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The AIH Transcript for May 13, 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: Mob scenes. A member of the Knesset says she has never seen the kind of violence that's erupted in cities across Israel and that leaders are letting it get out of control.

CH: Four wings and a prayer. A plane is nearly ripped in half when it collides with another plane in midair over a Denver, Colorado, suburb. And one first responder says he still can't believe that no one was hurt in the crash.

CO: Running on empty with drivers in the southeastern US pumping gas stations dry after a pipeline cyberattack. One gas station attendant tells us about the calls she's getting by the minute from people who are desperate to fuel up.

CH: We didn't expect what shouldn't have been unexpected. We were not prepared for this pandemic. But a researcher says we can be prepared for the next one.

CO: Post-haste. A property owner in rural Saskatchewan urged police to hurry up and track down the thief who stole his pile of fence posts. And the culprit turned out to be a very busy beaver.

CH: And they had to go and open their big mouths, which was good, because now, after watching hundreds of animals yawn, a scientist has more proof of his theory that it helps to cool down their brains. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that figures we could try to explain it, but we'll let him do the honours.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Israel Street Violence

Israel Street Violence

Guest: Aida Touma-Suleiman

CH: In Israel and Gaza, rocket and missile attacks have killed dozens of people, and now the violence is spilling onto the streets. Jewish and Arab mobs have attacked each other in the city of Lod. In Bat Yam a crowd was filmed dragging an Arab driver from his car and viciously beating him. Israeli media is also reporting that a mob critically injured a Jewish man. Aida Touma-Suleiman is a joint Arab list member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. We reached her in Acre, Israel.

CO: Ms. Touma-Suleiman, you have seen some of this violence right outside of your door. Can you describe the scenes for us?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Well, it was horrible. There were clashes. First of all, there were attacks of groups of right-wing Jewish young people who gathered in groups and they were looking for an Arab to attack. But there were clashes with the police, a lot of teargas, a lot of like bombs that make noise and frighten people. But mainly the teargas was awful. There was one person also, a Jewish person, who was injured and an Arab person who was shot last night.

CO: You are in Acre, which is very near Haifa. This is an area where Arabs and Jews have coexisted. Have you ever seen anything like this, not just in your own city, but in Israel before?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Today the different situation is the green line that was given to different groups of ultra right-wing fascist Jewish young men. And that incitement that happened in the last months, there was escalation of oppression on our own people in Jerusalem. There were the attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque. And many of the people who through Ramadan months were also praying in Al-Aqsa Mosque and were oppressed by them.

CO: Just want to ask you about, because this one new development in recent times that there's a strong number of young Jewish nationalists of right-wing Jews who were in the streets. And particularly we saw a disturbing video in Bat Yam of a group of these men who were vandalising property. And then saw on TV and a video an Arab driver being pulled from his car and beaten severely. What was it like for you to watch that video on television?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: It's horrible. It's horrible. For me any violence against innocent people, civilians, it's horrible. And we cannot tolerate such a situation. We cannot tolerate a situation of insecurity. In the last hour, I've been dealing with a situation where students from different universities, Arab students, have been calling and telling us that they are afraid to go back to their apartments which are rented in Jewish areas because they know that they will be facing maybe the same situation. This is a situation where Netanyahu drove us into a situation instead of having a political debate between those who want to support Netanyahu and those who want to get rid of his government into a situation of war, as if between Jews and Arabs or a civil war.

CO: We also know in your city of Acre a Jewish man around 30 years of age has been seriously wounded after being pelted with rocks by Arab rioters.

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Yeah, that's what I mentioned in the beginning, that there was one Jewish man injured and one Palestinian man was injured yesterday by live pellets. So, yes, there were horrible cases yesterday in the city. I have to tell you that even now there are some clashes around the city going on.

CO: In Lod we saw both synagogues and mosques being torched. Is this something you have ever seen before?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: No, no. It didn't happen in the past -- at least holy places are usually respected and things like this didn't happen in the past.

CO: We spoke with a young Palestinian woman in Ramallah the other night who said that what's happening is not as a result of what's going on in Gaza. She said this is something that is after years of anger about how the Arab minority in Israel has treated and about their not having rights in the country. Do you think that that's the root of what we're seeing right now?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Well, usually in any outburst like this, you have the current situation and you have the deep roots of any problem. And of course, part of the deep roots are the continuous occupation and oppression of our own people and the discrimination and even more than discrimination a kind of despair and frustration that is going amongst the young generation because of their treatment from the different right-wing governments over the years.

CO: The woman we spoke with, I just mentioned, and also a man on a kibbutz that we spoke with last night, they both said something the same. They said that they both feel that the political class has failed them. Their own politicians and those of both Israel and of Palestinians have failed them, and that's what's led to this. You are a member of the Knesset. What do you say to that?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Well, I know that when you elect someone, you have a lot of hope that this person is going to represent you and is going to achieve some of your rights or struggle for your rights. And sometimes you feel disappointed. I can understand that at a certain level. But I think we need to remind ourselves we are a minority in this country, and we were delegitimized many years of having any influence in the decision making process is in this country. We might be disappointing, but those who are committing the oppression and discrimination are the governments and not us.

CO: I know you have to go in just a minute. So I'll just ask one last brief question. Do you fear the possibility of what some are saying might be a civil war that might be brewing in Israel?

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Well, maybe you are hearing in the background the sirens. I hope that in the next two days we will see a kind of a shift in this situation because also a little bit of Jewish voices, rational voices, are starting to rise up, and to say that we cannot continue this situation. And insecurity for the Palestinians as long as we are living near each other is going to bring also insecurity for the Jews. Civil war means both sides are going to pay a very high price. I hope that we will manage to avoid that situation. And the fact that tonight is a little bit more calm in our city is giving me some hope. But we keep hearing the news coming from Lod, which makes us worry again.

CO: We will be following developments. Ms. Touma-Suleiman I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you. Good night.

AIDA TOUMA-SULEIMAN: Thank you very much. Good night.

CH: Aida Touma-Suleiman is a joint Arab list member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. We reached her in Acre, Israel.

