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The AIH Transcript for October 13, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Getting rocked by the vote. A Georgia woman who waited in line at the polls for nearly 10 hours says she's always found it difficult to cast a ballot in that state, but never quite this hard, which might be a good sign.

CH: Hard truths. After years of pressure and investigation by security officials, a Russian journalist kills herself and leaves a note telling readers to blame the Russian Federation for her death.

CO: Doubly troubling. A Nevada man recovered from COVID-19 and then got it a second time, just two months later, revealing how much there is to learn about the coronavirus.

CH: Shadow boxing. Fake ballot drop boxes popping up in California are the work of the state's Republican Party, and the unofficial illegal boxes have officially outraged a Democratic Congressman.

CO: Herring impaired. An Icelandic study discovers that some people possess an unusual gift, the inability to smell stinky fish.

CH: And altitude adjustment. The latest proof that we miss even boring things right now, in Singapore, people are lining up to experience the thrill of eating a meal on a jumbo jet that's just sitting on the runway. As It Happens. The Tuesday Edition. Radio that guesses they're joining the mild high club.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Georgia voting

Georgia voting

Guest: Everlean Rutherford

CH: Today, once again, voters in Georgia started lining up in the early hours of the morning to vote in the U.S. presidential election. It was the second day of early in-person voting in the state. And yesterday did not go smoothly. Line ups stretched around buildings. Technical glitches delayed voting. And enthusiasm turned to annoyance as people waited for hours and hours. Still, a record number of voters turned out, among them was Everlean Rutherford. She took advantage of her day off to head to the polls in Cobb County. We reached Everlean Rutherford in Kennesaw, Georgia.

CO: Everlean, why was it so important for you to go out and vote yesterday?

EVERLEAN RUTHERFORD: I think it's important for everyone to get out and vote. I really wanted to vote because I wanted my voice to be heard. A friend actually made a shirt that goes "my voice, my vote" -- and that just rings true to how I feel about getting out there and voting.

CO: Have you gone to early voting before in this way?

ER: I've always went for early voting. I actually prefer early voting because I imagine the lines on voting day are so long, but I guess I was wrong this time. Long, regardless.

CO: Right. How did your experience compare with the past? What was it like in the past when you would come to vote on a day like that?

ER: In the past, early voting, the most I've ever waited in and I've lived in various places, but the most I've ever waited was maybe an hour and a half.

CO: All right. How long did you wait yesterday?

ER: Almost 10 hours.

CO: Wow. Did anyone give you any reason, did anyone come and tell you what was going on?

ER: They just said that they weren't really prepared for the amount of people that had showed up.

CO: So nearly 10 hours. What time did you arrive yesterday?

ER: I arrived at 10:04.

CO: And what was your mood at that point?

ER: [Chuckles] At that point, I was excited. I was like, yaay, I'm about to vote. And then I saw everyone else the line. And I was still excited because I was excited that so many people felt the need to make voting important and to come out and vote. So I was excited initially.

CO: And how long was the line when you arrived?

ER: Initially it looked big, but once you got closer, you realized, wow, this thing is looped back and forth so many times. I counted more than 400 people at one point.

CO: Did you go anticipating that? Did you bring supplies and a chair maybe?

ER: [Chuckles] I actually went and I was like, okay I don't think there should be that long. I'm thinking an hour, hour and a half. And my husband actually was like, he put a chair in my car just in case. And I'm so glad because I wasn't even prepared for this.

CO: Now, some people reported in places in Georgia where local restaurants and people would come by with food and water, whatever else, they could to encourage people. Did you get anything like that?

ER: We had someone who was passing out raisins like the little packs of raisins. [Laughter] And I was like, I don't know when was the last I had raisins, but they were the best raisins in the world. A lady brought some donuts who was in line with this earlier and she was able to get out of the line because they were letting some of the older people go into the other line. She came back for everyone who was in her little area and brought us donuts. And I thought that that was so sweet.

CO: It was very sweet. And you needed sweet at that point. The weather was okay. But was there any point that you thought, I can't do this, I'm going to pack it in?

ER: Yes. A couple times to be honest. Like, initially I was thinking I would be out of there earlier and then I'm normally the one who picks up our kids from school. And so I thought I would have to leave and go pick up our sons from school. And my husband was like, no, stay, I got you. So he jumped in and he went and got the kids. And then I was going to leave again because I was like, this is just it, it was just being too much to be out there. Like I was tired, my back started hurting and like, I'm ready to go. And then, like, everyone around me was like, no, come on, we got this. It was just like I felt like I had a personal cheering group around me and I was cheering for other people to stay. But there was a lot of people who left, though.

CO: Is there any particular image or issue or moment that you would remember that would give you that staying power or just why you really really needed to cast that vote yesterday?

ER: Yes. One of the moments is when George Floyd, if you watched the video he cried out to his mother who had already passed. And me, I'm a mother of three Black young men. And to me, some people say you're voting for your life and I'm voting for change in this country. I can't let not one other Black young man or woman just die ruthlessly like that. I can't let that happen. And so I'm voting for change that I want to make this a better world for my children, for my children's children and for anyone else around. It has to be a better world. I can't just sit around and just do nothing.

CO: Do you worry about your boys, about their safety?

ER: Yes, they're in elementary school. But I know now, like, even walking around for people just feel offensive to them. And I'm like they're kids. They haven't done anything.

CO: So you were thinking about those boys when you're in line yesterday?

ER: Yes, my boys.

CO: And your husband was thinking about them when he said stay.

ER: Yes, he was.

CO: You know, the Cobb County elections and registration director said that there was just only so much space in there and almost much parking, they maxed it out. But at the same time there's been a couple of studies in recent years that show that Black people, people in Black neighbourhoods wait many times longer in line than people in White neighborhoods. What do you make of that?

ER: I think that's true because there was a couple of people who had commented that they were looking online while we're waiting in line, and like people in more affluent areas within Georgia, were saying, I don't know what they're talking about -- I got in, went and voted and came back out. But they were in the nicer areas where there is more voting booths and everything. And it's like if the location where we're voting at -- it's a problem every year. So if that location is not working, then why don't you move to another location where you can put more voting booths and have more people and get people in and out? So saying that you just don't have the space there, to me, that's just saying an excuse to allow the voter suppression to continue.

