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The AIH transcript for January 08, 2025

For more episodes of this podcast, please click this link.

NIL KÖKSAL: Hello, I'm Nil Köksal.

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

[theme]

CH: Tonight:

NK: Where there's smoke. As wildfires overwhelm Southern California, a woman from Pacific Palisades tells us about packing up her family and fleeing the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.

CH: Home away from threatened home. A pastor in Pasadena is among dozens of evacuees seeking shelter from the fires in his own church. He says having his community near is giving him strength.

NK: A needle-to-know basis. A drop in routine immunizations in Toronto has public health officials worried. And they're refusing to lie down on the jab.

CH: Pile drivers. Volunteers and researchers in Finland gather to help a particular kind of endangered seal -- by getting out their shovels to build the snowdrifts the seals need to build the next generation.

NK: There glows the neighbourhood. Toronto's historic Kensington Market area may soon be protected as a Heritage Conservation District. Our guest says that's not about resisting change -- it's about preserving the vibe.

CH: And...for those about to wreck. An Australian developer leaves fans of AC/DC thunderstruck, after reducing the home of the band's founders to rubble.

CH: As It Happens, the Wednesday Edition. Radio that assumes they shook it all night long. [NK chuckles]

Part 1: Calif. Fires: Evacuees, Calif. Fires: Community Leader, Kensington Market Historic District

Calif. Fires: Evacuees

Guest: Maryam Zar

CH: Southern California is in flames. As we go to air, there are multiple wildfires burning out of control across the Los Angeles area. At least two people are dead, and tens of thousands have been told to flee. One of the fires is in the city's Pacific Palisades neighbourhood. It's estimated that over a thousand structures there have been destroyed, making this the most destructive fire in LA's history. It broke out yesterday morning, which is when Maryam Zar left with her family.

NK: Maryam, where are we reaching you right now?

MARYAM ZAR: Right now, I'm in Redondo Beach, which is about 20 miles away from the Palisades.

NK: Yeah.

MZ: And I happen to be staying at a home that overlooks the ocean. So, I can literally see the smoke billowing over where I live and, you know, wafting over, over the ocean.

NK: And I can't imagine that feeling.

MZ: Well, literally 20, maybe 25 miles away, there's soot in the air. And if I walk outside, I can smell it. It's unbelievable to me that it's come this far.

NK: You know, yesterday, how did it all unfold? When did you realize that something was wrong and very wrong?

MZ: I might have been one of the very first people. I was, around 10 in the morning, I was sitting in my backyard on the phone with my mom. And I said to her, wow, I smell burning eucalyptus. And she said, Well, you know, it's crazy wind. We are having a wind event. She said, well, it's crazy wind, and the eucalyptus is blowing around. Maybe you're just smelling that. And I said, no, there's a definite smell of burn. And I looked around, and I couldn't see anything. Within two minutes, like literally two minutes later, I got up to look around again and I could see the fire, you know, the smoke very small at that point. I have a picture of it, very small at that point, but billowing up and I could see it over the other mountain ridge, like kind of behind me. And then I called the people I know at LAFD. I think others had probably begun to call by then. And then, within about 10 minutes, I could hear the helicopters. And just the rate at which the smoke grew and, you know, started just wafting around in every direction that the wind was blowing. I knew this was going to be different. I knew it was going to be big.

NK: From the time you first smelled that eucalyptus, when you're on the phone with your mom, to making that call to the LAFD, to then having to to leave with your family, what kind of a time span are we talking about?

MZ: I don't want to misspeak, but I want to say an hour from when I, maybe an hour and 15 minutes from when I smelled the eucalyptus until we were going out. And as we were driving down our street, we were among the last people to leave our street. And as I was driving down, I could see open flames. I could see them on the ridgeline above me. And a couple of our neighbours had already had embers flying over and landing in their front yard. So, we could see open fire. And by this time, so I don't know how much you've heard about the Palisades, but we're a hillside community and we only have two or three arteries to get us out to PCH, which PCH is the Pacific Coast Highway. And PCH gets us out to the 10 Freeway. We only have a few ways out. And so, by the time I got to the main artery that would evacuate my hillside, it was already congested, there were already hundreds of cars and it was backed up. So, I mean, I'm telling you, within that hour, maybe hour and a half, people realized they had to go.

NK: How many of you are there in your family? I mean, how do you pack up everything that quickly?

MZ: We don't.

NK: Yeah.

MZ: Yeah, we don't. [begins to cry] Yeah, I don't think anybody did. You know, you just kind of think of what you might need, and you grab the stuff that you think means something to you. You know, if you're thinking, you'll probably grab your passports and the stuff that's valuable. You ask your kids to think about doing the same. And you go, you know, you go. And, again, this is the Palisades. We've had fires before. We have incredible support from city, county, and state. Usually, you know, resources come rushing into the Palisades, and fires get put out. So, I think a lot of people maybe thought they would be able to come back. But it was obvious from this one that it was a little bit crazier, just given the wind conditions. And I think we were just in autopilot. We tried to grab what we could and leave. And my voice is, is actually a testament to the fact that there was soot everywhere from the moment we left until I'm telling you now, 20 many miles away.

NK: How, how many of there are you in your, in your family? You mentioned children. How old are they?

MZ: Yeah, we're a family of five, but there are only four of us here. One of us is in Boston experiencing extreme cold, but at least not fire. So, we went to my mother's house. She lives in Santa Monica. She was evacuated within a couple of hours of us getting there. She lives in Santa Monica, pretty close to the Palisades. So, we picked my mom up. We evacuated from there, went to my sister-in-law's. She lives in a town called Brentwood, which happens to be next door to the Palisades. They were in an evacuation warning zone. So, we picked her up, and we came out 20 miles down the coastline to Redondo Beach.

NK: Do you know someone there or is that a home that you all have or who are you saying?

MZ: Yes, it's my brother's home.

NK: At least your, I mean, is there comfort in being together as a family?

MZ: Yeah. Yes. Yes. There's comfort in being safe. And, as I say, we happen to be at a perch where we can see the fire over the Palisades. And it's quite surreal. We also have begun to hear from friends, and acquaintances, and colleagues, and we've seen some video coming out of the Palisades this morning. And a lot has burned. A lot has burned. So, it's a somber morning, I would say, for 30,000 people who live in the Palisades

NK: It doesn't sound like from what you're saying, Maryam, that, that you feel that your home might still be there.

MZ: I am not counting on it. I mean, it might be. The last person who left our house is my husband. He had doused our property with water. And he, you know, was seeing other flames go up. And he understood that the fire was very close, but ours was still standing, as were our neighbours. So, we're holding onto that until we go back and see what's going on.

NK: Even with the fire on January 1st, as you said, and being experienced with this in your state and in your area, this is extraordinary what, what you're describing. And then the multiple evacuations for you and your family. This is, this is not fire season I think most people would think.