[Music: Piano Music]

Pandemic Preparedness

Guest: Joanne Liu

CH: In the early days of the pandemic, it was a major turning point when questions of if became questions of when. When would the World Health Organisation officially deem it a pandemic? When would Canada institute some kind of travel restrictions? When would people start working from home? Now, a major independent report says the answer to those questions and countless others should have been: sooner. It's published by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. The report calls COVID-19, "The 21st century's Chernobyl moment," and it says, last February was the pandemic's lost month. Dr. Joanne Liu is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Montreal and Canada's representative on the panel. She's in Montreal.

CO: Dr. Liu, we know that more than 3-million people have died because of COVID-19. We know tens of millions of sick and may have permanent damage. Just how much of this destruction might have been prevented, according to your report?

JOANNE LIU: Well, according to the independent panel report, we are quite sure that we could have averted this mega crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. What we found is A) we were not ready -- although we had so many warnings beforehand with SARS or H1N1, Zika, Ebola. But more than that is the fact that at the beginning of this pandemic, we lost some very very precious time in terms of the detection, in terms as well of calling the alert for a public health emergency of international concern. But more so is the fact that there was a lost month where most of the countries around the world sat on their hands and didn't do anything, having a wait and see approach to the pandemic.

CO: I want to ask you about that -- February 2020. What went wrong in that lost month?

JL: Well, what we know is nothing much happened. That's what we know. And there's only a handful of countries, mainly in South Asia, who geared up and started to act in terms of closing borders, restricting themselves in gathering, some of the resources to make sure they can protect themselves in hospital. And meanwhile, in many other countries, people were not doing much. They were sort of monitoring. But no real active action were being taken place from what we could understand.

CO: But we were also at that point in the dark, weren't we? I mean, China, as we've learnt from subsequent reports, was not disclosing the extent of the virus. We got the information very late. There were a lot of efforts to not have the information spread. The WHO did not aggressively send out the alert. So weren't there a lot of ways that it was impossible for those countries who you say sat on their hands -- did they sit on their hands or did they just not know?

JL: Well, I think I was pushed back a little bit on this. I think that the concern was shared that there was a new emerging infectious disease with pandemic potential on January 20th. And then the public health measures, the international concern was declared on the January 30th. And this is the highest level of alert for a public health emergency. So I think that we will need to revise and see how do we react when we receive that alert.

CO: At the same time, as you point out in the report amongst the obstacles to a faster response was that the World Health Organisation has what's known as international health regulations. Can you tell us how these rules, these regulations may have slowed things down?

JL: Well, that's a great question. And I think what was clear to us is that there were this new pathogens going on. And then the physicians were concerned and they shared with leaders their concern. But to go through the bureaucracy of getting to the alert level to the international health situation is very very cumbersome. So we need to have a system to be able to raise the alert as swiftly and as quickly as possible.

CO: The end of January of 2020 there -- this is a statement that is very revealing from the chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, this is for Canada, who said that Canada would not go further than anything that the World Health Organisation recommended due to these international health regulations that you're talking about and said that if WHO doesn't recommend travel bans, any measures, she said -- this is a quote -- 'That a country is to take must not be out of proportion to the risk and must not inappropriately impact travel and trade. We are signatories of the international health regulations and will be called to account if we do anything different.' What does that say to you?

JL: Yeah, thank you for raising this point. It's a very crucial point, actually. And one of the things that we are seeing in our report is we really believe that the precautionary principle should be applied. And so therefore our criticism is to say we should be much more leaning towards the cautious side rather than just say, no, there's no issue. And I think it's not only the travel ban that has been some concern about guidance, it's about the mask, it's about aerosols. There's a lot of, I would say, issue that the precautionary principle should have been applied and probably could have made a difference.

CO: But when Dr. Tam says we are signatories to this regulation and will be called to account if we do anything different. In what way would Canada be called to account if we had done in February what you believe we should have done?

JL: Unfortunately, I'm not competent to answer this question. So I cannot know what are the real consequences, legally speaking. But both of the countries actually in Southeast Asia were not following those recommendations. And I think now it's a good question for the past. But at the end of the day today, nothing matters.

CO: But at the same time, your report calls for the WHO to be empowered, to better prevent the next pandemic. So is this the issue? Is it authority or lack of authority?

JL: I think that we need a WHO with agile and it has the authority to do things. And one of the things that we think it is very important that WHO is able to do is is being able to share information as it has access to and don't need to basically ask the permission to do so. The other thing is to be able as well to send a team that can do a verification of what's going on, especially in a case of a novel pathogen or otherwise will always be left in the dark when something like this will happen again.

CO: Your report is titled COVID-19 Make It the Last Pandemic. So what's your honest answer, will we make this the last pandemic?

JL: You know, my heart of humanity, I really wish hard for the last pandemic. But I think what needs to happen, it's about elevating the threat of pandemic to the level of other threats like nuclear weapons, because everybody understands that those existential threats are so dangerous that you need to pay attention, you need to do something about it, and therefore you accept to lose a bit of sovereignty. And so this will only happen if at the highest level of our governance or authority, people want to take up this issue and just say we're going to fix it.

CO: Very interesting. Very important report. Dr. Liu thank you.

JL: Thank you very much.

CH: Dr. Joanne Liu is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Montreal and Canada's representative on the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. We reached her in Montreal.

[Music: String Music]

US Gas Shortage

Guest: Tanisha Edwards

CH: Colonial pipelines operations are back up and running, but the same cannot be said for gas stations in the southeastern United States. Last week, a ransomware attack shut down the pipeline's flow. It's considered the biggest cyber attack ever on US energy infrastructure. And it sent drivers into a panic in states like Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia cars lined up for blocks to wait for the pump. Some packed their cars to capacity with gas cans. And as you'd expect in this Mad Max scenario, there were fistfights. Now, hundreds of gas stations have no gas left. In North Carolina, 68 percent of the stations are out of gas, including the Exxon station where Tanisha Edwards works at the cash in Raleigh. That's where we reached her.

CO: Tanisha, what's the situation at the pumps today?

TANISHA EDWARDS: Today we are out of gas completely.

CO: And do you still have people looking to get gas?

TE: Yes, we do. They're calling every five minutes, every one minute, and they're coming up here. I just tell them that we don't have any. When they ask 'when we're going to get some' -- I tell them don't know, because I really don't know.

CO: At what point did you run out of gas?

