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The AIH Transcript for March 1, 2021

Hosts: Peter Armstrong and Chris Howden

Prologue

PETER ARMSTRONG: Hello, I'm Peter Armstrong, sitting in for Carol Off.

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

[Music:Theme]

CH: Tonight:

PA: Ice guys finish last, we reached the commander of the Canadian Navy's latest Arctic warship who's putting his crew and his ship through their paces during an Arctic winter.

CH: Onwards and upwards. A cancer survivor joins an all civilian space expedition, which is part of a fundraiser for a hospital she works at now and where she was treated as a kid.

PA: Ongstwords and upwards. Well, English speakers struggled to express how sick and tired we are of covid. German speakers have coined hundreds of new terms to describe pandemic pandemonium.

CH: Call of the dialed. A man with the biggest and quite likely the only collection of phone books in Canada says there are surprising revelations amid the listings, if only we're willing to look them up.

PA: Flipping the script. In Canada Reads contender, Hench. The heroes are the villains and the villains, or rather their administrative sidekicks are the ones to root for. That'll make more sense when you hear the reading.

CH: And before you say give it a rest. Give yourself an Everest. New research suggests that videos of awe inspiring nature can make your political opinions less intense. So in an argument, head for some mountains before you head for the hills. As It Happens, the Monday edition, radio that recommends don't get even, get awed.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Arctic Warship Captain

Arctic Warship Captain

Guest: Corey Gleason

CH: It's the Canadian Navy's latest and greatest ship designed to patrol the harshest ice filled Arctic waters. And right now, the captain and crew of HMCS Harry DeWolf are on a mission to prove that the Arctic offshore patrol ship is truly up to the task. Since early February, the ship has travelled over three and a half thousand kilometres. The crew has been bathed in the northern lights, braved packs of sea ice and hung out with families of polar bears. Commander Corey Gleason is the captain of the Harry DeWolf. We reached him at sea off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

PA: Commander Gleason described the scene where you are right now.

COREY GLEASON: Well, I'm actually a hundred miles southwest of St. John's, Newfoundland, en route back to Halifax. We're surrounded on a beautiful day. We're between two lows. We just had pretty rough seas transiting south from St. John's. And we're seeing some pretty calm seas right now. Frankly, it looks like we're on some sort of cruise right now just bearing for the next low pressure system that's going to be introduced to us in about five or six hours from now.

PA: Well, you've earned some quiet weather for the moment, at least. As I understand it, from what I've been reading, you've been putting the Harry DeWolf through its paces. What are your first impressions of this new ship?

CG: You know, we've done everything we possibly could to really get a sense of how the ship handles and how it operates. And so far, it's been just amazing. The Navy hasn't operated in the Arctic in the wintertime for more than 50 years. So it's a real, real huge milestone for Canada and for the Royal Canadian Navy to bring a warship that far north and operate in the wintertime in the Arctic and to be able to break ice, unimpeded and to, frankly, be able to stay up there as long as we really want to.

PA: And to be able to do that. You had to really test it in terms of how much ice it could break. And one of the things I was reading is that you had to do something of a 100 metre dash through some pretty thick ice. What was that like? And more specifically, what was it like for people who have never done that before?

CG: I prepared everybody and everybody was eyes wide open. And I spent a lot of time talking to them to make sure that, you know, when the ship introduces itself into the ice, don't be surprised if you get a couple of build alarms, come up and you lose your balance and the ship starts moving and shaking quite a bit because we're doing this for real. This isn't, you know, going across some very thin ice. We're getting into the thick of it. Our first time of introducing it into ice for that thousand metre dash. There is a lot of folks up on the bridge, a lot of folks on the upper decks, just, you know, just in anticipation of what was about to transpire. And once I put my foot on the gas and started driving into the ice, I looked around and it's really a lot of fun for me to look at everybody else's eyes, start bulging out of their head and they see the ship go charging through ice. I mean, we spend all of our whole career trying to avoid dangers and not run into anything, and they give me a ship that I can hit stuff with. [laughter]

PA: So that's kind of how tough it is. You also had to see how fast it was. And in describing the high speed endurance run, you used a I think a fairly technical mariners' term. The quote was, you're going to try to shake the, quote, crap out of the ship. Tell us about that experience.

CG: [Laughter] Yeah, that's a very, very, very, very technical term. So there's two right?, I mean, the first one was going quickly through ice for a long period of time, for a four hour period and, you know, just really introducing the hull into ice and pushing the engines and really kind of going through the ship, you know, space by space, looking over every single gauge and every single screw to see, you know, even the shelving in the storage units and stuff like that to see whether or not things are coming loose, if they're actually secured properly, if you used the appropriate fasteners for everything. And the same thing rings true for the open ocean dash as well. We wanted to get a run in very cold temperatures to do the similar thing. But at higher speeds.

PA: You know, you read about this, that you can plan, you can train, but there's something entirely different about going and actually doing. What has it been like for your crew members who've never experienced this being at sea in the depths of an Arctic winter?

CG: I could summarise it just in just sheer excitement. I mean, everybody's we've all been planning we've all been looking at it from an academic standpoint and we've been looking at it from a practical standpoint for as much as we possibly well the crew possibly could. Then once getting up there. I mean, our first night that we set the ship in ice to take a break after, you know, traversing 10 cents ice for about 12, maybe even 15 hours, a ship into an ice floe, and we were greeted by a polar bear and two cubs.

PA: Wow.

CG: And, yeah, wow is right. And, you know, I made a pipe to the ship's company. It was kind of late at night. But I apologise up front for waking everybody up. But I said there's a polar bear and two cubs up in front of us greeting us in our first flow. And nobody wasted any time to come charging up to take pictures and to really kind of take it all in. And it was just one experience after another. I mean, the aurora borealis, seeing, you know, snow owls, arctic fox charging through different flows of ice, experiencing the sunrises and sunsets. It was just one beautiful experience after another. And you know it wasn't uncommon to see my sailors sitting out, you know, late at night just staring up at the sky and just taking it all in.

PA: Well, that's the stuff that never gets old, right? For all the technology. And man, the ship has technology on it, but for all the advancements, that's the magic of being out at sea, out that far along with, you know what next thing waits around the next corner.

CG: Yeah. You know, our transit north was equally spectacular. We were constantly visited by pilot whales and they were coming close and personal to the ship. You could, you could reach out and touch them from our quarterdeck. And it was just a spectacular experience to... The whole transit going north was incredibly spectacular.

PA: Well, listen, I know you've got another rough patch of weather coming at you, so I'll let you get back at it. But good luck on the rest of your trip home to Halifax.

CG: Peter, thanks very much for showing some interest in us, in the Navy. It means a great deal, to all of us. Thank you.

PA: Oh, you bet.