MZ: Yeah, well, in the Palisades, we've gotten used to saying that it's fire season all year. You know, we, we live in a community that's bounded by water on one side, the Pacific Ocean and then the Santa Monica mountain range. And there's a lot of state land that's open space. So, you know, there's been a couple of seasons of rain, and then there's drought. So, there's lots of fuel. But, you know, we're sort of always aware of the fact that we live in fire-prone areas. Our entire area is classified as a high fire severity zone. So, we, you know, we say that we're always in fire season, and I think we all live that way. We all sort of know that we might have to evacuate at any moment. But this is extreme. I mean, the videos that are coming out of the Palisades are really quite extraordinary and remarkable. So, this is, this is different.

NK: Maryam, I am wishing you and your family the very best under these circumstances. I'm glad you're all together, as you've said, and I'm sorry for what you're all going through. I really appreciate your time during all of this.

MZ: Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for doing this story and covering it. Thank you.

NK: Please take care, Maryam.

MZ: Thank you.

CH: Maryam Zar fled the fire in Pacific Palisades yesterday. She's in Redondo Beach, California.

[cold into next story. No music]

Calif. Fires: Community Leader

Guest: John Jay Alvaro

CH: Northeast of Pacific Palisades, the Eaton fire is burning; it has also forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. John Jay Alvaro is the lead pastor at First Baptist Church in Pasadena, which has opened its doors to evacuees, including his own family. That's where we reached him.

NK: Pastor Alvaro, how are you holding up right now?

JOHN JAY ALVARO: I am pretty emotional. Yeah, I'm sitting in my car in the, the green space on our church property watching some of our young toddlers who are sheltering in our church walk around and play in the leaves that have fallen. I'm feeling a lot.

NK: How many people are sheltering at the church right now?

JJA: I don't have an exact number because that's changing, but I can tell you we counted something like 25 pets, and that number seems to tell me that there's a lot more people here than I think we even realized as we were taking them in. Yeah, we've got folks spread out across four different floors on our property. My guess would be somewhere between 50 and probably 70 by the end of the day -- give or take.

NK: You are the lead pastor there, as we've said. But you're an evacuee yourself. Can you describe those moments for us?

JJA: Correct, yeah. Yeah. So, my family was living a normal life yesterday, albeit a very windy life. And then, about 6, I heard from my my partner, my wife, that there was a fire that had broken out in Altadena, which is north of Pasadena, in an area, Eden Canyon, that my family hikes all of the time. And immediately, we started putting just go bags together, you know, like a couple of days' provision and waited until the whole family gathered back in our home. At which point, we could tell it was getting bad. Our community, the church is very close. And so, I was getting picture messages from everyone who was north of us and closer to the fire. And you kind of get a sense of what way the wind's blowing and how big the fire is and know it's time to go. So, we packed all three of our vehicles, my wife and I and then my son, who's a senior in high school, to the brim of anything that was valuable. And we rushed to the church. I was at the same time coordinating the opening of the church as a shelter, because if we were making those decisions then we knew that our congregants were also making those decisions and community members. And so, we had to get mass communications out really quickly and staff that building really quickly. So, I was moving my family, evacuating simultaneously as I was opening up a shelter through the church. There's not a protocol for that. So, we're making this up as we go.

NK: You mentioned that the church is not far from, from where you live, So then not that far from the fire. Are you, are you seeing and feeling the effects just from where you sit in that, in your car?

JJA: Yeah. You can't be outside without a mask. Our church is very old. It's a 100-year-old building. And so, pretty much every window feels poorly. And so, there's piles of ash against every window sill or around the floor of most windows throughout the building. The sanctuary, which is a very high cruciform form, it's full of smoke. So, you can see and feel it everywhere in the building. The building is very safe in the sense that it's huge concrete walls. We're far enough south of the interstate and we're separated by a lot of concrete buildings that we don't feel in danger here. But as far as I can tell, and our next door neighbor is a fire captain, so he's able to get information to me that's reliable, and his family's actually in the church right now as well.

NK: It sounds like, though, you don't think you and everybody else sheltering there will need to evacuate, at least evacuate again or leave that, that church based on what you're saying?

JJA: No, we're preparing for some long-term stay. Yeah, so we're kind of activating now provisions coming in. Now that we have a sense of how many beds we need, we're going to have our community members start to bring air mattresses, essential food supplies. We're doing medical supply checks now. We have one person on site who's a nurse who happens to be sheltering here. So, she's helping us out. There are other shelters in the area, including an emergency shelter, I think, at the convention centre with cots. So, we do know if we are either overwhelmed or if we can't provide those services, we can make sure people can get to that space.

NK: What do you tell people, you know, when they look to you for guidance, when you're experiencing it and trying to figure, figure it all out for you and your family as well.

JJA: I try not to say too much. I find that a good, meaningful embrace and that, that kind of look in the eye of I get it, I'm with you, goes a long way. Staying here in the building with them, knowing my house is in danger with theirs, it all feels like we're living the same story. And I'll say too my, my own immediate family is very stable and sturdy. And so, I'm able to come into that realm and receive a lot of fortitude and nourishment to go back out and do that public-facing work. But it's, it's very much kind of a razor's edge of internal and external balance to stay available.

NK: I know, how about your teenagers? How are they handling things?

JJA: Thanks for asking. My daughter's best friend is in the building with us. She's our next-door neighbour. Her family's here, and that's a real comfort. The dog is here. And so, that gives them a place of that they can help and they can care, that kind of community ecosystem of care, that helps. And then, my son is very proactive. He's both checked on his friends and also, like I said, some of his friends were in the building last night who didn't have a place to go. But I'll say, like, he's a senior. And so, he lost his, you know, seventh and eighth-grade year to COVID. And he's trying, his school is north, it's very close to Eden Canyon, his high school, Pasadena High School. He has friends way up against the mountain. A lot of his community of friends have lost their homes. And so, he's not sure if he's going to get to graduate where they graduate. He's not sure he's going to have to do remote learning again. And that's, that is a real, like, kind of trauma of an old wound. And I can see and feel that for him. And it's very heartbreaking.

NK: Well, Pastor, I, I'm, I'm glad you're all together, and I very much appreciate you taking all of this time to talk to me and our listeners about what you're going through. Please take care.

JJA: Yeah, thank you so much for letting me share some of our stories, and we appreciate the thoughts that go out to Pasadena and to the larger L.A. area right now. Yeah, it's a really tough time.

NK: Thank you very much, Pastor.

JJA: Yeah. Blessings to you and to your listeners.

CH: John Jay Alvaro is the lead pastor at First Baptist Church in Pasadena. That's where we reached him.

[sombre instrumental]

Kensington Market Historic District

Guest: Sylvia Lassam

CH: From the newcomers to Canada who settled there over a hundred years ago, to today's diverse residents and visitors -- Torontonians have left their mark on the city's historic, and still vibrant, Kensington Market neighbourhood. And when chains like Walmart and Starbucks have tried to move in, they've been thwarted by locals determined to preserve the area's unique vibe. And soon, those conservationists may have some help. Next month, Toronto City Council will finally vote on whether Kensington Market should be protected under a Heritage Conservation District designation. Which is a goal Sylvia Lassam and others have been working toward for years. Ms. Lassam is a member of the Community Advisory Group that has helped steward the Heritage Conservation Designation for Kensington Market. We reached her in Toronto.

