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The AIH Transcript for March 4, 2021

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: His catch comes with a catch. A Mi'kmaw Chief in Nova Scotia says the federal government's latest rules on lobster fishing rights are nothing more than a sell-out to the commercial industry. And he's going to ignore them.

CH: Shudder to think. Any minute now. Iceland could experience an eruption after thousands of earthquakes in the space of a week. And a volcanologist tells us it's about time.

CO: A sorry excuse. After multiple accusations of sexual harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow lawmaker tells us his apology is not nearly enough to undo the damage he's done.

CH: Disproportional representation. Canadian Nanaimo bar connoisseurs are going coconuts over a botched American adaptation that messes with the sweet squares, perfectly harmonised proportions.

CO: Call of the wild. You may not remember what you were doing just before the pandemic hit, but you would if what you were doing was trying to retrieve a telephone from inside a pelican. And we have retrieved that interview from our archives.

CH: And one giant leap for mer-mankind. An Egyptian swimmer puts on a monofin, in other words: a high tech mermaid tail, and breaks a record with his sky-high jump out of a pool. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that shares a standard fish out of water story.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Sipekne'katik chief says he won't play by Ottawa's rules for Mi'kmaw fishery

Mi'kmaw Fishery

Guest: Mike Sack

CH: The federal government has released its latest plan to put an end to the bitter dispute over lobster fishing. Last year, there were blockades, threats, and violence from non-Indigenous fishermen who objected to Indigenous people issuing their own lobster licences and fishing outside the commercial season. Now, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says it will allow the Indigenous moderate livelihood fishery, but only within the already established commercial season. Mike Sack is the chief of the Sipekne'katik First Nation. We reached him in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.

CO: What was your first reaction when you heard about this announcement from Ottawa that your people will have to fish during the commercial season?

MIKE SACK: It wasn't good to hear, but it doesn't change anything for us. That was Minister Jordan's opinion and doesn't go very far with us.

CO: So what will you do? Will go along with that decision?

MS: No, not at all. We're going to continue to fish our own season like a treaty rights based fishing season, and we'll determine what our season is going to be and how we're going to fish and everything around that.

CO: Based on what? What are your arguments as to why you should continue to fish as you want to fish?

MS: We have a treaty right, and that we're going off of. They are trying to loop everything into the Marshal II decision that gives them a say in what we do. And they completely don't have any say in it. So we have a community that's in very rough shape, a lot of poverty. And that's what we're going to accomplish to bring up the standard of life for our people. And there's no way that -- DFO offered last year to give us 500 traps or tags for the commercial season, which would put work for maybe four people. And we have a lot of Band members who need work and there's no it'll work for us.

CO: The arguments at the beginning, the first time we talked to you, were that what you were pursuing was that your community wanted to make a moderate livelihood. And that's the actual term that came out of a court affirmed treaty rights for Mi'kmaq. Does this allow you to have a moderate livelihood within the commercial season?

MS: No, the commercial season will not work for our people. Like just based off of the weather and the boat sizes they need and the equipment they need to do it -- it just won't work. Those commercial industries that have like a million dollar boat and our people out there on a 20,000 dollar boat. So you can't fish at the same time. We're not fishing the same amount of traps. It's a very small scale fishery compared to the commercial one.

CO: I guess what Ottawa is trying to present is some kind of a compromise that will bring, I guess, peace to that fishing season, the fishing community, and allow both to work together. We know from having talked to the commercial fishermen, that they don't have a problem with the Mi'kmaq treaty rights mas long as they're within the commercial fishing season. So does that look like this is the compromise?

MS: I think just what you said, there's no compromise at all. They don't have a problem as long as it's whatever they want. And it's very obvious that the commercial industry is using Minister Jordan as a puppet and they're going along with it with colonisation. They shouldn't be interfering. We don't entertain the commercial. And it's two separate things.

CO: The Supreme Court decision that we're talking about from back in 1999, it said that the Mi'kmaq treaty rights allowed Mi'kmaq to have a moderate livelihood, but under federal government regulations for conservation. And that's what the minister is referring to, that the Supreme Court made it clear that the treaty rights are subject to regulation by Ottawa. Isn't that what they're doing here?

MS: So Donald Marshall Jr was fined for fishing at a season without a licence and those charges were all dropped. He was found not guilty. So Canada realised they lost, came back and tried to impose rules on us which they try to enforce now. They have no right to do so, so they should not be doing it.

CO: But the fact that the Supreme Court said that these treaty rights would be subject to regulations that were of justified on conservation or grounds of public importance, I guess is the language, that that was what would be the case. That's what the Supreme Court said at that time, did it not?

MS: It's my understanding that that's the only one in history that the Supreme Court of Canada came back and tried to change the ruling afterwards -- which to me, I honestly don't care what the Supreme Court of Canada said. We have a treaty right to do so, and that's what we're going on.

CO: What then will happen? How will you pursue this?

MS: We're going to have a fishery that's going to start this spring. It's going to be bigger and better than ever. And the commercial guys will have to get used to it and start liking it.

CO: And will you have the licences you will issue from within your own Band, is that right?

MS: Within our own Band. And this year we'll have more licences being issued. And possibly more traps per boat.

CO: You know what happened in the violence that ensued and the conflict and a lot of your own people being threatened. Are you not concerned that that is what's in the future if you don't work with this compromise, I guess, that Ottawa is offering you?

MS: So you're saying that we should do what they say or they're going to have mobs of people take us out? Like, shouldn't all Canadians be aware or afraid of that? And our people have been dealing with this stuff forever. So a few more threats aren't going to do anything. I mean, a month and a half ago, I was threatened. The RCMP didn't do anything about it. So we'll see how the spring goes.

CO: And we've talked about that before, the threats you've received. And so is there any way, is there any place you can see where there is a compromise that you would accept?

MS: Yeah, we offered that DFO a part of our science, their main concern was conservation, so we offered that to them. They didn't take us up on that. So that's the only compromise we have. Like, why would we listen to what Minister Jordan, who's politically influenced because elections are coming up to impose rights on us? It's not going to happen.

CO: And so the plan is that you will proceed and defy what the DFO, what Ottawa, is proposing?

MS: 100 percent.

CO: Chief Sack we'll leave it there. Thanks for speaking with us.

MS: Thank you.

CH: Mike Sack is the Chief of the Sipekne'katik First Nation. We reached him in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. And for more on this story, go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Drum & Bass Music]

Cuomo

Guest: Yuh-Line Niou

CH: Andrew Cuomo has gone from total denial to damage control. A number of women have come forward to accuse the New York governor of sexual harassment, unwanted touching, and a forced kiss. After the initial accusation, he said it's just not true. And his press secretary said it was quite simply false. But yesterday, Governor Cuomo said, I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable and he apologised. What he didn't do was resign. Yuh-Line Niou is a New York State Assembly member. We reached her in New York City.