CH: Commander Corey Gleason is the commanding officer of the Canadian Navy's Arctic patrol ship, HMCS Harry DeWolf. We reached him at sea off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Music: Percussion instrumental]

German Words Coronavirus

Guest: Christine Möhrs

CH: Ach du lieber, over the past year, I think we've all been suffering from Caronaangst, that is not a word I cleverly made up while watching Bridgerton with the German subtitles on. It's a word the Germans cleverly made up. In fact, German speakers have coined more than 1200 new words to describe life during covid words like spuckschutzen and abstandsbier. Christine Möhrs has been compiling these new terms. She's a lexicographer at the Leibniz Institute for the German language, and we reached her in Mannheim.

PA: Christine, what are some of your favourites of these new coronavirus terms?

CHRISTINE MÖHRS: Well, Peter, I think some funny terms about the mask in Germany. We have, for example, the word Schnutenpulli, and the first part of the word means a kind of term for mouth, and the second part of the word means kind of sweater. So Schnutenpulli is a little bit, funny term for the sweater, for the mouth. This is one funny term. And then I also really like the words fußgruß. It means the activity about putting your foot together despite keeping our distance. We humans have a need for closeness. So fußgruß, I think it's not only a nice word, but also a nice thing that happens.

PA: That's like people they touch feet instead of shaking hands. You give a little foot tap, right?

CM: Yes, absolutely. And we say in German fußgruß.

PA: But I mean. Twelve hundred new words in just the year. What do you make, just of the sheer size of this swell of new words into the vocabulary?

CM: That's a good question. I think we are now in a very extraordinary situation and we have many different new things in our world. And these new things are looking for a name and in the world, that do not have a name for things that can, I think, make people to feel fear or insecurity. However, if we can talk about things and have names for them, then we can, I think, communicate with each other. And it's possible for people to have an exchange about the current events and the current crisis.

PA: And it's interesting that there is that practical side of it, the mouth sweater or the fußgruß, as you say. But a lot of them, a lot of these new words are connected to emotions and feelings. Tell me about some of those.

CM: Well, at the moment, for example, we have this huge, most complicated topic of vaccination and we see new word creations in this field. For example, we have words like impfneid or impfdrangler. Imfneid means a feeling of resentment because other people are apparently preferentially immunised against the coronavirus with the help of the vaccination. And impfdrängler means a person who has had a vaccination against the coronavirus given to him or her before others with higher vaccination priority and without authorisation and contrary to the policy established by the government. So they are words that show that the mood of the population is currently quiet, charged, and many of us are. We have a word in German. It's called coronamüde, corona tired. We are tired of continuing to endure the many restrictions and want to get out of the crisis very quickly now. And this vocabulary and these compounds, these creations show the feelings, the mood of the people.

PA: The compounds are the ones that, of course, many English language speakers are jumping on. The German language is famous for some of these long compound words. I'm not even going to attempt to try to say some of these, but there is one that's something to do with the one and a half metre society. Do you know the one I'm talking about?

CM: Yes. In German we say, anderthalmetergesellschaft. And if you want to, I have two other examples for you. Ӧffnungsdiskussionorgien, kind of about a never ending discussion about reopening institutions, kind of that. Some English people I think would smile a little bit about the words, spuckshutzscheib it's also a compound and it means a kind of spitting protection screen.

PA: You know, language is a funny thing. You know, sometimes various languages feel very fixed and rigid, about we use the words we have, whereas I do from an outsider's perspective, it sure feels like the German language is more open to trying and exploring and experimenting with new formations and new words and new language. Is that fair?

CM: Yeah, perhaps. And I also think that the German language wants to be very precise to name things in a very precise way and the mechanisms we are able to have in our language. For example, the word flockdown here, two words smooshed together in one word flocken is only just one part of the noun floc, and that means snowflakes. And the second part of the word in flockdown comes from lock down. So that means snowflakes and locked down, flockdown. So it's kind of a double lock down. This word was created, I think, three weeks ago when we have, in Germany a lot of snow and everybody was sitting at home and felt double locked down.

PA: So twelve hundred new words in just a year. How many of these do you think will stick around and make it into the dictionary?

CM: We must talk in two years, for example. So all these Corona vocabulary, which we list on our website, of the project, are, we say words under observation. So perhaps fifty percent of the words which we have now are not very good candidates for the dictionary.

PA: There are very famous German words that are used in the English language as almost like English words like [inaudible] and [inaudible]. Is there a candidate you think that might have the same sort of crossover appeal?

CM: Hmm. Some sources mentioned coronafrisur. I don't know. It means a corona hair fashion. And I heard it from English speaking people.

PA: Corona hair fashion?

CM: Yeah. Coronafrisur.

PA: I've got coronafrisur right now.

CM: Yeah. Yeah.

PA: Well, I do hope most of these words disappear over the course of the next year, but it's just been fascinating to talk with you about this. Thank you so much.

CM: Thank you very much.

CH: Christine Möhrs is a lexicographer at the Leibniz Institute for the German language. She was in Mannheim, Germany. And you can find more on those German coronavirus words on our website, CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: guitar instrumental]

Phone Book Collector

Guest: Fred Meandro

CH: There's a running joke in the As It Happens office when a chase producer is struggling to track down a guest, nearing deadline and running out of options, someone chimes in, [yelling off mic] did you try the phone book? [forced laughter] It's hilarious to anyone over 40. It's true that phone books don't get a lot of love these days. With Google at hand, they're often relegated to serving as doorstops or booster chairs. There are generations of kids who don't even know they exist. But phone books used to be an essential tool for this radio show. And for Fred Meandro, phone books are a lifelong passion. Mr. Meandro has been collecting phone books since he was a teenager, and he might have the biggest collection in Canada. We reached him in Toronto.

PA: Mr. Meandro, first of all, why phonebooks?

FRED MEANDRO: It's just something that I've always had a passion for ever since I was a teenager, even when we used to get ours, I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario. So I didn't grow up in a big city. But even when we used to get our ones delivered every year, I always looked at them and I want to see how much it grew and if there were more pages, new listings. And I just was always fascinated with it. And then when I started working as a teenager with the Sudbury Public Library, I had a part time job there. And in those days when new ones came into the reference department, they threw out the old ones. And they would ask me as a part time student, you know, could you go out and throw these in the bin type of thing? And I would say, well, if you're going to throw them out, can I take them home? They're all from the cities across Canada. And that's what I did. And that's what started this passion.

PA: So I'm just trying to imagine your parents as you come home from the...

FM: Yes.

PA: And what are you doing with all these phone books? What did they think of this?

FM: Initially as it got more and more? It did not go very well. My father was not too pleased with me at all, but they had a big basement and I ended up buying a big bookshelf and I had them all there. Over the years, though, Peter, I had to really pare down those ones I originally had. And it's since I've been in Toronto, which has been over 40 years, that I started re collecting and getting more into the antique ones, the old ones.

PA: So can you tell me about some of your favourite ones that are in your current collection?

FM: Well, my collection from Toronto, they range from the year 1891, which is the oldest one I have. And it's very small, very thin...

PA: Where did you find that?

FM: That was at an auction here in Toronto at a bookstore. And I paid a lot of money for it, but it was expensive. But I really wanted to get it. But just think, that they have one from the Victorian era of Toronto, very, very hard to get. So that's the oldest. It's fragile. It's very small. All the big names are in there. Timothy Eaton, his home address, the Eaton store on Yonge street and all the big politicians of the day and everything. And they just go through all the decades of the 20th century.