NK: Sylvia, I know you've said before that this is about preserving something intangible. How would you describe that intangibility to, to someone who's never had the good fortune to walk through Kensington Market? What is it like for you to walk through it?

SYLVIA LASSAM: Well, it's a little, it's very subjective, actually, depending on what sort of generation you are and what sort of experiences you've had in the market. I think it's almost a state of mind. You know, my Kensington Market is probably very different from your Kensington Market. So, it is a very subjective thing. But, but it is anchored in a physical place, which is very small. You know, it started out as a Victorian suburb, became a, a Jewish shtetl for a while, and it',s it's, I think, it's characterized by its small scale, very human-centric. Public spaces are front and centre. There's a lot of public life on the street, small storefronts. When I first moved to the market, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was just the most marvelous place. [NK chuckles] The incredible diversity in the market, not only racial diversity, which is certainly there. There's students, there's elderly people, there are people of many, many, I mean, there's nobody super wealthy in the market, but there are certainly upper middle-class people all the way down to people to, who are homeless. Many, many people find acceptance in the market that they don't find elsewhere and that it tolerates everybody.

NK: So, this, this designation, what will it mean, practically speaking, for those nooks and crannies and those corners of Kensington Market?

SL: Well, I hope it means that the nooks and crannies will still exist. So, as, as always happens with heritage designation, there are certain buildings that are considered sort of essential. They call them contributing, and others that are non-contributing. So, so, what that means is if there's a modern building in the market, sort of a blocky cinderblock sort of building, anybody can do whatever they want with that. What we're, what they try to preserve are the historical roots, that sense of layers that, you know, when you're walking through the market and you look up and you can see the peaked roof of the original Victorian house and then the various buildouts that have occurred over many years. So, they're trying to preserve that sense of the history and of the changes. They're not trying to freeze it in time. You'll still be able to make changes, especially in the, in the commercial market, but you won't be able to obliterate. If the building does have a long history, you won't be able to obliterate that history.

NK: So, it's not about, yeah, trying to make it cookie-cutter or perfect-looking.

SL: No, it's not trying to make, and it's not trying to keep it the same forever.

NK: City council approval is one thing. Then there's the provincial layer. Do you feel a "yes" vote at the municipal level is going to offer the level of protection that you want and need and have been, and have been working for for all these years?

SL: It's not going to solve all problems in Kensington Market, that's for sure, okay? But it is one very important piece of, of that. At the provincial level, they can overturn any kind of heritage designation as they see fit. So, it's not absolute. But I think between this, this legislation, which is very carefully considered, I have to say, the city staff has done a really, really excellent job of really defining culture more than bricks and mortar. I think between that and, you know, the, the pressure from individuals in the city for whom Kensington Market is, is a really special place. For many, many Torontonians, it's a special place, right? Lots and lots of people have some kind of history through the market. You know, they lived there when they were a student or, you know, they rented an apartment there as a young person, or they would spend all their Saturday afternoons or whatever. You know, many, many Torontonians have a soft spot for Kensington Market. So, I think between, this will, this will afford, the HCD designation will, will give some material protection. And I think between that and the sense of, of love that Kensington Market generates, you know, I'm hopeful that the place is going to fall apart anytime soon.

NK: Yes. The other problems you mentioned, though, I mean, how, how big of an issue for keeping those kinds of shops, small mom and pop operations, that it's so known for, I mean, you said it's right in the middle of a big city, a very expensive city when it comes to real estate. So, how do you combat that?

SL: Well, the city has to work on something like that. I mean, one of the big, big problems now in Kensington Market is Airbnb, right? We're losing our community because a lot of houses when they come up for sale are bought as investments, instead of being, you know, purchased for families. So, so, that's, that's a huge problem. And that's another city department has to work on that, right? Like, we know there are illegal Airbnbs operating rampantly in the market. And the city doesn't seem to want to do much about it. Either that or they don't have the staff. I don't know what the issue is, but they don't seem to be helping us in other ways that I wish they would, right? [NK chuckles] So, it's not just the HCD. There's many, many things.

NK: In your dream scenario, 10 years from now, if you're walking through the market, what do you hope it looks like and feels like?

SL: I hope it feels very much like it does now. I mean, the individual businesses may change, but I hope that there is a real range of people, young and old, who come to enjoy, enjoy the market. I hope the scale of it doesn't change. And I think the HCD will help with that. And I hope that it continues to be a place that draws all kinds of different demographics from the city. So, it's, it's a place where you can, you know, young people can come and have, you know, with 50 bucks in their pocket and have a beer on a patio and buy a, you know, a trinket or something, and have a, have a nice afternoon out in the in the open air. It's, it's a place that it's fairly egalitarian, it's quite democratic, and it's extremely inclusive. And I hope it always remains that way.

NK: We haven't even talked about the vintage shops that it's known for. [both chuckle].

SL: More sustainable, too.

NK: Sylvia, a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you.

SL: Thank you.

CH: Sylvia Lassam is a member of the Community Advisory Group that has helped steward the Heritage Conservation Designation for Kensington Market. We reached her in Toronto.

[electronic]

AC/DC Home

CH: Some believe the members of AC/DC were raised by wolves, in a cave full of whiskey and rifles. Others maintain that they came to life when lightning struck a group of rabid koalas during an avalanche. But the truth is that the core of that band -- brothers Angus and Malcolm Young -- were brought up by humans in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Address: 4 Burleigh Street. And if you're planning to visit, I should warn you: it's a lot. I don't mean that it's too much. I mean that it's an empty lot. Now, you could describe AC/DC riffs as "bulldozing". So in a way, it's fitting that someone bulldozed their house. But in another way, it's not fitting and everyone's mad. Late last year, an Australian developer demolished the former home of the Youngs to build something else. That developer has since apologized, taking full responsibility -- for not knowing they'd bought the house from an idiot. [NK laughs] The general manager says, "We regret that the previous long-term owner did not share this vital part of the property's background with us." Well, whomever's fault it is, the historic house is history. The developer says it's going to use some material from the demolished building to create a "special space" where fans can "gather to celebrate the band's enduring legacy". Which is a reasonable way of making restitution at this stage. And might even result in an acceptable place to honour the Young brothers. After all, as that demolished house could have told you, you're only the Youngs' once.

[rock riff]

Part 2: Toronto Vaccination Rates, Finnish Seal Shovelling

Toronto Vaccination Rates

Guest: Vinita Dubey

CH: If you're a parent in Toronto whose child has an incomplete vaccination record -- and who doesn't have a valid exemption -- keep an eye on your mailbox. You'll be receiving a letter this month warning you that they could be suspended. Toronto Public Health is getting in touch with thousands of households, urging families to make sure their kids' have the provincially-required vaccinations they need to go to school. Dr. Vinita Dubey is the city's associate medical officer of health. We reached Dr. Dubey in Toronto.