CO: Do you think your vote will make a difference yesterday?

ER: Yes, it will. Every vote will make a difference.

CO: Everlean it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

ER: Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you as well.

CH: Yesterday, Everlean Rutherford waited nearly 10 hours to vote. She was in Kennesaw, Georgia.

[Music]

Infected again study

Guest: Mark Pandori

CH: When U.S. President Donald Trump returned from his unusually brief COVID convalescence to the campaign trail at a rally last night in Florida, he declared himself immune to the virus. And he said he wanted to give all his supporters in the crowd a big fat kiss. Maybe he should think twice about that. A new case study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that a lot is still unknown about the virus that causes COVID-19 and how it affects people's immunity. A 25 year old man in Nevada caught COVID twice, and he was sicker the second time around. Mark Pandori is a co-author of the case study. He's the director of the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory. We reached him in Reno, Nevada.

CO: Mr. Pandori, this young man had COVID-19 two times once in April, the other in June. How sick was he in each of these cases?

MARK PANDORI: In the first instance, he had what you might call a typical viral or respiratory illness, and it didn't require hospitalization and it resulted in recovery. And in the second instance, it was a very severe respiratory illness that required hospitalization.

CO: He is or was then 25 years old. Was he otherwise healthy?

MP: Yes.

CO: Was this for sure? not just the same infection that had just come back or was it actually a different infection?

MP: Well, there's strong evidence that it's a different infection because, number one, the person recovered physically in the first instance and coinciding with that had two consecutive negative nucleic acid amplification test results, which meant the virus was not detectable on two separate technologies and two separate tests that detect the virus in a highly sensitive manner. The positive viruses from case A and case B were sequenced, which means we analyzed the genetics of those cases in detail and found more genetic difference in the two than could be explained by in-vivo or in-person evolution. It could only be explained reasonably by there being two separate infectious events.

CO: Any idea why his symptoms were worse the second time?

MP: No. We don't know why that's the case. It could be that the second infection was caused by an unusually high infectious dose, which means a high viral load. The second possibility is that the genetics of the second virus were different in some way, that meant higher variance -- although we have no evidence of that. The third possibility is that there's something about coronaviruses that we don't fully understand. And although we've come to understand a little bit from other coronaviral infections, that immunity may not be long lasting and that the spectrum of the length of time for which immunity exists to coronaviruses is very large. And there may be at the low end of that spectrum, some cases where people lose immunity relatively quickly.

CO: It wasn't that long between the two infections, was it, April and June?

MP: So it was about 48 days or thereabout.

CO: Do you know of any other case of somebody being infected for the second time?

MP: Yeah, there's a few cases in the literature internationally. We've seen cases in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ecuador, and in what's called the preprint server literature which is scientific results that are currently undergoing peer review. There's several reports out of India and also another report, I believe, Washington state.

CO: And anything that you can compare among these cases, any similarities, differences that tell you anything?

MP: That's a good question. And that's the goal, is to try and start to put all of this together. But it certainly is going to be quite an effort to do that. But right now, I think you're exactly right -- we need to do something like that.

CO: Is it possible also that other people had a second infection and didn't know about it, that they've perhaps thought that they had the same infection that had come back again and it just went unreported?

MP: It's certainly possible, and it's a very reasonable hypothesis to have based on what evidence we currently have, because, yeah, I mean, you would it's a reasonable guess, a scientifically educated guess that the second infection would be of lesser severity and therefore might be what you might call under the radar.

CO: The profession is trying to find a vaccine, trying to find treatments, trying to find ways of dealing with this. At the same time, obviously, just so many things you just don't know about it.

MP: It is interesting, isn't it? We don't know very much. It's like fighting a battle in the dark. But we know that the science of vaccinology is very solid and we'd have reason to believe that vaccine mediated immunities can be stronger than our own natural immunity. You know, these viruses have evolved over millions of years or thousands and thousands of years to evade immune systems. But what they haven't been trained to evade is vaccine mediated immune responses. You know, those can be focused and boosted in ways that may give us hope in regards to that.

CO: How worried, though, does this make you and others in science about the way of the possibility of fighting this?

MP: Well, it's not good news, but it's the degree to which it's bad news is really really unknown. So it hasn't changed the core outlook from my point of view or other scientists point of view. I think as a virologist, we expected to find this eventually. You know, people get re-infected with viruses. You know, we deal with colds every year, often because it's different species of viruses. But sometimes the same species of virus can get us twice. Influenzas do the same thing, you know. So it's not a surprising finding. I'm not going to say it's good news, but it means that this puzzle that we're trying to put together is a much more complicated one than we initially thought.

CO: As you probably know, lots of people feel or believe that if they've had COVID-19 that they are now immune, that they can go places, they can actually represent family members and visit others. And we even heard U.S. President Donald Trump say he is now immune to the virus and he wants to give everyone a big fat kiss. If you could give the president some advice, what would it be?

MP: Well, I wouldn't deign to give the president any advice. But I would say that we're 10 months into this, and, you know, we want to know everything and we want to be able to have confidence in everything that we know about this virus. But none of that's true. In fact, we know very little still. And from a scientific perspective, we don't want to act under assumptions. We don't want to act in a situation where we don't understand or we don't know. So I would advise from a public health science perspective caution to anyone that's had COVID-19 or anyone that has been infected with SARS, to behave from a public health perspective, as if you've never had it, because there's clearly no invulnerability here. And the infection that you get the second time could be as severe or worse. And so it's not a matter just even of protecting yourself, but of every single person with whom you interact closely.

CO: Mr. Pandori, thank you for the advice and thanks for speaking with us.

MP: Thank you for the opportunity. Good luck.

CH: Mark Pandori is the director of the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory. He was in Reno, Nevada.