CO: Ms. Niou we have heard an apology from Governor Cuomo. Is that enough?

YUH-LINE NIOU: I don't believe that it is. And I think that actually we should be asking the women who he has done these terrible things to.

CO: What do you think Governor Cuomo has to do then?

YUH-LINE NIOU: I think that he needs to take responsibility. I think that there should be accountability for this kind of behaviour at all times. And I think that right now he is not taking responsibility. He's still chalking it up to being Italian or not knowing at the time that it was inappropriate somehow. But if you are a leader of a state, if you're running our state, if you're in the top position, you should know what is appropriate and what's inappropriate. If you do not know, then we should question whether or not you should be in that leadership position.

CO: Let's just talk about some of the allegations. We have two former employees, young women, who worked with Governor Cuomo. One of them said that Governor Cuomo kissed her on the lips. He commented on her appearance and he summoned her to private meetings after an office party. Another one says that he would question her about her sex life, he talked about being lonely, asked what she thought of having sexual relationships with older men. But he says this is all just kind of teasing about personal lives, it's what he does, it's just who he is. And he does this just to bring some levity into the workplace. What do you say about that?

YUH-LINE NIOU: I don't think that there's any place where somebody kisses you on the lips or asks whether or not you have sex with older men is a joke. I don't think that these things are meant to be jokes. And I don't find them funny. And I don't think that most women would find them funny. And I think that it's sexual harassment. And I think that the fact that he still doesn't think that that's inappropriate shows that he hasn't learnt his lesson.

CO: You work in the state legislature. Now you're an assembly woman, but you have worked before in offices. So what's it like? What's the environment like for women, young women, coming into that environment?

YUH-LINE NIOU: Sexual harassment within our legislature is very pervasive. I think that it was a very male dominated space up until very very recently when we've had many more women elected. You know, the jokes and the sexual harassment has lessened amongst the legislature when more women were elected. When I first was a staffer in the New York state legislature, it was not yet ten years ago. But in 2013, when I first joined Assembly member Ron Kim's staff, I walked into a legislature where they had the most women that they've ever had at that point in time, and that was about 17 percent women. And when you think of that, that's very very sad. So the workplace was one that reflected that. And you also saw that it was part of the culture that was there to do inappropriate things, say inappropriate things, make inappropriate jokes. And women were just kind of [inaudible], I guess, and it's inappropriate. It's wrong.

CO: What were your own experiences?

YUH-LINE NIOU: Well one person touched my butt in the elevator. Another person had made inappropriate comments to both me and my boss about us together. And another person ran down the hallway and said that I was exotic and stuff. And then there was another incident -- I mean, it was just kind of like a whole trail of incidents, I guess, where people just popped into my office to look at me and then walk away, which is really strange. And then I found out that it was because there was a hot or not list that was being circulated and I was on the hot list and they needed to know.

CO: How did those things make you feel?

YUH-LINE NIOU: It made me feel lesser than. It made me feel like people cared more about how a person looked in an office, rather than the fact that I had been a staffer with over 10 years of legislative experience. It made me feel frankly disgusted that that was what people had to endure. And I think that my goal was to make it so that a lot more people, when they came in, didn't have to experience that. So I think that as a member now, I did staff workshops, staff trainings -- I think that it's really important that people understand that just because somebody is an elected official, it doesn't make them a good boss or a good manager. And staff should have rights.

CO: These two women who have come forward to say that this is their experiences with Governor Cuomo. How difficult do you think it would be from your own experiences for these women to go public in this way with their names?

YUH-LINE NIOU: It's incredibly incredibly difficult. I mean, even with all of these things that happened me I didn't go public. I didn't talk about them for a very long time and I didn't feel safe talking about them in our own process. And I didn't feel safe because there was no process that was away from the power of these people. There was no way of being able to protect me or my boss or anyone from political repercussions or career repercussions. And I think that there's a lot of things that make it so that we have very little recourse. Right. And so that's why it's so important that even though we're making our legislation about sexual harassment in the workplace, that we are included. This is why Andrew Gounardes, a senator who was also a staffer, and I introduced our bill right after we passed the sexual harassment package from 2019 because we saw that there was a missing piece and we had exempted ourselves in the legislature from being able to make sure that our staff are safe.

CO: So these two women would not have gone forward and gone public -- they wouldn't have done so lightly?

YUH-LINE NIOU: No, it's so difficult. And that's why I have to talk about how brave they are. I think that it's incredibly, incredibly, incredibly difficult, especially when you worked for such a powerful person that they could actually end your career. And folks have heard about all the times when other people have stayed silent and other people have had their careers threatened over and over and over again by this man.

CO: We will leave it there. Ms. Niou I appreciate you being so honest with us. Thank you.

YUH-LINE NIOU: Thank you.

CH: Yuh-Line Niou is a New York State Assembly member. We reached her in New York City.

[Music: Calm Music]

Nanaimo Bars NYT

Guest: Susan Mendelson

CH: This is an issue with layers -- three to be exact. And if you get those layers wrong, well, it is a recipe for disaster. Just ask The New York Times, whose cooking section recently posted a photo on Instagram of Nanaimo bars, or as they were swiftly labelled by Canadians, "Impostor bars" or even less kindly, "Not right." Because the creamy centre that makes up a crucial part of the holy trinity of crust base custard and chocolate top was reduced to a barely there dab atop a honkin thick base. Susan Mendelson is a cookbook author and caterer in BC who helped popularise Nanaimo bars. We reached her in Vancouver.

CO: Susan, you have seen this photo in The New York Times, these Nanaimo bars. Why do you think everyone is going bonkers about it?

SUSAN MENDELSON: Because it doesn't look like a Nanaimo bar. And it isn't as appetising as a real Nanaimo bar. It's off. And clearly people are not having the same experience of 'This is mine Nanaimo bar. This is a Canadian Nanaimo bar.' And they're saying this is not a Canadian Nanaimo bar. So people are in an uproar. It's wild. It's just wild. The response is crazy.

CO: For people who haven't seen the photo or even those who have, what's wrong with these Nanaimo bars?

SM: Well, it's funny because with these Nanaimo bars, the base is about maybe four fifths of the bar. And then there's a tiny little bit of that delicious soft custard and then a tiny little bit of chocolate on top. So you're thinking when you look at the Nanaimo bar you think of biting into beautiful melted rich chocolate, a big chunk of that gorgeous custardy kind of sweet mix and then a chewy base. And it's a sensual experience and it's a quintessential Canadian experience. And this is nothing like that. But the funny thing is that the Canadian stamp that everybody was uproared about maybe a year ago, it had a tiny little bit of chocolate and then a gigantic like whole layer that was two thirds of the whole bar with a yellow custody centre and then a tiny little bit of crust. And people were equally upset about that.