NK: Dr. Dubey, these letters are specifically going to the families of grade 11 students. Why are you concerned about that age group in particular right now?

VINITA DUBEY: We know that our current grade 11 and 12 students were actually most impacted by the pandemic when it comes to school-based vaccinations. The grade 11 students were in grade seven, and it's in grade seven that you get those three school-based vaccines. And they didn't have any clinics because schools were operating at reduced capacity and we didn't have the capacity to go in there and provide school clinics. So, that's really why we're focusing on this cohort.

NK: And what kinds of vaccines are they missing? What are we talking about here?

VD: Well, the school-based vaccines are hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, and meningococcal. Now, these letters that are going out are based on the Immunization School Pupils Act. So, that includes our routine childhood vaccinations like measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, and meningococcal is also included in that.

NK: Are there other age groups you're worried about as well?

VD: Well, we know post pandemic, despite our best efforts at trying to get vaccination rates up, we've sent out thousands of letters, had a lot of media campaigns. We still have not got our rates up to where they were before the pandemic. And so, we really will need to and are continuing to address efforts to get every cohort updated.

NK: You mentioned the, the Act, which requires students to have certain vaccinations. There are medical and religious exemptions, of course. I wonder beyond that, beyond the pandemic issues you talked about, is there anything else at play? Are you concerned about vaccine hesitancy?

VD: Yeah, we certainly are wondering whether vaccine hesitancy may be contributing to why our rates have not bounced back. Maybe parents feel like, you know what? That was something we did before the pandemic, and we don't need these vaccines anymore. But actually, the reality has shown that we really still need them. We've seen a rise in whooping cough cases this past year, and that's one of the vaccines that's given to teenagers and that many of our students are missing, for example. And we've also seen dozens and dozens of measles cases this year in our own province, in our country. And without getting our measles rates up well above 90 per cent, we will continue to see cases and outbreaks.

NK: And if these students don't get their required vaccine soon, what more do you see in the future? I mean, how worried are you about those numbers?

VD: Well, based on the Act, if a student doesn't get updated in the weeks and months that we provide them notice, they can be suspended. And the point of going to enforcement is really to get compliance. And what we found last year was we assessed students who were born in 2016. And at the start, only 29 per cent were up to date based on our records. And by the end, we had 98 per cent compliance with the Act. So, that meant 98 per cent of students either had an exemption or had vaccinations on board. And that's really what we're trying to achieve here.

NK: Do you, do you have a sense, though, from your counterparts across the country of what they're dealing with?

VD: There is no question that across the country, and even across the world, that vaccination rates have been documented to be lower and that it is something that we all need to strive to get rates up. And we're talking here about those routine childhood vaccinations. Like, we're not even talking about newer vaccines. And some of it is access to vaccines. Some of it may be just not really, you know, getting on top of it. Sometimes it may be apathy or hesitancy. But we do really, across the country and across the world, need to tackle this.

NK: Dr. Noah Ivers at Women's College Hospital in Toronto told the Toronto Star newspaper that he thinks one issue is that there's not enough coordination between primary care clinics and schools. And that there's also, of course, a lack of access to family doctors, not just in the GTA, but across the country. So, do you think that more systemic change might be a better long-term solution rather than these kinds of letters?

VD: Well, we know one piece about this process is that parents can get their child vaccinated, but then they have to take the next step of reporting that vaccination to Public Health. And that's a very manual process. They have to go online and actually input it manually. If we had a vaccination registry that could then send that information from the doctor's office directly to Public Health. That might be actually a really simple, though not simple, way for us to actually get these records and really circumvent some of this process. So, that is really something that I would certainly advocate. No question, though, having access to vaccinations is important, and that's why we also have Toronto Public Health clinics, in particular for those students who may not have a primary care provider.

NK: How much of it, though, is that, is this then just bad reporting? People not, you know, keeping those cards handy as opposed to students actually not getting these shots?

VD: There is certainly still a lag in our vaccination rates. And so, for example, if we take our school-based programs, at the end of the last school year when we provided the full program in grade seven, the rates were still four to 12 per cent lower compared to where we were before the pandemic. So, some of it is about this reporting piece and administrative, but some of it truly is that less students are getting vaccinated and we need to really encourage them to get the vaccines.

NK: You have a lot of students listening and parents as well, regardless of where they live. What would you want to say to them?

VD: If you get a letter from Toronto Public Health, please act on it right away. [NK chuckles] We do not want to suspend you. The vaccines are safe, and if you have any questions, just call us or check our website.

NK: Doctor, thank you.

VD: Thanks for having me.

CH: That was Toronto's associate medical officer of health, Dr. Vinita Dubey in Toronto.

[hip hop]

First Hockey Game

CH: It was almost exactly 200 years ago: January first, 1825. That's when The Quebec Mercury reported that an organized game was being played on the frozen St. Charles River. They called it "shinty" -- but we now know it as "hockey". The date of the report makes it the earliest-known mention of the game in North America. And it means that Quebec City might just be the birthplace of the sport in Canada - although, of course, it's facing off against other towns that make that claim. The newspaper discovery was made by Quebec City sports journalist and author Marc Durand.

SOUNDCLIP

MARC DURAND: First, in January of 1824, we have a report, a citizen of Quebec City near here, complaining of a new sport played by kids everywhere in the city this winter. They play with a ball, but sometimes they use frozen ice or even frozen potatoes. [both laugh] So, it's quite like we did when we were young. And it was the first recollection of this sport and it was a complaint.

ANGELICA MONTGOMERY: I have a copy of this complaint that was written to the Quebec Mercury in the early 1800s about this, what sounds like an awful lot like street hockey. And I love this letter because the person says, they strike with their weapons regardless of who may suffer by the blow. No part of the town is exempt from this game. As to the players themselves, the danger which they run of having their teeth or an eye knocked out is sufficiently obvious. And I understand some serious accidents of this nature have already happened. ['MD laughs] Lots of concern about street hockey in Quebec City.

MD: That's right. That was the case in those years. And funny enough, 10, about 10 years later, 1836, there's at last, as he wished, a law in Quebec City preventing kids or people to play. It was written early hockey or lacrosse in French.

AM: But you didn't just find evidence of playing hockey in the streets at this time. You found evidence of people playing hockey on the ice. And tell me a little bit about that.

MD: And this is the most important discovery because for historians of hockey, and I'm a member of the Society International of Hockey Research, it's important that hockey is played with skates. And this notice, this a news about a shinty game on the little river, that's how they called the river Saint Charles, opposing the large river of the St Lawrence. So, yeah, it's involved that people players on ice with skates. That's the first mention of the sport we all love. There's two, at least two city in Canada who says that they are the birthplace of hockey, Windsor, Nova Scotia and Dél̨ın̨e.

AM: Dél̨ın̨e, yeah.

MD: Yeah, in Northwest Territory.

CH: Sports journalist Marc Durand speaking Angelica Montgomery on Quebec AM today.

