Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The AIH Transcript For October 07, 2021

[hosts]Carol Off, Chris Howden[/hosts]

CAROL Off: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

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

[music: theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

CO: Needle in a haystack. After a century of medical research, the WHO finally approves a vaccine for malaria; a doctor in Ghana tells us he's glad he lived to see the day -- especially after some bouts with the disease himself.

CH: Pulling out all the stops. A federal judge temporarily halts a Texas law that bans nearly all abortions -- but the director of an organization that supports Black women's healthcare says a lot of damage has already been done.

CO: Up against the walls. Because of faulty building blocks, thousands of houses in Ireland are crumbling -- and now, desperate homeowners are demanding the government do something constructive.

CH: He had serious reservations. And now. he'll have more. Over the course of the pandemic, a Toronto restaurateur has had a lot on his plate -- so the news that he made the list of the World's Best Restaurants is especially sweet.

CO: New Squid on the block. The Korean show Squid Game is blowing up, which is great for Netflix, but not so great for a South Korean internet service provider -- which is also, unfortunately, blowing up.

CH: And… urine luck. Keepers at the Toronto Zoo trained a female orangutan to pee in a cup -- which is how they were able to give her a pregnancy test -- which is how they learned she's expecting.

CH: As It Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that's glad it's become apparent that she'll become a parent.

CH: As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that figures that means the cabal’s in your court.

[music: theme]

Part 1: Malaria Vaccine WHO, Irish Collapsing Houses, Orangutan Pregnant

Malaria Vaccine WHO

Guest: Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano

CH: For more than a century, scientists have been on a quest to develop a vaccine against malaria to save children's lives. The parasitic disease kills nearly half a million young people each year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. And now, after a successful pilot immunization program in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi, the WHO has endorsed the British-made vaccine, Mosquirix, for wide use. Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano leads Ghana's pilot malaria vaccination program. We reached him in Accra, Ghana.

CO: Dr. Amponsa-Achiano, what does it mean for you to hear the news the WHO has endorsed this vaccine for malaria?

DR. KWAME AMPONSA-ACHIANO: Well, I was... I was very, very excited. I was driving at the time. [slight chuckle] I quickly parked and started calling a couple of friends.

CO: [slight chuckle] And how did your colleagues react when you all talked about this?

DKAA: Oh yes, I remember one of them; we had a chat on WhatsApp, one of my big, big, big people. He said, oh, this has happened in our lifetime. That was the exclamation.

CO: In your lifetime, what have you seen of the effects of malaria?

DKAA: I myself suffered it, so... and I attended to quite a lot of children in my early days as a doctor working in a remote area in the northern part of the country. I was glued to my ward, and that was a children's ward. And it was quite difficult sometimes, especially around the rainy season when malaria was at its peak.

CO: What do you remember of what it was like to have malaria?

DKAA: You lose school days. You are not of yourself. You get admitted sometimes. And this is not a pleasant feeling at all. Sometimes, you feel like you are... you are dying.

CO: And you did see, I'm sure, people who did die of malaria.

DKAA: Oh, definitely, I did. I did see. We made a lot of attempts to... to revive some of them. But of course, those who had come very, very late, it was quite some time, it was difficult to save them.

CO: And how often did you think if only we had some kind of vaccine, if only we had some immunization? Is that something you and the other doctors talked about?

DKAA: Yes, it's something we've been discussing even as students. We saw a malaria vaccine very, very far away. It was as if it was impossible. So when the news came in 2014, 2015 that there was a vaccine that had a lot of potential, and especially after receiving the positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency, I was particularly excited to be part of the pilot after they had done the clinical trials in 2014. That seemed impossible, but now, it's a reality.

CO: And this work you did with malaria, did... is it one of the reasons... is that what perhaps inspired you to become a doctor?

DKAA: What actually inspired me to become a doctor was the fact that I was sick myself in my childhood. I used to be very sick, very often. And so I thought, I mean, I had that vision to become a doctor. When you are a kid, all you... you do is you want to become something. And I remember any time my dad asked me, I said, I wanted to be a doctor to heal the sick, apparently because of my experience with me myself being ill in my childhood. And that's what actually inspired me.

CO: And has it been satisfying? Have you been able to make the difference that you'd hoped?

DKAA: I think so. But it was... it would be for my peers and colleagues to judge. But I, within my own body, I feel that I have done something not just in malaria, but especially in other infectious diseases and even non-infectious diseases as well. I think... I believe that I brightened my corner.

CO: And in the area of infectious diseases, we're seeing with COVID-19 how quickly there was a vaccine, that this... and a very effective one. Why do you think it's taken so long to develop some kind of vaccine against malaria?

DKAA: OK, so we are talking very different organisms. One is a virus. The other is a parasite. Very complex indeed, which has a life cycle both in humans and in mosquitoes. And this is a very elusive, invasive parasite for which erasing it has been very, very difficult. You know, the... the virus, I believe as a scientist will tell us, is a very simple one. Can easily do the genomic sequencing for which we can have a blueprint for production of a vaccine. But the parasite is quite a tricky one. With different stages living within the humans, you have different stages. And then, within the mosquito, you have different stages, and that makes life very, very difficult potential vaccine development.

CO: And even with this vaccine, it's not as effective as this COVID vaccines or the ones that are available. That this one is about 30 per cent effective, right? There are only... only about three or four out of 10 cases of malaria that would actually be prevented. Is that correct?

DKAA: That is correct, but that is more moderately efficacious. And we have demonstrated in real life… and what we did was more of trying to see if it was possible to incorporate these vaccines into the routine. And incidentally, I have the immunize... the public immunization program in country, so I do all childhood vaccines and COVID as well. But, of course, you don't look just at the efficacy. You also look at how the disease has been behaving in terms of the numbers of people that are affected. And so that if you look at malaria, the prevalence of malaria is very, very, very high. You... you can have about 40 out of 100 sometimes prevalence in a particular geographic area, and that is quite high. So if you have a vaccine that is moderately efficacious... and not just that vaccine, but you are adding on to the existing interventions, then obviously it's good news. It's exciting for us.

CO: It's also takes a number of... of shots, doesn't it? Because it's... it requires four doses over the early months and the first year-and-a-half of a child's life. And so, how difficult is that going to be and how costly would that be in order to administer an inoculation program like that?

DKAA: So that is why we did a pilot to see how it fares within the routine. And it's been demonstrated that it is possible at least the first three doses are given when the child is under... under two years and mostly is under one. And that is when childhood immunizations would take place, including growth monitoring and other childhood interventions. And so, for cost-effectiveness, studies have shown that it is quite cost-effective in terms of the impact that it will have eventually.