[Music]

Stinky fish study

Guest: Kari Stefansson

CH: If you ask most Icelanders if something smells fishy, they'll be able to give you a straight answer. But a new study has revealed that a small number won't know what the heck you're talking about. The research suggests that some people don't register the stink of rotten fish. Dr. Kari Stefansson is a neurologist and the study's lead author. We reached him in Reykjavik, Iceland.

CO: Dr. Stefansson, someone who has this genetic mutation if they were to smell stinky fish, what would it smell like to them?

KARI STEFANSSON: It would smell much less than it would smell to me. They would report it as being relatively pleasant, however unpleasant it may smell to me and you. And it is interesting that this is a mutation that is found in 4.4 percent of Icelanders, a 3.4 percent Swedes, 1.8 percent people in southern Europe and .4 percent in Africa. So it is from north south.

CO: What about Canadians?

KS: The Canadians never count, all right?

CO: [Chuckles] What? That's very serious.

KS: [Laughs] No. This was a joke.

CO: Okay, got it. I got it. All right. [Laughs]

KS: Actually, we have a fairly large number of Icelanders who settled him in Manitoba in the 19th century. So we are very familiar with Canada.

CO: Now, tell us a bit about how you did this, because you uses something called Sniffin Sticks. How did you set up the study?

KS: The idea was to see whether we could identify the brain with all kinds of variants in the sequence of the genome affect the function of these [inaudible]. And the smell we used particular instruments that have been designed to test smell.

CO: You had six what they call Sniffin Sticks with different synthetic odors on them. Cinnamon, peppermint, banana, licorice, lemon, and fish. Is that right?

KS: Yes. Trimethylamine that smells like fish.

CO: People sniff these. And what were you looking for and the way they responded to the smells of these Sniffin Sticks?

KS: They were asked to name the smell. It is interesting that our sense of smell or all function is not particularly accurate. So people have some difficulties naming the smells accurately. We divided them into three categories. Those who were [inaudible] with the smell, those who have a subtle odor, and those who have a large odor in the smell.

CO: Okay. I could see that happening that some can't find cinnamon or peppermint or licorice. But you'd think that people could definitely tell when they're smelling rotting fish, right?

KS: If you have this mutation that is found in 4.4 percent of Icelanders, they indeed don't easily identify the smell of rotten fish.

CO: Why do you think these 4 percent of Icelanders have this mutation that prevents them from really detecting the smell of rotting fish?

KS: You see, we have lived in Iceland for 1,100 years and we have lived mostly on fish for this very long time. So if you were born with this mutation, you have a certain advantage, which is that you're probably not quite as intolerable to have nothing else to eat but fish. So my guess is that it is more common in Iceland than in most other places because fish has been a bigger part of our diet than basically anywhere else in the world.

CO: But I would think that being able to detect the smell of rotting animal flesh would be a good thing.

KS: No, you misunderstand. It may could come to you as a surprise, but 1,100 years ago, we did not have refrigerators. All right. So we had to preserve the fish by using all kinds of strange methods that included letting the fish rot a little bit. I mean, rotten shark, for example, has been a part of our diet for a very long time. The day before Christmas in Iceland, the traditional meal is a 'skate' that is partially rotten or treated to be so that it's fermented in a way. I mean, to extent the smell of this whole strong that when I was growing up, I left my parents’ house that day and I didn't come home until late at night because I couldn't tolerate the smell of this skate.

CO: We've actually done stories on this program about this Christmas tradition, which is called kaest skata or something.

KS: Yes. Kaest skata. And the smell of it, you know, I'm sure that it violates the International Court on chemical warfare. [Laughter]

CO: So it would be an advantage then if you had this mutation at Christmas?

KS: Yes. Yes.

CO: And you don't have it. [Laughter]

KS: Unfortunately, mutations are in your genome from your birth and until you die. You cannot just, you know, switch them in and out around Christmas, unfortunately.

CO: Is it true that you have this kaest skata, it's usually consumed along with something called Black Death?

KS: Now, we are trespassing in a very sensitive territory. There is an alcohol that's called Black Death that some people drink with the skate. But that is minority. It is not all that common that people drink it with skate. But let's put it this way, I have on a few occasions participated in drinking the Black Death in my attempt to escape the smell of skate.

CO: [Laughter] I can completely understand that. And so it's quite obvious that you don't have this mutation.

KS: I have no useful mutation unfortunately.

CO: [Laughter] Dr. Stefansson it is good to talk to you. Thank you.

KS: Bye bye.

CH: Dr. Kari Stefansson is a neurologist and the lead author of a study that revealed a genetic mutation that causes a small number of people to not register the smell of stinky fish. He's in Reykjavik, Iceland. As Carol said, this is not the first time the subject of rotting Icelandic sea life as food has come up on the show. Two years ago, we played a central role in what has become known internationally or just to us as Hawaiian pizza-gate. It involved the brilliant Canadian innovation of pineapple on pizza, which Iceland's president vehemently objects to and even threatened to ban outright. So we called him up to talk it out and soon got to the subject of objectionable Icelandic delicacies. Here's part of Carol's interview with Iceland's president, Gudni Johannesson, from our archives.

GUDNI JOHANNESSON: We Icelanders are a nation of Fisher-folk, and you know if everyone put seafood on their pizzas that would be a very nice thing to do.

CO: OK, wait a second here, are you admitting that there was a hidden agenda in this? Are you in the pocket of “Big Fish”, Mr. President?

GJ: No, I wouldn't go that far. But, in all honesty, seafood on pizza is good. You should try it.

CO: I have. I think that somebody has actually tried to put seafood and pineapple on pizza.

GJ: Well, that combination I'm not sure, but just to put the record straight, I would not ban it. But let me also add that in the furor afterwards, I got many messages of support from, in particular, Italians.

CO: Okay. But I just want to say one thing about your reliability. I mean because really Iceland, this is the home of fermented shark, sour ram’s testicle, you make a drink — a schnapps — out of fermented potatoes and caraway, you smoke your meat with dried sheep's dung. Why should anyone trust your view on what should be on any food, let alone pizza?

GJ: Now that you put it that way, I'm a bit at a loss for words now. I think you should approach Icelandic cuisine with an open mind — a very, very open mind.

