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The AIH Transcript for April 7, 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: Vax to grind. Ontario says it is rushing to get shots into arms, but new data reveals they're being distributed unevenly and it's not those most-in-need who are getting the needle.

CH: Live wire. An Italian journalist covering migration says prosecutors spent months illegally wiretapping her conversations with sources and her own lawyer in a case that had nothing to do with her.

CO: Van gone. Dutch police have caught the man they say is responsible for the heist of two paintings, including a Van Gogh. But the artworks themselves are still nowhere to be found.

CH: All joking aside. Myanmar's best-known comedian and satirist has been arrested yet again. So we'll revisit our conversation with Zarganar after his release from prison in 2012.

CO: Cruise control. In response to new covid guidelines, the cruise industry has agreed to the importance of running a tight ship...just kidding. It complains that protecting passengers and crew, we really take the wind out of its sales.

CH: And bin voyage. In 1965, our guest climbed into a wooden crate in Australia to be shipped to England. And all these years later, he's searching for the two friends who sent him packing. As iIt Happens. The Wednesday Edition. Radio that believes all men are crated equal.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Why people in Ontario's hardest-hit neighbourhoods are struggling to get vaccines

Ontario Vaccine Postal Codes

Guest: Michelle Dagnino

CH: As Ontario heads into yet another lockdown, the government says it's doing everything it can to speed up vaccine delivery. And time is of the essence, but it turns out place is playing a big role as well. New data from late March show that where you live affects your ability to get a shot. In the more affluent neighbourhoods of Toronto, as many as 22 percent of residents have been vaccinated. But it's much different in other places, including neighbourhoods in the northwest corner of the city, despite the fact that those communities have been much harder hit by the virus. Michelle Dagnino is the executive director of Toronto's Jane Finch Community and Family Centre. That's where we reached her.

CO: Michelle, what was it like for you to see this massive gap and who is getting vaccinated in your city of Toronto?

MICHELLE DAGNINO: Well, it's so disheartening to see the people of northwest Toronto and particularly the Jane-Finch community have had a very different at 12 months since COVID was first announced, since this COVID pandemic was first announced, than those in other parts of the city. The impacts have been felt so much, so much harder and have been heartbreaking to see in Jane and Finch.

CO: Let's just look at some of the data you mentioned Jane and Finch neighbourhood, this is the northwest corner of the city. There are concentrations of people who live in poverty, multigenerational households. And just 5.5 percent of those residents, according to this data, have had one dose of the vaccine -- the lowest rate in all of Toronto. And then you look at down Moore Park just north of Rosedale in the centre of the city, with 22 percent of people getting one dose, where people are quite well off and where the infection rate is very low. So that's what we're looking at, right?

MD: That's correct. And the differences are stark, similar to the COVID infection rates that we've seen. Jane and Finch infection, COVID infection rates, have been 10 times higher than the rest of the city. Now, when a solution is here, when the vaccine is here, we are again seeing the residents of Jane and Finch not having the same access to this vaccine that will save the lives of many.

CO: We'll just give that data, as you just mentioned, the Jane and Finch -- and this is hospitalisation and death due to COVID-19, 5 out of 1000 people, that's the rate. And then in Moore Park, the place where they had this many times higher vaccination rate is half a percent per 1000 people have been hospitalised or deaths. What are the reasons? Is it because the vaccines aren't available? Maybe just start going through some of the reasons why people in Jane-Finch and those other areas of Toronto and Ontario are not getting vaccinated.

MD: You know, one of the first issues that popped up around the vaccine rollout was how one went around to book an appointment. And it's online. It's an online portal. What that means is you have to have a device connected to Wi-Fi, you have to have familiarity with English, and you have to be able to have a clinic that is as close to you. For the past month, that has not been the case. In the past few days, we have seen clinics now open up, pop-up clinics open up, and some mobile clinics open up. But up until five days ago, there were no pharmacies in Jane and Finch and hardly any across all of northwest Toronto providing vaccines.

CO: If people were to actually get through all the obstacles just to book the appointment, what is required? Until these pop-up clinics started showing up, how difficult was it for people to get to these places? I would imagine a lot of these people don't have their own cars.

MD: The vast majority don't have their own car. So talking about vaccinating seniors -- so the first round of vaccines which were targeted based on age group, we're looking at 80 plus year olds who were told to book their vaccine online and then take public transit to get to a vaccine clinic in one of the most heavily transited corridors in the city and in one of the highest hotspot areas of the city. So people were literally having to consider the risk of taking transit in order to get a COVID vaccine.

CO: We're also talking about people -- a lot of these people go to work. They're not being able to work from home like many people downtown are, or in the centre of the city. These people are going out to jobs where they're spending a great deal of time on public transportation to get there. What kind of a barrier does that present?

MD: Well, for many of our working folks in the Jane and Finch area, they're having to take a day off of work and it's an unpaid day off of work to get their vaccine. And for many who are living paycheque to paycheque, missing a day of work and potentially missing more than one day because there may be some symptoms that they get from the vaccine that would prevent them from going to work for another day or two means that they may not have enough money at the end of the month for food or to pay a utility bill.

CO: We are months into this vaccine delivery program. Are things getting any better since these problems have been identified?

MD: Yes, in the past few days we have seen improvements. So we know that there are several mobile vaccination clinics getting ready to be launched over the next week or so -- they're going to be going to some of the neighbourhoods that we know are at highest risk. And there was an announcement just this afternoon from the province saying that now all adults over the age of 18 are going to be able to be vaccinated in the city's hot spots. And that will most definitely include Jane and Finch.

CO: What do you make of the fact that it's taken so long to solve these problems?

MD: Well, it is the history of the Black Creek community speaks to 40 years of crisis in the community, 40 years of austerity, 40 years of neglect in nearly all investments from infrastructure to social services. This is not a crisis that emerged March 13th, 2020. This is a crisis that has been decades in the making.

CO: This is a bit of an irony that many of the people who live in Jane-Finch and some of these neighbourhoods are the ones who enable others to work from home, and yet they can't get access to the very thing that would keep them safe.

MD: They very much keep this city running. So when we can stay home and get that package delivered to our house, when we can stay home and order in a pizza, it is because of the people who live in Jane and Finch and who are continuing to go to work.

CO: Michelle, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

MD: Thanks so much for your time Carol.

CH: Michelle Dagnino is the executive director of the Jane Finch Community and Family Centre. We reached her in Toronto. And you can find more on this story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Calm Music]

Netherlands Van Gogh Heist

Guest: Arthur Brand

CH: They were brazen heists in which the thieves swiped a Van Gogh and a Frans Hals from two different museums in the Netherlands last year. And the good news is the Dutch police say they've arrested the man responsible. But the bad news is that the paintings themselves still haven't been recovered. Arthur Brand is a Dutch art detective who was involved in tracking the missing paintings. We reached him in Amsterdam.