CO: This is such good news. Dr. Amponsa-Achiano, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

DKAA: Thank you very much for having me.

CO: Bye-Bye.

CH: Dr. Kwame Amponsa-Achiano leads Ghana's pilot malaria vaccination program. We reached him in Accra, Ghana. And you can find more on that story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: bright piano]

Irish Collapsing Houses

Guest: Noel Noone

CH: One homeowner compared the blocks of his house to flaky cereal. Another worried about her place collapsing -- and said her son regularly asked if it was safe to go to bed at night. Just two of the stories that people whose homes were built with faulty blocks have told the Guardian. Thousands in Ireland are affected by the so-called mica scandal -- and campaigners say it's ruined lives. Tomorrow, campaigners who are demanding "100% redress" from the government are headed to Dublin. Noel Noone and his family are going to the demonstration. Mr. Noone has worked with the Mica Action Group. We reached him in Quigley's Point in county Donegal, Ireland.

CO: Noel, I know you moved into your forever home back in 2006, and when did you start to notice that things were not quite right?

NOEL NOONE: Carol, it would have been around 2011, probably after we had probably the coldest winter we've had for quite some time here. So, yeah, the cracks kind of opened up a lot more, and we ended up [chuckling] having moss and things growing out of the cracks, so.

CO: Good heavens! You eventually had an engineer come out to your place. What did you learn?

NN: So, yeah, we got a structural engineer, and he came out, and some of the render had been falling off the house. So some of the actual blocks were already exposed. From that, we were able to visibly see cracks in the block itself, but it wasn't actually in the mortar that was tying all the blocks together. So the blocks were physically cracking, but the mortar was still intact, so you could visibly see the cracks rolling through the house and rolling through the render. And then you come to the exposed area, and you can see those cracks continuing on up through the blocks and then on through the render as well. There were web-like crackings at that stage. The engineer kind of took out his car keys and was able to pick the block away as such with his car keys with a little bit of force from that. And it was kind of then that he had seen similar properties with similar characteristics. And we believe the blocks to be defective.

CO: These are… are these concrete blocks?

NN: These would have been the concrete blocks that were manufactured locally in Buncrana at the time we built the house.

CO: It's now estimated that there are 20,000 homes with these faulty blocks. Is that right?

NN: Yeah. I would put the estimate in Donegal alone, probably close to 10,000. But in the past couple of months, the last six months, Mayo has a quite a few number of homes affected, and County Sligo, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, all have homes that are showing signs of defective blocks from that area around, you know, the Celtic Tiger as we would call it here in Ireland.

CO: When there was a…. when there was a lot... there was a lot of construction going on, new housing. We've done some stories in the past about some pretty bad construction problems. But in this case, what you were discovering was that there was excessive amounts of a mineral known as Mica. And that was in these concrete blocks. And that was what was making them into, as one gentleman called, it was like having Weetabix as the bricks in your house.

NN: Yes, that's... that's basically what it came down to it. And again, kind of going back to the Celtic Tiger, even today's, you know, the standards, the building standards in Ireland, have let us down because, you know, companies that manufacture these blocks are self-regulating and self-certifying their product to a standard that, you know, there's no quality control done or the local councils haven't adhered to... to, you know, audit or inspect these quarries on a regular basis to make sure the product is fit for purpose.

CO: These... you can't live in these houses, right? You... you moved out. You had someplace to live a family member could provide.

NN: Yes.

CO: But what about all the people in these other houses? What effect is it having on them that they have houses that are dangerously defective?

NN: Yeah, you know, just recently, I was speaking to a local family. They're less than five miles away. They have a couple of kids that have special needs, and they just actually got confirmation as well that their has to be demolished. So they're not looking at... you know, there's nowhere locally to rent because houses of mica or, you know, there's just... there is no available spare homes. But these guys are actually looking at buying a caravan to put on-site or a mobile home to put it on site to live in possibly for, you know, 12 to 18 months possibly, 24 months with two children with special needs. We're fortunate. I know our predicament is not great. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but you know, there are some homeowners out there that it just beggars belief that this has been allowed to go on for so long.

CO: The government has offered various schemes to cover the costs of repair. I understand very complex documents need to be filled out and that they don't cover the full cost of what it would actually be to build a house. So you are now... you and others are, well, tomorrow you're going to march on Dublin to demand compensation. What does the government need to do for you and the others?

NN: The current scheme, as it stands, is not feasible for the likes of myself or any other family that's trying to rebuild. Basically, it would be a 90-10 scheme. The government would pay 90 per cent of it, and we would pay 10 per cent for a betterment of our homes. But in effect, when you... when you got down to it and like myself, when I got into the scheme and got approved, I go to a contractor to get a price from the contractor. You know, the prices I'm getting back are nowhere near what the government were going to allocate for me rebuilding the house. I'm looking at possibly $120,000 to $150,000 to rebuild my home on top of what the government would give me. I don't... I don't have that calm and capacity [chuckling] to... to have a second mortgage to pay for that. And, you know, it was not our fault. You know, we didn't knowingly go out and buy a defective product. So, yeah, tomorrow it's kind of to let the government know, like, this problem won't go away. We won't go away. It's getting worse. And if it takes us to come to Dublin again, we'll come in bigger numbers again. I do think tomorrow, we will have, you know, one of the largest protests in Ireland's history in current times descended on Dublin. Because the feeling up here is, you know, the government are just wanting to leave Donegal behind.

CO: Noel, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. I think people listening to this would just think it's a nightmare. And I hope this gets straightened out. And I hope you and your kids can have a place to live that you can call your own. And I appreciate you speaking with us. Thank you.

NN: No problem, Carol. Thank you. Thank you for your sentiment as well.

CO: Goodnight, Noel.

NN: OK. Goodnight, Carol.

CH: Noel Noone is headed to Dublin tomorrow to call on the government to provide more support for people, like him, affected by the mica scandal. We reached him in Quigley's Point, Ireland.

[music: bright piano]

Orangutan Pregnant

Guest: Amanda Carroll

CH: How can you tell if an orangutan is pregnant? Well, if they live in a zoo, you just get them to pee in a cup -- and then use your standard drug store pregnancy kit, which is what happened not long ago at the Toronto Zoo. At which point, keepers learned that Sekali, a Sumatran orangutan, is pregnant. She's expected to give birth in the spring. And the zoo says that's good news for her species, which is endangered. Amanda Carroll is a keeper at the Toronto Zoo.

CO: Amanda, how did you and the others on your team... how did you respond when you got the happy news?