CO: Do you eat fermented shark?

GJ: I most certainly do, yes. Who wouldn't? I don't put it on my pizza though.

CH: That was part of Carol's 2018 interview with Iceland's president, Gudni JJohannesson. We've posted that interview to our webpage: cbc.ca/aih. And if you're one of the rare few for whom rotting fish smells like roses, call talkback: 416-205-5687.

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Part 2: Friends and family 'completely destroyed' after Russian journalist sets herself on fire

Irina Slavina

Guest: Olga Sadovskaya

CH: Irina Slavina left a final Facebook message earlier this month. She wrote, "I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death." Then the independent journalist set herself on fire in front of the Interior Ministry in Nizhny Novgorod, the city she'd made it her life's work to cover. Ms. Slavina was the editor in chief of the independent news site Koza Press. Her beat included opposition politics and human rights abuses. And her work led to repeated raids by security officials. It also brought Irina Slavina into contact with Olga Sadovskaya. Ms. Sadovskaya is the deputy chairperson of the Committee Against Torture. We reached her Nizhny Novgorod.

CO: Olga I'm sure this is awful for everyone who knew Irina Slavina, and I'm sorry.

OLGA SADOVSKAYA: Yeah. Thanks. That's really awful.

CO: How are people around her, how are her friends, her family, how are they dealing with her death?

OS: Well, actually, I must say that that literally destroyed because nobody absolutely expected that because we're all adults, we have friends and colleagues who died from illness or was killed in an accident, or some of my colleagues were killed because of their human rights work. But nothing like this happened before with us.

CO: It is just so gruesome, the description of what happened. And as she set herself alight and somebody tried to help her and she pushed him away. The place where she went, the location, what is the significance of that place?

OS: The location is the central police department of the region. So the main police building in the region where we live. And it's in the very centre of this city. And there is a memorial for three types of policemen. And so this is a memorial for a policemen. She she went there, tied herself with a rope to the bench, used some kind of petrol or something very flammable and put herself on fire. There was a guy who was passing by and he tried to put the fire down, which actually pushed him from herself. And it took like one minute, one minute and a half for her to die, literally.

CO: This is extraordinary. And then people trying to make sense of it. As you said, she did leave a Facebook message asking her followers to, "blame the Russian Federation for my death. " What do you make of that? What do you think? What message do you think she was trying to send?

OS: The message was that the authorities of the country where we live, kill people, they kill them in different way. And everything that is happening was freedom of speech, with human rights, what is happening in Russian Federation is the blame of the authorities of the country. And it was a very clear message, you know, for all people who knew her. And it's even more clear, really, because Russia is a part of European Convention of Human Rights and all the judgments of European Court of Human Rights are against the country. It's like Mr. Smith, against Russian Federation. So it's the Russian Federation that is responsible for the violation of human rights of a certain person. And that's the same. That's the message that is going through.

CO: She is regarded or was regarded as the last independent news reporter in Nizhny Novgorod. Her lawyer said that he has a wad of papers in his office from all the court cases he defended her against. That she was being harassed constantly by the authorities. What kinds of interactions did she have with police and with the law?

OS: He's absolutely correct. And actually, for the last five years, she was the only independent journalist who was covering the most serious and important topics in the region. She was actually fired from all the mass media in the region, and she had no other choice than to start her own, Koza Press. And she was subjected to constant, you know, judicial harassment from the authorities, accompanied by other illegal actions by known people who were never found and who will be never found I believe.

CO: Her husband is obviously just absolutely shaken by this. He did give an interview where he said that his wife had been under so much pressure and that in the just days before she killed herself that their apartment had been raided by police, a raid that went on for some hours. What can you tell us about that raid?

OS: Right. Right. The day before she put herself on fire on the 2nd of October, and on the 1st of Octobe there was a raid in their apartment that started at six o'clock in the morning and lasted for several hours -- as far as I remember, five or six hours. And, you know, it's a very demonstrative act. When 12 police people wearing masks and trying to break your door, searching your apartment, taking all your equipment, and you are just in the bed when they are in. And she was, in this case, acting as a witness.

CO: Is it possible that that was a kind of last straw for her?

OS: Yes, it might have been.

CO: And have the authorities responded to her death?

OS: Yes, they responded to her death and they said that they found no connection between her suicide and the search in her flat because she was just a witness.

CO: What was Irina Slavina like? What can you tell us about her as a person?

OS: Well, first of all, she was very beautiful. She was, you know, always smiling, energetic, very kind. Usually when you work with such hard cases, you stop reacting on them, the emotion, because it's everyday routine, somebody is killed, somebody is arrested, you know, somebody is tortured. And she was always very emotional and at the same time very independent. And she respected all her sources. She respected all her opponents. And she was a really cheerful person, enjoying her dog, enjoying whether life, loving her husband, loved her children. And that's why it's also very destroying for everybody who knew her to understand that that was her decision to stop her life and to make a message out of the section.

CO: Olga once again our condolences to her friends and family. And thank you so much for speaking with us.

OS: Thank you so much.

CH: Olga Sadovskaya is the deputy chairperson of the Committee Against Torture. We reached her initially, Novgorod, Russia. You'll find more on Irina Slavina on our website, along with links to suicide prevention information, that's: cbc.ca/aih. And if you believe you or someone you know may be at risk of suicide, you can call the Canada Suicide Prevention Service: 1-833-456-4566. Again, that's 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645.

[Music]

Wedding

CH: Guests from the Maritimes and Maine came together for the wedding of Alex Leckie and Lindsay Clowes this weekend in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, all without crossing any international borders or breaking public health rules. Ms. Clowes was born in New Brunswick but grew up just across the St. Croix River in Calais, Maine. She and her new husband live in Nova Scotia. So with the U.S.-Canada border closed, they managed to find a way for their family and friends to witness their union in person with the help of two wharfs and a boat. Newlyweds Lindsay Clowes and Alex Leckie spoke with Maritime Noon about their wedding on the waterfront.

DAVID PATE: Lindsay, how do you pull off a wedding these days with guest from the U.S. and make it all happen as it did on Saturday?