PA: Oh wow.

FM: Up to the contemporary ones, which, you know, now they're so thin and they're very hard to get. You have to order them now. They don't distribute them anymore. And now it won't be long before they pretty well go the way of the dodo bird. They'll become non-existent. They're just you know, people aren't interested in that anymore.

PA: I mean, it's such a unique way at looking back through history, isn't it?

FM: I've always been interested in urban studies and cities and how cities grow and develop. It's just the urban person than me and a city like Toronto that's always been a big city, but constantly growing and changing. You saw the reflection of that through the decades of the telephone directory. What's interesting is, you know what? Restaurants and hotels were big in the 40s and 50s that don't exist anymore. And, you know, the old ads for the automobiles and, you know, it's just a fascinating capsil of the city at that time.

PA: You know, one of the neat things about having a passion and collecting things is in sharing with it. Have you come across anyone else who shares this?

FM: Well, not really. I don't know too many people. I know one man in my hometown that I bought a few things off of that seems to be the same thing, but he's very quiet about it. But I don't know of anybody that... Of a telephone collect, a telephone book collecting group. So I think it's a very quiet thing. I don't know. But I do think that when people see them, they are interested because they're kind of neat.

PA: Oh, they are fascinating!

FM: You see one like, when you see one from Toronto from like the one I have from 1921. Oh, wow. You know, like the ads are great and you know, and you know, and if they're in good shape, you're lucky because unfortunately, because they came out every year, people ripped out pages, they scribbled on them, you know, they weren't meant to be kept. You know, I have posted some of these on the vintage Toronto site. And when people comment on some of the pictures I posted on there, a lot of them would ask me to look up addresses of their grandparents or of their parents or of this and that or a number. And they're so pleased when you send it to them.

PA: Oh, I bet!

FM: So, it doesn't take much out of my time. I'm retired, so I have the time. And, you know, when people ask me to look up something, it's not a problem at all.

PA: Well, even in modern day, I mean, I remember long after my father passed away, my mother kept the phone under his name and I knew I could open up the phone book every year and flip through and see R. Armstrong in the book, it's a wonderful nostalgia, in a lot of ways.

FM: It is, it's a nostalgic thing, and, you know, I always like going to different markets and the antique market that was here in Toronto every Sunday and sometimes you came across something. But right now, for space reasons and everything, I'm pretty well at the tail end. If something came up, though, that was great, I would, you know, do my best to try to get it.

PA: Would you consider donating your collection to like a museum or finding some kind of a new home for it?

FM: This is something I have to think about because I'm retired. It's you know, then it comes down to, you know, like I would like anything that goes for me. I'd like it to go to some place where I'd be appreciated. I mean, some I would probably maybe sell, some I would donate. I'm just not at that point yet where I want to get rid of them. But I know that day will come. I know that day will come at some point.

PA: You know, every time I look up somebody now, I do it on my phone. A lot of people are listening to this show on their phone. And, you know, social media is a way of getting in touch with people. It's all so easy. Now, I wonder, looking back at a collection like this, what do you think these phone books can still offer us?

FM: It's just a great way to look back at the history, you know, and I think unfortunately for young people, you know, you see these comedians that make these little videos where you get a young person who doesn't know how to use a touchtone phone, you know, like, what do I do? They are of historical value. They show the change in the city as it grew. And it's just a great way to look back and see what was there before.

PA: Well, what a wonderful story. And it's just been wonderful to catch up with you. Thank you for sharing all this with us today.

FM: Oh, well, thank you so much for talking to me. And thank you so much for your interest.

PA: Take care. Cheers.

FM: OK, thank you. Bye bye.

PA: Bye, now.

CH: Fred Meandro owns what might be the biggest and also maybe the only collection of phone books in Canada. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music: Upbeat guitar instrumental]

The effects of awe

CH: Thanksgiving dinner has barely ended when your uncle starts up, he says everyone thinks birds are so great but they're stupid or there's too many ice cream flavours nowadays. All we need is rocky road period. Now, here's a tip before you begin your half of the debate by calling him history's greatest monster. Call up a video of the Northern Lights on your phone and watch it with your uncle. And your shared feeling of awe will significantly reduce your individual feelings of, awe, come on. This is the conclusion of Daniel M. Stancato, a doctoral candidate at the University of California. He and his colleagues have been studying the effects of awe, and they found in Mr. Stancato's words, "that awe, can have a highly unique capacity to make one feel more humble, connected to others and open to new ideas". So Mr. Stancato wanted to know if awe could reduce political polarisation. And in a study, he found that subjects who watched awe inspiring nature videos were less adamant about their political opinions, which in turn made them, as Mr. Stancato puts it, "perceive less distance from and hostility towards those with differing beliefs, thus potentially giving rise to more civil dialogue regarding contentious issues". So whenever we're allowed to gather as families again, remember the value of awe. And if you don't want to end up making a mountain out of a molehill, try looking at a mountain.

[Music: electric guitar and drums]

Part 2: Space Visitor

Space Visitor

Guest: Hayley Areceneaux

CH: At 29 years old, Hayley Arceneaux has experienced a lot, and later this year she'll be adding space travel to the list. Ms. Arceneaux has been chosen to be part of the first all civilian space crew. The mission is funded by billionaire businessman and pilot Jared Isaacman, who has bought a SpaceX rocket launch. It's part of a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. That's the hospital where Ms. Arceneaux works as a physician assistant now. She works with leukaemia and lymphoma patients, and it's also the hospital she was in as a child, as a cancer patient. We reached Haley Arceneaux in Memphis, Tennessee.

PA: Hayley, how did you learn that you'd been chosen to take this trip to space?

HAYLEY ARECENEAUX: So it came from a call out of the blue, St. Jude, called they said they had something to talk to me about, and then they told me about this mission because I hadn't even heard about it at the time. And they told me about the background of this first all civilian mission in space, how it was being used for good and to benefit St. Jude. And then they asked if I wanted to go to space. And immediately I said yes. And then they encouraged me to... Why don't you call your family? Why don't you sleep on it? So I called my mom and and my brother and sister in law who are actually both aerospace engineers. And my whole family was on board and I was able to give St. Jude that, yes. And they still encouraged me to sleep on it. And I said, nope, just put my name down.

PA: As you say, though, it's an all civilian mission. There's no NASA astronauts. There's no Neil Armstrong to save you if things go weird. Was there any hesitation about that side of things?

HA: Not from my standpoint. I think my mom was a little nervous to hear that. But she's come with me on one of my trips to SpaceX, and after going and meeting the team, she felt so much better. And so she is completely supportive and knowing the training that we're going to go through this year and SpaceX is going to make sure that we're really well prepared, we're going to be ready. And so I'm not nervous about that.

PA: I want to go back to sort of talk about how you have this relationship with St. Jude Hospital in the first place. You were 10 when you first started noticing some pain in your leg. Walk us through what happened next.