TE: I want to say yesterday, but I'm not sure. By the time I got to where it was no gas. But I know the night before they had filled it up. So I'm not sure.

CO: How are people responding when they show up?

TE: They are normal. They're not angry or nothing. They're just shaking their head and asking questions. They are acting normal to me. [Chuckles]

CO: [Chuckles] But the scene yesterday...

TE: Can you hold on for a second?

CO: Yeah sure.

TE: Okay hold on. [Background noise] Hello.

CO: Hello Was that a customer looking for gas?

TE: No, they weren't looking for gas. They were looking for butter.

CO: [Laughter] And you have butter?

TE: No, we don't have any.

CO: Okay, so you're out of everything at this point.

TE: Yeah. Well, no, we still have -- actually, like the inside of the store has been really slow the past few days, like literally really slow. They have just been looking for gas. I guess they don't need anything inside the store really unless it's like a lottery.

CO: The scene outside yesterday with people wanting to get gas and jerrycans stuff. Can you describe that for us?

TE: The line was -- it's two ways you can get into the store. So the line was really all the way back to the highway. Like you couldn't get in. When it was time for me to leave work, I couldn't get out. Like you couldn't get in or out. Like it was just that serious.

CO: And tell us what people -- what were they filling up with?

TE: Some of them were trying to fill up with their car. Some of them was filling up with the gas cans.

CO: And did they have a lot of them?

TE: Some of them yeah.

CO: So jerrycans. We saw some pictures -- well it's not funny, actually, it's kind of dangerous -- but people filling up those grocery bags, those plastic sacks.

TE: I know. I seen that too. I didn't see it here. I seen pictures and videos. And I also seen them filling up like Tupperware.

CO: And does anyone warn people?

TE: [Talking to a customer] It's broke. You have to use the women's. Okay I'm here.

CO: The men's bathroom is broken?

TE: Umm hmm. Somebody broke the key off in the door. [Background noise] Hi I'm back.

CO: Hi again. Now, you mentioned that people are being pretty calm, but you have had some people who are pretty desperate to get get a fill up, right? Can you tell us about that?

TE: Really really desperate. Before the gas had ran out -- well, when it was running out, I had to put the pumps off. This lady was kind of pleading with me because she had a baby to let her get some more gas. But I was telling her that there wasn't anymore. And I kind of felt bad, but there was nothing I can do. She was Mexican talking, so I could barely really understand what she was saying. But she just kept saying, "Baby, baby. Gas. I need gas." [Inaudible]

CO: People, if they don't have their cars, they can't get around a car -- is there public transportation, anything else they can do or do they really rely on their vehicles?

TE: I think public transportation working. But I don't think many people are depending on it. I don't think many people want to, you know, get out there.

CO: When do you think you might get more gas?

TE: I'm not sure. I know he said that he was supposed to home last night, but I don't think that he did, because I guess they are still out of gas. So I'm not sure when.

CO: All right. Well, I hope you get something soon and hope you get the bathroom fixed and everything else and get some butter there. You need some butter. [Laughter]

TE: [Laughter] I know. Thank you so much.

CO: Take care Tanisha. Bye bye.

TE: Bye.

CH: Tanisha Edwards is a gas station clerk at an Exxon location in Raleigh, North Carolina, that is out of gas.

[Music: Clarinet Music]

Beavers

CH: [Phone ringing sound] Sorry, I'm just making a call here, I'll just be a sec. Yep, hello, 911. Yeah, I want to report a theft of fenceposts -- well, of wood that I was going to use to build a fence in a few months, probably. A big pile of it. Yes, it is an emergency. Do you have any idea how expensive wood is right now? Hello? Hmm. We were cut off. Anyway, sorry about that. Seems like lumber theft is a nationwide issue right now. At least there's me and the owner of a rural property in Saskatchewan who called the RCMP after a pile of would-be wooden fence posts disappeared. The responding constable understood the victim's distress, obviously, but found himself haunted by a gnawing doubt about the nature of the incident, leading him to take a little nature walk near the scene of the crime, which is where he figured out that the bandits were beavers, which had used the pilfered posts to build their dam. No charges will be laid. Between this and the story of the beavers who cut off a whole BC town's Internet, it seems like something is going on. So be warned: If you build it, they will come and then they will build it with your wood. And obviously they do not care about mending fences.

[Music: Dance Music]

Part 2: Denver Planes Collide

Denver Planes Collide

Guest: John Bartmann

CH: Looking at the wreckage, it is hard to believe everyone survived. Yesterday, two planes collided in midair over a Denver, Colorado suburb. One plane was nearly ripped in half. The other deployed an emergency parachute as it plummeted to the ground. And still, somehow no one was hurt. Arapahoe County Sheriff's Deputy John Bartmann was one of the first people to arrive on the scene after an emergency call came over his radio. We reached him in Centennial, Colorado.

CO: Deputy Bartmann, what did you think when you first heard about this emergency?

JOHN BARTMANN: The sheriff's office received a 911 call from residents in the area. And it stated that there was a plane crash. And originally it was believed that the plane crashed into a residence. We then heard that a second aircraft was involved and that it was a midair collision that had occurred. So originally, you think the worst on something like that, you think two airplanes midair, they've gone down and have hit a residence. As I responded to the scene, we received more information that the second plane was actually able to land at Centennial Airport with no injuries. It was a single pilot. And that the other plane had deployed a chute attached to the plane.

CO: And landed where?

JB: It landed in a recreational area. It's called Cherry Creek State Park. It's a state park and it has large open fields, probably 300 to 400 yards from houses.

CO: So people heard this. Is that how you first knew was that there were people calling in that they were seeing or hearing this crash?

JB: Yes. Originally the sheriff's office received the call, the 911 call, because they had either seen it or heard the crash and then saw the plane coming down -- the Cirrus SR22 with the parachute. They saw it coming down. South Metro Fire Rescue received the call from the actual air traffic control tower because they have a fire station on scene of the airport. So they also responded to the scene.

CO: When you get a call, when you are told that there has been a collision of aircraft in the air, what are you expecting to see when you get there?

JB: Well, we haven't had a actual collision in this area at Centennial Airport that I remember. But you obviously think the worst. You think that there's going to be death, destruction -- that's the first thing that comes to mind. That's the first thing that came to my mind as I responded.