LINDSAY CLOWES: [Laughs] That's a tough question. I'm not exactly sure how we were able to pull it all off, but I think it was just thanks to all of our family and friends coming into helping us at the last minute and getting on board with this idea, especially my parents who decided to self-isolate for two weeks on the Canadian side so that they could make it. Actually, after actually I told my mom about this idea I think she was on the phone with the mayor in St. Stephen about two seconds later to find out if it was possible for us to pull this off. And it was, so we're able to book the wharf St. Stephen. We just had to do an operational management plan due to COVID to say how we keep everybody safe and socially distanced. And then my mom was also on the phone with the city of Calais and talked to them about how long their wharf would be into that family could stand on that wharf. And then my step-dad figured out what the rules were for having a boat in the water and how close the boat could come. So it was about 15 feet from the wharf. So once all of those pieces came into play, we realized that we could pull it off. We just ran with it and made it work.

DAVID PATE: Alex, when it came to who was where, how many people were on the wharf? How many people were in the water? And how many people were at the wharf across the border?

ALEX LECKIE: On the Canadian side, there were around 32 people on the wharf, socially distanced in their family bubbles. And in the water, in the boat, I think there's only five or six people. And on the other side, there was at least 15 or 20 people.

DAVID PATE: They were obviously able to see. But it's still a bit of a distance across the river. So did you have anything like live streaming so that they could follow along?

ALEX LECKIE: Yeah, we did. We did livestream it. We were able to livestream it to everyone across the water and everyone in Canada that wasn't able to make it to the ceremony.

DAVID PATE: And Lindsay on the other side of the river, could you hear them?

LINDSAY CLOWES: They actually had a canon over there, that they shot off. [Chuckles] So you definitely knew that they were there as well. There was a lot of noise coming from everywhere.

DAVID PATE: And your grandparents were on the fishing boat. They were okay? Wasn't too choppy out there?

LINDSAY CLOWES: No. It was a beautiful day. I don't even understand the weather. You know, the day before, it was sunny but freezing and windy and same with the day after. And the day of the wedding, it was beautiful and sunny, the wind just seemed to stop just for our ceremony. It was just wonderful.

CH: That was Lindsey Clowes and her husband, Alex Leckie, speaking with CBC host David Pate.

[Music]

California voting boxes

Guest: Harley Rouda

CH: They look like official ballot drop off boxes because they have signs on them that say official ballot drop off box. But despite that convincing detail, they're not official at all. The unofficial boxes have been placed around California by Republicans and their supporters. Now, state election officials are telling the party to stop and saying the boxes are illegal. Democratic Congressman Harley Rouda is in a close race in his district against Republican challenger Michelle Steele. We reached him in Laguna Beach, California.

CO: Congressman Rouda, one of your opponent's supporters, tweeted a photo of himself with one of these unofficial ballot boxes. What did you think when you saw that?

HARLEY ROUDA: I was actually flabbergasted. It was obviously craven, illegal, and criminal behaviour by a person directly associated with my opponent in this election. And the last thing we ever want to see in any election is attempted fraud along the scale that we're seeing here.

CO: These boxes look very official. I mean, they're not cheaply made, are they? These look like steel gray boxes. They look like official ballot receivers. So give us a sense of what concerns that your party, the Democrats, have with these ballot boxes.

HR: Yeah, Carol, that's the part that needs to be dug into quite a bit deeper. And what we've seen here is our opponent and the GOP make fake boxes to look like official boxes, which is a criminal act. And they even put a sign on there saying it was an official box, which is certainly not the case. And then they put them out in the public to basically commit fraud and trying to get the public to put ballots in these fake ballot boxes. Here's the thing, these ballots, when we return them, our names are on it. All someone has to do is run our name and get the database to find out whether we are a registered Democrat or Republican or an independent. And it's quite possible that the intent here was to take the ballots that were registered to Democrats and not turn them in.

CO: Okay. So you say it's criminal. Has anyone been charged or is anyone facing charges?

HR: They are doing the investigation now. So the state of California issued cease and desist letters against the California Republican Party and the Orange County Republican Party. In addition, the Orange County district attorney has launched an investigation into the illegal actions.

CO: And do we know that if anyone has actually put their ballot in those boxes and has anyone harvested them? What do we know about what has actually happened at this point?

HR: That's what the investigation will find out, how many ballots were actually placed into these fake boxes and what was done with those ballots once they were placed into it. Part of a cease and desist order, require that nothing be done to any ballots that had been placed in these boxes.

CO: What can you tell us about the locations where these unofficial ballot drop off boxes that say official ballot drop off boxes, but where had they been placed? Some say that they're near gun shops and churches. What's the significance of the locations?

HR: Yeah, that's exactly the information we're getting as well. Conservative churches and gun shops and also at the campaign office it appears that was an option as well for my opponents, as we can see the boxes there.

CO: The Republicans aren't hiding the fact that they say they put these boxes there and they say they did that because they believe, according to the law in California, that it's perfectly legal, that there was a law passed by Democrats about being able to have third parties collect your ballot. So they say they're just following the law that Democrats developed.

HR: Yeah, that's absolutely, patently, false. The reality is that they would not have received a cease and desist order if this was legal, and yet they did receive a cease and desist order as well as an investigation being started. In addition, this is just something we've seen out of the Trump playbook, whenever you do something illegal or wrong, you accuse the other side of allowing you to do it or that they were doing it before so it's okay that you do it. Yeah, this is like a toddler argument. It doesn't hold water. It won't hold water with the investigation, in our opinion. And we've certainly seen them reverse their position, some of the individuals, so clearly there are a lot of worried people that are looking at fines and jail time for what they have done here.

CO: If they're willing to fight this and say that this is legal because of this law that allows for they called ballot harvesting, if they want to make that case -- might these boxes stay up for some time as this gets resolved?