AMANDA CARROLL: We've been suspecting it since very early on in the pregnancy. But we were excited to get the confirmation from our reproductive department here at the Toronto Zoo.

CO: Now, we just mentioned in the introduction that essentially... that to find out if Sekali is pregnant, you do what other people do. [chuckling] You have to get a test, and the pee is key to that. So how did you train Sekali to pee in a cup?

AC: So we had trained this behaviour quite a while ago, many years ago. You know, it's just kind of a... a proactive behaviour. In case that we think that they're sick, it was something that we could test. It was an opportunistic training behaviour. So just whenever we would see them urinating in their holding space when we were back there, we would say good pee, and we would go over and give them a reward. So a peanut or figs usually were their favourite. First, we were just trying to get the behaviour that we pinpointed. We like the peeing part of it. And then, prior to this, they had been trained to present body parts up to the mesh. So they had a behaviour which we called bum, and we would be asking them to come up to the front of the mesh and present their genitals up to the mesh. So whenever we would catch them peeing, and after we rewarded that behaviour to mark that... that we liked that peeing behaviour, then we started asking for them to present their bum up to the while, they were peeing. When we had that, then we would start holding up the cup and collecting that urine. So our holding space is really unique in that it runs in a circle. So all of the orangutans can see what the other orangutans are doing. So they all got to watch each other learn this behaviour. So once one got it, we would go over to them and show them, you know, that we collected the urine in it. And they saw that that orangutan got rewarded for it. So they all really picked up on it. Once one got it, they all seemed to pick up on it quickly, but it really was a slow process. I thought that they would click in to what we were asking for a lot quicker. And so it did take a couple of months to train the behaviour. But once one got it, it went really quickly.

CO: So you already suspected that she might be pregnant? Was that possibly... did that begin when you actually introduced her to the dad of this, this baby she's going to have? This is Budi, right?

AC: Yeah. So we had introduced them starting back in February, so it had been a couple of months. But there are a couple of signs that we noticed. So one is orangutans will get a labial swelling, so it's the external part of their genitals will start becoming more swollen. So we did notice that. As well as we do collect urine from these guys regularly, and we do track our females periods. So we'll use hemosticks because they don't bleed very heavily. So sometimes, it does go unnoticed. So we use the hemosticks in their urine, and it'll notice if there's any trace amount of blood in their urine. So whenever we would see a positive result for blood in their urine, we would know that they were cycling. And we had noticed that she wasn't cycling. We hadn't seen her have her menstruation for the month of August, I think it was.

CO: Uh-huh. And how did things go with Budi? And was it sort of love at first sight? Or are they... are they still an item?

AC: Yup! So they do still live together. Budi is also matched up with Rami for breeding. So whenever Rami is ovulating, we will put Budi with her for a couple of days. And we find that there only... the females are only interested in breeding when they are ovulating. So that just works out. And then he always goes back and lives with Sekali because Sekali is by herself, where Rami still has her daughter that she lives with. So just for the social aspect of it, we choose to put Budi with Sekali more often. But we did try to introduce Budi with our females probably even a year prior to that. And at that point, Budi hadn't got his cheek pads yet. He still looked like a teenager. He was a lot smaller. And both of our females, Sekali and Rami, are very confident females, and he was very intimidated by them. [CO chuckles] so he never bred them because he was too afraid to. It was stressing him out. So we're like, he's not ready for it. Let's take a break. And then come February of 2021, we thought, you know, he's put on a lot of weight. He looks like a male. He smells like a male now [chuckle]. They do get kind of a musky smell when they get older. So let's try introducing them again. And both of the females at this point, now that he looks like an adult male, we're very infatuated by him and very interested in him. So he was a lot more comfortable. The girls, again being confident, they still tested him out a lot. And all the credit to Budi. He handled everything perfectly. [CO chuckles] He never reacted. You know, the girls could throw things at them. Remi even spit water in his face. He just sat there and took it like a champ, and he didn't give them anything. And I think it drove especially Sekali crazy that she couldn't get him to react to her. But he was cool as a cucumber, and I think that really gained the trust of the females. And they really bonded really well.

CO: How advanced is Sekali pregnancy at this point?

AC: So we believe she… her conception was August 7th to 10th, so she's about two months in. And it is about an eight-month gestation. So we're expecting very end of March to the end of April.

CO: Now, Sumatran orangutans are on the critically endangered list. And all of the orangutans we're talking about at the Toronto zoo were born and raised in captivity. So does it have any effect at all? Does it... does it help in any way that critically endangered population that living in the wild? Because these, I presume, these animals will never be out of captivity yet?

AC: Yep. So it's really important for us to keep breeding. So one of the big reasons you know why zoos exist today is that we keep a genetic kind of like a library. We're keeping these guys safe so that if anything does wipe the population out in the wild, one day, we will be able to reintroduce them back into the wild. But right now, it doesn't make any sense for us to reintroduce them back into the wild because there's still so much danger out there. You know, there's threats to loss of habitats. There's conflict with people. Orangutans coming and destroying their crops. There's also the pet trade. So there's a lot of things that we have to fix in the wilds before it's a safe place for them. And we're just keeping that population here in case things do go wrong.

CO: It's great to talk to you, Amanda. Thank you.

AC: Thank you so much.

CH: Amanda Carroll is a keeper at the Toronto Zoo. That's where we reached her.

[music: pop-rock]

Squid Game Popularity Explosion

CH: I don't need to tell you that the Korean-language dystopian thriller Squid Game is everywhere, because it's everywhere. It's the Number One show in 90-plus countries. And it is on its way to becoming Netflix's most popular series ever. Something to do with the unique horror of its Hunger-Games-in-matching-track-suits premise, in which down-on-their-luck adults play childhood games for a huge cash prize. With the fun twist that the contestants who are eliminated are actually eliminated. Anyone who refuses to play is… also eliminated. And anyone who refuses to watch, well, that’s... that's fine. For now. The show's success is great news for Netflix. But, as it turns out, it's pretty bad news for the South Korean internet service provider SK Broadband. The ISP is suing the streaming service over the huge surge in traffic caused by their colossal Squid Game. The company says that high consumption results in higher maintenance costs for them -- that Netflix should be paying for. Whereas Netflix...does not care about that. So keep fighting, SK Broadband, but watch out for the company that's killing it with Squid Game. Its tentacles are everywhere.

