.

CO: We know that it has been eight years since the Fukushima disaster. Have people's lives returned at all to normalcy? How are they still affected in this? There's an exclusion zone in effect. But what's life like for people in Fukushima?

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: Well it is just terrible. I mean it's really difficult for people who've stayed and never left. And it's also very difficult for people who have gone back because you have no social structure. I mean only a fraction of the population went back. You don't have a social structure to live in and how can you live in a society where only older people go back and you know there are just so few children living there. And it's really difficult for the evacuees. We have lots of evacuees in this area in Kyoto and Osaka and you know they're living this sort of suspended life. And when the government says now it's okay -- your area is okay to go back, then they lose their support system because they lose their housing subsidy. They end up being voluntarily evacuated. And then the housing system that we have in the evacuated area those local governments are saying we can't support you anymore. So it's just so difficult. The society has just been wrecked by it.

CO: It's so sad. Aileen I appreciate you speaking with us. Thank you.

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH: You're welcome.

AH: Aileen Mioko Smith is the executive director of Green Action Japan -- an NGO working to end nuclear power in Japan. She's in Kyoto.

[Music]

Bovena Tucker

AH: Bovena Tucker hadn't heard from her husband Arnold since August 31st -- just before Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas which was where Arnold was with Ms. Tucker's three adult children. Meanwhile she was in Moncton with her three younger kids. Hoping -- as the days and then weeks passed -- that her family had survived the storm. Bovena Tucker spoke with CBC New Brunswick nearly three weeks after the storm struck -- while she was still waiting to hear from her husband.

SOUNDCLIP

BOVENA TUCKER: Before the hurricane came, my husband sent money like every Monday or ever Friday for me -- to help, to do something, he sent money for me. Now I don't hear nothing since the hurricane came till now. So I need to know what I must do or how I go ahead and help my children and provide for them. I just want to know what they find -- okay they got life, they are breathing. If I even lose everything --nothing matters but them and their life better life...only their life. That's all. [Crying] I am trying to keep the positive vibe that if they are alive I want to know, you understand? I want to know so they can come with me here. Baby if you are alive, please call me. Please. I'm asking you. Your kids need to hear from you. I need to hear from you. I'm tired. I'm so tired. Please get your phoned charged or go somewhere to get that charge -- if you're hearing me, your kids need to hear from you. Please...please contact me.

AH: Moncton, New Brunswick resident Bovena Tucker pleading with her husband, Arnold, to call her from the Bahamas and let her know he was alive. And on Friday -- finally -- he did.

SOUNDCLIP

BOVENA TUCKER: He called me at 10:30 last night. Oh my God! I couldn't believe that my husband is alive. Oh my God. My kids and I were so happy to hear from my husband last night. The children are okay. But we lose everything. And that was amazing to hear his mouth breathing. He's not dead. He's alive and well. Oh my God. We talk a good while on the phone. He talked to his kids. I mean he was just crying. We just were crying, happy tears -- tears of joy. Just crying tears of joy. We can't wait to see him.

AH: Bovena Tucker lives in Moncton with three of her six children. On Friday evening her husband, Arnold, was finally able to reach her from the Bahamas to let her know he and her three adult children there had survived Hurricane Dorian. Their home was destroyed and they're now living in a shelter. In time they hope to be reunited in Canada where Ms. Tucker and her three younger children are seeking refugee status.

[Music]

Cowboy poet

Guest: Todd Nakamura

AH: Time was, you'd find Todd Nakamura riding bulls along Alberta's Cowboy Trail. But now instead of livestock, he wrangles words. And he's traded chaps for chapbooks. Well that last part ain't -- I mean isn't -- totally accurate Mr. Nakamura is a cowboy poet -- which means he speaks his work aloud. And this weekend he and more than a dozen rhymers, musicians, and storytellers herded themselves together in Calgary for the annual Trail's End Gathering. We reached Todd Nakamura in Banff, Alberta.

CO: Todd can you set the scene for us and describe this cowboy poetry event this weekend in Calgary?

TODD NAKAMURA: The event itself is a celebration of cowboy poetry and music. It's a performance art actually. It is at Western Centre just outside of Calgary. It's got a real old timey feel to it. There's a stage there with a set of barn doors -- it would almost look like the inside of a barn.

CO: And what kind of performances did you have?

TN: Ballads mostly -- a lot of ballads, stories set to music. And a lot of stories -- some true, some maybe not so true, but all inspired by stories that have been told to us.

CO: I attended my first cowboy poetry festival decades ago so this is obviously still a thing. Is it still popular?

TN: It is and it isn't. A lot of people in this digital world have seemed to forgotten some of the old thing and we're trying to keep it alive. A lot of it is through having cowboy festival. Maple Creek Saskatchewan had one this past weekend as well. They're all over rural Alberta -- and they are popular in some of the rural communities around.

CO: Okay. So I guess the image people have of cowboy poetry is something from being on the range, being outdoors under a sky full of stars, someone's got a harmonica, sitting around a campfire. But that's not what's happening right?

TN: That's where it came from. And we've sort of developed it from there to reach a wider audience where we'll actually have a sit down festival where folks will sit in the audience and listen to these stories and the music. And it's a little bit different than country and western music when you put it this way. The way that we try to have it is if you can't sit around with a campfire without a huge amount of amplifiers and whatnot it's probably not our genre. It's very simple. Like there might be a guitar, there might be a harmonica -- it's all the instruments that you might have found on the range back in the old days. A lot of the new country music is all about percussion, and horn, amplifiers, and electric guitars. Most of our stuff is done acoustically.

CO: What are some of the themes, some of the stories, that are told through the cowboy poetry?