CO: They were. They were outraged about that. And what would be wrong with that, because, I mean, it's got lots of the creamy, gooey stuff in. And so what's wrong with that?

SM: Oh it's far too sweet. Again, the whole connection that you need to get of the three different layers that really should be equal: one third, one third, one third. So that would make it sickly icky sweet. And that's the real problem with having too much of that centre. I love sweet, but that's going way over the top.

CO: Okay. According to many aficionados on this -- and of course, you are the supremo afficionado on this -- that one of the problems with these Nanaimo bars isn't just that they've got the wrong proportions, but that they don't hold together, right? This thing is designed, perfectly engineered, to be that you can bite into it and it is not going to become a mush in your lap or become some hard, crunchy, crummy thing.

SM: Exactly right. Crumbly. And the thing that was also very upsetting to me is that in the Instagram where they posted it, they did a link to an article in The New York Times that was published two years ago that Sara Bonisteel did, in which she did a lot of research about the Nanaimo bar, came to me, she used my recipe that Margaret Atwood had given to a Can-Lit recipe book. And Margaret Atwood had said that it was my recipe. So that was pretty exciting for me. And then there was a link to this and it was not my recipe that whoever made made.

CO: I always did wonder who was responsible for these ubiquitous Nanaimo bars at every picnic and church bazaar -- and it's you.

SM: It appears to be. My first cookbook, Mama Never Cooked Like This, had a recipe for the Nanaimo bar. And I had made it at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre when I was a social work student. And I was working at nights and I was selling the Nanaimo bar to help put me through school. And CBC called me and said, "What's this story? You're making all this baked goods. Who are you? And why are you doing this?" And over a period of time, I started doing recipes on the local CBC afternoon show. And after five years, people started saying, we love all your recipes, we write them down, but they're all of our house -- why can't you put it into a book? So my first book, Mama Never Cooked Like This, was really just a compilation of recipes that I had done on CBC over a five year period. And in it was the Nanaimo bar recipe. And the woman who had the cookbook store in Toronto -- when I went in there one day, she said, You know what Susan, we've had over a thousand people come in and buy your book just for the Nanaimo bar recipe alone. So it went wild. It went across the country. And then when the expo was in Vancouver, I was lucky enough to do the official souvenir cookbook for Expo 86. And I did five variations of the Nanaimo bar in that book and it went worldwide.

CO: Okay. Now you said you have variations on this. And of course, just a quick Google search on the Nanaimo bars variations and you come up with so many interesting things. I mean, the white chocolate Nanaimo bar, the Irish cream version, raspberry. I think I saw a cappuccino, maraschino cherry, a peanut butter. What do you make of those? Is that sacrilege?

SM: No, actually, my favourite, which I posted today on Instagram with the recipe is my cappuccino Nanaimo bar. I just love that. And then the Lazy Gourmet did a reverse Nanaimo bar where we do a chocolate fudge centre and we cover it with white chocolate, which is another people's favourite. You know, I don't think there's anything sacrilegious about it, but I think you will always come back to the original because obviously people are emotional about it.

CO: All right. And we heard in the office today as this was being discussed, more than anything else that we've did in the course of today, that it has to be Bird's custard powder.

SM: Yes, so I'm glad you mentioned that. A lot of people on Instagram and on the show yesterday were saying it's very hard to get this called Bird's Eye Custard.

CO: So it's Bird's Eye Custard powder?

SM: Bird's Eye Custard powder -- not always the easiest thing to find. When Mama Never Cooked Like This was published in the States, they'd never heard of it. They didn't know what to do with it. And so they had to change ingredients to work with what you could find in the States. And they said vanilla pudding, like two tablespoons of vanilla pudding powder. So no wonder it didn't take off in the States really.

CO: Canadians do get exercised when they get their food wrong, like poutine or butter tarts -- and now, of course, Nanaimo bars.

SM: Yeah absolutely. It's an uproar. [Laughter] People need a break. They need a break from bad news.

CO: They need a Nanaimo bar and a coffee.

SM: Yeah exactly.

CO: Susan it's great to talk to you. Thanks.

SM: Thanks Carol.

CH: Cookbook author Susan Mendelson is credited with helping to popularise Nanaimo bars across Canada. We reached her in Vancouver.

[Music: Hip-hop Music]

Mermaiding

CH: You've probably heard of mermaid-ing, that's where you slide a mermaid tail over your legs and exercise. It's terrific at targeting your core and your glutes most effectively while swimming in a pool. Least effectively while rollerblading. Now, some dilatants just slip on a spandex tail and splash around. Truly committed mermaiders connect spiritually to their fish ancestors hundreds of millions of years back. It's the key to success. You know, the old saying: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to be a fish, and he breaks a Guinness World Record and then the Guinness people take him out for a nice dinner. Egyptian swimmer Omar Sayed Shaaban is proof. He's the new record holder in the not very hotly contested field of highest jump out of water wearing a monofin. Monofin by the way, is a less interesting way of seeing Mermaid Tail. Here's a clip from a video in which Mr. Shaabansets that record -- set as all Guinness videos inexplicably are to loud triumphant stock music.

[SOUNDCLIP: (Inspirational Music Plays In Background) (Cheering Sound)]

CH: That was not very helpful. In the video, Omar Sayed Shaaban crouches at the bottom of the pool, his monofin on the bottom, and then he bursts up out of the water, a full 2.3 metres into the air -- that is just shy of eight feet. And the crowd, as you barely heard, goes wild. That is an amazing jump. But I'm guessing for Mr. Shaaban, it was more profound than that. I'm guessing he was actually channelling one of his ancient ancestors -- re-enacting that prehistoric moment when a fish decided it needed some air and hightailed it out of there.

[Music: Upbeat Music]

Part 2: Iceland Quakes

Iceland Quakes

Guest: Thor Thordarson

CH: Iceland is a geological paradise, from glaciers to geysers, fjords to waterfalls, and faults to volcanoes you can see them all. But as nature teaches us, it takes great pressure to create these wonders. And the thing about pressure is it can only build up for so long before something happens. For the last week, Iceland's Southwestern Reykjanes Peninsula has experienced thousands of earthquakes. Earthquakes are fairly ordinary, part of an average Icelandic day. But these ones are different. They've gotten everyone's attention. Professor Thor Thordarson is a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. We reached him in Eyrarbakki.