[instrumental]

Finnish Seal Shovelling

Guest: Vincent Fiard

CH: Every year, teams of volunteers gather on a lake in Finland to shovel from dawn to dusk. They're not so much removing the snow as accumulating it. Their goal is to build snowdrifts around the lake, where Saimaa ringed seals can give birth to their pups. Historically, that shovelling wouldn't have been required. But the natural snowdrifts that once covered the lake aren't as numerous, or as solid, as they used to be, thanks to climate change. Vincent Fiard is a volunteer with Our Saimaa Seal Life, a program that organizes the building of the snowdrifts -- and a PhD candidate studying the Saimaa ringed seal at the University of Eastern Finland. We reached him in Joensuu, Finland.

NK: Vincent, when people, and certainly our listeners in places where they get a lot of snow, think about clearing driveways or sidewalks, it's a little bit different what you're doing out there. Can you describe it for us?

VINCENT FIARD: yeah. So basically, we are creating snow drifts along the bank of islands for the seals to be able to be out in the wintertime, and especially for the female to give birth and raise their pup. So, we are creating snow piles are around eight metres in length, and three metres wide, and one and a half metre in height, so the seals then can dig up their habitat.

NK: It's delicate and important work. It's also hard work. You're there how many hours a day?

VF: Usually, we start around 8 in the morning with the first light of the day and we are back, it's already dark, so around 3:30 or 4. So, some, sometimes we can use snowmobile, which is quite an easy lift to go onsite. But quite often, we are just skiing or walking. And then, we are pushing the snow. It usually takes around maybe an hour and a half to two hours to build a snow drift for a team of four to five people.

NK: And can you, I've seen some of the photographs of the seals, but also of the work you do. It's quite stunning out there. The seals themselves are lovely, too. But can you describe for our listeners what it looks and feels like to be out there because we can't be there with you?

VF: I mean, I think there is a lot of similarities between Canada and Finland.

NK: I thought so, too, when I looked at the photographs. You're right.

VF: Yeah. Like, we have pine forests. And then, Lake Saimaa is quite big. It's 180 kilometres in a north-south direction and something like 150 in the east-west. But it's actually like a labyrinth. There is, like, almost 13,000 islands. You go from an island to the other and then you have a more open water area and so on. So, obviously, when we are going in the wintertime, it's covered by ice and snow. But then later on in the summer, it's all ice-free, yeah.

NK: When you're out there, that's, that's a lot of work. We're talking about hours of shovelling. People don't usually want to do that. Why is doing this work and protecting the endangered Saimaa, why has it become such a passion for you?

VF: I'm actually a PhD student at the university here in Finland, and I work on the Saimaa ringed seals. So, it was kind of a natural way to, to do this as a volunteer in the wintertime. But I guess, in general, people are really enthusiastic about the seal. And the seals are kind of an emblem here about nature conservation. And people just want to get involved, which is really nice because if nobody piles the snow, we do know that they won't do great.

NK: There are just, just under 500 of them left. They're certainly, they're endangered. As, as you said, they're found only in Finland, only at this lake. That's why you say they're emblematic and symbolic of the region. Can you describe how they use the snowdrifts? How those snowdrifts are so crucial to them?

VF: The seal need an habitat in the winter to on land. So, they rest out of the water. And the females need also that area to give birth to their pup. So, the seal is arriving under the snowdrift. And then, it will dig a hole in the ice and then inside the snow, and they will create this kind of cave. It's actually quite big because the seal is going out, its full body out there, and then they are just staying there. The females, they are giving birth in those places. And then, they will raise their young there for the next few months because it's a shelter for the harsh environment condition and also predators.

NK: It's painstaking work, what you're doing, but also to even see one of these seals in person, even from a distance. Do you remember the first time you saw one?

VF: It was in the, in the springtime when the Seals are, they are molting. When the seals they are changing their, their fur. It's quite cool because, honestly, they look like rocks. They are really hard to spot. And quite many people that have cabins on the lake's shoreline, they have never seen a Saimaa seal. Because if you don't know how to look and where to look, you will not find them.

NK: And how did you, how did you make it out? How did you see it?

VF: Basically, we were on the boat and the seal was holding out on ice -- the last remainder of ice of the season. We actually took a photograph of the seal, and then we left, and the seal was still there, holding out happily without deterrents, which is always nice.

NK: And as you conduct that research, you know, once you build these snowdrifts, then you have to monitor how the seals and if the seals are using them. And then, if that use is actually helping them. So, what kinds of clues and evidence do you look for once you've done the snowdrift building?

VF: This snowdrift building is happening around January and February. But then we are monitoring in April, once the snow is melting, the snowdrifts are collapsing. So, we are looking at whether there has been a seal presence there. You can usually tell because the ice is really smooth because the seals have been coming in and out of the water, so it's smooths everything. And then, sometimes you can find hair, and especially the pup hairs are really long and white. So, it's a really good indicator. So, we are counting how many places we find that seals have been using. And when we suspect they are there, we're actually marking the area in the tree nearby with a fabric. And then, a couple of weeks later, we have a team of divers that come, and they are looking for the placentas. And those placentas are collected and used for genetic studies.

NK: At the end of last year, there was news that this work you've all been doing, it appears to be helping. There's, there's a bit of population growth, right?

VF: Yes. The population was as low as 150 back in the '60s and '70s. And now, we are reaching the 500 individuals. It's a combination of actions, you know? Like, given that fisheries are restricted for the first month of the life of the pups. There have been some restrictions in heavy metal use in the pulp industry around the lake and so on. So, there have been a lot of actions that lead to the growth of the population.

NK: Are you satisfied by that? I wonder what your dream is for these seals?

VF: We can always do better. There is a lot of politics. Obviously, some people, they're not really happy about the seal and the seal population increasing because it's restricting their right of fishing. It's going the right way. And the younger generation, they are much more aware of what is happening and why is it important to protect the seals. So, it's, all in all, the actions are satisfying. We can always do better, and we hope that it won't get worse with major setbacks in the future.

NK: Vincent, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

VF: Thank you so much.

CH: Vincent Fiard is a volunteer with Our Saimaa Seal Life, and a PhD candidate studying the Saimaa ringed seal at the University of Eastern Finland.

[calypso]

SOD: Driverless Taxi Recording

CH: When you get in a taxi, you trust your driver to know the best way to get to your intended destination. They're professionals; they know the roads. But sometimes -- rarely, but sometimes -- you might notice your driver taking a route that you feel will at least add five minutes to your trip, which might prompt you to suggest -- as politely as possible -- an alternative route. That's the situation Mike Johns was in during a taxi ride to the airport in Scottsdale, Arizona, last month. He genuinely felt that his taxi's route was not the right one. But his driver took none of his advice because there wasn't one. Mr. Johns was in a Waymo driverless taxi that made wrong turn after wrong turn -- and he had no idea, or control of, what was going on.

SOUNDCLIP

MIKE JOHNS: Okay. Why is this happening to me on a Monday? I'm in a Waymo car.

WAYMO: Connected to Rider Support. This call may be recorded for quality assurance.