HA: Yes, I was 10 years old and completely healthy, active 10 year old. I actually had just gotten my black belt in taekwondo and I was having knee pain. And then it progressed to limping. And then my mom noticed a knot above my left knee and she took me to the doctor and I'll never forget. The doctor came in and said, this is bone cancer. And my parents and I, we all just burst into tears. And I remember at age 10, everyone I had known with cancer had died. And I thought this cancer diagnosis was a death sentence. And it really wasn't until I got to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital a few days later and walked in the doors and just felt hope. And they really reassured me that, you know, this was something I was going to get through. And I spent a year there undergoing intense chemotherapy. I had surgery that removed the tumour and ultimately saved my leg. And that was the most important year of my life. And since I was 10 years old, all I've ever wanted to do is work at St. Jude. And now I do.

PA: And now you do. And even then, I mean, it's every 10 year old's dream to go to space. Was that even on the radar for you?

HA: Yes. So my family and I visited NASA in Houston a few months before I was diagnosed with cancer. And I got to see where the astronauts trained. And of course, I wanted to be an astronaut after that. Like who doesn't? I think all kids and adults, when they go to NASA, want to be astronauts. But then a few months later, I was diagnosed with cancer and then my whole world shifted. And all I've ever wanted to do since then is work at St. Jude. But honestly, I. I never thought I'd be able to be an astronaut because of this rod in my leg. And, you know, until now, astronauts have had to be physically perfect and I don't fall into that category. But that's just one thing that our mission is changing. And it's setting a new precedent.

PA: Well, and in a lot of ways sort of reinforces the message that that you want to share with other cancer survivors at the hospital, that this is not an impediment. You know, literally, the sky is no longer even the limit here.

HA: Exactly. And I'm just so excited to be able to represent kids who have had to go through something difficult and who can grow up and live a life that, you know, they never thought would be possible. I actually was sitting down with a patient last week and she was telling me how discouraged she was that she can't run or jump. And I told her I can't run or jump either because of this rod in my leg. But that's not stopping me from going to space. And I think this is, it's really going to be able to physically show these kids what their future can look like.

PA: And I mean, given this most recent news about, you're going to space, I'm imagining you're something of a celebrity to them now.

HA: It has been incredible. The kids are so excited. And all of the kids I've talked to since this announcement have told me they want to be astronauts. And I told them, you know, I'm the first paediatric cancer survivor to go to space, but I'm not going to be the last. And I love that they're already envisioning themselves as astronauts.

PA: That's amazing. So what's the journey from here look like? I mean, what has to happen between now and when you launch later this year?

HA: Training, actually. Starts this month, I'm so excited, but it's going to start with centrifuge training, which is like those amusement park rides that go around in a circle really fast, but ours is going to go REALLY fast and get our bodies used to the G forces. And then we're going to spend a lot of time in the dragon simulator. We're going to spend a lot of time in our spacesuits. And then we're also going to learn some rocket science along the way. And I'm the medical officer of this flight, so I'll get some additional in-flight medical training as well.

PA: I read somewhere that you've already... Have you tried on the spacesuit?

HA: Yes!

PA: What was that like?

HA: And it just made it so real. It surprised me how heavy they were. And I think they said it was around five pounds, but I made sure I could still dance in it. And I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time in that this year.

PA: So skip ahead now you're up in space, you are orbiting Earth. What are the things like, have you got a bucket list of things you want to do while you're up there?

HA: Well, the thing that I want to do the most, we're trying right now to figure out how we can do a video call with the St. Jude kids while we're in space. And I am just so excited to be able to actually show them what their future can look like. And also, it's going to be so much fun for our kids and getting to answer any questions that they have. But also, while we're up there, we're going to be doing some science experiments and some research projects because space travel has always ultimately been about science and furthering our knowledge. And so we are completely on board with that as well.

PA: Well, what an amazing story. Congratulations. And we all just can't wait to watch you go up.

HA: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

CH: Hayley Arseneau is a physician assistant at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. That's where we reached her. And we've posted some pictures and more on this story on our website, CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: calm piano instrumental]

Chadwick Boseman Golden Globes

CH: Last night, Chadwick Boseman won his first Golden Globe for his last performance, Mr. Boseman was named best actor in a motion picture drama for his role in Ma Rainey's, Black Bottom, a movie based on August Wilson's play. It's the story of blues singer Ma Rainey and of the exploitation of black performers in 1920s Chicago. Chadwick Boseman plays Levee, a talented and ambitious musician, and his performance has been called a career best. The award is posthumous, of course. Chadwick Boseman died last August. His wife, Simone Ledward Boseman, accepted the Golden Globe and said a few words.

SIMONE LEDWARD BOSEMAN: He would thank God, he would thank his parents. He would thank his ancestors for their guidance and their sacrifices. He would thank his incredible team, he would say something beautiful. Something inspiring, something that would amplify that little voice inside of all of us that tells you you can, that tells you to keep going, that calls you back to what you are meant to be doing at this moment in history. He would thank Mr. George C. Wolfe, Mr. Denzel Washington, lots of people at Netflix. He would think Ms. Viola Davis, Mr. Glynn Turman, Mr. Michael Potts, Mr. Coleman Domingo. Mrs. Taylour Paige. Mr. Dusan Brown. And I don't have his words. But we have to take all the moments to celebrate those we love, so thank you HFPA for this opportunity to do exactly that. And honey, you keep' em coming.

CH: That was Simon Ledward Bowsman accepting the award of Best Actor in a motion picture drama last night for her husband, the late Chadwick Boseman. Mr. Boseman died last August after being diagnosed four years ago with colon cancer.

[Music: soft piano and drums]

Orbisculate Family

Guest: Hilary Krieger

CH: Last April, Neil Krieger of Boston died of covid-19, Mr. Krieger was a scientist. According to his daughter, Hilary. He was also quick witted, quirky and inventive, and one of his inventions was a word, orbisculate, he used it as often as possible when his kids were growing up. And now his family has come up with a plan to honour his life by getting orbisculate, Neil Krieger's made upward his neologism, if you will, into a real life dictionary. We reached Hilary Krieger while she was en route to Boston.

PA: Hilary, what does orbisculate mean?

HILLARY KRIEGER: Well, the first classical definition is when you dig into a grapefruit and it squirts out right into your eye.

PA: Did I say it right, orbisculate?

HK: Yes, you did. It turns out, though, lots of different citrus and other fruits and vegetables like to squirt, and they might end up on your clothing or other body parts. And those can also be considered to have orbisculated.

PA: Orbisculated, got it. All right. So how and when did this word come into existence?

HK: Well, my father, Neil Krieger, in college had an assignment where he had to invent a word. So he came up with orbisculate for his class assignment and he decided to just keep using the word as a real word. So he felt that it was really needed and nobody else had come up with a word. So he had one. So my brother and I just grew up assuming it was a real word. You know, that's how you learn words as your parents say them. And it never occurred to us that this wasn't a universally known word until I was actually back home at my family's house in Boston and a friend from college was over and we were eating oranges and one orbisculated on him, which I noted. And he said, it did what? I said orbisculated on you. He's like, that's not a word. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Of course it's a word. And he just got a creative writing degree. So he figured he knew words. And I'm a journalist, so I knew I knew words. So we ended up making a bet to see if it was in the dictionary. And to my great shock, it was not there. When we open it up.