CO: Professor Thordarson, have you felt any quakes today?

THOR THORDARSON: I felt a few quakes today, but all of them were very small. So they sort of just tickle me around in my chair at my home.

CO: Now, we know Iceland is famous for its earthquakes, but how much more frequent are you getting them now?

TT: Well, we've had quite an episode for the last seven days. So we've had a continuous seismic unrest out in the Reykjanes peninsula -- and it's quite intense. There's a lot of earthquakes between one, and two, up to three in magnitude. And the biggest earthquakes in the interval are sort of a magnitude four to 5.7. So the biggest earthquake, which started the whole thing last Wednesday was 5.7.

CO: How often then per day are you getting these earthquakes?

TT: Well, we've had about 18,000 earthquakes in a week.

CO: Are you serious? My gosh!

TT: I'm serious. Yes. [Chuckles] It's about, you know, several hundred to several thousand earthquakes a day.

CO: How are people responding to that?

TT: Surprisingly calm. I mean, most people just sort of take it in their stride. Of course, there are a few people that are a bit more worried and concerned about the unrest, just like my 82 year old mother. She feels it every day and doesn't even face it.

CO: Well, of course, the famous video of your prime minister recently who is doing an interview with The Washington Post, and there is an earthquake that happened and you can see the room shake and she looks a bit flustered and then apologises and carries on with the interview.

TT: Yeah. Even for me, who is quite experienced, when you feel it, you are a bit surprised. You wonder what's going on and how far this is going to go. But it usually passes by in a fraction of a second.

CO: But it's enough that things fall over in your house or cracks appear in anything?

TT: Not this time around. It has happened in previous earthquake episodes that we've had things fall over and cracks in the house. But this time around, it's just been a bit of shaking. And I've been fortunate enough that nothing has fallen down. And that's also true for most people. I think in the biggest one, in a few places a few things fell down, but nothing serious.

CO: Okay. So what about the science? Why do you think this is happening? Why so many earthquakes?

TT: My suspicion is that this is the beginning of a new unrest period on the Reykjanes peninsula. Give you a little bit of background, the Reykjanes peninsula goes through these periods of 200 to 400 years where we have volcanic eruptions and seismic activity. Last time we had an unrest period on the Reykjanes peninsula was 800 years ago.

CO: Okay. So you were due for one then?

TT: Exactly.

CO: You mentioned volcanic eruptions as well in what you said. And you are a volcanologist. So is that also happening? Have you had any eruptions?

TT: We have not had an eruption yet. I'm sure it will come -- the question is when. Whether it will happen in the next few days or whether the system will decide to wait for a few months or even a few years. That remains to be seen. But yes, we do have volcanic eruptions in Reykjanes peninsula. It's a volcanic area and it's basically built up of products of volcanic eruptions.

CO: You could have volcanic eruption any time?

TT: Yes. And one thing is certain, we will have a volcanic eruption in the Reykjanes peninsula, it's just a matter of when.

CO: Why are you certain about that?

TT: It's still an active volcanic area and it will erupt again. And volcanoes don't work on timescales that are compatible to our timescales. So a period of a few hundred years is a very short time in the life span of a volcanic system.

CO: Right. But if there's a volcanic eruption, we're talking about magma here, right? I mean, what would happen? Who will be affected by that?

TT: Possibly, no one really. Also possibly some of the more populated centres in Iceland, like the capital Reykjavik or the smaller towns on the Reykjanes peninsula, like Keflavik where the airport is, Grindavik which is one of the bigger fishing towns in Iceland. But these eruptions are not very violent. These are fairly calm eruptions, and they're more like similar to what people see in Hawaii. You will have lava fountaining and you have a little bit of ash coming down, a fair bit of sulphur dioxide emitted into the air and that can cause some issues with atmospheric pollution periods of time, and then we will have lava flows.

CO: Are you preparing for lava flows in Reykjavik?

TT: It's very unlikely that an eruption will produce lava flows that will be able to reach the capital. But we are all preparing for that. And civil defence has their plans, how they deal with it. But we will have a good response time. So we will have time to make a decision what would be the best thing to do in the case of that happening. So no one should be in a life-threatening situation.

CO: Well, as a volcanologist, this must be somewhat exciting for you.

TT: It is, I have to be honest. It's actually quite exciting. You see, for us, each eruption is a life experiment. And we learn a lot of new things in every experiment. And the more experiments we get, the sooner we can figure out how to predict volcanic eruptions.

CO: Your very environment has become your lab.

TT: Yes, that's the wonderful thing about it.

CO: Is your mom going to be calm through all of that if there's lava flow?

TT: Yeah. You know, most of it will be in the distance. And I think actually it might become quite an attraction, especially if it's a small one, then it'll be just a wonderful tourist attraction.

CO: All right. We will be following events and watching for that. Professor Thordarson thank you.

TT: You're welcome.

CO: Good night.

TT: Good night.

CH: Professor Thor Thordarson is a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. We reached him in Eyrarbakki.

[Music: Calm Music]

Bigfoot Podcast

CH: By now, there are thousands, possibly millions, of podcasts about current affairs, entertainment and true crime. But Sheldon Quewezance knew that we needed one more podcast on a topic that needed more attention. And he was the man for the job of hosting episodes with titles like, "It Looked At US With Disgust. Wendy Story Part One and Two." And "I Stood Face To Face With Sasquatch." The podcast is called Nicola Valley Bigfoot -- and it's about bigfoot. Mr. Quewezance spoke with the CBC about why he made the podcast and about the time he got up close and personal with the sasquatch itself.

SHELDON QUEWEZANCE: Me and my two best friends, we started a "research group," and I use that term very loosely because it was more of us hanging out and having fun and boys being boys, that type of thing. But it ended up -- one trip we were out actually looking and we decided, let's just hunker down in the truck for a while and see what happens. And every now and then we take our flashlights and we scan the tree lines and have a little look around the forest. And it just so happens on one scanning of the forest that I saw these yellow things. And what it turned out to be is eye shine. So I zoomed in my flashlight to get a little bit of a better look. And there was this bigfoot sasquatch behind the tree, he was peeking from behind a tree and had his hand wrapped around the tree, which his hands were huge. Huge! And he just sat there and just was kind of watching us, watching what we were doing.

SHELLEY JOYCE: And your friend saw this at the same time?

SHELDON QUEWEZANCE: Yes. Yes. And what happened was, I had my brother with me and we were both sitting in the backseat of the truck and he started kind of freaking out a little bit, let's put it that way. And I turned to him and said, calm down, be quiet, you're going to scare it away. And then in the three seconds that I had taken to turn and tell him and turn back, he was gone.