MJ: And this car is just going in circles.

WAYMO: Hi there, Mike. This is Gab. I'm calling from Waymo support. I'm just calling because I received a notification that your car might be experiencing some routing issue. Please, bare with me while I am --

MJ: Yeah, yeah, I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I'm getting dizzy. It's, look at what it's doing.

WAYMO: I understand. I'm really, really sorry, Mike. We're currently working with the situation on the vehicle. Is it circling around a parking lot, right?

MJ: It's circling around a parking lot. I got my seatbelt on. I can't get out. The car, has this been hacked? What's going on? I feel like I'm in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me? And I got a flight to Kansas.

WAYMO: I understand. Mike. I'm really sorry for this. We are working with this. But by any chance, do you have an access to your Waymo app right now?

MJ: Yeah.

WAYMO: Okay. Now, I'm going to be pulling the car over while we are trying to assist the car. Hold on just a second.

MJ: Oh my goodness. I just better not be late for the flight. You guys are going to take care of the flight. That part.

WAYMO: I'm really so sorry.

MJ: Yeah. Because this is crazy. This is crazier.

WAYMO: I apologize. If you have your app pulled up, I need you to tap "my trip" on the lower left corner of your app.

MJ: Can't you just do it? You should be able to handle it. Take over the car. You don't need my phone.

WAYMO: I don't have an option to control the car, Mike.

MJ: Oh my God.

WAYMO: I'm so sorry about this.

MJ: Well, can you stop this car?

WAYMO: I am trying to pull over right now. Apologies.

CH: That was a recording of Mike Johns speaking to a Waymo representative while his driverless taxi was driving in circles. According to the company, the issue that prompted his vehicle to drive in loops has been addressed by a software update. Mr. Johns also wrote on social media that he was eventually able to catch his flight.

[hip-hop]

Part 3: Biden Commutation Refusals, Evolution Luck Research

Biden Commutation Refusals

Guest: Laura Agofsky

CH: Shannon Agofsky did not want his death sentence to be commuted. But it happened anyway, two weeks ago -- when U.S. President Joe Biden reduced his sentence, and the sentences of 36 other federal inmates, in the name of criminal reform. Mr. Agofsky was sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 murder of an Oklahoma bank president. And in 2004, he was sentenced to death for killing a fellow inmate. Now, because of the commutation, he'll spend his life in prison, without the possibility of parole -- instead of being executed. But Mr. Agofsky has filed an emergency motion in the hopes of getting an injunction to block the commutation. His wife, Laura Agofsky, says that's because if he's taken off death row, it will actually be harder for him to prove his innocence. We reached Ms. Agofsky in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

NK: Laura, for, for most people, I think it's fair to say they would feel immense relief to have something like this happen in their case. How did you and your husband react when President Biden made this announcement?

LAURA AGOFSKY: Well, I think this is the best thing that could happen for anyone on death row who is guilty and who was facing a possible execution by President Trump now. But in our particular case, this, unfortunately, is not a good thing because with my husband's death sentence still in place, he has better options and more options to get a chance to prove his innocence, which he will not have anymore if he has a life sentence. So, we are in a way better position to prove his innocence if he keeps that death sentence at the moment.

NK: That's a hard thing for people who don't have the experience in this justice system, as you and your husband do, to try to wrap their heads around. I mean, even the threat of a death sentence, even if you're challenging the initial conviction. I mean, that would have to be terrifying and worrisome. So, to have that off the table you're saying is, is not a good thing in your case. What exactly is threatened, legally speaking, in this situation?

LA: Yeah, of course, that, of course, the thought alone that we have to take the risk that he might still be executed in the end. That is frightening. And I cannot even think about it at this point. But the thing is that, currently, he has some appeals ongoing and the chances are looking good that he eventually will get the chance at trial with his death sentence still in place because with a death sentence, the system wants to be very sure that they execute a guilty person. But with a life sentence, he will lose those opportunities at part.

NK: Your filing says in part, quote, to commute his sentence now, while the defendant has active litigation in court, is to strip him of the protection of heightened scrutiny, unquote. It goes on from there. Describe what that heightened scrutiny provision has meant for your husband's case.

LA: So, he was convicted already for a crime that he did not commit when he was handed the death sentence. And only when he received that death sentence back in 2004, he got lawyers appointed that were paid by them, so he did not have to pay anything for lawyers to check his case, to investigate, to find witnesses that have not been found back at the original trial. So, basically, with his death, things started to go into the right direction and someone actually started investigating and finding all the flaws in the original trial. That was the first time he had hope again that he will ever be able to prove his innocence. And with that death sentence being taken, he at least partly loses those chances.

NK: Your husband's lawyers have obviously been working on this case for a long time.

LA: Yes.

NK: As this news came down about about Biden's decision and announcement, if this injunction is not granted, what have, have the lawyers told you about what will happen next?

LA: Well, they told my husband that they will still work on his case, which is a relief to us because after we first heard that he received that commutation, we were very afraid that he might also lose his lawyers. But his lawyers told him that they will keep on working his case, that they will still represent him and push those appeals forward. But the chances still are decreasing that he will get the same chances to get a second trial to prove his innocence.

NK: What did they tell you about, you know, what you should brace for? Are they telling you that there's a chance still that they have hope?

LA: Yeah, they do think that we're still in a good position and that things might still be going in the right way. So, his, his lawyers are at least somewhat optimistic, I would say. But still, things have been going better for us. And we had some additional opportunities that we're not having right now if that commutation is still in place, so.

NK: What kind of conversations have you had with your husband since the U.S. president's decision?

LA: So, he called me the day after he first learned about the commutation. That was the first time he could get the phone because he wanted to tell me in-person what's going on because, of course, we were fearing before the commutation actually happened that it might happen. So, that was not a good day for either one of us.

NK: The charges or the convictions here are serious, for serious crimes, as our listeners heard in the introduction. What would you say to listeners who say that, that this, this kind of commutation is a gift to your husband? It will save his life.

LA: Well, yeah, it will save his life. But I would ask if being locked away in prison for the rest of your life and dying in prison is, is a win for someone who got convicted of a crime that they did not commit? I mean, our, our number one goal is proving his innocence and getting him out. So, accepting a life in prison, and never being able to, to present the the real facts of what, what happened, what was going on, and what brought him to prison, and what brought him the death sentence. I mean, that's just not an option, really. It feels like giving up. So, we'll keep on fighting and trying to get that second shot and show the world that he did not commit the crimes that he was convicted of.

NK: Laura, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

LA: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

CH: Laura Agofsky is the wife of former death row inmate Shannon Agofsky. We reached her in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany.

[ambient]

Used Trees Park

CH: Jarry Park in Montreal turns 100 this year. And to celebrate, you can bring your real Christmas tree and plant it in the park's new pop-up forest. On the branches of the trees, people are leaving handwritten messages and wishes. Organizers are hoping for 100 trees and lots of park memories to mark the occasion. Michel LaFleur is the president of La Coalition des Amis du Parc Jarry. He told the CBC where he got the idea for a used tree park.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHEL LAFLEUR: Well, actually, that's the second time that we were doing this.