CO: Arthur, first of all, what do we know so far about this man who has been arrested for stealing these paintings?

ARTHUR BRAND: Well, we don't know that much. The police has not revealed much, only that he is 58 years old and that they think he is responsible for both art thefts last year in the Netherlands, quite big big heist.

CO: And these were two different locations, right? So just maybe tell us, first of all, the Van Gogh painting, where was it stolen from?

AB: Yeah, the Van Gogh was stolen in Laren, that's in the centre of the Netherlands, and that was in March last year. And a couple of months later, in August, the Frans Hals was stolen in Leerdam, that's like 50 kilometres to the south of it. So it was all quite near where this guy now has been arrested, where he is living in Baarn.

CO: Both of these paintings were stolen from museums. So how brazen was this robbery?

AB: I think that this man has done it before. You know, if you are 58 years old and you have never done something like this, you don't wake up in the morning and think, 'Let's do two major heists.' So I think he has done it before, and probably next week that will be revealed. It's not that difficult to steal, but afterwards, what can you do with a painting? Because the whole world knows that that painting has been stolen.

CO: Can you just tell us the Van Gogh painting, what value it has?

AB: Well, it's a very important painting. This is the time when he lived with his parents in the Netherlands, and it was a happy time for him. So it's a very important piece to see how he went from a nobody more or less to one of the biggest painters in the world. When we are talking about money, well, you can say it's about five or ten million dollars worth.

CO: And you had some contact with -- some contact with the thieves, right? Can you describe that for us?

AB: Yeah. Well, what happens in these cases is nowadays people steal art because they want to sell it to the big drug lords or big gangsters, because these gangsters might use these paintings one day when they get caught for, let's say, something related to drugs, then they can put it on the table and try to make a deal to get a lesser sentence. So that's why they steal these paintings. In this case, this man stole the Van Gogh and he tried to sell it in the underworld. But if you sell such a painting, you have to have some kind of a shopping folder. So he made pictures of the painting together with a paper of The New York Times, the front page, to show that he was in control of this painting. And he shopped around. And I got my hands on one of these pictures and I published them last year.

CO: And the other painting, can you tell us a bit about the Frans Hals painting that was stolen from a different museum?

AB: Yeah, it's a funny story because as I said before, the criminals want these paintings to use them maybe someday in the future to get a lesser sentence. So what happened after the Van Gogh, the police in the Netherlands cracked the encrypted phone calls for more or less half of all the criminals in the Netherlands. So all these guys started to get nervous because they thought, what has the police read all these months when they were reading with us encrypted calls? So they started to get nervous and they remembered that there was a Van Gogh for sale. They thought we should buy this one. So they went to this guy and said, 'We want to buy your Van Gogh.' But the guy said, 'No, I've already sold it.' So then he started to look around for another painting. And when you start to look for paintings that you might steal, one of the first to show up is this Frans Hals painting because it has been stolen already twice. This is the third time that it has been stolen. So then he went off again and stole the second piece.

CO: And this is Laughing Boys With A Mug Of Beer by Frans Hals, right?

AB: Yeah, exactly. And it's a bit embarrassing because, as I said, it's the third time that they went into this museum and stole this one. So I know that the team, the police team, who is trying to solve that case is a bit -- well, what can I say? They think, well, it has been stolen twice, why should we go a third time after the same painting? So I do know that they try to sell it right now in the Dutch underworld.

CO: How do you know all of this?

AB: You know, there are people who talk with police, there are people who talk with people like me, so there are always rumours. Nobody trust each other in the underworld. So sooner or later, especially when they start to try to sell such a painting, hundreds of people are alerted.

CO: But surely they must know not to involve Arthur Brand, the famous Dutch art detective. Surely you're somebody they don't want to find out what they're up to.

AB: Of course. But then again, if you steal a Van Gogh and a Frans Hals, let's say 30 or 40 kilometres from my home, what are the odds that I'm not going to stick my nose in?

CO: [Chuckles] Because you're known as the Indiana Jones of the art world for finding lost paintings.

AB: Yes. We have a very famous Van Gogh robber in the Netherlands. He stole two Van Gogh's in 2002. His name is Octave Durham. And he, of course, is my enemy because I'm chasing him. And the day after the Van Gogh robbery, he called me and he wanted to see me. I first suspected him, of course, but he had the best alibi -- he was in hospital. And he said, Arthur, look, we might be enemies, but this case we're going to get together because first of all, they don't respect you, they steal these paintings right under your nose, and they also try to copycat him. You know, he is the Van Gogh robber. So he said, Arthur, let's try to solve this case together. So now we are in the strange situation that the world's most famous art thief, Octave Durham, and myself are trying to crack this case.

CO: All right, Arthur, we will continue to follow this story, this plot. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

AB: Thank you.

CH: Arthur Brand is a Dutch art detective. We reached him in Amsterdam.

[Music: Rock Music]

Crate Man

Guest: Brian Robson

CH: To say Brian Robson has an unusual travel story, doesn't begin to cover it. In 1965, the Welshman crawled into a wooden crate and had himself shipped from Australia to the UK. Mr. Robson was working in Australia at the time, but he was desperately homesick and broke. He cooked the plan up with a pair of Irishman named Paul and John. They packed him up and sent him on his way. And while Mr. Robson somehow lived to tell the tale, he never saw Paul or John again, and he'd really like to track them down and buy them a beer. We reached Brian Robson in Cardiff, Wales.

CO: Brian, first of all, any nibbles yet, any success in finding these two men who helped you fly yourself home?

BRIAN ROBSON: Yes, I've had one email actually from Australia from a gentleman who says he can help me. But he hasn't actually given me too much detail at the moment. So I've replied and I'm waiting to see whether it's a hoax or whether it will be the real thing.

CO: This is like from 1965, why now is the time to try and find out who these guys were?

BR: To be honest with you, I have tried. The problem is, at the time we made an agreement that it would be a secret. I mean, the idea was I would get to London and I would get out of the crate and disappear, go home, and nobody would be any other wiser. Unfortunately, the whole thing went wrong, as you are aware, and the publicity just overtook everything. The reason it's come up now is basically because of a book that's coming out at the end of this month.

CO: The is "The Crate Escape." [Laughter] The story of The Crate Escape is that your friends, you ask them to mail you home. So what exactly was the plan? What did they actually put you in?