HR: Well, first of all, there's no law in California that allows for what they term ballot harvesting. That's simply not true. The whole idea is to allow individuals who don't have the ability to drive, to vote or have concerns regarding the Postal Service's ability to deliver their mail, which certainly should be a concern for everyone with what we've seen, Postmaster DeJoy do under the Trump administration. They can provide their ballots to an individual that is identified as the individual, and it's a very distinct and detailed process for the delivery of that ballot. Nowhere does the law allow somebody to create a fake ballot box, put a fake sign on it that says this is an official box, put it wherever they want to put it, have the ballots come in and then have them do with those ballots what we don't know.

CO: What's your greatest fear about what might be happening with those ballots? Because Democrats could be putting about their ballots in those boxes, too, right?

HR: Yeah, that's the whole concern, is that people put their ballots in there and you find out that it's a Democrat and perhaps that those ballots don't get delivered. But there is a bigger concern here, what this does is just general voter suppression by creating concerns among voters regarding the voting process. Voters here should have no concerns about mailing in their ballots or dropping off their ballots in official ballot boxes. What they should be concerned, though, is when the GOP and people like Michelle Steel and her staffers try and purposely mislead them into putting their ballots in fraudulent boxes. That should be concerning to everybody, because I can't think of a more un-American thing to do than to try and steal somebody's vote.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there. Congressman Rouda thank you.

HR: Thank you, Carol. Take care.

CH: That was Democratic Congressman Harley Rouda. He was in Laguna Beach, California.

[Music]

Flight

CH: In the first book of Proust's seven volume novel, Remembrance of Things Past, the narrator eats a little French cake called a Madeleine, which triggers a cascade of seven volumes worth of memories. What? Of course, I've read it. A guy remembers stuff in France. No further questions. Anyway, you or I might eat that exact same little French cake and have a different experience. We might just think, huh? Little dry. My point is nostalgia and what triggers it is subjective. For example, you may not remember being stuck in a plane on the tarmac as fun, but apparently loads of people remember it with such fondness that they're willing to pay up to the equivalent of 620 dollars Canadian to board a plane that they know is not taking off. Singapore Airlines is offering people a chance to sit in a grounded jet, eat a meal, and watch an in non-flight movie. In first class, you'll get a five course meal. In economy, I assume you get a tiny bag of over-salted almonds and a warm club soda. And here's the thing, every seat sold out in half an hour. And the airline had to add a bunch of extra seating. We already told you about the sold out seven hour Qantas flight from Sydney back to Sydney. Now, there are sold out flights that aren't even flights. I guess people are nostalgic even for inconveniences because they're paying big money to eat rubber chicken on a plane and be flooded by remembrance of wings past.

[Music]

Sound of the day: Nobel Prize

CH: The announcement of a Nobel Prize winner usually has two parts. There's a big press conference in Oslo where the world finds out. But before that, the winner gets a call to say, hey, guess what? Yesterday, though, the Nobel committee couldn't get Stanford University economist Paul Milgrom on the line to tell him he'd won the 2020 Nobel for economics. Fortunately, he is sharing this year's prize with his Stanford colleague, Robert Wilson, which is fortunate because Professor Wilson and his spouse live across the street. So the committee called them to ask if they'd mind passing the message on. The camera at Paul Milgrom's captured what happened next. It's our Sound of the Day.

ROBERT WILSON: [Knocking sounds] Paul! It's Bob Wilson. You've won the Nobel! You've won the Nobel Prize. And so they're trying to reach you, but they cannot. They don't seem to have a number for you.

MARY WILSON: We gave them your cell phone number.

PAUL MILGROM: Yeah? Wow. Okay.

MARY WILSON: Will you answer your phone? [Chuckles].

PAUL MILGROM: Yes. [Laughter]

CH: Stanford economist Robert Wilson telling his colleague and neighbor Paul Milgrom, that they are he co-winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Economics. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Milgrom won for their work on something called auction theory, and that was the winning bid for As It Happens' Sound of the Day.

[Music]

Part 3: Couples don't actually look more alike over time: study

U.S. Montreal quarantine

Guest: Colette Mersy

CH: A Quebec woman knew her trip would take longer than usual, but she didn't expect to have to tack 14 extra days on. Colette Mersy just wanted to cross into the United States to see her daughter's newborn baby. But she wasn't allowed to go. In fact, she never left the border services parking lot. Then on her way home, a Canadian official told her that parking lot was technically in the U.S. so she would have to go home and go into quarantine for two weeks. We reached Colette Mersy in isolation in Sainte-Adele.

CO: Colette, how are you doing in quarantine?

COLETTE MERSY: Well, I'm trying to find things to do.

CO: Yeah, I'm sure you are. And how many days are you in at this point?

CM: This is my fourth day. I try to go to the States on Friday, last Friday.

CO: Tell us what happened to you. What was your plan, first of all? Were you going to go to the border? You know, you have to have a reason to cross the border. eWhat was your plan? What did you argue?

CM: Well, I heard that the restrictions had softened a little bit and that families were allowed to travel to see relatives, families, grandchildren, daughters, sons. I thought that I could have a good case and present my case to an agent and convince him that it could be considered as essential that a mother goes to help her daughter after birth, especially when she already has a three year old boy. Life is difficult during this pandemic for everyone, you know that. And especially when you have something like this, a birth happening, it makes things even more complicated.

CO: S I'm convinced and I think it sounds like an essential visit. What reaction did you get from the American officials at the border?

CM: Well, they told me it's not an essential reason and that the border is closed and that they cannot let me go through. But, you know, flying is easy. You can go to Montreal, take a flight, and with your documents and your reasons, you will have no problem in New York, in any New York airport.

CO: So they actually told you that they couldn't let you cross for the arguments you gave, but that you could take a plane and that you would have a different reception than in the United States if you were flying?

CM: Literally. Very clearly. She told me this.

CO: Okay. So you decided you're going to turn back. What happened when you got to cross back into Canada?

CM: Well, this is where the surprise was, because when I went through the Canadian gate, I said, well, I was refused the entry to the States. So I'm coming home and I'm going to try to catch the flight in a few days. And the agent told me, well, you cannot do this, you must do a quarantine. I was shocked and I turned more to him and I said, did you understand what I said? I didn't go to the States. I'm not returning from the States. Oh, well, he said the decree doesn't make any exception. You go through this gate here, you are considered having left Canada and you have to go on a quarantine. This is what he said.