CO: And what did you see when you got to the scene?

JB: When I got to the scene, South Metro Fire Rescue was on scene, along with our deputies from Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. And when I got up there, I immediately went to Incident Command and I had seen a gentleman standing by the downed aircraft. And I asked, is that a federal investigator thinking it was FAA or NTSB already? And they all were like, no, that's the pilot. And he was up walking around, talking on the phone. It was surprising.

CO: What did his plane look like?

JB: The plane, it had broken in half just behind the seating area, the passenger compartment. And that damage did not occur in the collision. It actually occurred from the impact of it hitting the ground, even though it had the parachute.

CO: So that's the one with the parachute. What about the other plane?

JB: The other plane, the Key Lime airline plane, was able to land and there was a large chunk of the fuselage taken out. If you listen to the air traffic control radio transmissions, that pilot wasn't even aware that part of his plane was missing. He actually thought he had blown an engine and had declared an emergency.

CO: Did they both know that they had collided?

JB: The Key Lime airline pilot did not know that he had collided.

CO: And did you talk to these pilots when you saw them?

JB: I personally did not talk to them, no.

CO: What would you say these guys, if you did?

JB: I'd be, hey, you know, this is miraculous that everybody survived. And I've joked that maybe it's time to buy a lottery ticket today.

CO: Now, so there were just the pilots in both these aircrafts? Was there anybody with them?

JB: In the Key Lime airline craft, there was the pilot only. And in the Cirrus SR22, there was a pilot and a passenger.

CO: Everyone walked away without any problems?

JB: Yeah. Everybody walked away without a scratch.

CO: Good heavens. Yeah, lots of lottery ticket to be purchased.

JB: Absolutely.

CO: Do you have any idea what happened?

JB: No, we don't right now. That now goes into the purview of the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, and the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board. They're kind of the traffic cops. So if you get in a car accident, the traffic officers come out, investigate the accident. In this case, when it comes to airplanes, NTSB would come in and they would figure out what the cause is, whether it was human error, whether it was mechanical error, anything like that. That removes us from that process and puts it into their wheelhouse.

CO: Were you able to talk to any of those neighbours, people in those houses close by where this plane landed?

JB: No, I was not able to.

CO: Well, maybe they should buy lottery tickets too.

JB: Very true

CO: The whole thing is amazing. Deputy Bartmann I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

JB: Thank you for the time.

CH: John Bartmann is an Arapahoe County Sheriff's deputy. We reached him in Centennial, Colorado, which is just outside Denver.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Vaccine Incentives

CH: Here in Canada, there are plenty of people still waiting to get their COVID vaccinations. And I bet in order to get one, some of us would be willing to give away a beer or tickets to a baseball game or even if we had a despair and we really wanted to speak moistly: a million dollars. Meanwhile, the United States is awash in vaccines, so much so that various jurisdictions are offering people incentives to get their shot. And some leaders have gotten pretty creative about what they're giving away. You've probably heard that Ohio's governor has created a lottery giving away a million bucks every week for the next five weeks to a vaccinated Ohioan. Maine naturally is giving out hunting and fishing licences. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is offering tickets to Yankees and Mets games. And in New Jersey, you can get a free beer. Well, this morning, New York City's mayor tried to tempt people to roll up their sleeves with some free Shake Shack. Here's what Bill de Blasio had to say between bites.

BILL DE BLASIO: [SOUNDCLIP: Free fries when you get vaccinated. I got vaccinated. [Chewing food sound] Saying I could get this delicious fries. But there's also a burger element to this. Let me check with Bill, is it too early in the day to eat a burger? This could be breakfast? Okay. I want you to look at this and think about, again, some people love hamburgers, some don't -- we really want to respect all ways of life. But if this is appealing to you, just think of this when you think of vaccination. Hmm vaccination. I'm getting a very good feeling about vaccination right this moment.]

CH: [Chuckles] I'm not getting a good feeling. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio this morning urging people in his city to get the COVID vaccine with a free side of fries and a burger element.

[Music: Guitar Music]

BC Museum Swifts

Guest: Pat Trask

CH: Earlier this month, you may have heard our interview with Patrick Belleville. After going out for dinner one evening, the California man returned home to find his place, looked like a scene from a horror movie.

PB: [SOUNDCLIP: I mean, from the... from the living room, to the bedrooms, to the bathrooms, every... every place in the house, there was birds, upstairs, downstairs. It was wild. I stopped counting at 800. Because I had to take them out one by one, actually, I was grabbing them four by... or two by two and just releasing them out the door.]

CH: Mr. Belleville went on to describe the days he spent removing the hundreds of birds by hand and the mess they left in his house. He told us they got in through the chimney. Here in Canada, in British Columbia, some birds have also taken a liking to a specific chimney. For several years now, swifts have been visiting the Courtenay and District Museum. And sometimes Pat Trask has to give them a hand out of there. He's the curator of natural history at the museum. We reached him in Courtenay on Vancouver Island.

CO: Pat, of course, it's always great to get visitors, you have a museum. But these are a different kind. How many are you getting of these avian visitors?

PAT TRASK: It sounds like there is maybe 4,500 of them on the weekend.

CO: Oh my gosh. The man we just heard from, we spoke to in California, he said he stopped counting at 800, but I think he estimated probably 1000. So you had at least four times what he had?

PT: Yeah. Fortunately, they didn't get loose in the museum. [Laughter] A few of them got stuck in the fire box of our boiler that are decommissioned, we don't use them anymore. But it only happens when there's thousands in the flock and they overfill the chimney.

CO: Okay. But what is the actual the chimney that these birds were getting into over the weekend?

PT: Well, every year they migrate and on the way they spend the night in chimneys in some places or hollow trees. That was typical of that bird was hollow trees. But there's not a lot of hollow trees anymore, so they pick a chimney. And so as they go down the chimney, they flock together and like a tornado and then they go down the chimney one at a time and it's like you can't count them. It's like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Try to do that. And then they all go in there and then they spend the night clung to the sides of the inside of the chimney.

CO: How big is this chimney?

PT: Well, the building is two stories tall, plus a basement. So it's going to be 30-40 feet tall.

CO: There's all these different kinds of swifts, I think you have a vaux swift -- is that what it's called?