BR: I bought a crate, a wooden crate for five pounds, if I remember correctly, which was a very very small thing I could sit in it with my knees tucked up into my chest. And that's what we used. [Chuckles]

CO: And you were doing this because you couldn't afford the airfare home?

BR: It wasn't a case of affording the airfare home, which I couldn't actually. But I had an agreement with the Australian government because I was an assisted air pom, they used to call them in those days -- a 10 pound pom. Because I had this agreement with the Australian government. I couldn't leave for two years. Or if I did, I'd have to pay them all the money that they had spent getting me over that, plus all my money back, all the expenses back, which, to give you an example, would have been about 700 or 800 pounds. My salary at the time was about 30 pounds a month.

CO: Wow. So the plan was to get into this crate. And was there anything on the crate to say "This side up" or to make sure that you didn't get knocked around?

BR: Oh, absolutely. We had "This side up" on the crate, "Fragile," "Handle with care." We had to do waybills and bills of lading and many documents in those days for exporting what supposed to be on a computer. And Paul, he worked in Victorian Railways offices with probably the only typewriter in Australia at the time, and he typed all those up for us. It took a bit of planning, believe me. It took about a month to plan it, actually.

CO: And what did you have with you inside the crate?

BR: I had one empty bottle of water for obvious reasons -- sorry, empty bottle, I should say, for obvious reasons. I had one bottle of water about a litre or a pint of water or something. My suitcase and a pillow. And a torch and a hammer to break out.

CO: And you anticipated you would be, how long inside this crate?

BR: 36 hours.

CO: All right. So how was your trip?

BR: Well, actually, five and a half days later [chuckles] well, it was very rough, actually. It was terrifying, to be quite honest with you -- I can say it now, I wouldn't have said it in those days, but it was. And I was passing in and out of consciousness. I had lack of oxygen and oh, it was bad.

CO: Did they keep the crate right side up?

BR: No, I was standing or sitting for 24 hours upside down actually on my head and it was impossible to turn round because the crate was too small.

CO: So you thought it would take about 36 hours -- five and a half days, and you didn't even get home. You got as far as the West Coast of the United States.

BR: That's correct. Yes. Yes. Because they put me on the wrong plane. They agreed to put us on a Qantas flight 36 hours from Sydney to London. But that flight was full, apparently. And then they put it on a Pan American flight which went from Sydney to Los Angeles and stopped at every single runway on the way. [Chuckles]

CO: Oh my gosh. Were there times when you thought you weren't going to make it?

BR: Oh, many times, actually. I would say the last five or six hours of flying, I was quite convinced that that was the end. And to be honest, a peaceful end because I'd already made peace with myself. [Chuckles]

CO: What do you mean you made peace with yourself?

BR: Well, I thought I was going to die.

CO: And you were prepared for that possibility?

BR: I had no choice. I was trapped in the hold of an aircraft with no air, pitch blackness of course I couldn't move. It was quite frightening.

CO: How were you finally freed?

BR: I had a torch in the crate and I thought I was in London. And I managed to get my arm, hand, across to this torch. But because no muscles were moving and nothing, I turned the torch on and dropped it and I didn't know where I could pick it up off the floor of the crate, but it was shining through one of the slats and two airport workers spotted it. There was a knothole type thing in the side of the crate and he looked through and he looked straight into my eye. Well, if there was an Olympic Games going on at the time, he would have won for a backflip. I've never seen anybody backflip so fast. [Laughs] And then they started shouting and screaming, 'There was a dead body in the crate.' And within a very short time, there were maybe 20 or 40 people around, including FBI, CIA. Oh everybody.

CO: Wow. And they determined that you were harmless, but your body was in bad shape. How did you finally get home to London?

BR: First Class Pan American actually. I fell in love with America because I've never been treated so well.

CO: Now, these two men, Paul and John, who nailed you in the crate, these are the two guys you hope to find through this Crate Escape book of yours.

BR: That's right. We used to meet each other every evening and chat about old times and how we all wanted to get out of Australia, you know, chat about girlfriends and everything just about. And I'd love to find them again, yes.

CO: All right. Well, the word is out. Everyone is hearing these interviews you're doing. And so we'll keep in touch with you and see if you find Paul and John.

BR: Well, I hope the next time we speak, there'll be three of us here speaking with you. [Laughs]

CO: Brian it's a great story. Thanks for telling it to us.

BR: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

CH: Brian Robson is the author of a forthcoming book called The Crate Escape -- it's about his harrowing journey in 1965 when he parked himself inside a wooden crate and had his friends ship him from Australia to the UK. We reached him in Cardiff, Wales. For more on his story, which I expect you want, go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

Sea Cruise

[Music: Frankie Ford's song "Sea Cruise"]

CH: "Be their guest, you got nothing to lose. Won't you let them take you on a sea cruise?" Quick correction, you do have something to lose. You will be on a ship surrounded by thousands of strangers drinking blender drinks and yelling, "Where are you from?" in your face -- so you could contract COVID-19, as happened last year on several dozen cruise ships. Nevertheless, cruises continue and so does the pandemic, which is why the Centres for Disease Control in the US issued new guidelines for cruise companies. Amongst other things, ships should institute routine testing of crew members, make a plan to vaccinate said crew members, and establish arrangements with port authorities for managing any outbreak. Unsurprisingly, though, the Cruise Lines International Association has dismissed the guidelines as 'unduly burdensome' and 'largely unworkable,' -- even though they seem duly burdensome and largely workable. The association also complains that they seem to reflect a zero risk objective rather than the mitigation approach to COVID that is the basis for every other US sector of our society. Interesting point, except every other sector of society is not confined to a giant floating petri dish where everyone's breathing everyone else's strawberry daiquiri scented breath. So a zero risk objective is the only objective that makes sense. And if the cruise industry wants people to get on board, it should really get on board.

[Music: Flute Music]

Part 2: Italy Journalist Phone Taps

Italy Journalist Phone Taps

Guest: Nancy Porsia

CH: Nancy Porsia is used to being watched. As a freelancer covering migration and human trafficking in the Mediterranean, she has made some enemies and even had to be given police protection. But her latest adversary is new. According to the Italian newspaper Domani, Ms. Porsia is one of nearly 20 journalists whose phone calls were recorded by prosecutors in Sicily. The wire-tappings are tied to a case against three sea rescue NGOs accused of collaborating with smugglers. We've covered that story on our program, but Ms. Porsia says it was never the focus of her reporting. And now Italy's justice minister has ordered an investigation into why her calls and so many others were recorded. We reached Nancy Porsia in Matera, Italy.

CO: Nancy, did you have any idea that prosecutors in Italy were listening in on your phone calls?