CO: How long had you actually -- you didn't even cross the border -- how long had you actually been there?

CM: Well, it all lasted maybe 15 minutes. In three minutes I explained my case. They explained theirs. She went to see the supervisor for maybe three, four and five minutes. And then she came back in three minutes. So three and three plus five.

CO: And was there anybody else you can take this to? Can you appeal this decision?

CM: Well, this is the funny part, it's apparently a decision of an agent and border cannot be appealed. It's definitive. It's like, you know, it's the law of God. There is nothing you can do against it.

CO: So you had just gone through the frustration of not being able to cross into the United States to be with your daughter, and now you're told you're stuck for 14 days of quarantine. What was going through your mind at that point?

CM: Well, first of all, I thought, well, I'm going to fly anyway and all kinds of ideas go through your mind. And then I decided to go, you know, the legal way. And then I arrived to Montreal and I called the border services. Someone answered to me more politely and gently than the man I met at the border, telling me that he was sorry for me and would understand the absurdity of the situation. But unfortunately, there was no way I could appeal. This decree says that as soon as, you know, you cross the Canadian gate, you are considered as being outside of the country.

CO: Wow. So how is your daughter doing? She must have been anticipating your imminent arrival to help her with these two kids.

CM: Yes, of course. This is the way they had organized themselves and suddenly, well, they don't nobody to help. Well, in fact the baby came two or three weeks early. So there were a bit overwhelmed in the first days. But yeah, it was very disappointing.

CO: Have you booked your flight for 10 days from now?

CM: Well, I haven't. Because somehow I have a little hope that good sense will prevail. You're supposed to get a call from the quarantine agent who verifies where you are, if you respect your quarantine. And I'd be glad to receive such a call to tell these people, to get an exemption, to tell them that the absurdity of the situation and that I don't need to do a quarantine. I'm not a danger. I had tested COVID negative three days before to make sure I wouldn't endanger my family. So I haven't seen anyone since then. So I'm the least dangerous person as far as COVID is concerned. But I think maybe someone calls me, they will give me an exemption of this quarantine. But I haven't booked the flights yet.

CO: Well Colette I hope you get to see your grandchild soon, your new grandchild. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

CM: Thank you.

CH: Colette Mersy is in Sainte-Adele, Quebec.

[Music]

Therapy clown

CH: It was hard to put his humanitarian work abroad on hold. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Guillaume Vermette knew what he had to do. For years, the Quebec clown has volunteered in refugee camps and helped lift the spirits of people across the world. And now Mr. Vermette knew his services could help frontline workers and families at home. So he started training an army of clowns across the province to visit elderly residents and staff at seniors homes. But then he tested positive for the virus himself. After being bedridden for weeks, Guillaume Vermette is now on the mend. He spoke with Quebec AM this morning about why alternative forms of therapy, like clowning, are needed now more than ever.

GUILLAUME VERMETTE: It's my job for a sincere 15 years. It's my dream. It can be nice, but I want to change the world at one smile at the time. And clowning is a beautiful tool for that. We call it therapeutical clowning. It's a practice where you use theatrical clowning to have a therapeutical effect on people, basically. So I was starting to train an army, the first group of therapeutical clowning after 15 years of doing that all around the planet, just before COVID. But then after two days of training, the lockdown happened. So I had to adapt a lot. But I still could do a lot of programs around, depending when and how the pandemic situation was right now. But I could train people to one at a tim, People who already had experience and we were going to at various nursing homes every week. It was beautiful and highly needed these days. In Quebec, we feel like it's a humanitarian crisis right now.

ALISON BRUNETTE: As you mentioned, I mean, it's just something just going into seniors homes, visiting with the elderly in those homes is so important right now to break isolation. But can you tell us more about what is involved with being a therapeutic clown? I mean, how can what you've learned in your work and around the globe help in a situation like what we're going through during a pandemic?

GUILLAUME VERMETTE: Well, I think the main thing you learn as a therapeutical clown is to listen, just to be there to listen and to actually connect. It's easy to forget about it and to not do it properly when our lives are going so quickly, full of stress and pressure. And so, yeah, the main thing I learned in aall these humanitarian travels and therapeutical clowning is the importance of connection with people in that all around the globe we have more in common than difference. We all want the same thing. We want to connect actually. In context, like nursing home with people with cognitive problems, it's often more successful to use a clown than to use a human because the person uses a lot of words and the clown uses more emotion. And with these kinds of problems, often emotion has more impact.

CH: Guillaume Vermette is a therapeutic clown. He spoke with Alison Brunette this morning on Quebec AM.

[Music]

Substantial Meal

CH: One person's snack could be another person's substantial meal. For example, if I walk into a pub in the U.K. and order several plates of pork scratchings just for myself, I should be allowed to. I may attract disapproving looks from other patrons concerned for my digestive system and my loneliness, but it's none of their business. I just love pork scratchings. Well, the U.K. government is saying it is their business. This week, officials told pubs in areas where they COVID-19 risk level is very high to close up shop unless they serve a substantial meal. And chips, crisps, or even pork scratchings do not apparently count as such. But what about Cornish pasties? The whole thing is a dog's breakfast. Here's LBC host Nick Ferrari seeking clarification from UK Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick this morning.

NICK FERRARI: Secretary of State, what is a substantial meal?

ROBERT JENRICK: Well, the test in law is that a substantial meal is the sort of meal you would expect to have as a midday meal or an evening meal. [Cross talking] It would be the main course. Or would be like a main course rather than, say, a packet of crisps or a plate of chips.

NICK FERRARI: Does a Cornish pasty count as a substantial meal?

ROBERT JENRICK: It could do, yeah. I mean, you can go to a restaurant, have a Cornish pasty for lunch.

NICK FERRARI: A Cornish pasty or a sausage roll and a pub in Liverpool can stand business?

ROBERT JENRICK: Well, I think here the test is, is this the...

NICK FERRARI: You put the rules out.