PA: You must have been crestfallen.

HK: I. Well, you know, actually, my first thought was, what's wrong with this dictionary? Like, why isn't it here? and since we were back home, I ran into my dad's office. I said, Dad, orbisculate's not in this dictionary. What's going on? And he gave me a very, very sheepish look. And he is like, well...

PA: As fate would have it. [laughter]

HK: So, yeah, then I got annoyed. [more laughter]

PA: OK, tell me more about your dad though. Like, was this the kind of thing, is this within character for him to make up a word and then just like own the joke and stick with it for years to come?

HK: Yes, yes. And he was very... He had an amazing sense of humour, but he didn't really feel the need to let other people in on it. So, like, he would drop things in conversation all the time. And if you didn't know, he just would keep on going. He would always try to find the good side and the funny side of things. So taking something that would otherwise be painful and annoying and finding a way to have fun with it was really in keeping with his character. And that's part of why I love the word and why when I was first aware that he made it up, I was quite upset. But later I realised like, oh, this is so much of a better word for having been his invention because it says so much about him and it has a lot more meaning and richness as a result of that.

PA: And who came up with this plan, this idea to get it into a dictionary?

HK: Well, you know, after my dad passed away from covid last April and we just couldn't have the funeral and memorial service, the kinds of things usually do. And my brother and I were spending a lot of time talking to friends and trying to say, you know, stuff about our dad and capture him. And it's, it was really horrible and difficult, of course. But one thing that sort of came up in these conversations, which was really positive, was telling people about this word, orbisculate. And it was just fun and funny and memorable. And it just, I don't know, one moment it was like, wait, why isn't this in the dictionary? Like, this totally should be in the dictionary. And we're sitting around in quarantine and we have, like, nothing to do right now. Right. So, like, let's just try and get it in the dictionary. That's something you can do from your couch and have something a little bit positive in this otherwise pretty grim time.

PA: You say this is something you can do from a couch. How does one go about getting a word into a dictionary?

HK: Well, we spoke to some language experts and some dictionary people and asked about how this all works. And the basic way you get a word in the dictionary is to use the word. Dictionary editors are constantly scouring the English language for new words cropping up. And if they feel that enough people are using it in enough different places that it's really entered the common lexicon, then they add it as an entry to the dictionary. So if you're talking to people, if you're writing stories, if you're speaking on the radio, if you're putting together, you know, manuals for juicers and you want to tell people to be careful, you know, watch orbisculating, like all these things that sort of celebrity chefs cooking, they need to be careful and talk about the dangers of orbisculating, you know, all the things like. Get the word in circulation, and that's ultimately what makes it successful in the eyes of the dictionary editors.

PA: And I mean, it is just an absolutely wonderful tribute to a man who sounds like he was an awful lot of fun. What do you think your dad would have made this idea?

HK: I think he would have thought it was a riot. He had this massive laugh. He just loved to laugh. And I think if I told him that, hey, we might orbisculate in the dictionary, I would be able to hear his laugh about a mile away from that one, he would love that.

PA: Be honest. What do you think? What do you think your chances are?

HK: You know, I feel pretty good. I feel like this is now international thanks to you. So that's a good sign. We're open to the fact that there's a long path it can take a while. We put up 50 goals on our website and they range from like having it be in the name of a cocktail, to having it be in a crossword puzzle, to having it be in like a Ben and Jerry's sorbet. And granted, we haven't gotten to the Ben and Jerry's sorbet name yet. But, you know, I feel like we're making progress. You know, any time a person uses this word, any time it's found another home or use or whatever is wonderful. And that's really as much the point as anything else.

PA: Well, Hilary, I'm just, I'm so sorry for the loss of your dad. Good luck with this. And I'm going to go home and tell my kids all about orbisculate.

HK: Wonderful. Thank you for doing your part to spread the word.

PA: OK, take good care.

HK: Thanks so much. Bye.

CH: Hilary Krieger and her family are trying to get the word orbisculate accepted into a dictionary as a tribute to her father, Neil, who invented the word. He died from covid-19 last April.

From CBC’s Archive

CH: And orbisculate means 'to accidentally squirt juice or pulp into someone's eye'. That word got us thinking about one of our all time favourite pieces of tape here at As It Happens, it's of our former CBC North colleague Kootoo Onalik. He was delivering a weather report while eating an orange when something went down the wrong way. And as he explains, it's the orange.

KOOTOO ONALIK: Camil today, cloudy with occasional light snow, temperature will be around minus two. Cape Dorset to today, cloudy with occasional light snow. Winds northeasterly 20, temperature will be around minus five [choking sounds] But today, it's going to be cloudy. Temperatures will be at around minus two, it's the orange. Today morning fog patches out the west, mainly cloudy temperature around minus two cloudy today, very cloudy, winds, northwesterly 40. Temperature will be around minus five paramilitaries. Temperature will be around minus nine. [inaudible], today sunny, temperature will be around minus four. I guess that's about it. You have a good day. Drive carefully.

CH: That was now retired CBC North broadcaster Kootoo Onalik choking on an orange mid weather report and not giving up. He was fine right afterwards, by the way. No word on whether the orange orbisculated.

[Music: electronic instrumental]

Canada Reads contender

CH: Your average antihero is fatally flawed, but somehow sympathetic, a criminal, you can't help but root for, a con with a cause. The main character in Canada reads contender, Hench, is all that and more a literal anti-hero hero who makes a name for herself as a sidekick for supervillains devoted to cataloguing the collateral damage caused by so-called heroes' ill fated attempts to save the world. It's Natalie Zina Walschots' first novel, and it will be championed by Kim's Convenience star, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, in next week's Canada Reads Debates. In this passage read by the author, the protagonist, Anna, makes one of her first public appearances as a hench alongside a middling villain known as E, and a bevy of bodyguards referred to, rather unfortunately, as Meat.