NANCY PORSIA: I was expecting that. I had the suspicion that they were tapping my phone, but the idea that I was expecting this abuse of power doesn't mean that I would accept it today.

CO: And what were you covering at the time that the prosecutors were tapping your phone?

NP: I was working on the development and updating of my investigation on the human trafficking from Libya to Italy specifically. I was working on the involvement of some Libyan officers in the traffic. I started this investigation in I would say late 2015. And I've been working on the investigation while I was still based in Libya. By the end of the year 2016, I published for the first time my investigation, and since then I started to get problems with the authorities.

CO: Right. This is an extremely important story that you broke about what was going on with human trafficking, with the refugees and migrants were trying to cross the Mediterranean. You were able to piece together part of the story about the Coast Guard commander was actually one of the most ruthless of the human traffickers and he was having meetings with senior people in Italy at the time. And that's the story, is it?

NP: This is the story. I was in Libya when my story was first published and I started to have a problem with the Libyan authorities, but then I left the country. But when I tried to get back to Libya earlier in 2017, they didn't give me visa anymore. And by the time, of course, I was out of the country, I tried to continue my investigations, keep talking with my sources. But in March, I published the same investigation on the international media in English, and this brought to the story even wider attention.

CO: And so this is the story you had broken. What do you think prosecutors were trying to find out by listening in on your phone calls?

NP: Well, the topic of the investigation was the role of the NGOs working in the search and rescue offshore Libya. So, I mean, my work was supposed to be strictly relevant or meaningful to their investigations when in fact, I didn't have any specific information about it because the core of my work has been always the human trafficking network onshore, on the Libyan side.

CO: So what you're saying is that you weren't even involved in that story. So you were doing a different story. So what do you think prosecutors heard and what sources of yours do you think were exposed by their tapping your phone?

NP: The prosecutors have deposited 30,000-pages regarding this investigation. So it's a big folder to go through. And so far, I've got access to 500-pages. In what I've read, there are some conversations with my lawyer that was, I mean, defending me in the case of death threats from the Libyan mafia. And mainly my chats with colleagues. But what I still don't find in those pages are the conversations with my Libyan sources. But I strongly doubt that they missed those conversations. And I want to understand the approach of the investigations, because, again, for six months I've been tapped even though I've never been indicted. And this is a very extraordinary case in the judiciary proceedings.

CO: It's an extremely important story that you were revealing about this collaboration between the Coast Guard in Libya and the traffickers -- so your sources were trusting you. Has this put them in danger, the fact that the prosecutors have knowledge of who your sources were and what they told you?

NP: I think so. But I should be grateful from the fact that they are still alive. At the same time, what worries me is that if those conversations were tapped, and sooner or later they come out, my sources will be exposed even to a broader audience. And this terrifies me for their safety.

CO: What about your own safety? You were under police protection after you did the story. If these sources were found, if this material gets into the public domain, is it going to be dangerous for you?

NP: I try to stay rational about my safety. Plus, I would say that media attention is a kind of protection. I felt much more in danger while I was working on this story and I was in the front line without any protection. Now I feel safer, although I can say that only for me and my family in Italy. But I have also people to take care of that are in Libya.

CO: Nancy, it's a very disturbing story, and I'm glad you're okay. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

NP: Thanks to you.

CH: Nancy Porsia is a freelance journalist whose phone was tapped by Italian prosecutors. We reached her in Matera, Italy.

[Music: Drum & Bass Music]

Zarganar Arrested

CH: Zarganar is the best known comedian in Myanmar. He's a satirist who uses his platform to call for freedom and democracy in the country, you would imagine that would not make him popular with the powers that be. And you would be right. He's just been arrested amid ongoing protests against the military. He's amongst about 100 artists and activists who've been picked up, all of whom are critics of the military's coup d'etat. For Zarganar, it is not his first arrest. He's been in and out of jail a few times now. In 2012, during a tour of the US and Canada, he was a guest in the As It Happens studio. He had just served three years of a 59 year sentence, but he'd been released as part of an amnesty for political prisoners.

ZARGANAR: I was released, but I'm not free because the president of the country, he released me conditionally, not unconditionally. So 31 years and four months remain. If the government or the president, he dislikes me, he can arrest me any time for any cause. And then I like to replan about these changes. This is not a real change. We can say this is the very beginning of the change. Actually, I'm an optimist, so I always see from the bright side, not from the dark side. So according to our Aunty, Aunty means Aung San Suu Kyi, according to her words, she said cautious optimism.

PETER ARMSTRONG: What was life like for you when you were in prison?

ZARGANAR: First time and second time is very rude and very rough and very difficult to overcome, because for the five years I was in the solitary confinement, I didn't have a chance to walk on the ground. I didn't have a chance to read the paper. I didn't have a chance to use the soap.

PETER ARMSTRONG: You couldn't clean yourself?

ZARGANAR: Yes, just the leaf and just only the water. But in the 2008, my last experience, it's a little bit gradually improve. But the two things, very worst things, is the medical treatment is so bad. At that time my blood pressure was so high that I fell down to the floor in my cell. My cell is just so small and so narrow, eight feet long and six feet wide and no ventilation, no windows. So my body was over sweating. And then all of the prisoner guards, they didn't get the key to unlock my cell. So I fell down for three hours and then they took my body outside of the cell on the ground, and we waited for the next 10 hours to come to medical doctors.

CH: From 2012, that was Zarganar speaking with guest host Peter Armstrong right after he'd been released from prison. The comedian and social critic in Myanmar has just been arrested again.

[Music: Piano Music]

Thames Mudlarkers

Guest: Anna Borzello

CH: England's Hertford Union Canal is usually a place of mild wonder, a place to gently oh and ah. But lately it's been a place to eww. Not long ago, authorities drained the 191 year old canal, hoping to do some repair work. But first it needed some deep, serious cleaning. So a call for volunteers went out and a group of mudlarking enthusiasts arrived -- dashing to the scene, hoping to find treasure. Anna Borzello is one of those mudlarkers. We reached her in London, England.

CO: Anna what on earth motivated you to get down into the muck of a drain canal in east London?

ANNA BORZELLO: Well, I normally mudlark along the River Thames -- I don't know if you know what that is, but mudlarking is when you search for archaeological objects along the foreshore of the river and you find amazing things along the Thames from Rome and up to modern. And one of my friends who mudlarks called Simon, he saw this canal and decided that he'd invite a group of his friends along to go and explore it. And we just thought it would be a different environment from the river foreshore, try and see what's been dropped in this 200 year old trench of the canal.

CO: And this hasn't been drained in 20 years. So what were the best finds that you and the other mudlarkers turned up in Hertford Union Canal?