PT: Yeah. This is a vaux swift.

CO: They have an enormous wingspan, but they're kind of tiny birds, aren't they?

PT: Oh, they're very small. You can hold them in your hand. They're very docile. They look like they got a big wingspan when they're stuck to the side of a wall. But that's the only time. Rest of the time they look just like a barn swallow. And they just fly around all day long and they eat bugs and they dip their beak in the water to get a drink. And at night time they come back to the roost and then the flock moves on over time.

CO: Now, you said that when you have them in hand, you can see how small they are, which is exactly what you have had, right, you had to remove some of these by hand. Can you tell us where the birds were getting stuck?

PT: Well, down through the bottom of the chimney, into the piping system, into these old boilers that we have in the firebox. They would like get into there. Most of them would get out at night. They would be able to get out in the morning. They would follow the bird beside them. But then some of them would get disoriented and then they would be stuck in the bottom. And they're just sitting there going, where am I? In the dark. And so yesterday morning, there was 55 in there. So you open the door to look in and then like once flies out and you go, oh, you know, fly around the room. And then there was a little window in there and it would fly over to the window sill and you could catch it that way or it fly over towards the door and then land on the floor beside the door and you can pick it up. I was reaching in the fire box and grabbing like a handful, like four at a time. Sometimes they make a few chirping noises, but most of the time they don't bite or anything. So it's not like you grabbing onto an eagle.

CO: And the man that we heard from from California who was removing them, it took him three days to remove all the birds from his house. But he said that the place was trashed. It was just covered in poo everywhere. He had to throw out all his furniture and everything. Have you had an issue like that?

PT: Well, some of them got loose in the engine room at one point, which isn't a bad spot. But there is a big pile of poop at the bottom of the chimney in the clean out. I'll tell you that [laughs]. That many birds leave a pretty good pile of guano.

CO: You have done nothing to discourage these birds. In fact, you make it possible for them, when they come back to...

PT: In the wintertime, we have a bird guard on the chimney to keep pigeons and things like that from going down. So then in the spring, before these birds arrive, we make sure that we get that guard off there so they can actually go down the chimney. Somebody predicted this years ago said Pat you guys could be ready, you should be ready, the swifts are going to use that chimney someday. I didn't know anything about these birds. So one day they did show up.

CO: And how many years have they been doing this?

PT: This is the fourth year in a row. They used to go up to Cumberland, which is a small community right near Courtenay, and used a chimney at I think it was a church. And apparently there something that chimney this week too.

CO: But again, that reflects the loss of habitat, right, for these birds?

PT: Exactly. You know, the old growth forest, those large open broken off tops of trees, the giants and typically would be the hollow ones, I think.

CO: Right. But they've not moved in for the long haul, have they? When do you expect them to head off looking for other places?

PT: They might be gone now. We checked the boiler this morning, there wasn't any in it. I didn't check the top of the pile of poop [laughs] to see if there's any new stuff. Maybe I'll put a piece of paper towel on there. I can check to see if they're in there over the night or not. There are people outside every night that have been counting them and photographing them. It's become quite a spectacle in our community for the birders.

CO: That's lovely. But just as quickly as they come, they go. Is that right?

PT: That's it. They're only here for a couple of weeks and then they're gone. And then hopefully return next year with a bigger flock.

CO: [Laughs] Well, as always, great to have visitors to your museum.

PT: That's it. And I welcome anybody at all to visit our museum. So maybe we'll see you here someday.

CO: I hope so. Pat thanks so much.

PT: Bye for now. Bye.

CH: Pat Trask is the curator of natural history at the Courtenay and District Museum. We reached him in Courtenay, British Columbia.

[Music: Calm Music]

Yawning

CH: The subject of your team Zoom meeting is iterating disruptive strategies to optimise synergy. Or maybe it's optimising synergistic iterations to disrupt strategies. It's 8:45 a.m. so you can't read yet. And as your supervisor drones on about core competencies and key learnings, you yawn on video. Well, here is a key learning for you -- as your supervisor glares at you, stare directly into her virtual eyes and say, excuse me, just thermo regulating my brain for optimal mental efficiency. According to Andrew Gallup of the State University of New York, that's not just jargon, it's true. Mr. Gallup has done a lot of research on yawning. Most recently, a new study of mammals and birds analysing almost 1,300 of their yawns. The researchers observed some of those yawns on video and some in person. As Jorg Massen from Utrecht University said, we went to several zoos with a camera and waited by the animal enclosures for the animals to yawn. That was a pretty long haul. The results seem to confirm the idea that bigger brained creatures yawn for longer durations because they have more brain to cool. It's the latest proof of Andrew Gallup's theory, which he talked about with Carol in 2008 after he had tested his hypothesis on parakeets. Here's part of that interview from our archives.

CO: [SOUNDCLIP: So how did you go about testing their yawning and why they yawn?

ANDREW GALLUP: Well, we developed the hypothesis that yawning may be a thermal regulatory mechanism. And in particular, we hypothesise that yawning may cool your brain. So we decided that if that is the case, yawning should be significantly influenced by ambient temperature change. So what we did in this experiment is that we manipulated the ambient temperature of these birds by either raising it very fast, keeping it at a very high temperature, or just testing them a natural room temperature. And what we noticed is that they yawn significantly more when you raise the temperature -- when it was increased rapidly. And we proposed that this is evidence to suggest that yawning maybe a cooling mechanism.

CO: Why would birds, I presume, and other animals like birds like ourselves who yawn -- why would we need to have our brains cooled?

ANDREW GALLUP: Well, brains operate like computers. They operate most efficiently when cool. Therefore, there have been physical adaptations that have occurred throughout all vertebrates to in order to maintain optimal brain temperature. And particularly in parakeets, they have relatively large brains in relation to other bird species. And therefore you would suspect that there would be adaptations to maintain an optimal brain temperature. We don't propose that yawning is a primary cooling mechanism, but we propose that yawning may be a compensatory cooling mechanism.

CO: And so when you yawn you're taking in some air. And that means, of course, you take it in and it plays that's close to your brain, and we actually cool it like a radiator?