ROBERT JENRICK: I just explained to you that it's the sort of meal that you would expect to have for lunch. If you would expect to go into that restaurant normally or pub and order, you know, a plated meal at the table over Cornish pasty, you know, with chips or side salad or whatever it comes with, then that's a normal meal. This isn't actually as unusual a concept as you might feel. We've had this in law for license holders for a long time because the same rules is applied, if you take a minor into a pub, you can't do so unless they have a substantial meal alongside the alcoholic drink. So people who actually run pubs and bars will be familiar with this and know how to operate it.

CH: There was UK Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick speaking to Nick Ferrari on the Leading Britain's Conversation talk radio station today.

[Music]

Lookalike couples

Guest: Pin Pin Tea-makorn

CH: At first, you like their look and then you look alike. You've probably heard that over time members of couples start to look like each other. And the happier they are, the more obvious the similarities. That used to be just an anecdotal suggestion. But then in the 80s, it was backed up scientifically by a very small study. So Pin Pin Tea-makorn decided to take a second look at the idea. And now she thinks the opposite is actually true. The Stanford phD student found that couples don't come to look alike over time, they start out that way. Her study was published in Scientific Reports. And we reached Pin Pin Tea-makorn at home in Bangkok, Thailand.

CO: Pin Pin, as you know, that study from the 1980s that show that couples gradually come to look alike. It sort of became accepted wisdom, didn't it? So what made you think that study might be flawed?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: So actually, me and Michal, my advisor, both believe that that is true. And so when we were starting the study, we were curious to dig deeper using computer vision to determine which facial features are the ones that actually convert, using more data.

CO: And using more data. So what did you find out about this study back in the 1980s that was at the University of Michigan? What did you find that was kind of limited about that then?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: So first, what's their number of couples that they use, they used on the 12 married couples in their study. So that's like, you know, compared with the usual psychology standard, that is very few. You know, even other studies that tend to the lower side of participants still have at least like 30 to 40 participants. So first of all, it's like the very small size. And the second reason is there are no other works that replicate this result. There were actually two other works that kind of studied the same question, but their results didn't support this particular work.

CO: Oh, interesting. So then you set out to do it, to test it yourself or yourselves. How did you go about doing that?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. So first we collected, you know, a photos of couples at the beginning of the marriage and at a later point in time, at least like 20 years. And then we have two independent methods of measuring the face similarities. Actually the first method we replicated the 1987 paper where we asked human judges to rank how similar the couples are in relative to random couples. But our second method is instead of using human judges, we used facial recognition algorithm to determine the similarity value.

CO: So maybe just tell us what is it that you discovered? What did you learn in your study as to what looked like couples are together?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: So there are two things, two empirical findings that we learnt. So first of all, people tend to select partners who look similar to themselves and then random. And then the second thing we learned was that those couples don't become more similar over time.

CO: So you found that this study, the original study wasn't true. They don't become more alike. They start off looking alike at the beginning. They look for people who look like them.

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. Yes. That's exactly what we did.

CO: So any examples? Because there are some famous people who are known to look alike. So do you have any examples people can see pictures and see how similar people are?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah, definitely. I think like Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter are definitely the pair that everyone probably knows that they look very much alike. Gisele Bundchen and her husband, which unfortunately I forgot his name, also look really alike. So those are two celebrity pairs that look alike.

CO: The other one was Tom Brady, you mean?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. Tom Brady. Yes. Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen.

CO: And so, yeah, in some cases, they almost look like brother and sister.

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. Yeah. It's very fascinating.

CO: And how many couples did you look at?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: We looked at 517 couples of White couples who live in the United States.

CO: So all White couples?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: All White. Yes.

CO: Do you think it would be the same for people of colour?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: I think so, yeah. But I think it will also be a very interesting study to be conducted.

CO: And what about same sex couples? Did you use any comparisons there?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah, we wanted to do that, but we didn't find, you know, enough homosexual couples with enough time span to collect significant amount of data.

CO: So obviously, lots more you want to know about this.

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I know there are tons of research questions that could be extended from this initial research.

CO: Why do you think people then choose to marry partners who look like them? Is there a biological reason for that?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. They are both on biological and sociological reasons. First is people tend to select partners who are similar to them, not just looks, but also personalities, values and socio-economic status. Part of that is we are surrounded by people who are similar to us, like either geographically or socially. Second is that people develop preference for things that we are familiar with. And so since we grow up being familiar with ourselves in the mirror or our family members, then we tend to develop likability to people who are look similar to us. And the third reason is biological, where people or our organisms in general tend to select mates that have similar genes so that they could perpetuate or like making this gene present in the later generations. So those are three among the many other reasons why people select similar mates.

CO: So what will you do next in your research?

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Yeah. So our group basically study faces and other psychological traits. We're running a study right now trying to find whether people and machines can determine people's names from their faces. It's a question that we were curious to check out.

CO: Okay, well, we'll check back with you when you finish your research Pin Pin. It's good to talk to you. Thank you.

PIN PIN TEA-MAKORN: Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

CH: Pin Pin Tea-makorn is a phD student at Stanford University. We reached her in Bangkok, Thailand. And you can find more on the story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Food

CH: If you're like most people, when you finish a long, hard week or day or hour, you just want to veg out and by vegging out I mean, you want vegetables out and chips or brownies or cookies or a chocolate bar in. Well, as you have always suspected, that's not your fault. It's your brain's fault and your ancestors fault. New research published in the journal Scientific Reports set out to examine our ability to map our surroundings, specifically when it comes to remembering the locations of various kinds of food. And it found we're a whole lot better at pinpointing the precise coordinates of cherry ice cream than a cherry tomato, because our brains are designed to efficiently locate high calorie, energy rich food, which in the Stone Age gave us a real edge. In part because we didn't live long enough to develop things like diabetes and in part because we didn't have chips or brownies or cookies or chocolate bars. One of the researchers described this dubious handed down skill as, "mismatched to our current obesogenic food rich circumstances." Delicately put. Although I would have preferred it if she'd sugar coated it.

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October 13, 2020 Episode Transcript

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