ANNA BORZELLO: We were a little bit disappointed. I had these visions of incredible clay pipes that would have been dropped by people going up and down on the river in the middle of the 19th century, and beautiful coloured bottles, which are these wonderful bottles of marbles. And actually there wasn't as much as we'd hoped for. My friend Mike did find a Second World War helmet. Somebody found a sword. Nobody really knows where that sword comes from. There were quite a few Hindu offerings. And then there were little tiny ceramic toys -- I imagine that there was some child that was angry with another child and just chucked them all over the canal bridge into the water. And there were bicycles. In fact, somebody called down when we were in the mud and said, have you seen my friend's bicycle? [Laughter] Apparently they got in an argument with a motorist above and the motorists got out of his car and slammed the door behind him and then just chucked the bicycle into the canal. We didn't find it because everything sinks.

CO: Did you find anything, always wondering if evidence of criminal activity gets tossed into canals and rivers -- did you find any of that?

ANNA BORZELLO: I was quite hoping for guns, which I have found the gun with some friends on the Thames. We didn't find a gun. Someone found a bb gun, which doesn't really count. But there were some safes which were empty. But it was sort of intriguing, sort of hints that the world above the depths of the canal, we thought how people live around the edge of the canal.

CO: And you find things like you mentioned these ceramic toys, these were little animals, right, polar bears and horses and a gorilla. Do you try to imagine what the story is behind that being tossed into the canal?

ANNA BORZELLO: Oh, yes. In that particular case, I imagine this really grumpy child who was angry with his sister. My friend, says I'm sexist because I'm assuming they are girls toys, but there you go. But just chucking that these little tiny objects into the canal. So you do try to imagine the stories. Some of the stories are quite prosaic, actually. But there was a huge Buddha that my friend Psy found, and we thought that was an offering. But it turned out there'd been a burglary in the house above the towpath and that had actually been a garden decoration that had got knocked in. And in fact it was a story about a burglary and not a story about a religious offering. And that got put up back into the garden and watched over us for the rest of the time that people were clearing out the canal because the main purpose was really not for us to find artefacts. It was for the canal to be cleaned of all this junk.

CO: What was it like that actually hit that muck?

ANNA BORZELLO: When we started they put down a ladder and I was really thrilled. I thought, oh, I'm going to find a bottle. And the surface looked quite cracked on top, like if you imagine a brownie going into the oven and just when it begins to crack and get hard. And I thought, this is great. And I climbed down, it just sunk right up to my knees because it was completely gloopy underneath

CO: Were you're not afraid of actually stepping or getting stabbed by some piece of metal -- and I don't know -- having to go for a tetanus shot?

ANNA BORZELLO: Actually, I did cut my hand [chuckles] and I stood there rather sadly with blood running down it. Luckily, I found a builder who was repairing the brickwork of the canal who let me pour a bottle of water over it. Then I did ring the doctor and I had had a tetanus shot already, luckily. So I could imagine it would be a little bit -- there's always the potential in all these circumstances. Whenever you're rummaging through rubbish, which is essentially looking for something in the canal or bottle digging or mudlarking is even if it's old rubbish.

CO: But this rubbish is treated as toxic waste, is it not?

ANNA BORZELLO: Yes. So the Canal and River Trust who organised this clean up, they said that it treated all this toxic waste except for the artefacts that might have heritage value. And so everything was put to one side of the towpath and then it will be piled onto a boat when the canal is refilled and it will be taken away and treated as toxic waste and disposed of.

CO: Were you surprised that to find things like coins, rings, surely somebody tossed their wedding ring or engagement ring in there, some kind of memento, of a broken heart? Nothing like that?a

ANNA BORZELLO: I was really surprised because you do find rings on the Thames and I always imagine that those are brokenhearted people chucking in their ring or recently divorced people throwing it out symbolically. There was nothing. And there were no coins, which is really odd as well. I was puzzled by it. So probably what's happened is that there's little items, little metal items have sunk through the mud and they are just too deep in the gloop for anyone to get hold of.

CO: We're always hearing amazing stories about mudlarking and detectorists discovering things. And so for you, what's your best find in all the time that you've had this as your hobby?

ANNA BORZELLO: On the Thames -- the things that all the people value the most and the things that, you know, you have a sentimental attachment to. But I did find last year, it looks really unremarkable, but it is amazingly, it's an early Native American clay pipe and it's one of the only ones to be found in London. I think it might be the only clay pipe of its type to be found in London. So it clearly came across on a very early colonial ship. And it was very weak and very friable and it had just been tossed overboard. And I found it because I normally find -- I collect clay pipes, so I recognise them and look out for them. And it was a much much weaker clay than the English clay. And so it was sort of remarkable. And it has little designs on it. And I've been talking to people and they can work out which Indian group it belong to, which Native American group it belong to, from the the patterns

CO: We will leave it there. Anna it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

ANNA BORZELLO: Thank you very much.

CH: Anna Borzello is a mudlarking enthusiast. We reached her in London, England.

[Music: Banjo Music]

Moose Rescue

CH: Ross Duncan first noticed a moose on the ice on Stuart Lake, BC, on Monday of last week. And at first he wasn't concerned. But then days went by and the moose did not go by. So last Friday, he decided to help rescue it using some rope and an ATV, which took hours partly because the moose was a few kilometres out there. Ross Duncan is from Binche northwest of Prince George, and he told the CBC how exactly you rescue an exhausted moose

ROSS DUNCAN: Monday morning, it tried to run across the lake. And it got stranded out there. We have seen a couple of wolves trying to get at it, but they couldn't get at it. I guess the lake was open on the other side and couldn't go over to the ice and it was very very slippery.

SARAH PENTON: Is that why it was stranded? Because it looks to me like it couldn't even stand up because it was so slippery.

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah, it couldn't even stand up. I went out there in skates, me and, Paul Lewis -- me and him went out there. And the other guy came out with the four wheeler in the afternoon.

SARAH PENTON: But it had been out on the ice for how long do you figure that moose?

ROSS DUNCAN: Five days.

SARAH PENTON: Five days. And was it sitting, standing, or what was it doing?

ROSS DUNCAN: It was standing and sitting around when we got out there. But we chased it back the first time -- it ran about two kilometres back towards, and it just stopped there. For about two hours we just sat there. I just lassoed it the second time.

SARAH PENTON: You lassoed it.

ROSS DUNCAN: Yep.

SARAH PENTON: Because it could move around a little bit, but it couldn't make it to shore because the part that was going to shore was where it was the slipperiest, is that right?

ROSS DUNCAN: Yes, it was very slippery.

SARAH PENTON: Okay. And then what did you do?