ANDREW GALLUP: Yeah, that would be pretty correct. When you yawn, you have increases in facial blood flow that result as a consequence. And we argue that this may operate like a radiator, removing hypothermic blood from specific areas of the brain -- that is blood that's warm, and while introducing cooler blood from the lungs and extremities.

CO: So let's test this on some various situations where people tend to yawn a lot and maybe you can explain why they would yawn, according to your theory. It appears when people are bored, they yawn a great deal. Does that fit with your theory?

ANDREW GALLUP: Well, it's something that I'd like to look into. Yawning is commonly associated with boredom. For instance, I work at a university and it's not uncommon to see students yawn excessively during class periods. And what I would suggest is that usually yawning is seen as an insult, if yawn in front of someone. But according to our hypothesis, yawning may actually maintain optimal mental efficiency and focus and therefore yawning should be looked at as a compliment.

CO: Aha. So you yawn in someone's face while they're talking, they should regard that as a good thing? I'm trying to take in more information of what they're telling me.

ANDREW GALLUP: Absolutely. It's a signal that you're trying to pay attention to them.]

CH: From December 2008, that was Carol's conversation with ethologist Andrew Gallup about his theory that yawning helps to cool our brains.

[Music: Synth Music]

Stanley Vollant

CH: Today, the coroner's investigation into the death of Joyce Echaquan began in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. Ms. Echaquan was the 37 year old Atikamekw woman who streamed video of nurses mocking her in a Quebec hospital before her death last year. The three week inquest will not assign blame, but is meant to give the coroner a better understanding of the circumstances that led to Ms. Echaquan's mistreatment and death. One of the witnesses will be Dr. Stanley Vollant, Quebec's first Indigenous surgeon and a member of the Pessamit Innu Nation on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence.

STANLEY VOLLANT: [SOUNDCLIP: I will give you an example. One of my colleagues just completed her Phd. She's a teacher at the University of Abitibi-Temiscamingue in Val-d'Or. And when she was pregnant, the nurse told her, do you take drugs? Do you take alcohol? She said, no, no. And they said, really? Really you don't take those? There's lot of stories about systemic racism, I can tell you for hours. But I think we have to educate people, educate health care professionals about the culture of safety, and also to make an environment that is safe for Indigenous people when they are facing health care problems and they're entering the health care system.

ALISON BRUNETTE: What do you think this will be like for yourself and for others testifying at the enquiry?

STANLEY VOLLANT: I think there's going to be a lot of histories, sad stories, bad stories about bad encounters, bad communication. And I think people are not really [inaudible]. But the colonisation -- we have to decolonised our relationship. The education process have made people -- maybe there are some racist, I would say, thought that there are within us. And I will give you an example. I'm Indigenous. I've been educated in the health care system in Quebec. And often I have those thoughts of maybe Indigenous people. Maybe their problem is because there are a lot of drunk people. And so I'm taking the same position than the non-Indigenous people. So systemic racism is very deep inside us and we have to decolonise our relationship. We have to decolonise our education. And I think one day we're going to be able to be treated as equal. But that's going to take a lot of time. And I'm sorry that the government of Quebec doesn't recognise systemic racism as the rest of Canadians are recognising that this problem that we have to say that it exists and we have to do actions to overcome this problem.]

CH: That was Dr. Stanley Vollant speaking to CBC Quebec's Alison Brunette. Dr. Vollant is a member of the Pessamit Innu Nation, and he's Quebec's first Indigenous surgeon. He'll be testifying at the coroner's enquiry into the death of Joyce Echaquan.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Part 3: Ovarian cancer researchers disappointed after trial finds regular screenings fail to reduce deaths

Ovarian Cancer Screening

Guest: Usha Menon

CH: For one oncologist on the research team, the findings are desperately disappointing. The results of a major randomised trial that involved annual screening for ovarian cancer have been published in the journal The Lancet this week. And the results show that such routine screening did not save lives. The research goes back decades and involved more than 200,000 women who were followed for an average of 16 years. Usha Menon is the lead investigator and a professor of gynaecological cancer at University College London. We reached her in London.

CO: Professor Menon, I know you have spent years of your career working on this trial. How hard has this been for you to accept these results?

USHA MENON: The results have been disappointing, quite disappointing really, because for the whole team, for all of us, we'd seen some signal in 2015 when we did an analysis, we could see that women were getting detected earlier. So we had some hope that we would be able to impact on this terrible disease and save lives. We underlined the data only in December, so it's not like we knew the results for a long time. We had just been digesting these results over the last three months.

CO: This is a trial that I understand was over about 16 years. What were you trying to see in this trial?

UM: Our aim was to try and establish a screening program for ovarian cancer like we have for cervical and breast cancer. With that in mind, we invited about 1.2-million women. 200,000 joined. We then randomly allocated them in one group -- we called it the control group. The women had no screening, which is a standard. And then 50,000 women had a blood test every year for up to 11 years. We measured a protein called CA 125 levels of which go up in ovarian cancer. And we were looking at changes in the level. And we called it multimodal screening. And in the other group, the scan group, the women had an internal scan every year to look for abnormalities in the ovary. What we found was that with the blood test, we were able to detect in a proportion of women cancers earlier. So that when we compared the stage of the women at diagnosis in the blood, there were a higher proportion of early stage and a lower proportion of advanced stage cancers compared to the normal screening. We did not see this in the scan group. Unfortunately, this did not translate into lives saved.

CO: Why do you think that's the case? If you were able to detect this earlier in the group getting the blood tests, why couldn't that lead to preventing deaths?

UM: So I think we did not pick it up earlier in a large enough group of women. So while we did pick it up in more women and statistically, we say, it's significant. I think the group, it was not a big enough proportion, a number of women in whom we picked it up. And also, though we picked it up earlier, it was not early enough. We probably need a test that picks it up even earlier.

CO: And you have not found that?

UM: There are other groups working on a number of new deaths, some of which look very promising. So I don't want to give anyone the impression that everything is over now. This is a setback, but not a defeat for those of us working in early detection of ovarian cancer.

CO: Can you tell us a bit about ovarian cancer and why it seems difficult to get an early diagnosis for this disease?