[music: upbeat pop]

Part 2: Texas Temporary Abortion Ruling, Best Restaurant: Alo

Texas Temporary Abortion Ruling

Guest: Marsha Jones

CH: A Texas anti-abortion law has been stopped in its tracks. At least for now. The law bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy -- before many women know they are pregnant. It has also been slammed for a provision allowing private citizens to sue abortion providers, or anyone who, quote, "aids and abets them". A federal judge has halted enforcement of the law until legal challenges make their way through the courts. The state of Texas immediately appealed the ruling. Marsha Jones is the Executive Director of the Afiya Center for Black women's health care -- which is one of the organizations that's challenging the law. We reached her in Dallas.

CO: Ms. Jones, what does it mean to have this reprieve awarded from the federal court?

MARSHA JONES: So if it was anywhere but Texas, if they were depending on anybody but the... the 5th Circuit Court, it would be extremely exciting right now.

CO: Let’s unpack that a bit because it's... this is... what you're referring to is where it goes now that Texas has appealed this decision on the part of the federal court.

MJ: Yes.

CO To the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. And why is that not a good thing for... for what you're trying to accomplish?

MJ: Because the 5th Circuit Court don't have a good history of going on the right side of history. Usually, they will grant Texas their appeal. You know, it's like you're up... it’s almost like a ping-pong game. We’ll get an injunction. Texas will appeal it. They'll get... they'll get their win. And then we'll probably... somebody will file again, and it can go back and forth for three or four days or longer. It’s rarely... will the 5th Circuit Court do the right thing the first time out. It's almost like having to force-pull teeth. And we've seen this before. Like, we just seen it recently with our governor here declared that abortion clinics were not essential health care places and abortion was not esential care. And so there was an injunction file, Texas appealed. So for like all of about 12 hours, we were excited because we felt like we could get our folk into the clinics, right? So it... it is like hair-raising. So, yes, to get a win is a win. And it just... I believe that it set us up for more wins in the end. But its immediate impact is kind of like sitting on pins and needles because even the clinics here cannot literally say, yes, we're going to start doing abortions right now.

CO: And there are other things, obstacles, for the continuing or to begin... resume abortions at this point also. This law itself is very interesting and might become a prototype for other states. And what it says, if I'm getting this correct, is that it allows for... for citizens to... people to actually sue anybody who helps even drive somebody to get an abortion, even Uber driver, anyone who helps... aids and abets is what they say, can be sued for quite a bit of money. Also, what the law says is that it is retroactive. So if... if it's temporarily suspended as the Federal District Court judge has done, it means that once this is, if it's passed, then everyone who performed an abortion or helped with abortion could be sued again during that period, right? So you're really caught between a rock and a hard place?

MJ: Exactly. That's where we are now. And the only real relief that we can get from this is the Supreme Court. I mean, everything else, for me, I’ve always seen this as temporary. I don't care if we got some relief from the state courts where we were protected from being sued. But at the end of the day, we really have one way out of this.

CO: The judge himself, Robert Pitman, who overturned this, he said that this bill went into effect. Women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in a ways... in ways that are protected by the Constitution. Is that essentially what has to go to the Supreme Court?

MJ: That very idea.

CO And what hope do you have that the Supreme Court will regard this as a constitutional right?

MJ: I… I... you know, believe it or not, you know, I know things seem really dire. I didn't necessarily expect we were going to win the first go-round in September. But I do believe... I do believe that eventually, it will be seen. We are essentially at a space where we kind of want to, like, herd women into the abortion clinics like they're cattle, right? Make it a very inhumane process, like getting on social media. If you want to get your abortion, come and get it now because now is the time. If you don't get it today, you can't get it tomorrow, you know? And what does that look like? What does that feel like. And what is the harm and damage that can come from that also? So I see us forcing women, our folk, to carry... to carry a pregnancy full-term in a state where women can…. can more likely... the likelihood is that they can die, you know, shortly after childbirth because Texas is a state that carries a high maternal mortality rate for Black women because we have refused to provide Medicaid for the time that it was recommended and that was one year. So that's going to be potential harm there. The numbers are going to go up. And then, there are the children who could potentially be lost into the child protective care system, where Texas don't have a good record of how the children are taken care of there. So I believe that the impact of this is going to be so great. And I believe it's going to be a long time coming, that the impact is going to be so great, the public, I mean, just... just alone, the Supreme Court, they made a bad decision on September 1st or the 2nd, but they're going to have to reckon with this. They're not going to have any other choice.

CO: Your clients are women of colour. And they... this law bans abortions at a very early point, about six weeks, before most women even know they're pregnant, and that includes in cases of rape or incest. What effect is it having this? Just give us a picture, if you would, about what effect this is having on the women who are seeking these abortions? What's going on with them right now?

MJ: It’ll have a huge effect on these women. I mean, many... we, for the better part, we basically serve Black women, right? And we're serving... you know, we know that a lot of times, Black women have... they don't have regular periods. They don't know whether they're pregnant until maybe after the eight weeks. You have the fact that folk don't have resources to go buy at-home pregnancy test time they get pregnant. The women who come to us, they are usually 12 weeks just anyway. The average is about 12 weeks. So some lower, some higher, but the average, that's not going to change. So that means that the greater part of the women that we serve will be forced into going full-term with a pregnancy that they can't afford or they don't want.

CO: We will have to leave it there, Ms. Jones. But this is a story we will be following very closely, and I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

MJ: Thank you so very much.

CH: Marsha Jones is the Executive Director of the Afiya Center for Black women's health care. We reached her in Dallas, Texas.

[music: ambient]

Carey Price Health

CH: This morning, Montreal Canadiens General Manager Marc Bergevin made an announcement: the team's star goalie, Carey Price, had voluntarily entered the league's players assistance program. Which helps players and their families with mental health concerns, substance abuse and other problems. Carey Price won't be back on the ice for at least 30 days. Mr. Bergevin wasn't specific about Mr. Price's decision. But during today's press conference, he did get emotional. Here's part of his response, after he was asked whether he knew this announcement was coming.

SOUNDCLIP

MARC BERGEVIN: Not at all. Like, not at all. And to be upfront with you, news came to me yesterday.

REPORTER: Marc, would you just speak to the, I guess, the courage that both Carey and before him, Jonathan displayed in, first of all, seeking the help to deal with what's troubling them, but also by extension, making it public, which is going to help a lot of people in the process?

MB: Yes, I think to... to, you know, the elephant in the room, sometimes we don't say anything and it's very personal. But I salute and I'm glad they did. And if... if there's other players in the NHL who have different issues, whatever that is, I think the NHL and the NHLPA are really looking at the well-being of their players. And I commend them to do that. I think every general manager is very sensitive to that, and we are in Montreal. And, you know, for Carey and his family, you know, he's got kids, three kids and his wife. So I think we need to support them. We need to respect their privacy. And wish show him the best. And like I told you earlier on, I believe better days are ahead for Carey and his family.