ROSS DUNCAN: We let it lay down and we just tied -- we had two ropes, so I wouldn't choke the moose. I wrapped it around at the butt end both sides and hooked it up to the four wheeler. And just drove him right to the shore.

SARAH PENTON: You guys just pulled it in. Like what was it doing as you were pulling it in?

ROSS DUNCAN: Just watching us.

SARAH PENTON: Going, what the heck is going on there? [Laughs]

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah. We brought food out there for it too like lettuce and apples and some branches.

SARAH PENTON: And I guess there were other people who were watching and you even live streamed it on social media. What kind of response did you get, what kind of reaction?

ROSS DUNCAN: Lots. They were all surprised we were helping the moose. Paul Lewis on his Facebook page, he had the moose running through the bush

SARAH PENTON: After you guys saved it?

ROSS DUNCAN: Yes.

SARAH PENTON: So did you do anything to celebrate after you warmed up?

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah, we had dinner. We had a turkey dinner.

SARAH PENTON: For Easter?

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah, for Easter, yeah. Everybody was just watching us...

SARAH PENTON: When you were saving it?

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah. There's even some people who came up to watch from the creek.

SARAH PENTON: Oh yeah. How many people were watching do you figure?

ROSS DUNCAN: Probably over 100 people.

SARAH PENTON: Oh really!

ROSS DUNCAN: We could just hear everybody yelling around down there after we got the moose back to shore.

SARAH PENTON: You must have felt like heroes kind of.

ROSS DUNCAN: Yeah we did.

CH: That was Ross Duncan speaking with the CBC's Sarah Penton yesterday about the moose that he and his friends rescued.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Naheed Nenshi

CH: Calgarians are going to have to find a new mayor. Yesterday, Naheed Nenshi gave the city 200 days notice that he won't be running for a fourth term. Mayor Nenshi has crafted a reputation as one of the happier warriors in Canadian politics. So when he was a guest on CBC Radio this morning, he was asked whether the fight had gone out of the mayor or he just got a better offer.

NAHEED NENSHI: [Chuckles] Well, neither of the two things you said, if anybody knows me, they would know the fight has never gone out of me and never will. And no, I actually don't have another offer, anything else to do. It's very weird for me. I like to think of myself as a strategist, and I like to think about what four moves ahead are on the board. And for one of the first times in my life, I'm just going to open myself to the universe and see what comes. The only thing is that I really know is that I am not going anywhere. I'm still going to be here, I hope. I hope to still be a part of Calgary's story somehow going forward. And I hope that I'll find a way to serve outside of elected office and outside of politics.

DAVID GRAY: But have you thought about, for yourself, what you're going to do without this gig? Because you are at heart a political creature. This was true before you ran for mayor. It's not going to go away. It's still true now. Are you going to run for a different level of office?

NAHEED NENSHI: I don't think so. I was very lucky that relatively early in my life, I got my dream job, my dream political job in this one. I still wear purple every day. It's still red and blue. And there's not a lot of room for purple in federal and provincial politics. So never say never. And of course, I'm still going to be active. And even in this election, you think I'm going to sit down and shut up on the sidelines in this election? No, of course not. It's not in me. I will call out misinformation. I will not hesitate. I'll help frame the issues that's helpful for voters. But ultimately, you know, I'll find a way to serve -- that's my oxygen. But I'll probably find that outside of politics. But here's the critical thing, David, I understand from many sources, including the Calgary Eyeopener on Thursday mornings, that this has been 10 years of very good television that I have missed. So I got 10 years of TV to catch up. There's something called Game of Thrones. So here I go. You know, Calgary Eyeopeners let us know what the mayor should be watching.

CH: Not Game of Thrones. That was Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi speaking to David Gray on the Calgary Eyeopener.

[Music: Happy Music]

Part 3: Greenland Election

Greenland Election

Guest: Sara Olsvig

CH: Greenland has gone green. Last night, a pro-environment party won the majority of seats in its election. At stake is the fate of the country's mining operations, in particular, a controversial mine in south Greenland sitting on top of a vast uranium and rare earth deposits. The rare earth materials are used in everything from smartphones to solar panels, and they mostly come from China now. That has the United States looking very closely at Greenland, which might explain why Donald Trump was angling to buy Greenland outright when he was president. Meanwhile, Chinese affiliated companies are already deeply involved in mining operations there. Sara Olsvig is the former leader of the newly elected Community of the People party, which is known by the initials IA in Greenland. We reached her in Copenhagen.

CO: Sara, what has been the reaction in Greenland to this political upset, a party that ruled for decades now defeated?

SARA OLSVIG: Well, I think that there's a great sense of relief. What I'm hearing, of course, also because I'm still affiliated with IA -- many many happy voices and thankful voices that there's a party that has held on to its opposing the uranium mine in south Greenland.

CO: And so this party, the Siumut party, it's been defeated after four decades of being in power. Even that party admits that probably they lost the election because of the issue of mining. So can you tell us what concerns people have? What is the mine that was in question and what were the concerns that people had in this election?

SO: Well, Greenland has known for many many decades that there are elements and radioactive minerals in that particular area in south Greenland. And this particular mining project, which is in the exploration phase and not exploitation yet -- they are in the process of having the environmental impact assessment reports in public hearing. And the issue with the mine is that it is rare earth elements, but with a mix of radioactive minerals such as uranium and thorium. And the possible mine is only six-seven kilometres away from the town of Narsarsuaq, a town where more than 1000 people live. In the middle of Greenland are only agricultural area where we have a more than 100 year old culture and tradition of sheep farming and where Greenland is developing, for example, the growing of potatoes and vegetables. And as you can probably imagine, Greenland being in the Arctic, it's not many places on our land that we can do that. So the concerns are that if this mine goes ahead, it's supposed to be an open pit mine, so there would be dust and pollution from dust which would contain radioactivity, and also that the tailings of the mine containing thorium were to be or according to the plan, were to be deposited in a lake on the mountain, only protected by a dam, which was not, according to the reports, a very safe solution. So there has been a lot of concern about this mine.

CO: But at the same time, there's multiple national international interests in this mine, right, because these rare earth minerals are what we need for cell phones, wind turbines, electric cars, fighter jets. How much international interest was there in seeing that this mine succeeded and this election ended with different results?

SO: Well, there is international interest just by the fact the cooperation with the exploration licence is is fundamentally an Australian corporation and then with a partially ownership by Chinese interests. And also the US has shown interest in Greenland's rare earth mineral deposits in south Greenland. But I think it's important also to remember that although we call them rare earth elements, they are not that rare. And I think that the fact that now we have a survey done prior to the election showing that 71 percent of the Greenlandic population is against the mine, I think people are very aware that Greenland has other opportunities of developing its economy than risking this major pollution that could happen from such a mine as this one.