UM: So ovarian cancer continues to be the most fatal of the gynaecological cancers. At least the main reason seems to be because the ovaries are small, there's a lot of space in the pelvis and the abdomen. So the symptoms are slow to emerge and the cancer grows for some time without any symptoms. And some of the symptoms can be easily missed and mistaken for less serious conditions. This, together with some of the innate aggressiveness of some of ovarian cancers, leads to women being diagnosed when the disease has spread beyond the ovaries and is quite advanced.

CO: I guess then the goal is-- the gold bar that you're seeking is to be able to get some kind of an annual screening that all women can take to see, other things like pap smears. I mean, that what you're trying to find as a way to have an annual test?

UM: That is correct. The goal is to have a test like the pap smear, which would pick up the disease before they are aware of symptoms.

CO: How close or how far are we from having such a thing?

UM: The fact that we haven't been successful with UKCTOCS means that we will now have to go to the board again and researchers in this area would need to now try and test some of the new blood tests and imaging that is coming through. But for these big population screening programs, we have to do a trial like UKCTOCS to show that lives are saved. So unfortunately, you know, a population screening program like we have for cervical cancer is somewhere down the line.

CO: In the meantime, is there anything you can say, advice you can give to women listening to this -- we know breast self examinations are very useful and important, also getting breast tests. Is there anything that women can do to maybe have their own early detection possibly of ovarian cancer?

UM: I think at the moment the focus is on increasing the awareness of ovarian cancer symptoms, both amongst women as well as amongst their practitioners, their primary care physicians, so that they can be fast tracked to diagnosis. I think that a major efforts with many cancer charities involved, as well as health organisations, make women aware that persistent bloating -- you know, that is one of the kind of key symptoms associated with ovarian cancer. And I guess at this point, that is where the focus is to try and decrease the interval to diagnosis in symptomatic women. You know, while I'm speaking about early detection, I do want to let everyone know that a lot of advances have been made in the treatment of ovarian cancer and continue to be made.

CO: Well, we will leave it there. And I wish you success. I know you're being so persistent with this as you have for years, but we wish you well in your research Professor Menon. And thank you for speaking with us.

UM: And thank you for having me on the program.

CH: Usha Menon is the lead investigator on the UK collaborative trial of ovarian cancer screening. Results from that research have just been published in The Lancet. We reached Professor Menon in London. And you can find more on that story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Calm Music]

Eillen Ledger

CH: It's still unclear how Eileen Ledger's story will end. But right now she's just relieved that someone believes her. The Anishinaabe nurse and residential school survivor first complained about conditions at her Edmonton remand centre job in 2018. She says co-workers began making racist comments when she protested the acquittal of Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley, who had shot and killed the 22 year old Indigenous man, Colten Boushie two years prior. But Ms. Ledger says that when she came forward, she was reassigned and placed on leave. Now there will be a human rights tribunal hearing into her allegations that Alberta Health Services failed to act on her complaints. The news comes after the chief of Alberta's Human Rights Commission overturned a previous decision that found no connexion between his actions and Eileen Ledger's race. And for the 65 year old nurse, that is welcome news.

EILEEN LEDGER: [SOUNDCLIP: I am very happy that it's overturned. Overall, I went about my work independently. But there was several encounters that I've had with people that worked within the Edmonton Corrections, and they were not very nice to me or to my culture. I was called [censor bleep] Indian. I was beside a high ranking officer who said, I don't call them Indians, I call them savages. And I just looked at him and he just laughed at me. And I went to my managers frequently. I filled in event forms for solicitor general and I got no response. I felt very worthless and no appreciation for my work and all the dedication. I'm a very hardworking nurse and I'm very committed to nursing. And I don't have no racism in me at all because I grew up with racism all my life and I don't want that for anybody. And I was very hurt. It was like I was a burden coming to them. I go to a rally for Colten Boushie and they just tore me to strips for that -- for participating in a rally that was a peaceful rally just to bring awareness to how Indigenous people are treated really like the bottom of the barrel people. There's no justice for Indigenous people. It's just us that are being discriminated, racism, killed, all the murdered and missing Indigenous women. Like we are just swept under the rug. They don't take us seriously. I have been telling my story since February 2018 and nobody believed me. And I was so relieved. And I just praised the creator. I said, somebody believes me.]

CH: Eileen Leger is an Anishinaabe nurse in Edmonton, Alberta. She spoke with the CBC's Jennie Russell.

[Music: Piano Music]

SD Pitcher Arm

Guest: Parker Hanson

CH: Parker Hanson has his arm back. Mr. Hanson is a pitcher with the Augustana University Vikings, the arm in question isn't his pitching arm, it's his prosthetic arm -- the latest in a series of prosthetics he's used since birth. It was stolen early this month, so he immediately put out an all points bulletin on social media to no avail. And then on Tuesday came the call from the local recycling depot. We reached Parker Hanson in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

CO: Parker, what did the guys at the recycling depot say when they returned your arm?

PARKER HANSON: So on Tuesday morning, I just got a text from my coach and he said that my arm has been found and then he sent me the address. And so I quickly drove up there and went to the office there and ran and I walked in. I mean, the lady there to start smiling and she goes, Yeah, I'll go, get my manager. And then she called all the workers together in the warehouse. And we went out there and they gave me my arm back. And I mean, they were all just so happy and smiling. And I mean, it was just kind of a cool moment, especially that the two guys that found out, I mean, they were super excited.

CO: And they had seen the postings, the social media, about this arm being stolen. Is that right?

PH: Well, the first guy that saw it, he grabbed it and he doesn't have any social media, so he didn't recognise it. So he was getting ready to throw it away. But then the other guy, he saw it all over the news and he got super excited, started jumping up and down, yelling, stop, stop, stop. So, yeah, they were able to grab it and bring it to the office and then obviously return it to me.

CO: And what kind of shape was it in when you got it?

PH: It's pretty scratched up and there's a couple of small cracks in it. But prosthetics are pretty durable. I mean, they have to go through quite a bit to be completely destroyed. But Shriners Hospital, said that they would like to replace it anyway. So that's cool. But the only issue, I guess, with it was there some broken glass. I put my arm on there for a little bit and I got some glass shards in my arm, in my actual arm. So I'm hoping I can still try to get those things out so I can use it. But we'll see if that's able to happen or not.

CO: Can you just take us back to that moment when you realised that the prosthetic arm was gone?