REPORTER: If you could just describe what Carey Price the human means to you and your relationship over the last nine years and how you're dealing with this... this news knowing that he's going through something?

MB: It’s been… [sniffling] yeah, no, it’s hard.

CH: That was Montreal Canadien's General Manager Marc Bergevin, answering questions after the announcement that Carey Price had entered the NHL's players assistance program.

[music: instrumental]

Best Restaurant: Alo

Guest: Patrick Kriss

CH: At the best of times, running a restaurant can be a thankless job. But during a pandemic, Running a restaurant can frequently seem pointless and sometimes hopeless. So this year's list of the World's Best Restaurants -- announced this week -- is a rare bright spot for 100 establishments around the world. Including Alo in Toronto. The "contemporary French restaurant" has made the list before. And it's the only Canadian entry on the 2021 list, at Number 98. After a tumultuous time in his industry, the honour has given Alo's owner and chef Patrick Kriss a chance to reflect. We reached him in Toronto.

CO: Patrick, first of all, congratulations.

PATRICK KRISS: Thank you very much.

CO: How did you [chuckling] manage to make this list of the World's Best Restaurants in a year where the entire business that you're in has been turned upside down?

PK: To be honest, I really... I... it was very welcomed, but it was a huge surprise. I wasn't expecting it. And with everything that restaurants have gone through, I wasn't even really thinking about it.

CO: Alo is a place where people book months in advance. This is a place that was hopping full of every table full, impossible to get in. And then, COVID, right? So, I mean, in the restaurant business, anything can happen. You've got to be flexible. But this was the mother of all anything could happens, right?

PK: Yeah, this is the big one. I remember probably two weeks before we closed, and I was standing in the bar just watching the service, and I was looking at it. From inside the bar, you would know nothing was happening in the world. And I remember in my head, I'm like, oh my goodness, we're going to be closing soon. I couldn't believe it. It kind of hit me like two weeks before we had to close.

CO: How many people did you have to lay off?

PK: At the time, we had 175 people on payroll, so we probably had to lay off 150.

CO: And then you just had all this... these tables, these big venues and big leases, I'm sure, as well, right?

PK: Yep, we had to figure it out like everyone else did. I kind of had a meeting with the team three... three weeks before we had to close, and I said, well, we had to figure this out. So we started doing Uber at Aloette on Spadina. We did that the Saturday before we had to close. And then it took a couple of weeks... took a week or two, and then it really took off. So it kind of gave the management team and the restaurant a little bit of... a little bit of life. And then once Aloette got going, and then we kind of slowly just reopened the restaurant and did takeout out of everywhere.

CO: Aloette is... Aloette is one of the spinoffs of Alo, and so... so you just, I mean as everyone did, you had to reinvent yourself, right?

PK: Correct, yeah. We had the mindset that, OK, we were never going to open again as a regular restaurant. Let's just... we're going to think takeout. We're going to think, you know, how to get food to people's homes every day.

CO: What did you do to your menu? Because at Alo, it's quite a varied menu, very carefully prepared meals. So how did you change in order to keep on serving?

PK: At Alo, we did a five-course menu. It changed weekly. So we would release the menus. People would come pick it up from Alo. We would do $65 per person menu. Then we would have cocktails. We had wine. We did it five days a week. And every week, we were just like we were open, but we were doing a ton of takeout. We had a small team working. So everyone could come once a week and have something to look forward to.

CO: So how many... how many burgers were you flipping at that point?

PK: At Aloette, we would probably serve anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 a week.

CO: [chuckling] Are you serious?

PK: Yeah, it's crazy. Aloette basically single-handedly saved the company [chuckle] because it was so busy right off the bat.

CO: And then how did you keep the more high-end food happening in a takeout situation or in this reduced situation you found yourself in?

PK: It was high-end. We still used the same ingredients. We still used the same preparation, but it was more food that people wanted to eat at home. It wasn't small little bites. It was, you know, we would do beef tenderloin, or we would do a piece of fish, or we would do oysters with mignonettes. We would still give people truffle. And they wanted caviar they could have caviar. If people wanted the luxury, they could have it, but they also could have just a steak with roast potatoes and maybe a cheese course.

CO: How do you manage to do oysters and raw seafood as a takeout? That must be tricky?

PK: We would shuck the oysters before the top back on. We put them in a nice little container full of ice, and we would just shuck them throughout the night, and then people would just go straight home, and that would be the first thing they ate. And then the raw seafood, we'd have little ice packs. And we would use an elastic band to keep it on, [chuckle] keep it held together.

CO: So this... and this was flying off the shelves, as they say?

PK: It was. Yeah, we would be sold out every night. We would do anywhere from 100 people to 200 people in a day.

CO: And Uber Eats was your delivery system?

PK: Correct, that was for Aloette.

CO: Right. We talked to people on this program who were really unhappy with how much of a cut Uber Eats took of their... their profits, of the money that they were getting at the door. So why did you stick with Uber Eats?

PK: 'cause it... yes, they take a big cut, but they're also a business, and they have to take care of themselves. They reach so many people that I could never reach. That our business could never reach. So they give us marketing. They provide a huge range where people can order. Without them, we would do a lot less sales. So, you know, it's a little give and take.

CO: How do you think that they were able to judge the World's Best Restaurants given the travel restrictions, given the fact that so much of what you were doing was takeout?

PK: Alo, we did open a tent, and we did that for like four-and-a-half months. So we did have a tasting menu. We had 10 courses. We brought all the staff back. We brought all the furniture from Alo, and we basically set up this tent on Wellington to replicate Alo. So maybe that had something to do with it. I can't really explain it. [both chuckling] That's my best answer for you.

CO: But you're happy to see your --

PK: We're happy, and it came out at a great time. It gave... gave the team a lot of energy and some recognition that, you know, their hard work doesn't go unnoticed.

CO: How many of the dozens of people that you had to lay off, how many of you brought back in so far?

PK: Well, we've had to hire a lot of new people. I think in the last four months, we've hired 100 people. I think our payroll is back up to around probably 120 people.

CO: Lots of lots of good folks left the business, didn't they?

PK: They did, yeah. And you... really can't blame them. You know, they're out of work for a year-and-a-half. They have to figure something out.

CO: So you said that when... when it began, you had to imagine that maybe this was going to be the business for the rest of time. And though indoor dining is back in Ontario, and are you now imagining running a restaurant the way you did before March 2020?

PK: Well, we're doing it now. When we reopened, safely reopened, the company, we took each restaurant and we... I told the teams that, like, let's pretend we have never been open. We want new menus. We want maybe new uniforms. We want new playlists. When customers came in, I wanted them to feel like it was a fresh restaurant. It wasn't a COVID restaurant. You know, we had a fresh menu. I wanted the staff to be excited to come into work.