SHELLEY JOYCE: So what do you say to people who don't believe in bigfoot, who think you're crazy?

SHELDON QUEWEZANCE: Well, obviously, they haven't seen one. [Chuckles]

SHELLEY JOYCE: Where did the idea for a podcast come from and like who do you talk to during this podcast?

SHELDON QUEWEZANCE: Well, for the podcast, I've got to take a few steps back again, our research group kind of had to be put on hiatus due to COVID. I mean, we just couldn't get together and we couldn't get out to the woods together like we normally would. So that kind of sat on the back burner for a few months. And then I just had that need to learn more. And I still sat in the back of my head. So I still had that itch to scratch, so to speak. And so that's why I decided to start the podcast. And the way I did it was I just kind of cruised the Facebook groups, like all the Sasquatch and Bigfoot groups that are on Facebook. And I just started looking say, "Hey, would you want to come on my show? Like, just talk about it." And that's where the podcast came from.

CH: That was Sheldon Quewezance, host of the Nicola Valley Bigfoot podcast, speaking with Shelley Joyce, host of Daybreak Kamloops.

[Music: Flute Music]

Pelican Phone

CH: It's been a year since As It Happens spoke to Emma McCarthy. And looking back, those pre-lockdown days seem like a simpler time. Unless you were a pelican and you just swallowed a phone. That was the complication that prompted our call to Ms. McCarthy. At that point, she was an intern at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre in Tavernier, Florida. The intern who was asked to retrieve the cell phone. Carol started that interview with a question about the basics.

CO: Emma, what did you think when you were asked to reach into the belly of a pelican?

EMMA MCCARTHY: I thought it was certainly different and out of the ordinary from my daily work. But I did volunteer to do it at the time. So I was ready and willing to go right in.

CO: [Chuckles] So what's the sensation of actually sticking your hand down the throat of a pelican right to its gut?

EM: It was a little slimy, a little warm, but pretty smooth. That's a straight shot right down the neck to the stomach.

CO: And did you have help?

EM: Yes. So our hospital technician, Adam, was there to help contain the pelican and keep him calm while I was going in.

CO: Okay, so what was the procedure? What did you have to do?

EM: It was pretty straightforward. We didn't have to put him under anesthesia because birds are pretty sensitive to that and we try to avoid it when we can. And it wasn't too painful for him. It was just a little bit of discomfort.

CO: Somebody had to hold his beak open, I guess.

EM: Yeah, that was kind of the main thing to keep steady.

CO: All right. So the question becomes: why? Why did you need to go in? What were you trying to retrieve?

EM: So we had been told that this particular pelican had swallowed a cell phone.

CO: How did the pelican come to swallow a cell phone?

EM: So when we received the call about this particular bird, it was from a local marina. And we were told that a pedestrian had been walking by, holding a cell phone in her hand behind her back, and that the pelican had just grabbed it out of her hand. And we think that's because the pelican likely mistaked it for a fish.

CO: Oh gosh. And so the pelican swallowed it before anyone could stop it. And then they called your center, is that right?

EM: Yes, correct.

CO: Now, so was there a discussion about what was the best way to retrieve that cell phone?

EM: Not really. There was really only one option, which was to reach down and grab it. So it just had to be done.

CO: And this was back at your centre -- you brought the bird back to...

EM: Yeah. We have a functioning rehab hospital here.

CO: How did you get chosen for the job?

EM: Adam went to go pick up the bird and he texted me when he was on his way down there to ask if I could stop by the hospital later when he came back and help -- since it was after our regular hospital hours. And he did actually try first to reach down and grab it. But since his hands are a little bit bigger, he couldn't get all the way into the stomach. And since mine are pretty small, I was able to work my fingers in and grab the phone.

CO: And so you pulled the phone up. And what was the state of that cell phone when you got it out?

EM: It was pretty gross. It had some bits of partially digested fish and some parasites on it. And the phone itself did not turn on at the time. We're not really sure if it's broken or maybe the battery just died. We were able to return it to the owner, but we haven't heard from her whether it made it through the ordeal.

CO: And how is the bird doing?

EM: The bird is totally fine. Luckily, he was very cooperative throughout the process. And we were able to release him shortly after we got the phone out. We kept him at our hospital for a little while just to make sure he didn't have any other injuries and that he was functioning fine. Yeah.

CO: Now, do you know if the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre has seen this before -- well, not cell phones perhaps -- but pelicans, do they do they swallow a lot of things like this?

EM: I don't think this is particularly typical. We do get a lot of kind of swallowed hooks and fishing lures, stuff like that. But I haven't heard of anything like this of a cellphone or such large items before.

CO: There is a video of you fetching it and you do [laughs] look like, "Okay .I guess this is what I have to do." You're an intern, right?

EM: Correct.

CO: Okay. So is this encouraging you or discouraging you from continuing this work? [Both chuckle]

EM: I thought it was encouraging. I definitely was interested in this type of work because I like that going to work is different every day and you never know what you're going to get. So I think it was more encouraging than discouraging. [Chuckles]

CO: Did anyone in school tell you might be having to reach into the belly of a pelican?

EM: [Chuckles] No. No one foresaw this one.

CO: [Chuckles] All right. So is there a moral to the story? Anything that people can learn from pelicans and what they eat and what to avoid having them eat?

EM: Yeah. So the main thing here is that we think it happened because the pelican mistakenly thought that this person was holding a fish. And the reason they would think that is because in this area, a lot of people are feeding the wildlife and particularly the pelicans because they're so prolific here. So it definitely reminds us that people need to not feed wildlife or this could be the result.

CO: So that's the message here. "Don't feed the birds.".

EM: Right. [Chuckles]

CO: Emma thanks for speaking with us.

EM: Yeah. Thank you Carol.

CH: From our archives, that was Emma McCarthy speaking with Carol last March. At that point, Ms. McCarthy was an intern at the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Centre in Tavernier, Florida. We looked Ms. McCarthy up and you'll be glad to hear that she's landed a job as a wildlife technician at the centre. She earned it. And you can find more on that story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Pop Music]

Reading: Two Trees Make A Forest

CH: A travel diary, a dictionary, a hiker's manual. Jessica J. Lee's memoir, Two Trees Make A Forest is a multifaceted account of her visit to her ancestral homeland of Taiwan. It's as much a study of the island's natural world as its human one, which makes sense for a writer with a PhD in environmental history. And for its Canada Reads champion Scott Helman, it's the kind of book that helps a reader understand their place in the world in every possible sense. The musician will defend the memoir in CBC's annual battle of the books in just a few days time. And tonight, we have a preview. Here's Jessica J. Lee reading from Two Trees Make A Forest.