CO: But the company behind the project, as you mentioned, Australia based Greenland minerals with financial backing from China, they said that they could create 780 jobs in Greenland, bringing 100-million dollars annually to Greenland's economy. Was that tempting for some people?

SO: It probably has been. And that's also been the core issue of the debate, so whether to risk these environmental issues and pollution versus possible income, but although there has been a prospect of income from the mine, well, you have to remember that we in Greenland as a society and as a nation, as a people, we were colonised by Denmark and colonisation just ended formally in 1953. In the 70s, we saw towns that were being closed down by the state. And this has created big wounds in our people to be relocated because of closing down mines. So with these things in mind from history, I fully understand the scepticism towards this plan.

CO: At the same time, there are tremendous international pressures to exploit those resources. Everyone is interested in your minerals. I wonder if the party that's now been successful, IA, do you think they can resist the pressures they'll be under to exploit those mining interests?

SO: Well, all parties are working to diversify Greenland's economy. What we see right now is that approximately 95 percent of our export is from the fisheries, and that is the main income for Greenland's economy. So all parties know that there's a need for diversification and all parties want to do mining, including IA, but just not uranium mining six-seven kilometres away from the town. So I think the people have voiced their very very clear opinion opposing this particular mine. So I think this also gives a chance to rethink what kind of development Greenland wants.

CO: All right. Very interesting. Sara I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

SO: Qujanaq.

CH: Sara Olsvig is the former leader of the Community of the People party, also known as the IA, which won yesterday's election in Greenland.

[Music: Synth Music]

Hans Kung

CH: As the author of titles like Does God Exists, it's really no wonder Hans Kung's work made him something of a pariah in the Catholic Church. The Swiss born theologian was critical of Catholicism stances on everything from gay marriage to women's ordination to priestly celibacy to birth control. And in the 1970s, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dismissed him as an official church theologian after he rejected the idea of papel infallibility. Mr. Kung died yesterday. He was 93. In 2005, he was a guest on As It Happens. On the day his one time friend and colleague, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was voted in as pope. But as he told us at the time, a lot had changed since they worked together at the University of Tubingen in Germany.

HANS KUNG: I had a good time with him during the years. He left in 68. And afterwards we were, of course, very often in different positions. I must say I am of course, as many other Catholics in the world, enormously disappointed by this choice. We hoped for a reformist pope, but we must now wait and see.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Is his reputation as a conservative, as a hard-liner, is it well deserved?

HANS KUNG: Yes, I think it is well deserved. Only do not forget, he is now not anymore prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith -- he is now pope. And it is an experience that this papacy is a great challenge for everyone. And I would be surprised if he would just follow John Paul II in everything.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: As you say, you have quite a history with him. You ultimately had your licence revoked by the church. Was he behind that? Did he have a hand in that, do you think?

HANS KUNG: Yes, he had a hand in that, no doubt about that. But my hope is...

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Can you tell me a bit more about that? What did he do?

HANS KUNG: Well, he was the first who would say I would not support, I would not teach the Catholic doctrine. We shall now see. I waited 26 years to be received to a conversation with John Paul II. I cannot imagine that if I shall ask him to have time for a dialogue that he would just renounce it. A former colleague of his, he knows very well and he basically never spoke badly about me personally. It was a difference of doctrines and different of opinions.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: If you did have a chance to speak to him now, what would you say to him?

HANS KUNG: Well, I shall certainly not proclaim this before to the CBC. You may understand that it has to be reflected carefully. We shall see what will happen.

CH: That was Catholic theologian Hans Kung speaking with guest host Gillian Findlay in 2005, the day Joseph Ratzinger was elected as pope. Mr. Kung died yesterday. He was 93 years old. After Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict, he did indeed invite Hans Kung to his summer residence for a conversation. That overture didn't stop Mr. Kung from criticising the pope after his retirement, mind you. But it spoke to a tenet that was always at the heart of his theology, dialogue -- between Catholics, between Christians, and between faiths.

[Music: Calm Music]

Paper Bag Covid Art

Guest: David Marriott

CH: Life in quarantine feels endless and isolating, especially if you've just lost a loved one. David Marriott's father died in the UK in February. The Sydney based art director went to see his family for the funeral. And then late last month, he began the long journey back home to Australia. That's when he got put up in a hotel for a mandatory quarantine. And a few days in the hotel may have been confining physically, but it was freeing creatively. With a few paper bags, he has turned himself into a cowboy and made himself a horse named Russell. We reached David Marriott in Brisbane, Australia.

CO: David, first of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your father.

DAVID MARRIOTT: Thank you. It's been a hard journey, a very sad journey back to England.

CO: Now you're back in Australia and you will be out of quarantine tomorrow at midnight, is that right?

DM: That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, midnight. Back to my life and my wife and my dog and my lovely daughter. Landing in Sydney.

CO: So how long have you been actually in this hotel room?

DM: In Australia, you've got to do 14 days,

CO: So had to spend 14 days in quarantine in that single hotel room in Brisbane. At what point did you realise that you needed a horse?

DM: Well, it just sort of happened. And when I first arrived, they give you a brown paper bag full of snacks and whatnot. And I thought, well, that's a really cool bag -- it's like a patent making material. And then along came lunch in the same bag and then dinner in the same bag. And the next day, breakfast, lunch, dinner. And all these bags, I'm keeping them. And I didn't know what I was going to do with them. And then on the second or third day, we had poke balls like, you know, a brown paper ball thing and finished that. And as soon as I finish that, I put it straight in my head, as a hat [laughter] underneath is a brim. So I kind of brim out one of my bags. Then, you know, one thing led to another, I made my waistcoat and started cutting the tassels out. And then I got into it and made my chaps. And then I got the whole outfit and made a gun and a holster and a belt and everything. And I'm walking around like cowboy and thinking, I'm a cowboy -- now I've got to get me a horse. [Chuckles]

CO: You finish the outfit -- there is a nice fringe on your paper jacket, a paper fringe, and a paper brim on your head. And you've got a paper gun and paper chaps and all made up. But making a horse, I mean, you can put all this on yourself -- how did you manage to get yourself, Russell the horse?