NATALIE ZINA WALSCHOTS: We're live, in 10... The camera operator called and then continued to count down on his fingers. E sat a little straighter on his makeshift throne, he dramatically steepled his fingers and allowed one corner of his mouth to querk up the slightest bit. I found myself suddenly gripped by nervousness with a final thumbs up. We were live. Mr. Mayor, Councillor's, Chief Danchuck, pardon me for interrupting this municipal session on what was it, public transit. He paused a moment, mentally counting out a few seconds to allow for the sounds of shock and outrage he imagined had erupted on the other side of the closed circuit channel he'd invaded. Please, I promise not to take up too much of your time. At the bottom of the screen, there's a crypto wallet address. This is a very simple ransom demand, the equivalent of five million dollars delivered within the next five minutes. Nothing outrageous, nothing that would bankrupt the civic purse. Just a little nest egg to get my next project off the ground. E glanced meaningfully across the room where two of his bodyguards had been standing by the door. One of them nodded and touched his earpiece, barking a quick command. The other held the doors open. A third man walked in bigger than any of the other Meat, half dragging, a half carrying a long limbed teen boy with him. The kid had grass stains on his knees and was wearing a jersey emblazoned with the logo of a doughnut shop. He must have been grabbed from soccer practise as the thick necked man holding him dragged the boy closer to the desk. I could smell the salt of his fresh sweat and a high note of panic. One of the kid's feet was bare, and it looked like he had his own sock stuffed into his mouth. One of the Meat behind me kicked me in the back of the leg and I realised my mouth was hanging open. I struggled to compose my face. Of course, I understand that you need some incentive for such a business proposition, so let me provide it along with a demonstration of the new project I'm working on, he said, jovially gesturing the Meat closer. He dragged the boy into the frame of the camera. E paused again for a reaction he couldn't see on the other end of the video feed, then plucked the sock out of the boy's mouth. The kid shook his head and spat. We'd like to thank Jeremy for volunteering for this demonstration. E stood. He picked up the mood ring and set it humming much louder this time, I could feel it in my teeth. Jeremy, your dad is watching, so try and put on a good show for him. I'm very excited you're able to help us out.

CH: Natalie Zina Walschots is the author of Hench. That novel will be Championed next week on Canada Reads by actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who says it's a book with, "razor sharp wit and smart dialogue and with themes that run deep and resonate long after the book is done". The Battle of the Books airs next Monday through Thursday right here on CBC Radio One.

[Music: mystery music]

Mental health P.E.I.

CH: Cory Deagle wants Prince Edward Islanders to know that when his government says it wants to help people facing mental health challenges, that includes islanders like himself. Mr. Deagle is a progressive conservative MLA. At 27, he was the youngest person elected in the province's 2019 election. On Friday, Cory Deagle joined the legislature's discussion on a new multi-year, multi-million dollar plan to improve mental health services, and he decided to share something personal about himself.

CORY DEAGLE: One would think that being elected at 27, you know, I had a lot, a lot going for me. I do. That I'd be the happiest person in the world. And I have a big smile. A smile can be good at hiding a lot. I'd have to admit, since being elected, I probably never felt more isolated and alone if I was being honest, only compounded by the fact that when covid hit and we were locked down, I live on my own. And it was for the first two to three months, it was a struggle. I was struggling, but I just always put a big smile on. I joke and I laugh and everyone just thinks I'm a happy go lucky person all the time, which, which I am. And I'm happy with that. But, you know, during the campaign it was all oh, Cory and that nice big smile. But the smile does hide a lot. And I've never really spoken about it before. Probably the past number of months have been the biggest struggle, you know, even to the point where my mom said to me one day that, I just love to see the old Cory back, that smiles, laughs and jokes around. I think I'm doing better. Back in November, I started running with someone, jogging. I could probably say now that I'm happier, I feel better about myself. There are some points that were extremely tough. The weight on my chest was so unbearable that, you know, I would take an ativan just to calm myself down. I probably wouldn't admit that to many people, but now everyone knows. But there is, times that my chest was that... It just felt like there was so much weight on it and not about anything in particular. But I just, I couldn't, I found it unbearable at times, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to kind of tell that story to really focus in on mental health and the importance of it. Because I'll be honest, a number of years ago, I wouldn't have said that mental health is a huge... It's important. You know, you kind of think, well, people don't really deal with that. I just I don't, like it doesn't it doesn't affect me, but it does. And I'm glad that we're going to make headway in this. And I'll just leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

CH: That was Prince Edward Island, progressive conservative MLA Cory Deagle speaking in the legislature on Friday.

[Music upbeat tempo]

Part 3: Boston Globe Fresh Start

Boston Globe Fresh Start

Guest: Jason Touhey

CH: It's pretty cool to get your name written up in the local paper after winning the hot dog eating contest at your local county fair. It is less cool when you're applying for a job years later. And that story is still the first hit when you type your name into Google. The right to be forgotten is not a new idea, but the Boston Globe is taking it a step further. The paper just launched an initiative called Fresh Start. As newsrooms confront their own systemic bias in reporting, there's a growing push to actively try to right historical wrongs. Fresh Start allows readers to request the stories they feel have represented them unfairly, be reviewed and potentially revised online. Jason Touhey is the Boston Globe's managing editor for Digital. We reached him in Belmont, Massachusetts.

PA: Jason, how did you and your paper come up with the idea for this Fresh Start initiative?

JASON TOUHEY: Well, like many newspapers, we've heard from people for years who say that an old story, one that might be several years old, about a fairly minor incident or transgression in their past has become the sort of defining feature for them online, whenever you search for their name in a search engine. This is what comes up right at the top. We've heard from people who say this has become a serious impediment to moving forward with their lives, whether it be employment, education, relationships, what have you. So we would always handle these as one off requests, but with Fresh Start, it's an attempt to do something a little more fundamental, something where we have standards in place and a little more consistent with how we approach these requests.

PA: Can you just give me an example? Because I think everybody here views minor incidents or transgression differently. Give us an example, the kind of story in the archives that you're hoping to turn with this?

JT: Well, sure. I can give you one that might seem a little light, but we run a blind date column in our magazine, which runs online. And several years later, we will sometimes hear from people who went on these blind dates. And they say every time you run my name through a search engine, that blind date story comes at the very top. And, you know, it's not what they want to be remembered for at that point in their lives.

PA: So then how does it work? What do I do if I think, you know, I've got one of those blind date stories or that there was a story that portrayed me unfairly? What do I do?

JT: Sure. So we have a form on our website that you can go and you fill out. And it's a number of particulars. You know, you name, a link to the story, an explanation as to why, you know, you'd like to make a request for us to review that case. Any case documents or materials that you have that you can upload. And so someone files that request through the form, hits submit. And then we have a 10 person committee at the Boston Globe that reviews these cases. We don't take action on every case, but we do promise to review every case that is submitted.

PA: The Boston Globe, is you know, award winning, very famous paper you've been publishing since, I think, 1872. How much of a break do you see this as from sort of legacy newspaper tradition with this idea?

JT: Well, I mean, that's a really good question. And it's certainly a break in some ways. But I actually think we're reacting to new technology that didn't exist in the past. You know, previously, if you would write a story about, you know, a minor crime, it would appear in the newspaper for one day. Some people would read it, but then, you know, it would get recycled and people would move on to the next day's news when the next day's newspaper came out. You know, in many ways, our industry was not prepared for technology that would allow one single story to be easily identified at, you know, the fingertips of anyone with an Internet connection for the rest of time.

PA: You know, I'm old enough to have gone into the public library archives to go through the microfiche.

JT: Me too.

PA: And well, it's those little stories that aren't, you know, the headline news that gives so much colour and so much understanding of things in the past. How do you balance that?

JT: Well well, look, I mean, you could still go to the library and find those stories. I mean, we're not going to pretend that we have the power to wipe something off the historical record forever. Right. We're one publication. Certainly some of these things could be documented elsewhere. But I mean, what we are trying to do is solve that sort of initial question that I posed. And that is, you know, when someone's name is searched, this appears right at the top and that, you know, we're trying to find that balance between what is the newsworthiness of a story that might be several years old and very minor in nature versus the public harm that that continues to do to someone by making it so easily findable and so easily identifiable with that individual who otherwise is, you know, in many cases is a private individual.