JESSICA J. LEE: Taipei was a city that belonged to my childhood imagination. Built of words spoken quietly to me by my mother. Its streets were paved with her longings. The air was made of memories. In this place, Taipei was a single hillside, a school at its crest, and a tenement block at its base. A packed dirt road cut a straight line between them, bustling with street food sellers in carts that looked uncannily like the Toronto hotdog vendors of my youth. There was no wind and there were no trees. The light was yellow and the only smell was that of the chou doufu my mother missed most after leaving Taiwan. "But does it really smell like poo?" I would ask her, having never smelled chou doufu before. "Not at all. It smells delicious," she would reply, tucking me into bed. "Then why is it called stinky tofu?" She would shrug, smiling as if a morsel of that memory had just passed her lips. Every day as a schoolgirl, my mother would linger on the hillside, buying snacks, avoiding going home after school. She loved to eat, so her face was rounder than, her body plumper -- like the one black and white photograph I'd seen from that time. She bought tofu and spring onion pancakes and sugarcane juice with handfuls, I imagine, of silver coins. By the time she would make it home, it was sundown, the apartment was green, grey and dark with bars over the windows and plants everywhere. Dust hung suspended in the air. She would sneak in quietly to avoid getting into trouble, but she wasn't quiet enough. My grandmother had been angry that she'd taken so long to come home. Worse, she was getting a bit fat. [Inaudible] waved the meat cleaver. There were angry words and my mother was bundled into her bedroom, the door locked. She told me about Taipei in fragments. And sometimes I wondered if this was all she could remember. Taipei in 1960 was home to nearly a million people. But the past she reconstructed for me was a small picture, my grandparents herself and a wok full of deep fried tofu, an entire city reduced to a single road of street vendors. In adulthood, my time in Taiwan relieved me of this naive picture. I found a city unfolding from the flatlands of the western coast, a web of ageing concrete apartment complexes towered over by glassy high-rises. Elevated highways spiralled, ensnaring the scooters that pollinated the thoroughfares with fumes. Tiled walls were caked with algae, and on every old building, the signs of nature's tenacity showed themselves. Ferns growing from brick thick ledges, flowers springing skyward from the joints of old awnings, tucked into a river basin with leaf laid in slopes on all sides. The city centre was flat and uniform. The stark, lonely hillside of my childhood imagination was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the green hills that surround the river basin with a dark background to my every movement.

CH: Jessica J. Lee's memoir, Two Trees Make A Forest, is one of five books up for the Canada Reads crown next week on CBC Radio. The title will be championed by singer-songwriter Scott Helman. For more on all the contenders, visit: cbcbooks.ca.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Royal Interview

CH: The video is less than 30 seconds long, but it may as well be the whole latest season of The Crown for all the attention it's getting, including and especially from Buckingham Palace. It's a clip released by CBS in advance of Oprah Winfrey's upcoming interview with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle. In it, the Duchess of Sussex says she needs to speak out in the face of lies about her and Harry.

OPRAH WINFREY: How do you feel about the palace hearing you speak your truth today?

MEGHAN MARKLE: [Music plays in the background] I don't know how they could expect that after all of this time we would still just be silent if there is an active role that the firm is playing in perpetuating falsehoods about us. And if that comes with risk of losing things, I mean, there's a lot that's been lost already.

CH: Dramatic. Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, speaking with Oprah Winfrey, that's a short preview of an interview that will air on Sunday. In an interesting coincidence, Britain's Times newspaper has just reported allegations that the Duchess bullied members of her staff. Her lawyers have denied those accusations, calling them a smear campaign. Nevertheless, Buckingham Palace has ordered an investigation of the allegations. It's believed to be the first such inquiry into the actions of a senior Royal.

[Music: Synth Music]

Part 3: These PhD students won a prize for rapping about molecular clusters on a rooftop

Community Papers Study

Guest: Teri Finneman

CH: For researchers, assessing the impact of the last great pandemic can be a bit of a puzzle. There are photographs and news stories from the time, of course. But very few resources that fully capture how it felt while it was happening to the people it was happening to. Journalism professors Teri Finneman and Will Mari were struck by that gap. And they wanted to avoid the mistakes of 1918. So last year they started to compile an oral history of local newsrooms across middle America. While they worked, dozens of papers folded and thousands of people lost their jobs. But they also captured more than 700 pages of insights about the outlets that survived and the humans behind their success. We reached Teri Finneman in Lawrence, Kansas.

CO: Teri, I know you didn't go to the big news rooms of your country for this oral history, what did you go looking for?

TERI FINNEMAN: Well, I actually got my start working in weekly and community journalism. And as a journalism historian myself, I have noticed that much of the journalism history in our country focuses on the metro areas. And really small community journalism is the heart of journalism in the United States, it's the majority of journalism. And in a time of the pandemic when people are desperate for local information, the big daily newspaper isn't covering your local community. And so we wanted to have a better understanding of the impact of the pandemic on these critical lifelines of information for the public in a moment of crisis.

CO: So you went looking for the impact of the pandemic on the papers, but also to find the impact the papers were having on these communities during the pandemic?

TF: Yes, absolutely. I mean, these papers were dealing with significant advertising losses, some 40 to 60 percent. And we were taking a look at how their communities rallied around them through donations and increased subscriptions to support these small community newspapers to keep them alive.

CO: I mean, what is so interesting in the profiles you have put out about these small community publications is that they evolved very rapidly, right? I mean, they had significant changes. They went from publishing, in some cases once a week to being a daily or going online for the first time. What were the some of the things that really struck you?

TF: Well, one of the stories that I really loved out of -- there are so many great stories -- but Alaina Beautiful Bald Eagle in South Dakota works for the newspaper there. And as she said, she is really the sole reporter for an area the size of Connecticut. And she felt how important it was to get information to her readers. And so she was sleeping maybe four to six hours a night. She became very ill herself and just had to work through it. No matter where she was, she had her laptop and phone with her because she felt how critical it was for her to provide information. And you really got that sense from all of the journalists that Will and I talked to for this project as well, this increasing sense of responsibility and devotion to their communities to help not only the newspaper survive, but help their communities get through this crisis.

CO: What was the critical information that they were providing? I mean, some cases it went from like the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation -- the paper went from 5,000 visitors to 250,000. What were people looking for?

TF: I mean, it was really just the basics of, how many cases are there in my community? What am I supposed to be doing? What is happening with local businesses? Is there a mask mandate? Who are the essential workers? What kind of safety precautions should we be taking? But then you also saw just these amazing feature stories that they were doing of how their community was rallying around and in trying to help and support each other. And so when you have these times of crisis, you have people wanting to rally together and help. And so, I mean, you also have these stories of some newspaper publishers who heard that some newspapers were going to be closing and they decided in a pandemic to take on, to give these other newspapers a home to make sure that these communities weren't going to lose their paper in a pandemic. And so just these stories of resilience, which the heartland of the United States is known for, but you really see it rise to the occasion.