CO: And now you're headed into the big Christmas season.

PK: We are. And we're busy. [CO chuckles] I think most restaurants are busy right now. So it's good. It's good to see people out.

CO: That's good to hear, Patrick. Thanks for speaking with us.

PK: Thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

PK: Bye.

CH: Patrick Kriss is the owner and chef at Alo restaurant in Toronto. Alo was named Number 98 on this year's "World's Best Restaurants" list. You can find more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: instrumental]

Nadia Chaudhri Obit

CH: When Dr. Nadia Chaudhri was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, she decided she would spend her final days spreading as much joy and positivity as she could. The Montreal neuroscientist dedicated her Twitter account to sharing her thoughts and feelings while in the palliative care ward at the McGill University Health Centre -- and amassed over 100,000 followers. She posted stories and pictures of her six-year-old son. And Dr. Chaudhri also used her massive following to help raise money for underrepresented young scientists. She started an online fundraiser to help offset research travel costs for scientists from marginalized backgrounds -- and raised more than 200,000 dollars. Dr. Nadia Chaudhri died yesterday. She was 43. Earlier this year, she told the CBC about the joy she got from giving back -- and why she chose to share her final days with the world.

SOUNDCLIP

ANISLIE MACLELLAN: Thinking back to that moment in the hospital bed, when you decided to launch this campaign, you could have decided to just focus on your treatment and your time with your family, and absolutely no one could have faulted you for that. How has getting involved in this GoFundMe fundraising campaign for students helped you?

DR. NADIA CHAUDHRI: It's allowed me to focus on something bigger than myself. It's allowed me to think about my legacy and impact, you know? Working with students and young scholars, young scientists, promoting their careers and creating a mechanism to kind of maintain some of that support in perpetuity. It's just allowed me to think that something good will continue [chuckling] after I'm gone. And it's just been a really positive experience. I've... I've derived so much support from it. So many people have reached out. Apart from just friends, you know, strangers have sent me an email and told me what I'm doing means to them. And those connections and relationships and just the return of relationships and friendships from people I haven't been in touch with in a long time have been a great source of joy for me right now. I really value these connections a lot, so it's helped me. It's really helped me not dwell on an uncertain future. It's helped me sort of be very present in the moment and focus on something good. And for my husband and son, it's given us all as a family the opportunity to focus on something incredibly positive. So I'm just so grateful that people have resonated and rallied to the fundraiser. And you don't really know how, I guess, in this you try to do your best by people. You don't really know what impact you have. And so when people write these messages, it just overwhelms me because it makes me realize that it's had an impact, you know? And that's quite meaningful. And it gives me strength because, you know, in the face of this career change and diagnosis, I just derive a lot of strength from these... these words, yeah. And I'm trying to think of a way to thank everybody. I don't know how to do it. [chuckling] I don't know how to do it.

CH: That was Dr. Nadia Chaudhri speaking with CBC Montreal journalist Ainslie MacLellan. Dr. Chaudhri died of ovarian cancer yesterday at the age of 43. Concordia University, where Dr. Chaudhri taught, has also created The Nadia Chaudhri Wingspan, which has raised over 600,000 dollars in scholarship money for scientists from underrepresented backgrounds.

[music: somber piano]

Part 3: Oldest Black Church Unearthed, Encore: Girl Finds Sword

Lytton Chinese History Museum

CH: When we spoke with Sarah Ling this summer, she told us the loss was "devastating for our society." Ms. Ling is the president of British Columbia's Chinese Canadian Historical Society. And she was talking about the loss of the Lytton Chinese History Museum. One of many buildings destroyed when fire destroyed much of the community at the end of June, following record-high temperatures. Yesterday, the museum's owner -- Lorna Fandrich -- went through the site for the first time since the fire. And this morning, she spoke to the CBC about what that was like for her.

SOUNDCLIP

LORNA FANDRICH: It was emotional in the beginning because at first, I thought we weren't really finding anything. And a lot of the pieces that we were finding were severely damaged by melted glass sticking to it. The glass came from the shelving that it was sitting on. But as a day progressed, we were starting to find a few things that were complete. So that encouraged me, and that encourages me for today. We're hoping that we'll find more pieces.

SHELLEY JOYCE: Yeah, I understand your diving back in here today. What kind of pieces were you able to find so far?

LF: I believe that it will continue to just be the ceramics or the pottery pots that we'll find. We haven't found anything else that's in one piece. Like, it is basically ashes. Some of the pottery, when you pick it up, as soon as it's sitting out in the air more, starts to crumble. So it's a bit of a challenge to find pieces that are whole. There were a lot of other things besides pottery in there, but we'll be happy even to have some of those.

SJ: Now, for people who haven't had the opportunity to see your museum, can you tell us a little bit about it? What was it like?

LF: Oh, it was very small. It was... the building was built the same size as the original Joss House or temple that was on the lot. It had about 1,500 artifacts that were displayed with, of course, copy that people could read, so they understood what was there. It had been becoming quite popular amongst the Chinese community, but also amongst the... the museum community. But it was doing quite well, a little bit of a setback with COVID. But now, I'm planning to rebuild. So I'm hoping that we can gain some of those people and some of the artifacts back.

SJ: And you mentioned all the artifacts you had inside. It was quite the collection. What do these losses represent in terms of Chinese history in our province?

LF: I think it's a huge loss. Most of the things in there were from between 1858 and 1945. It was one of the best collections in Canada for that era of Chinese artifacts. And whether I'll be able to replace them from people donating artifacts that look the same to tell the story, that's one thing. But these mostly have provenance for this area, so that makes it a bit more discouraging.

CH: Lorna Fandrich is the owner and operator of the Lytton Chinese History Museum. She spoke with the CBC's Shelley Joyce this morning on Daybreak Kamloops.

[music: ambient]

Oldest Black Church Unearthed

Guest: Connie Matthews Harshaw

CH: For over a century, the First Baptist Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, was a refuge for Black Americans -- at a time when even gathering together was illegal. It was one of the first Black churches in the US. Until it was turned into a parking lot in the 1960s. Now, with help from archaeologists and the community, part of the church has been uncovered once again. Connie Matthews Harshaw is a member of the current First Baptist Church and the president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, which helps preserve the church's history. We reached her in Williamsburg.

CO: Connie, how much of the original First Baptist Church has actually been discovered at this point?

CONNIE MATHEWS HARSHAW: Well, the entrance, the front entrance, the front steps walking into the space is the one that has been discovered right now.