NANTALI INDONGO: Okay.

ML: We did that in 2021. If you remember, that was a COVID period. And people were confined inside. And we thought, you know, like, the only way to meet people was outside. And we said, well, the parks should be used for that. And in the middle of the winter, some people are not so inclined to go to the park. So, we said we should create something that will sort of catalyze the, the, the, the, for the people to go to the parks.

NI: Yeah.

ML: So, we said, oh, maybe if, you know, if we bring the Christmas trees, make a small forest, people can have a bit of fresh air and meet people. So, so, for COVID, I think that was quite a good thing to, to socialize. And then, now, we do it because it's to, to show our love for our beautiful park in, in our neighborhood.

NI: I wonder, Michel, in terms of the messages that people have left so far on the 43 trees or some of the trees that they've already brought to the pop-up forest, what are some of the messages? Do you have a sense of what people are saying?

ML: Well, yeah, so far, this kind of like, obviously, people really love the park. So, I mean, a lot of the messages are like it is, oh, we hope that you will have very nice moments with friends and families as we have now.

NI: Right.

ML: You know? And other people are saying, well, this is a very nice green space, and we hope it will be even greener for you, so, which is nice.

NI: That's a good one.

ML: If we want, if we want big trees in 100 years old, it's time to plant them now.

NI: Yeah.

CH: That was Michel LaFleur speaking with Nantali Indongo on Daybreak.

[funk]

Everest Earthquake

CH: When a deadly 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Tibet, German mountaineer Jost Kobusch was on Everest. And he felt the Earth shake. More than 120 people are dead after Tuesday's earthquake. Efforts to rescue those buried under the rubble are ongoing. Mr. Kobush is OK. He described the scary moment to the BBC.

SOUNDCLIP

JOST KOBUSCH: My tent was shaken very hardly this morning. So, I woke up to realize I was surrounded by avalanches coming down the mountain.

REBECCA KESBY: Goodness. Okay. And so, just tell us where you are on Everest. Because I think you're on your own as well, aren't you?

JK: Exactly. So, I'm trying to solo climb Everest in the winter without oxygen on the West Ridge. So, I'm not climbing the normal route. I'm climbing a technical route that is rocky, and icy, and steep. So, I'm in my tent on a granite balcony at 5,700 in a steep wall. And that's exactly when the earthquake hit.

RK: Goodness. Were you worried that you would even be thrown off the ridge? I mean, it's not a very large area.

JK: One of the biggest challenges of climbing Everest in the winter is the extreme wind speed up there. So, my tent was very, very well-secured. And it's in a spot where I was sure I couldn't be hit by any rocks or ice. So, in a way, I felt very safe. But there were big parts of glaciers collapsing and exploding around me. And the shock waves hit me and, well, some bits of ice hit the tent. And, well, let's put it this way, the tent has, has seen its last expedition.

RK: So, just explain the shock waves. How long did that go on for and what was that like? And also, you mentioned the avalanches, but I presume those are still a threat to you at the moment?

JK: Right now, at the moment, I'm actually back to the base camp, and I'm in a safe spot. I'm not in that camp anymore. But being up there, it's basically left and right, there are big chunks of glacier that are falling down, collapsing, forming avalanches. But also, yeah, it's just like explosion shockwaves from this ice collapsing, and fine snow particles, sometimes less fine. [chuckling].

RK: Yeah.

JK: Pushing against the tent.

RK: Well, that's very dangerous. I mean, you talk about ice, but the kind of ice, the impacted hard ice that would be there, raining down on you could do you some serious injury.

JK: Absolutely. This could potentially kill you.

CH: Mountaineer Jost Kobusch speaking with the BBC's Rebecca Kesby.

[classic rock]

Evolution Luck Research

Guest: Matthew Zipple

CH: We've all heard the phrase "survival of the fittest" -- which refers to the work of the exceptionally bearded biologist Charles Darwin. He said that the organisms best-suited to their environments are the ones most likely to survive, and therefore reproduce, and therefore have their characteristics become dominant in the gene pool. But researchers started to suspect that something else -- something frustratingly random and totally unpredictable -- might also be at play when it comes to whose genes win out. And now, they've published a new study on their findings. Matthew Zipple is a social behavioural ecologist at Cornell University, and one of the co-authors of the paper. We reached him in Leipzig, Germany.

NK: So, Matthew, what is this, this something else, this ingredient, that you believe people may be underestimating in terms of understanding evolution?

MATTHEW ZIPPLE: Yeah. So, that missing ingredient is what you or I might call luck. Animals are moving about the world, and they're experiencing their environment in ways that they can't control or predict, but that might have really important impacts on their later life outcomes. So, I think we can all relate to, you know, an event in our life where it's really gone just slightly differently, or we'd gotten somewhere a few seconds later or earlier, things could have gone really differently, and that could have mattered for a long time in terms of our longer-term outcomes.

NK: So, tell our listeners how you went about studying this.

MZ: So, what we wanted to do was to take a large number, in this case, about 100 genetically identical mice. So, eliminate all the variation in genes and place them outside in this large, this large field outside, where they could all have access to the same resources in early life, the same opportunities, and access to the same kind of large environment. And so, then the idea is if we have isolated everyone to have the same genes and everyone have the same access to resources and opportunities in early life, then really what's left is, is this factor of luck or contingency, these small differences that happen to animals.

NK: And then, how do you go about introducing luck into that environment?

MZ: We let the animals kind of natural behaviours, the way that they navigate both their physical environment, but also really importantly in this case, their social environment, lead to these kind of chance encounters. In our experiment, in our setup, male mice compete very strongly with each other to control space and to control resources and access to females. And, in our case, all of these male mouse pups started out as infants, you know, about the same size with the genetically identical mother, access to the same resources. But as they developed, some of them just by chance happened to win competitions with each other. Maybe they get to an attractive space slightly before another animal. And then, they might have a physical fight. And, you know, by chance, one of them wins that fight. And then, going forwards, the winner of that competition, the winner of that interaction is at an advantage because now, they control access to resources. And the loser does not. And so, you can see the ways in which this can then snowball. This introduction of competition can lead to this, this feedback loop where winners keep winning and they keep getting more resources. And losers lose and get less resources and they keep losing. And so, you get this development of inequality, even though everyone started from the same point.

NK: And what might it look like in the wild?

MZ: So, that's part of the challenge we're trying to overcome, right? Is that in the wild, in natural populations, both in non-humans and in humans, right, no one is starting out at the same point, right? And so, these kind of chance interactions that these kind of, you know, probabilities that shape individuals' lives are already building on inequalities. Our belief is that, you know, in this system, everyone started with the same access to resources. And we get the development of this inequality. And our guess is that under, you know, more natural systems or like in human societies where these inequalities already exist early in life, the competition will magnify those already preexisting conditions, those preexisting inequalities. And luck then kind of builds on already existing differences.