TN: Most of them are a celebration of our pioneers. They may be based on ranch life in dealings with horses. Some of the stuff that I deal with might be a story that I've actually experienced while working as a trail guide. And we try to expand on it and make them humorous. There's always a punchline in the end.

CO: Can you give us an example?

TN: Sure. Let me see. [Recites poem]

SOUNDCLIP

TN: He would roll into town on a buckboard at that,

Decked out in his chaps and his ten gallon hat.

Come once a month for groceries he would get,

Tobacco and sundries so the boys would be set.

The sing song lyrics of his native tongue

Accompanied his spurs as they jingled and rung.

From across the prairie he would come to stock up,

Finish in time so he could cook the boys sup.

The cowboys all respected him the pranks and teasing aside,

For not only was he the cook but he could wrangle and ride

There was never a task too hard or chore he would shirk,

He just viewed it as his job and took pride in his work.

He called the Burns ranch home, the bunkhouse his abode,

The place where he lived, worked hard and took off his load.

Now a hundred odd years have come to pass.

The winds gently blowing the prairie grass.

The bunkhouse still stands with a creek by its foot.

A testament to pioneers and cowboys that came and took root.

So if you listen close on a clear summers night,

Opened your ears and tried with all your might.

You might hear Charlie's ghost, cook, wrangler cowboy at heart.

TN: Now there is a good example of cowboy poetry.

CO: Is that one of yours?

TN: That is one of mine yes.

CO: How did you get into cowboy poetry?

TN: Essentially what we do is working for some of these outfits that take tours on horseback out in the back country. And it was just another ways of me to get to know people and tell them stories and entertain folks essentially is what it all boils down to.

CO: Now do you have to be a cowboy to be a cowboy poet?

TN: It helps [laughs]. All of our material is based on cowboy-ism and the things that we do and horses and cows and rural life in Alberta or the West in general. A lot of people have done it but most of them are from an agricultural background.

CO: And you too?

TN: Yeah a little bit I guess. My family has farmed down in southern Alberta for quite some time.

CO: And I understand you were a semi-pro bull rider at some point.

TN: That's correct. Let's just say I found all my marbles again and getting a little longer in tooth I figured out that I break now instead of bounce.

CO: Can you be a female cowboy poet?

TN: Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact the president of our association which is the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association is a female. Her name is Phyllis Rothwell.

CO: So do you think that this is still going to continue -- people are still going to be going to cowboy poetry festivals in the future?

TN: Absolutely. And we're doing everything we can to keep that genre alive and to keep the old west alive.

CO: Okay Todd we will let you go. Thank you.

TN: Thank you. You have a great day.

AH: Todd Nakamura is a cowboy poet and the vice president of the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association. We reached him in Banff, Alberta. For more on that story you can head to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Urinal Study

AH: It's difficult to hold your own when you're so close to someone else's. If you're at an event at Heritage Hall in East Vancouver and you use the men's bathroom you will find something odd -- a urinal that has baffled visitors since 1916. It's Scottish inventor John Shanks, called it a "twin" urinal because it's sort of two urinals stuck together. Fine. Except for a peculiar design element they're angled so that if two men are using it at the same time they're essentially face-to-face. According to a CBC article, Mr. Shanks was a kind of Leonardo da Vinci of urinals -- patenting more than 100 designs in the 19th century. This one didn't catch on -- for obvious reasons. Which makes the one in Heritage Hall extremely rare. In the article a guy named Graham Menzies says "it's the abominable snowman of toilets." Mr. Menzies is the author of "111 Places in Vancouver That You Must Not Miss." A title that's extremely literal in this case. Now science has proven that proximity affects men's ability to relieve themselves. For example, in 1977, As It Happens guest host Michael Enright spoke with Harvard psychologist Dr. Gerald Koocher about a study on that subject. Dr. Koocher didn't do the study -- in fact he disapproved of its methodology. Here's part of their conversation from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Under what kind of conditions was the study carried out? How, precisely, did they do it?

GERALD KOOCHER: Well apparently what happened was they selected a men's lavatory near a large bathroom in a university building. And one of three conditions would happen. This was a three urinal lavatory. The man wishing to use the lavatory would enter and use whichever urinal they chose and apparently there would be no one else in the men's room. In the second circumstance -- the middle urinal would have an out of order sign so the man entering to use the urinal on the right or the left and a confederate of the experiment or who would be seeming to comb his hair would then use the urinal once removed. Third circumstance one of the urinal on the end would be out of order and so the confederate of the experiment would be pretending the urinal right next to the person. All the while the experimenter was concealed in the toilet stall with a periscope and two stop-watches. [Laughter] Special stop-watches that made quite ticking noises apparently. And through the periscope -- the stream of urine was observed and they attempted to measure the time between the period when the person stepped up to the urinal and when they began urinating and then the duration of the urination itself. And apparently as I said they found that you start more slowly and end quicker when there's someone standing right next to you than when there's no one there.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: How long with the man in the cubicle with the periscope and the stop-watch [laughs] how long would he be there?

GERALD KOOCHER: That's a good question. They don't tell you that in the study. It could have gone on for a period of time. I'll tell you what was particularly troubling to me though were a number of things about that study. First was exactly what you're reacting to: what significance could this have? There's so many more things that would be worth studying, why study this? But even more so I was concerned about the relative cost to human dignity of invading the privacy of people. I wrote a rejoinder to that article which I called 'Bathroom behavior and human dignity.' And my arguments were essentially that at best the experiments meaning was trivial. At worst it was an invasion of privacy.

AH: From our archives, Michael Enright speaking with Dr. Gerald Koocher in July of 1977.

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September 23, 2019 Episode Transcript

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