CO: One, was the church actually built?

CMH: Well, the... the church, the records show that the building was there as early as 1818. They started, they organized the church on a plantation, Green Springs Plantation, in 1776. They moved from the plantation over to the brush arbour on Raccoon Chase. And it was because it was unlawful to gather for Black people. And also because they could do it in secrecy. And that's when the... the white townsman Jessie Cole discovered them. And he was so moved by the services and the worship and the way that they expressed themselves that he donated that space. He offered that space for them to use on Nassau Street as early as 1818.

CO: And so that original structure, I understand, was destroyed by a tornado. But then, so then what happened?

CMH Well, in 1834, a tornado came through, and it was reported in the newspaper that the coloured people’s meeting house near the Williamsburg Public Hospital was... was torn down because of the tornado.

CO: It wasn't even reported as it being a church?

CMH: Well, no, because, you know, again, the freedom of religion, and all of those things were being worked on as our constitution was being formed, and people really didn't understand what that meant. And then, if you were an African-American, of course, it didn't apply to you because you were considered to be property and not humans.

CO: So then it was... there was another structure built in 1856, is that right?

CMH: Yes. Yes, ma'am, it was. That was the one that stayed on that space, on that site until they... Mr. Rockefeller, came in to restore Colonial Williamsburg. And at the time, that was a 19th-century building, so it did not conform with the fabric that was going, you know, that they were trying to achieve for an 18th century America. So the Rockefellers purchased that... that space and relocated the church to its current location on Scotland Street.

CO: And then paved it over for the parking lot?

CMH: Yeah, yeah. [chuckle] That's the part that... that's the most hurtful part of this.

CO: And what was underneath was not just the foundation, but there… you've identified that there are graves that were buried… people were buried in that… in the grounds around the church?

CMH Yes, ma'am. There are 25 intact burial sites there. One that we believe to be as early as 1818 because it's associated with that foundation. But we have not disturbed those graves yet. And we are meeting with the descendant community to help us make a decision about what we do? How... whether we open them and investigate? And we... they have already offered DNA sampling. The defendant community is very anxious to know who those burials are. They suspect that they are their grandparents and their great-grandparents.

CO: Wow.

CMH: So they're very anxious to see how we can proceed.

CO: Just... just take... take a moment to talk about what Colonial Williamsburg is because this was established as a kind of living museum where people would try to recreate what people like Rockefeller imagined this to be, which was from a very Anglo-European point of view, right? These were people dressing up and conducting life.

CMH: That’s right.

CO: That basically excluded about the lives of about half the population, which was the Black population of Williamsburg, right?

CMH: Well, you're absolutely right. And in 1776, Colonial Williamsburg, or Williamsburg as it was known then, was 52 per cent Black, free and enslaved. And when it was restored, somebody, I guess, forgot that main fact. And so, the history was told from an Anglo perspective. And we worked only until the mid-1970s where there even African-American interpreters in Colonial Williamsburg. Now, since that time, they've been working hard to improve the way that they tell this story. And so, we've been working with them. We… [chuckle] I think it is a very, very good relationship. They've helped us fund the movie, the name of that movie is History half Told is Untold. It premieres this weekend, right there in Colonial Williamsburg, where we tell the story about the free and enslaved Black people that lived there, worked there, worshiped there. And... and how, you know, up until they decided to restore Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg was not segregated. Because the Black people lived right across the street from the white people. And so we are thinking if we could get that right back then, maybe we can serve as an example to the nation that it can be done.

CO: Even though this church begins in the 1800s, it's the people... it was paved over in the 60s. And so there are undoubtedly people in Williamsburg who remember what it was like to see what was left of their church, the grounds, being turned into a parking lot. How... how do they feel about now seeing this recovery?

CMH: Well, you are absolutely right. There are descendants here. Our oldest member of this church, Ethel Bowman, died last week at 104. And the people that are here now in their 80s and 90s, they remember not only attending the 1856 building and hearing all of the stories from their grandparents, and their great grandparents of the earlier structure that was there and how difficult life was. And they saw this building being torn down and relocated and the parking lot going there, and it was hurtful for them. And so now, with all of the stuff that's going on around this site and the efforts, the intentional efforts, to restore it, these people are [chuckling] one of the most forgiving people because they are hopeful they they see it as a healing process, and it has really brought the community together, Black and white.

CO: Connie, this is a remarkable story. And I really appreciate you telling it to us. Thank you.

CMH: You're welcome.

CO: Bye.

CMH: Bye-bye.

CH: Connie Matthews Harshaw is a member of the First Baptist Church. We reached her in Williamsburg, Virginia.

[music: guitar riff]

FOA: Encore: Girl Finds Sword

CH: Two fancy new skis are definitely better than one. But to a Norwegian research group, two pre-Viking skies are even better. At least, in terms of archaeological finds. Not so much in terms of hitting the Black Diamond. The thirteen-hundred-year-old wooden skis have matching birch bindings and a leather strap, and are believed to be the best-preserved ones ever found. The researcher found the first ski in 2014 -- and then had to patiently wait for seven years as the ice melted before they could uncover the second.So yes, two super old skis are better than one. But what about a pre-Viking sword? Which is what eight-year-old Saga Vanecek found in Sweden in 2018. That's when Carol spoke with Saga's father, Andy, about the discovery.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Andy, what was your daughter, Saga, doing when she made this discovery?

ANDY VANECEK: She was actually bringing a buoy out to me. The water was really low this summer; it hadn't rain for like a month. It was like the driest summer in Swedish history in the last two 200 years. So we had a big concrete block that we use to keep the boat still in one spot. And so I was having her bring a buoy out to me. And she was taking her own sweet time like kids do. You know playing, and picking up clams and rocks, and throwing them around and stuff. And then she picked up what I thought was a stick. I was kind of getting frustrated with her. She kind of like looked at the stick a little strangely, and then she raised it high — kind of like a proud Pippi Longstocking stance, and said “Pop, I found a sword!” And I was just kind of like, “What? It’s a stick, right?” And she's like, “No, it's a sword.” So I kind of ran over to her, and sure enough, she's got this big, rusty sword that looks like a Viking sword in her hand.

CO: So what did you make of it when you first looked at it?

AV: Well, I mean it looked like a Viking sword — it looked really, really old. You could see like the wood on the handle. The thing that makes this sword unique is that it actually had the scabbard on it.

CO: Really?