PH: Yeah. So I just woke up that morning, my roommate came by my door and said that we had our cars broken into. My heard dropped a little bit then. But I walked out there and started looking around and I'm like, I think I had my backpack or prosthetics in there, but I'm not 100 percent sure. So I came back inside to my room, looked, my bag wasn't there. That's when I realised that my prosthetics were gone. And yeah, just kind of a heartbreaking moment. But pretty shortly after when I made the first Facebook post about it, the amount of support that I got was just incredible where I mean, it's hard to be sad still just because I knew so many people are supporting me. And I mean, basically everything was going to be okay at the end of the day.

CO: In your Facebook post, you said to the person in Sioux Falls last night who felt the need to steal other people's property, I hope those prosthetic arms and attachments bring you more use than they brought me. What was the message you were trying to send to the thieves?

PH: Basically, just like I know there's people out there that need stuff that are struggling more than others, but prosthetics aren't really a thing that people need, you know? I mean, you can't sell those. You can't really do anything with them unless you are an amputee like me. So I was just kind of saying, like, I hope you know what you took because you took a lot from me. And I mean, I was pretty hurt in that moment, but I won't ever wish ill upon someone. I mean, just kind of maybe get the word out there that, you know, you took a part of my livelihood here.

CO: Were you surprised by the reaction? Because lots of people not only were deeply moved by this, but contributed to a fund in order to get you a new prosthetic arm. What did you make of the reaction?

PH: Oh just incredible. It made everything so much easier to just the immediate reaction from so many people reaching out, wanting to help or just sharing the story, maybe getting my prosthetics back. And obviously it helped. But I mean, it was super humbling and it really rejuvenated myself, just realising how much good is in the world still. And there's a lot of good people out there that, you know, want to do good by others. And it really made me feel a lot happier.

CO: Do you think that people are also inspired by your story, that you're a right handed reliever born without a left hand, as I understand, and that you're in sports and you are doing so well in it. Do you think that was also something that inspired people?

PH: Yeah, it's definitely something that has inspired people. Even before this happened, there a few news stories done about me that got out there. And I've had a lot of families reach out to me whether they have a disability or a kid of theirs has a disability where I've been able to meet up with them and talk to them. So, I mean, it's definitely reached a lot of people. I mean, obviously, it is a pretty motivational story, I guess, or inspirational story. And I mean, that's kind of what I want to do with my life too, just be able to give back to others and use my platform that I have as a college athlete to maybe help motivate or inspire other people that are struggling or facing some obstacles in life, whether it's a disability or just something that everyone struggles with. So that's kind of my whole goal in my life, is just to give back and hopefully help make other people's lives easier.

CO: People are giving to you because they want you to get a new prosthetic. But at the same time, you've already got more than you need in the way of money. What will you do with the rest of the funds?

PH: All the donations are going straight to charities, Shriners Hospital for Children, and then Nubability Athletics. And the Shriners Hospital, they work with a bunch of kids with disabilities and doing surgeries for children to make their lives easier, so they are a big influence in my life since I was eight years old. I have been going to the Shriners, getting prosthetic arms from them. So I want to get back to them and hopefully help some kids out through them. And then with Nubability Athletics, it's an organisation that just goes throughout the United States putting on youth sports clinics for kids with disabilities basically just gives hope to those kids and maybe inspires them to try to play normal sports in high school and stuff like that. Sports is a big thing in my life, obviously. So if I can help get kids involved in sports that would be the ultimate goal of this whole thing, I'd say.

CO: Meanwhile, it is baseball season and you have a playoff game tonight, I think. So are you feeling pretty good going into that game?

PH: Yeah, we have a great team, great coaches here too. And it's just a really good program here at Augustana. And spirits are high here. And obviously it's just been a good week with getting my arm back and all that. So my spirits are high too. So all the stress is gone now and we can just focus up before the game.

CO: Parker, you are an inspiration.

PH: I appreciate that. Thank you.

CO: I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

PH: Have a good day.

CH: Parker Hanson is a pitcher with the Augustana University Vikings. We reached him in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and you can find more about that story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Ideas Promo: Embracing Uncertainty

CH: Coming up on Ideas: embracing uncertainty. We're all probably overwhelmed with questions right now, when will this pandemic be over? How am I supposed to continue trying to cope? What will life be like afterwards? Well, a century ago, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke urged us not to obsess over answering the questions that plague us, but rather to love them.

VOICE 1: Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.

VOICE 2: So if there's a really big question that you're facing in your life and we face big questions all the time, we want to get over them and through them and be done with them.

VOICE 1: Don't search for the answers which could not be given to you now because you would not be able to lift them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.

VOICE 2: I kind of think our lives are filled with big questions right now. I mean, you are in pandemic times, right? So you're in lockdown. That's a big question. Every day you wake up thinking, when is this going to be over? Right. Your other question would be, what am I going to do when this is over? Because you won't even know anymore. And this is why the poetry is so strangely resonant. I think we are sort of thinking we're going to be redeemed from this from the outside, and then you're going to step out into the sunshine and then you're saddled with Rilke's questions. What do I do with my life now? And I Rilke would say it leaves you exactly in the same spot, but you may have been pushed to a place where you think, okay, after this, I'm changing my life.

VOICE 1: For here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.

CH: Lessons from Rilke on uncertainty, grief and transformation. That's tonight on Ideas after As It Happens.

[Music: String Music]

Pervis Staples

CH: According to his sister, Mavis, when Pervis Staples was growing up in Chicago, he had a favourite summer pastime. He and his friends would meet under a lamp post in the evening to sing doo wop together. That image seems to capture something about the man who died this month at the age of 85. Confirming the death of a Rolling Stone, Mavis Staples told the magazine that her brother was one of a kind comical and downright fly, always willing to help and encourage others. He was one of the good guys. In the late 1940s when Pervis was still a teenager, his father formed The Staple Singers with his children. They started out as a gospel group with a sound once described as joy and thunder. But Pervis Staples wanted to put that joy and thunder to work outside of gospel music. He urged his father to allow them to branch out into message music. Eventually, Pops was persuaded after seeing Martin Luther King Jr. preach. Mavis recalls him saying If he can preach it, we can sing it. Their music, both secular and traditional, would become an integral part of the civil rights movement, not to mention music history.

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May 13, 2021 Episode Transcript

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