PA: And then I guess the flip side of that is there's bound to be concern about opening the door to, you know, big corporations are big public figures or government figures looking to rewrite their own history to their advantage. How do you safeguard against that?

JT: Right. Well, you know, for our initiative here, we are only hearing cases from individuals. So we're not going to hear cases from government agencies or corporations, not even from people who are, you know, sort of well-off enough to hire lawyers to scrub the Internet for them.

PA: But if the CEO or the president or the, you know, local governor whatever, it takes it up on their own, they have access to this.

JT: Well, they have access to make a request. But this is still going to be, these requests are still going to be reviewed by a panel of Globe journalists.

PA: You know, it's interesting how it falls into a much broader conversation that news everywhere are having about how do we address racial bias in our coverage, how do we do better by our audiences? Where does this fit into that broader effort?

JT: I mean, certainly that is a factor in this initiative. You know, it's not the only factor, but it's certainly a consideration.

PA: In what way?

JT: Well, I mean, we know for years that law enforcement has been unequal in how it's applied to our society, you know, in that that would necessarily be reflected in the pages of our past reporting just by virtue of covering law enforcement, by covering arrests, covering who gets charged and for what.

PA: This is up and running now is it?

JT: Yeah, we launched in January, so it's still a very fresh initiative. We're soliciting feedback from our community and we expect that this is something that, you know, we'll continue to learn and adjust as we go.

PA: Yeah, I mean, look, it'll be really interesting to see where this takes us and where you guys end up just in terms of volume and what happened a year or even two from now.

JT: Sure. Yeah.

PA: OK, well, listen, we're going to leave it there, but really appreciate your time today.

JT: OK, great. Thank you very much.

PA: Take good care.

CH: Jason Touhey is The Boston Globe's managing editor for Digital. We reached him in Belmont, Massachusetts.

[Music: elevator music]

TikTok trend tragedy

Guest: Melanie Anderson

CH: TikTok is a great app for people who want to showcase their creativity and humour, but every now and then the video sharing service shares something dangerous. There was the 'throw it in the air' challenge where a group of people stand in a circle looking down and throw a hard object into the air, hoping it doesn't land on them. And there's also been the pass out challenge where people vigorously swing their heads side to side with the goal of temporarily losing consciousness. Late last month, 13 year old Canadian Cash Anderson tried that challenge and he never woke up. CBC Saskatoon recently spoke with Cash's mother. Here's what Melanie Anderson said about her son's death and the TikTok challenge that took his life.

MELANIE ANDERSON: It was just a normal day. It was a Saturday. So I was home and Cash was home to quarantine that week. We all were. And he was antsy and agitated. Right. He always had lots of energy. There just wasn't anything that we could do. We were stuck inside and he was itching to get outside. So we were home. It was 7. It was 7:30. And he had asked me to help him with the school project. And I said, yep, get a box and we'll work on it and I'll find the glue gun. And he went upstairs and then I messaged at 7:42 and said, Hey bud, I've got the glue gun down here, let's work on this. And then I was helping his brother with something and then started chatting with our niece at my counter. And it wasn't maybe around 8 that we heard kind of, we heard a couple of pounds on the wall and we thought, well, that was weird. First of all, it was weird because it was quiet upstairs before that. And it actually made me believe that Cash wasn't home because he's a noisy kid.

LEISHA GREBINSKI: What makes you think that he did the TikTok challenge?

MA: Cash was really a risk taker. He was really into social media in a lot of ways. It was an outlet with his skateboarding. And for him to post his skateboarding, he fully had intentions of going pro. He was that good.

LG: Had you seen this challenge on TikTok? Have you seen the images, the videos? Did you have conversations with Cash about it? How familiar were you with what was happening online?

MA: Not at all. That night when everyone was here, my niece was on FaceTime with us and she said, Auntie, there's this thing on TikTok and I'll send it to you. So she sent it to me and I thought, why are these things allowed on... To get through the Internet? And it's not until five million people have seen it that they take it down an hour later when they're, when someone reports it. Why the hell isn't TikTok or YouTube or whoever else responsible for what goes out there? They're not responsible, but they have this huge platform that reaches the world.

LG: Melanie, how do you want Cash to be remembered?

MA: Oh, he was vibrant from the minute he woke up in the morning to the minute he went to bed at night, he was a bundle of energy.

LG: Melanie, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

MA: Yeah, I appreciate it.

LG: OK, bye.

MA: Bye bye.

CH: That was Melanie Anderson speaking with CBC Saskatoons Leisha Grebinski.

[Music: creepy music]

How dogs began

CH: On ideas tonight, how dogs began. Scientists agree that dogs descended from wolves and the dogs were the first domesticated animals. But exactly how that middle part happened is not so clear cut. One popular theory is that some wolves found they could survive better by hanging around prehistoric settlements and feeding off human garbage, in effect by behaving less like wolves. Here's evolutionary biologist Catherine Lord.

CATHERINE LORD: The ability to not only get closer but to stay closer to humans when they brought out trash became a really key evolutionary development. So we still have wolves who will scavenge at dumpsites, but they're outcompeted by dogs because of this one trait, which is we call it flight distance. So how close will you let something frightening approach before you start to run? And then very closely tied to that is how far away will you run once you start running? And so wolves classically have this very large flight distance. So a wolf eating at a garbage dump tends to only do it at night when people aren't around and when they sense a person approaching, usually because they smell them, they will start running and they'll stay away. They'll run far and they don't come back for a while because it was scary. A dog, on the other hand, even a dog who grows up in a garbage dump, not a pet dog, a dog who's living in the garbage dump because they're so easy to socialise with people. When a person comes, they just sort of shift over. It's very much like the behaviour you see in like a pigeon in the park. They have a really shortened flight distance and that makes them really well adapted to survive in this niche because they're the first ones there. They aren't using up any energy, running away from the people. They get the best food right away and they don't have to lose out. When more food comes in, the food comes. They're right. They're ready for it.

CH: An excerpt from "Entre chien et loup", "how dogs began" airing tonight on ideas after As It Happens.

[Music: Rock music]

AI Czech Play

Guest: Rudolf Rosa

CH: Rudolf Rosa had never written a play before he was approached by the Prague based Svanda Theatre about a possible collaboration and technically he still hasn't. Instead, an artificial intelligence developed by Mr. Rosa and his team at Prague's Charles University gets credit for the theatre's latest production, "A.I. when a robot writes a play". And just weeks later, that piece has premiered online in Czech.

[SOUND CLIP: Lines from A.I. When a robot writes a play]

CH: A few lines from the opening scene of Svanda Theatre's artificial intelligence production, in which the main character, a robot, not surprisingly, he speaks with his dying human creator. Rudolph Rosa is a machine learning expert at Charles University who served as the project lead in the play's development. We reached him in Prague.

PA: Mr. Rosa. What is this play about exactly?