AV: Yeah, and I didn't realize that because it just kind of looked like a big rusty sword. But the reason why it looked rusty was because it was leather. And underneath leather, where it had worn off, was wood. And then under that, there was part of the sword that kind of bent when she held it up because there was a weak spot. You could see the rusty steel, and then the wood, and then the leather of the scabbard. So that's never happened. I mean that type of material doesn't last 1,500 years unless it's under certain circumstances like this was in the mud. So it doesn’t oxidize. There isn’t any air there, so that’s the only reason.

CO: And you mentioned 1,500 years, how did you determine that's how old it was?

AV: It's the sword experts who have looked at the images that we sent. And I guess they determined by looking at the shape of it. And you know these sword experts they see a lot of swords, and they’ve studied that. So that's what they kind of base their findings on.

CO: How did you get the sword experts involved?

AV: There’s actually an archaeologists that lives in the village where we have our summer house. I didn't know that. This was on a Sunday, so the day after, I went to work, and one of my colleagues knows an archaeologist. And she looked at the pictures, she got goose bumps, she said that's definitely a Viking-aged sword or older. It's at least 1,000 years old in my in my estimation, and san archaeologist, they know who to talk to. And the sent the pictures off to sword experts, and they said that. But the cool thing about it is is since it has the scabbard, they can actually carbon date the wood, so they’ll be able to get a really close estimation of exactly how old it is.

CO: There are some people saying on line that she's like King Arthur; she should be the queen of Sweden now that she has kind of the Excalibur story, where the Lady of the Lake passes it to King Arthur. So has she bought into that mythology?

AV: I don't think she knows about that yet because that has basically happened in the last 24 hours or so. She was in school today. We haven't really talked to her about that. I mean I've dropped the fact that she might be the queen of Sweden a couple times, and she doesn’t understand what I'm talking about. So far I haven't heard from Karl Gustov and Sylvia, the king and queen of Sweden, they haven't called me to relinquish the throne or anything.

CO: Now, you say that it's 1,500 years. That would actually be older than Viking, right?

AV: Exactly, it is. I'm a little disappointed as a Minnesota Vikings fan, if it’s not a Viking sword, but it is pretty cool that it’s is actually older than that if it is. So I can't complain too much.

CO: Your accent does betray you as an American.

AV: Yeah, totally.

CO: Any theories as to who owned it? Any story around that they can start constructing as to the person who sword might have been lost in that lake?

AV: Nothing too detailed yet. The lake used to be a lot bigger. There was more water in that area back in that time, and there was a lot of transport that happened on those lakes. So it's possible someone could have fallen overboard. It's possible somebody could have fallen through the ice when they're transporting stuff in the winter. It's also possible they've told me that you know it could have been a burial because they did find a brooch for a cape that’s about the same age they think. So they may have buried someone there. They also think it could be an offering to the gods because back in that time, it was thought that they would offer their most valuable items you know when they're desperate. So there's so many cool possibilities. But I mean we'll never know for sure.

CO: So many stories that come out of that. Andy, I appreciate you telling it to us. Thank you.

AV: No problem. Thanks for having us.

CO: Bye.

CH: From October 2018, that was Andy Vanecek speaking with Carol about how his eight-year-old daughter Saga found a pre-Viking sword in Sweden. And we have more on that story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: string instrumental]

The Most Boring Video Ever Made

SOUNDCLIP

[music: horrible 90’s computercore music]

RANDY SMITH: Speaker 6: Hello and welcome to Mac Academy. My name is Randy Smith, and over the next couple of hours, we'll be discussing Microsoft Word. We’ll be going over --

[fades out]

CH: Hi Randy Smith. Sorry about this, everybody. Just watching a training video -- doing a little "professional development", as HR calls it. Let me see here.

SOUNDCLIP

RS: You know, today a lot of people talk about word processing, and they also talk a lot about desktop publishing. One of the first things that you need to realize is that there is a major difference between word processing and desktop publishing. I know you'll go down to your local Apple dealer or one of your software stores, and they'll try and convince you that all you need to buy is one program. For example, if you buy Page Maker, you don't need to buy a word processing Program. Or if you buy the all new Word 4.0, then you won't need to go buy a desktop publishing program because it does everything. A lot of people don't understand the difference between the two types of programs, and --

[fades out]

CH: You know, I never thought about the difference between -- the two things he's talking about. I already forgot. Maybe I can just skip ahead a bit?

SOUNDCLIP

RS: If you want more speed, yes, you can go out and buy you a new 2CX with an 80 megabyte hard drive and eight megabytes of internal memory. And you can go and buy accelerator boards for your... for your SE, and you can do all kinds of things that will make difference in microseconds. But if you really want to get fast on a program, the best money that you can spend is on training.

CH: OK, this must be just about done. There’s only... an hour and forty-two minutes left?! I...I can't do it. It's so -- I’m sorry. Sorry, Randy, but it's so boring. In fact, there are those who believe this Microsoft Word tutorial for Mac users from 1989 is the most boring video ever made. For example, the person who posted it on YouTube under the title "THE MOST BORING VIDEO EVER MADE". That's not entirely fair. For example: this is sort of an interesting remark.

SOUNDCLIP

RS: I don't think there's a person that's ever used a computer, IBM or Macintosh or whatever when experiencing a system error that doesn't think exactly the same thing. And that is, I hope I have not lost my document. Now, I'd like to point something out on the computer here, and that is, as I pull down this file menu, you will notice that the word hope does not appear. You will also notice that there is no such thing as Command M for miracle.

CH: Randy Smith, telling it like it is. In your face, people looking for "hope" or a "miracle"! What's next, Randy -- you've got my attention.

SOUNDCLIP

RS: Let's say right now, we were going to do a lease for a piece of property. Now, let's just pretend right now that we're got the people standing there in front of us and we're over on our Macintosh and we're going to type out the rules to living in our property. So we sit down and we say the following are the rules for living in my house. Number one, I want you to keep your crummy dog off of my brand new carpet. Carpeet. If you don't, I will shoot both you and your dumb dog.

CH: Another joke from Randy! I assume! I hope. That's easily the most exciting part of the video in which Randy is onscreen the whole time. Educating us, with agonizing thoroughness, about every single detail of Microsoft Word in a single, 107-minute take. It’s impressive. But I'm just… I’m just going to --

[fast forwarding sound]

SOUNDCLIP

RS: Again, we thank you for your interest and wish you a great deal of luck in using Microsoft Word.

[music: this is just bad]

CH: You're welcome, Randy. Training completed. What's interesting is that "The Most Boring Video Ever Made" has now been viewed over 1.5 million times on YouTube. Proving that some seemingly unimportant documents are in fact worth saving. Oh crackerjack. I lost the notes I was taking. What was it again -- Command M for miracle? Aw, it's not working.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

October 07, 2021 Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This