DM: Well, I was thinking about that. You know, that was my next project was to do the horse. And they got big skinny legs and a big body, and that would be really impossible to do just out of paper. So I was thinking maybe I'll ask for some cardboard boxes and I'm looking around, looking around. And then I've seen in the cupboard there is an ironing board. So I got the ironing board out and I went oh, that's like a horse, you know, looks like a horse almost. And then there was a desk lamp on my desk. So I just unscrew the legs off of that and I tied the thing on. And that was like the skeleton of a horse. And I just cut out to two bits of paper, the profile on each side of the horse he had, and then a little flap and then stuck it down and stuck it all together and popped it on the desk lamp and I had a horse. And then it was just a case of cutting out more bits of paper and cutting little dots and you put them around and stick them down and you could create sort of form out of the flat paper.

CO: And so you'd called your horse Russell.

DM: Yeah, yeah. Because it's all based on this brown paper joke, which is that -- it's an old dad joke from England or from wherever, it's like "Have you heard about the brown paper cowboy? No, what happened? Oh they got caught. They got caught red handed for rustling." [Laughter] So that was really hard trying to explain that to a German (TV) [laughter]. And we got Russell and it's like a paper thing. And then Russell was when you steal a horse and also you can call a man Russell, so that, you know, she got very confused.

CO: How is the hotel responded to your cowboy gear and your horse made out of paper bag?

DM: Well, they've been enjoying the ride as well as much as everyone else because they're in hospitality, they are in the hotel and they've got a hotel full of guests that they can't see, they can't talk to, they can't interact with, and they're all freaking out. Their morale is low. So they've seen all this nonsense on social media and then on the TV and all the rest of it. And they've really enjoyed it and they're having a laugh of it. I wrote an email to the guy at reception saying, you know, what's your policy on having pets in the rooms? Because my horse is getting a bit frisky, I wonder if you could send up a horse walker or someone take him out [laughter]. And he sent back this beautiful reply with all sorts of puns. Yeah, it's really funny.

CO: Let me read part of it, "It behoves me to ask that all individuals, equine or otherwise, please remain in the rooms for the duration of your quarantine. I trust your noble steed is stable." [Laughter]

DM: [Laughter] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's golden. And that made me laugh. That's why I have all of this -- it's to make me laugh because I'm stuck here on my own.

CO: Now you're leaving tomorrow at midnight. Can you rustle Russell out with you and take him home?

DM: Yeah, well, I think I just thought of maybe leaving him here, but no -- I'm going to take him. He's going to be in a show. I was thinking about leaving him here at the hotel to inspire people so they get their paper bags and some scissors and a little roll of sellotape. But they probably can't. So the guys where I work they're having an art show, so they want to in that show. So I'm going to have to rustle Russell back. I might have to make a paper suitcase for it. [Laughs]

CO: And that you had one idea that you might put Russell's head in the bed as a Godfather tribute.

DM: Yes, that's right. That was one of my ideas. Well, you know what? That'll happen in the dismantling stage, you know. But he's so fragile and I've taken him outside on the balcony and bits of him fall off. So he's not very robust. And all the outfits I've made, I've been running around doing action scenes and chase scenes and everything. And you bend over too far [makes tearing sound] so he's very fragile.

CO: You said at the beginning that you would give us your best American cowboy accent.

DM: [Speaks with an American cowboy accent] Well, gosh darn, man. If you want it, you can have it. What do you want me to say? [Laughs] BBC interviewed me and I was in character the whole time, Channel Ten, and they couldn't believe it. THey didn't know what to do me because I was just a dumb cowboy. And, you know, when you're in your character, you can say anything to these TV personalities, you know, say, gosh darn it, boy, what are you talking about? You don't know. This one guy wanted me to make a dinosaur and I said a dinosaur?! Sorry, dragon. I'm not going to make no dragon, I'm in it west -- what kind of dragons do they have in the west? You're crazy, boy. [Laughs]

CO: [Laughs] All right. Well, I'm glad you could talk to us. Take care of yourself.

DM: No problem. You have a lovely day now.

CO: You too.

CH: That was David Marriott speaking to us from his hotel quarantine in Brisbane, Australia. Mr. Marriott is an art director in Sydney.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Ideas Promo: The Value Of Old Age

CH: Coming up on Ideas, the latest in a series on the common good. A look at the value of old age and how our ageist society needs to grow up. Here's an excerpt from the documentary by Mary Lynk.

OLIVE SENIOR: My name is Olive Senior and I'm a resident of both Toronto and Jamaica. And I have just been named poet laureate of Jamaica.

MARY LYNK: In nine months of Olive Senior turns 80.

OLIVE SENIOR: And let me say, I would hate to be 17 again. I feel that I'm a much better person as I move along in years. I'm much more settled in myself. I have a lot more wisdom I'd like to think, and overall, the pain and grief of my younger years. So to me, these are the best years of my life, which is not how society views older people. But I think it's a case for a lot of people, especially those of us who persist.

MARY LYNK: Persist in creating, persist in finding meaning, persist in simply being human and part of the commons. Olive Senior's latest book is called Pandemic Poems First Wave. She wrote them in her apartment in Toronto and finished them in her home in the hills overlooking Kingston, Jamaica. Here is Why For Youth.

OLIVE SENIOR: The gap between young and old is widening. Old people are living longer, and some youth complain, sucking up too much air. Don't worry, coronavirus is now taking care of that. They say the aged are the carriers of a dying culture, the young the bearers of a new world order. The wheels just keep turning. Every revolution has its roots in history. Youth and age might not always agree, but there is no fruit without a tree.

MARY LYNK: Beautiful, just beautiful.

OLIVE SENIOR: Thank you.

CH: That's an excerpt from Mary Lynk's documentary, The Value of Old Age, part of a series on the common good. That's coming up tonight on Ideas after As It Happens.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Sound of the day: Tesla Coil Daft Punk

CH: A man stands in a translucent box. He is ready to conduct and thanks to the box, he's also ready to not conduct, which is good because he's about to pay tribute to the recently disbanded French duo Daft Punk in the most shocking way imaginable. In the sense that he will perform one of their songs using pure electricity, generated by a kind of orchestra of Tesla coils. You know, those Frankenstein-esque machines that shoot impressive sprays of lightning bolts. By adjusting the frequencies of the coils, Fabricio Franzoli has found he can play his three handmade coils like a musical instrument, if a pretty crackly one. Just to spark your memory, here is what Daft Punk's "Around The World," sounds like. [MUSIC PLAYS: DAFT PUNK'S AROUND THE WORLD] And here is Mr. Franzoli's attempt to capture that lightning in a bottle one more time. [MUSIC PLAYS: FABRICIO FRANZOLI PLAYING AROUND THE WORLD USING TESLA COILS] Engineer and tribute musician Fabrício Franzoli with his version of Daft Punk's "Around The World played on Tesla coils. This is our Sound of the Day.

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April 7, 2021 Episode Transcript

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