RUDOLF ROSA: We like to say it's similar to the Little Prince by Exupery, just that it's a robot and he goes through the world and meets various people. So he parts with his dying monster in the beginning and then goes to a nightclub and meets an engineer and meets a schoolboy and interacts with those people and tries to learn about life and love and death and in the end feels probably alienated or isolated from people and finds his own binary world where he resides.

PA: How did you go about having this artificial intelligence sit down, as it were, to write a play in the first place?

RR: Well, so we used a GPD 2 language model by Open A.I., which just read millions of texts from the Internet and learnt how to put together words to form text. So it's quite good at generating like fake news and stuff like that. So the way the model works is that you put in a beginning of a document and it tries to finish the document. And this is what we did. And we figured out that, yeah, this works reasonably well. That it can generate something like dialogue. So we put in a scene setting like there are two people talking over a phone and then we start the dialogue by putting the first two lines and then the system can already pick up the structure and pick up the topic and can continue the dialogue. And in the play there are eight scenes. So eight times we did this, this thing and then the theatre experts just reordered the scenes and put it together and designed the play around it.

PA: And the whole idea here was, was to see if this would work, if it could pull it off. I wonder if you can put on your critics hat, though. What did you make of the result? Is the A.I. a good playwright?

RR: So for me, yeah, it's better than I expected. I think the longest scene has like 100 lines or something, which is a lot for what we usually see. And it does keep to the topic more or less so. So it's better than I expected is definitely worse than what a typical human would write. So it has a lot of issues. Well, when we read some of the reviews, so basically, if you didn't know it was written by A.I. then yeah, it's a disappointment, it's not a great play. But given that the A.I. is the author, then I think it's a pretty good success.

PA: There is a piece in The Guardian where the reviewer described the writer as, "a sex obsessed machine". Is that fair?

RR: Yeah, actually, that's that's pretty exact. What we found is that the system is trained on well text from the Internet, so it just tends to write similar stuff to what it's on the Internet. Well, it turns out the Internet is full of sex, so it just keeps getting to the topic of sex in any situation. So even if the scene starts with a completely different topic, like a mother looking for a lost child, talking to a robot, helping her find the child, then after a few lines, they start talking about love and then about sex.

PA: Is that just simply because of the preponderance of porn online? Like, how does that happen?

RR: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. It's well, but it's in general, the play tends to get to topics that are probably quite typical, quite important for humans like love, sex, life, death, isolation as well. So it just tells us something about what we are like probably, or what we like to talk about on the Internet.

PA: What was it like? It must have been just surreal to actually sit down and watch the premiere, when it premiered the other day.

RR: For some parts, it took me some time to realise that actually, yeah, it is really artificially generated. So even though I was part of the project, I didn't have to go back to the script and check, OK, really, these lines really generated good, well, the actors and the director, they did an amazing job. So they make it look meaningful and everything.

PA: And, you know, I think if you had asked anybody six months ago, is this possible, they might have said it's possible, but it won't be good. The simple fact that it was possible that it did get finished, what does that tell us about, you know, somebody will try this and the next one will be better and the one after that will be better than that.

RR: We hope so, like we still plan to continue with the project, so we have a two year project going on and we are in the middle. So we want to see what we can learn from this first output and how we can improve it. Next year we would like to put on an even better play. And we actually had a discussion with some experts after the play and the theme was, OK, so now it's not better than human authors, but it might be a question of time before the techs are really good. And there probably will be still some things missing, like the things that we basically cannot describe ourselves, like what is the play about? Why did the author write to play? What meaning is behind the play? So that's something that's not really written in the play. So it's hard for the system to learn it because the system only sees the text we write. But it doesn't know like, what do you mean by this text? Well, we don't tell it. So, there will probably always be this kind of difference. But I think the text will be really good in a few years.

PA: And I mean, much as it's hard for the system to learn what is the meaning of this? I think there's an interesting question about what audiences should learn from this. What do you think the message should be?

RR: Basically, the message we wanted to convey is that, well, artificial intelligence is here. It's going to stay. So we better learn to understand it and to know its capabilities, what it can do, what it can't do, how it can help us. And we hope that the future is in cooperation of humankind with artificial intelligence, whereas nowadays a lot of people see it as a fight and we don't think that that's a good way. So artificial intelligence can give us some good things, but it also needs us because for some things it's used less.

PA: Well, it's certainly a fascinating conversation, one I'm sure we're going to have more of. I really appreciate you speaking with us today.

RR: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

CH: Rudolf Rosa is a machine learning expert at Charles University in Prague. That's where we reached him.

[Music: Techno music]

Violet King Henry Plaza

CH: Jo-Anne Henry-Bent says she's overwhelmed with joy today. She's the daughter of Violet King Henry, who in the 1950s became Canada's first black female lawyer. Last week, officials revealed that a plaza in Edmonton had been given a name change. It's now the Violet King Henry Plaza, Jo-Anne Henry-Bent spoke with the CBC this morning from Washington, D.C., about what this would have meant to her mother.

JO-ANNE HENRY-BENT: I just know that it would have meant so, so much to her. And for us, it's just incredibly exciting and very frustrating that we can't travel immediately to Canada.

MARK CONNOLLY: Well, I can tell you that the Plaza, as I said right beside the federal building and as you walk onto the plaza, usually you're coming from the north side of the avenue. You see the legislature laid out before you. It is a beautiful place. There's sort of places where people can sit and have their lunch. They can enjoy the water with the kids. It's a gorgeous place. So that's very nice to know. I'm sure for you.

JO-ANNE HENRY-BENT: It is. It is. And some from the minister's office were kind to send summer pictures of the plaza. [laughter] So we were able to see what it looks like in full bloom. But also, I was very impressed with their press conference in the winter.

MC: Your mom accomplished many things in her life. What are some of the firsts that she's remembered for?

JO-ANNE HENRY-BENT: I mean, I think being one of I believe just three women in her class at law school at University of Alberta would be a first and be one of them and certainly the first black woman in that class. But clearly, the first, first that was the most monumental was certainly being the first black woman to ever practise law in all of Canada. That's the biggest first. Another one, though, that maybe people know a little bit less about is that my mom went on to work for the I am YM/YWCA, which I think many of you do know. But when she joined the national board of the YMCA, she was both the first woman of any race and also the first black person of any gender to ever be on that board. So she kind of did a double first with that one. And that was the last job that she had before she passed away. And it was huge. She travelled worldwide and just was an incredible leader and model for so many in that position.

MC: What was she like for you? I know she died when you were just a teenager, but how would you describe her?

JO-ANNE HENRY-BENT: I mean, she was just incredible. I, as a mom myself now, I think as I look back, especially what really amazes me is how present she was as a parent and as a mom, because I think about how busy she was. I think about how much responsibility she had and I think about how I never had a sense of her being too busy or not around. I mean, she just was, she was Wonder Woman in so many ways.

CH: That was Jo-Anne Henry-Bent speaking with the CBC's Mark Connelly about her mother, Violet King Henry, Canada's first black female lawyer.

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March 1, 2021 Episode Transcript

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