CO: And any particular stories that stand out for you about them, particularly in some of the communities that were served, African-American and BIPOC communities that you researched?

TF: Yeah, well, I mean, talking with Bonita Gooch in Kansas, hers was twice a month paper and then they suddenly became a daily putting information out. And what was so interesting about what Bonita said to me is that they had to recognise that they can't keep up with the major news outlets. They had to remember who they are and who their audience is and what their audience needs. When you're a small weekly, you just can't do everything. And so you have to prioritise and give the public information that you know that they aren't getting anywhere else and that only your local newspaper can provide. And people like Wes Brown, who runs a business publication, who understood that Black communities weren't being covered as well as they should have, and that was so important to him and he became an expert on the Paycheque Protection Act and other legislation that was coming out to be able to put it into real terms to help his readers understand what these programs were and how they could help them.

CO: Now, you have an issue, as we do here in Canada, with people needing information about schools if they are open, were closed, where to go and get a vaccine. Is there any other place for them to get that information but these kind of local publications?

TF: I mean, certainly you have the public health units who are putting out information on Facebook. But as our Arkansas friends noted, Internet access is not universal and a lot of communities there remains a struggle to get good Internet access and they still rely on the printed product. So this assumption that everybody can just go online or get it from Facebook is just flat out not true with how many people in these small rural communities either can't access it or don't access it because a lot of the people are also older in these communities. So, yes, in a lot of ways, these local newspapers are really a lifeline of information.

CO: This was just a snapshot of this particular time. But can you see these papers, these publications evolving or having new life breathed into them? Can you see this as something that may continue into the future?

TF: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the most critical discussion that is going to be happening next is what to do about the business model. And when you saw these newspapers switching to donations, in some cases increasing subscription prices, there really needs to be a rallying point of 'we need to now solve this business model problem.' 'The time for talk is up,' right? 'It is time to have some action and figure this out so that when there is a crisis in the future, we can handle it much better.'

CO: All right. Some good news about the news.

TF: [Chuckles] Yes exactly.

CO: Teri thank you.

TF: Thank you.

CH: Teri Finneman is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Kansas. We reached her in Lawrence, Kansas.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Dr. Birinder Narang

CH: Dr. Birinder Narang knows that the last place you should go after giving an interview is the comments section and that goes for the CBC too. Dr. Narang is a family doctor in Burnaby, British Columbia, and the vice chair of the Burnaby Division of the Family Practice Board. Earlier this week, he gave an interview to the local CBC News about the province's COVID vaccination rollout plan. Not long after that, the hateful racist comments started flooding in. But instead of ignoring them, Dr. Narang posted some of the comments on Twitter with the caption, "What does it mean to be Canadian in 2021? " Dr. Birinder Narang spoke to CBC Vancouver about why he decided to do that and how he's come to expect racism.

BIRINDER NARANG: Unfortunately yeah, this is not unexpected. I've done a couple of interviews with you guys and some other media stations, and it has been noted. This was brought to my attention, actually -- and it's funny because I have friends that told me, "Don't go in the comment sections." But what I did was I had got a message that came to me and it said, "Hey, you know, your interview is up on YouTube and there's quite a disparity in the likes vs dislikes." And so my immediate thought in my own naive sense was, was there something I said erroneously? Because my initial thought is we know that people have very strong beliefs towards the vaccine rollout and how it affects them.

STEPHEN QUINN: But the comments weren't about anything you said.

BIRINDER NARANG: No, and that's what happened. I went in to look and I saw none of these are based on the substance of anything that I said. It was really questioning me as a Sikh man wearing a turban and having a full beard makes me less Canadian -- that was the narrative.

STEPHEN QUINN: And why did you decide to share the comments?

BIRINDER NARANG: So the main reason I shared this was because I saw it as an opportunity for reflection for myself and for everyone around me. This is Canada in 2021 -- so where are we at? I think this is an opportunity for all of us to do a spot check, a reality check, not just people like me, but all of us. You know, is this type of behaviour, is this the kind of community we want to be living today where this is okay to be said online without repercussion? And so it really was for that, like I said online, it did not make me angry. And I've even been reflecting on that. I should be angry, but I am I'm so numb to this because this has been a part of it for so long. There's a term called microaggression which is basically to reinforce racial stereotypes, and that happens so often in our profession and in any profession.

CH: That was Burnaby, BC family doctor, Birinder Narang, speaking with Stephen Quinn host of the Early Edition, about the racist messages directed at him after he spoke to the media.

[Music: Banjo Music]

Ideas Promo

CH: Tonight on Ideas, two centuries before the word pandemic appeared, Mary Shelley imagined a disease that would ravage humanity in the 21st century. Her novel, The Last Man was published in 1826. There are good characters. There are evil characters like a politician named Ryland. And there are stunning insights about our own time. For example, when a disease from foreign lands starts to arrive in England and everyone is blasé about it.

VOICE 1: [Reading] There was no immediate necessity for earnest caution. England was still secure. France, Germany, Italy and Spain were interposed, walls yet without a breach between us and the plague.

VOICE 2: And then the disease itself arrives.

VOICE 1: [Reading] We were as a man who hears that his house is burning and yet hurries through the streets born along by a lurking hope of a mistake till he turns the corner and sees his sheltering roof enveloped in flame.

VOICE 3: She demonstrates clear awareness that the pandemic is enabled by global interchange. Mary is actually demonstrating that any kind of globalised world, pandemics, even if they are naturally emerging, are always in some sense anthropogenic.

VOICE 4: And she then volume two emphasises the ways that both what we do and fail to do in politics will inevitably shape the trajectory of a plague and its many consequences. And so Ryland the populist leader. Ryland is the paradigmatic example of a selfish person. So when the plague comes to England, he walks out, he just flees into the countryside to save himself. So he goes after his Mar-a-lago, right. And Mary Shelley wonderfully has him die there and get eaten by rats. But she thinks most people are like Ryland -- most people will follow their worst instincts and she wants to inspire us to take that more cosmic perspective.

CH: Imagining our own extinction and what we can do to avoid it -- that's tonight on Ideas right after As It Happens.

[Music: Rock Music]

Dance Your PHD

Guest: Jakub Kubecka

CH: Jakub Kubecka knows a lot about the physics of atmospheric molecular clusters. The University of Helsinki graduate student is less familiar with the physics of rapping and synchronised choreography. But that didn't stop him and two of his colleagues from submitting a breathtaking song and dance routine to the Dance Your PhD contest. Here's a clip.