NK: You've heard, of course, people say, you know, you can, one can make their own luck or, you know, there isn't really luck. It's about being prepared for when opportunities arise. How, how did you feel about those, those statements before and now that you've done this work?

MZ: So, you know, I think that anyone who would deny that differences, at least in humans, in aptitude or attitude or talent or hard work, those things obviously matter, right? But I think that what, what our research and my experience studying these animals shows me is that those differences that we might observe in young people or in adults are the result, probably, right, of different experiences early in life. And so, you know, we might have differences in abilities that allow us to take advantage of opportunities when they come our way. But those differences in abilities may very well be shaped by earlier life, chance encounters, lucky encounters that we couldn't control. There's an example from human, from humans playing sports where individuals who are born at the right time of year can end up being very successful basketball or hockey players because they happen to be older than their other peers in their class, for example. So, they start out bigger and they get more attention, they get more and more success. This is an example of what's called in social sciences the Matthew Effect, where early success leads to more success. And, of course, talent is going to play a role in that. But also, there's some element of luck.

NK: It's named for you, yeah? [chuckle]

MZ: Yeah. It comes from the gospel of Matthew, actually, where, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

NK: So, what ultimately do you hope people take from your work on this?

MZ: I hope that when people think about the sources of inequality in our lives, you know, it's easy to point to differences in quality or talent or merit because I think that makes us feel comfortable, right? Especially if we've succeeded. We want to understand. We want to feel like that success isn't the result of luck, it's the result of what we've done. And that doesn't mean that we can't be proud of what we've done. Of course, we can. But what I hope is that it makes people feel more empathetic, more kind of curious about the differences that they see between themselves and others around them that might have less, and, and reconsider whether their immediate assumption is that those who have less, that, that difference is the result of, of some inadequacy in those who have lost out.

NK: Matthew, thank you for this.

MZ: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

CH: Matthew Zipple is a social behavioural ecologist at Cornell University. He's the co-author of a new study published in the journal Science. We reached him in Leipzig, Germany.

[indie rock]

Banished Words

CH: Every year, Lake Superior State University publishes a list of ten banished words. Words it has designated as inappropriate for use, overused, misused, and/or generally useless. For example, last year the list included, and forgive me for saying these words, "rizz", "obsessed", "slay", and the phrase "at the end of the day". Which is six words, of course, but at the end of the day, you have to agree they're terrible. Or take the 1992 list, which included "angst", "big-time", and "to be perfectly honest with you". Well, today, university president David Travis broke down this year's list on the CBC. Number 10 is "period." And number nine: "utilize."

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID TRAVIS: Utilize is another one I think utilize is one where we're trying to sound maybe a little more fancy than we need to. Right now, I am using my phone to talk with you. I'm not utilizing my phone to talk with you. And we do that a lot. We replace certain words with fancier sounding words that is really unnecessary. So, it's another example of overuse.

SHAWN APEL: Okay. Got it. Next one on the list?

DT: We have 100, 100 per cent. Kind of a firmness that we see today in today's world, especially maybe in the United States, where you don't want to take a grey kind of in between. You want to take a stance on one side or the other. Skibidy, well, this is a word I have to say I didn't really know much about. This is something that the younger generation certainly uses. And I've gotten multiple definitions. I've even talked to my own children about it. I've talked to our students and a word that certainly falls into the category of useless. No one really knows exactly what it means.

SA: Six, sorry, not sorry. Or as Americans would say sorry, not sorry. Yeah.

DT: We do say kind of a sarcastic way to apologize. It's sort of a, you know, it's not, it's not really saying I'm sorry. It's, it's just sort of implying I feel bad, but I don't really feel bad. This is sort of a way I think of avoiding speaking the truth.

SA: All right. Now, the next one, number five, an acronym

DT: So, again, this is a younger generation thing. If you know, you know, IYKYK. And, again, implying some sort of sense of, of, of, of, of, of knowledge that someone has or a feeling that you have about a circumstance. Again, it's confusing and I, I think it's overused in text a lot.

SA: Number four is an interesting one because the word is dropped, but a specific usage of the word dropped, right?

DT: So, it's, it's taking the use of a word that, obviously, we all see as a physical dropping of something and now converting it over into the digital world. But everything is over, overused now in terms of it's dropped.

SA: Number three on the List, era. And it's association with Taylor Swift. On your website, the university says unless you are Taylor Swift, it might be time to leave the word era behind. Let's, let's talk about number two for a second, gamechanger.

DT: Yeah, I think this is the sports world creeping into the everyday life. And, again, that's sort of drama, overdramatization of things. So much, so many things nowadays are considered to be a gamechanger. And, you know, it kind of goes with 100 per cent. I mean, do you really agree with anyone 100 per cent of the time?

SA: Now, number one is sort of the big deal word, cringe.

DT: I think the sense we've gotten is let's, let's make sure people know that this is, yeah, this is fun. We're just trying to bring attention to words. And, you know, and maybe we went a little too fun this year. I'm not sure.

CH: The president of Lake Superior State University, David Travis, speaking with Shawn Apel, host of Radio Noon Quebec. The program then asked their audience what other words they'd like to see banished. Sorry, not sorry.

SOUNDCLIP

CALLER: So one of them would be curious. Another one would be pivot. These, as you might notice, are kind of heavily used on LinkedIn. And then, another word would be woke.

CALLER #2: Yes, I have a word that, to me, has been overused and unprecedented. Can we not use another word to describe something? Every time I turn on the radio with the news people and people just talk that everything's unprecedented. Can we give it a rest? [chuckling].

CALLER #3: Mine is impact, and it used to be used for two cars hitting each other and the impact would be. But now, people are asked what, how they are impacted. And that used to be teeth were impacted. So, every time I hear that, it makes me cringe because it almost hurts -- impact their teeth. So, and now worse than ever, now you've got impactful. So, I thought it would go away. But instead of that, it seems to just be growing.

CALLER #4: Only, I'm afraid I'm going to be really contrary and say I hate lists. I don't like banning any of the words. Some of the words are silly and some are overused. But I totally love that Gen Alpha has their own language, and I just think it's, I think it's great. I think it's wonderful that language evolves. I think it's okay that there's insider language. As long as kids in particular and young adults are learning, you know, that context matters. You can swear like a trooper with your friends, but not your teachers. I mean, I don't know.

CALLER #5: Well, I have a few. Oh my God. You know. So. People start off their sentence, well, so this and that and the other. Instead of excitement, they say, my God.

CALLER #6: Okay! So, my word, and I hate even saying it, but it's the word I hear all the time, and it's sucks. S.u.c.k.s -- not the socks that you put on your feet. It feels like a very lazy word. And it beautifully sums up a situation. I mean, I don't deny that, but I just think, goodness, there's got to be a better way to describe something.

CH: "So..." Those were callers "curated" from today's Radio Noon. I'm guessing As It Happens listeners have pretty strong feelings about words they'd like to see banished in 2025. If so, please, call Talkback at 416-205-5687. Or email us at aih@cbc.ca.

The AIH Transcript For January 8, 2025

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