VOICE 1: [Hip Hop music plays] [Person rapping] Let me tell you something about secondary aerosols. They form right in the atmosphere from gaseous precursors. First single molecules come and cluster together. That is sulfuric acid with some base. Which? Whatever.

VOICE 2: [Rapping continues] Ammonia or DMA highly oxygenated compounds. All of them suitable to form with the acid strong bounds. Once the cluster has reached a certain size, water starts to condense...[music fades]

CH: That's a clip from Jakub Kubecka's music video, "Molecular Clusters." The choreographed dance accompanying that banger was just named the winner of the 2020 Dance Your PhD contest in the physics category. We reached Mr. Kubecka in Padua, Italy.

CO: Jakub, congratulations.

JAKUB KUBECKA: Oh, thank you very much.

CO: How does it feel to have won this year's Dance Your PhD.?

JK: It's of course, awesome. Already making the video and finishing the whole filming and recording with the guys was entertaining, and this was the victory already for us.

CO: Okay now we just played a short clip of your winning performance -- the song and dance video Molecular Clusters. So how difficult is it to actually create a dance and rap song out of your subject?

JK: It's actually started by seeing other videos online and speaking to a general audience about scientific topics and making it understandable. So we just decided, Okay we three, we can make a group and win this contest. And actually it was just a joke. But we won it.

CO: And can you describe what we're seeing? Because it appears that you are up on a roof of a massive building as you perform this. Where did you filmed this?

JK: So the building is the University of Helsinki. It was an awesome idea to be on the roof. But the Finnish weather made us really suffer because we had just a shirt and it was super cold. Some of the recording, some of the filming, was done also by drone. The University of Helsinki there is a many atmospheric measuring station on top of the roof. And there was some interference between the stations and our drone. So many times we lost a connection with the drone and the drone was just going to the Baltic Sea and we were trying to catch it. It was fun.

CO: So you got it back from the Baltic Sea and you continued to film. Why were you on the roof? Because as you point out, it's winter, it's Helsinki, it is cold and you're in shirtsleeves. Why did you do it there?

JK: Like, first of all, it looked a bit epic on the roof. So that was the idea to make it more epic. But actually why we also had to do it outside was all the COVID regulations.

CO: And what were the difficulties of actually pulling this off?

JK: Yeah, difficulties were with COVID regulations, struggling with darkness in Finland. So this makes your filming difficult during the cold. And probably the biggest difficulty is that actually none of us are a good dancer. And the only one guy who can sing is Vitus. And making the video looking that we are really dancing was the most difficult part.

CO: We have covered this Dance Your PhD contest before and interviewed winners, but maybe you can remind people how it works. What is the PhD contest?

JK: Dance Your PhD contest was several years ago created by John Bohannon, and it's organised by Science magazine, mostly students who are finishing their PhD make a video. And the idea is that they tell about their research to general audience via dance.

CO: Okay. So you were trying to dance your PhD about molecular clusters. I am going to give one example of your lyrics. "Once the cluster has reached a certain size, water starts to condense. It's a cloud droplet. Surprise." That's one example. What are your favourite lyrics from your song?

JK: Oh [laughs] I like the whole song and you actually picked the one what I had prepared.

CO: Sorry about that. [Chuckles]

JK: Because this is actually the most important that people should realise that there is humidity in the atmosphere and the water by itself cannot make the clouds -- you need some aerosol particles, something on top of which the water molecules start to condense. And so you have, for instance, the sulphuric acid and ammonia, which makes strong clusters, strong molecular clusters and these grow and in the end, they grow into large clusters and particles and eventually close.

CO: Okay so you're a scientist. You clearly know your science. Was it stressful to try and be a rap singer and a dancer?

JK: The stressful part was that I don't think that I'm a good singer. But the collaboration with the guys and making the fun, this is something that I really enjoyed.

CO: But you know, the guy who invented this Dance Your PhD, John Bohannon, his reason is that to help PhD students let off steam, to release some anxiety. And was it scarier to do present your PhD or was it scarier to actually rap your PhD?

JK: I think it was scarier to rap it, yeah. But when you get into the rap itself, you enjoy it actually, you enjoy the dance. But you need some time. I was, for instance, for one whole month running with the song and lyrics in my ears. Like 30 times per day I heard the song just to really get into it, get it into my blood. And after that I can say that I was a bit more relaxed when I was finally rapping on the roof.

CO: And have you also finally finished your PhD?

JK: I'm currently finishing the writing, so I guess like half a year and maybe I could be a PhD already. Yeah. Let's hope.

CO: Maybe you can start a rap group called Molecular Clusters.

JK: [Laughs] Yeah, maybe.

CO: Or do you think it's more likely you'll be a scientist?

JK: I think I will go in the way of science. And where it will be possible I will try to popularise science. I think that none of us will continue in some dancing -- though, we are still planning to do Dance Your PhD next year.

CO: All right. Well, if you win again next year, we'll be talking to you.

JK: Okay.

CO: Bye Jakub.

JK: Bye bye.

CH: Jakub Kubecka is a graduate student at the University of Helsinki and the winner of the 2020 Dance Your PhD contest in the physics category. We reached him in Padua, Italy.

[Music: Dance Music]

Jimmy Duck Holmes

CH: On the side of the railroad that runs through Bentonia, Mississippi, there's an old building called the Blue Front Cafe. It's small, unassuming, and easy to miss. But most of the people in town know the significance of the building and its owner. Jimmy Duck Holmes runs the Blue Front Café. The Blues musician took over for his parents, who opened the building in 1948. It's believed to be America's oldest surviving juke joint. And Mr. Holmes is the last Bentonia Blues man in the small town of less than 500. He's trying to keep his distinct regional style of Blues alive. And he just got some help from the Grammys. The Associated Press caught up with Mr. Holmes after his latest album Cypress Grove was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Traditional Blues Album category.

JIMMY DUCK HOLMES: [Train sound and music plays] 90 percent of my life is spent right here. I leave, go home, go to bed, take a shower, take a bath, get something to eat, and come right back in -- 70 plus years. [Music plays] It really started before I could remember. A guy would come in with a harmonica or a guitar and would in the front porch, and he'd play for tips. [Music plays] I don't do it for awards, I do it because people, everyday people, appreciate it. Don't get me wrong now, I appreciate it 100 percent. Nominated and no nominations, I'll still do what I do with this guitar.

CH: That was a clip from an Associated Press interview with Jimmy Duck Holmes. The 73 year old Mississippi Blues musician's latest album, Cypress Grove is nominated for a Grammy.

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March 4, 2021 Episode Transcript

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