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The AIH Transcript for February 26, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight.

CO: Keep calm and concealed carry on. Donald Trump is probably considering putting armed teachers in schools. So we'll visit a Texas school district where the teachers have been packing for years.

JD: A resolution that resolved nothing. Our guest lives in Eastern Ghouta, Syria and he says judging by ongoing missile and airstrikes the U.N. Security Council cease fire didn't cease anything.

CO: Moment of truce. Sweden was a key country in planning that cease fire. And while people resigned themselves to yet another failure, an ambassador with the country's U.N. mission says success is still a possibility.

JD: A crash, but not a crash course. Last night's multi-vehicle pile-up on B.C.’s Coquihalla highway looks shocking on TV, but our guest to watch that epic accident and many others like it from the discomfort of his own home.

CO: Marci Ien can't be stopped. But in a new op-ed the tireless journalist and CTV host says she was stopped by police three times in eight months — once outside her own home just because she's black.

JD: And…On a manner of speaking. It's known for its orchards but two UBC profs say folks in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley may also be cultivating a distinctive accent. And they're hoping their search for that valley twang bears fruit. As It Happens: The Monday Edition. Radio that takes you to the valley of the drawls.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Armed Teachers, Coquihalla Accident, Okanagan Accent,

Armed Teachers

Guest: Steve Clugston

JD: Schools should not be gun free zones. That is the argument U.S. President Donald Trump made again today at a meeting with state governors. The president says it's up to individual states to decide if they want their school teachers to carry weapons — but he strongly recommends it. Washington Governor Jay Inslee made it clear at the meeting that he, for one, is opposed. Here's an exchange between Governor Inslee and President Trump.

SOUNDCLIP

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I do think that there has to be some form of major retaliation if they are able to enter a school. And if that happens you're not going to have any problems anymore because they'll never go into the school — you're never going to have a problem. So it would just be a very small group of people that are very gun adept, anyway go ahead.

GOVERNOR JAY INSLEE: If I may respond to that. Speaking as a grandfather, speaking as the governor of the state of Washington, I have listened to the people who would be affected by that. I have listened to the biology teachers and they don't want to do that at any percentage. I've listened to the first-grade teachers that don't want to be pistol packing first-grade teachers. I've listened to law enforcement who have said they don't want to have to train teachers as law enforcement agencies, which takes about six months. Now I just think this is a circumstance where we need to listen, that educators should educate and they should not be foisted upon this responsibility of packing heat in first-grade classes. So I just suggest we need a little less tweeting here, a little more listening and let's just take that off the table and move forward.

DT: All right, thank you very much. You know we have a number of states right now that do that, and I think with that in mind I'll call on Greg Abbott the great governor of Texas.

JD: So President Trump mentioned Texas there as he spoke to governors in Washington. In Texas, 172 school districts already allow school staff to carry guns. Callisburg Independent School District is one of them. Steve Clugston is the school district superintendent and he oversees the Armed Teacher Program. We reached Mr. Clugston in Callisburg.

CO: Mr. Clugston, we just heard the governor of Washington State saying that most teachers don't want to carry guns, that law enforcement think it's a bad idea, but you have armed staff in your team in your schools. Why do you think it's a good idea?

STEVE CLUGSTON: Well, the problem comes in is the response time that lags between the incident beginning and law enforcement arriving. I mean, the sort of mass shooting is a good example of that. Even if it's five minutes, which is relatively short, a lot of things can happen in five minutes and then they've got to determine, OK where are they at in the building, when we go in where do we go in and lots of those types of things. What we try to do is organize a plan that allows us to be in a position to protect our kids more efficiently and we’ve get a plan worked out that goes along with that. And also you know we we've worked with our local law enforcement along with that.

CO: So how would that work? I mean, you've had this program in place for four years now. You have your armed staff in place. What are they carrying? What kind of guns, what do they train to do? If you have a shooter like you did in the high school in Parkland what would this what would your staff do?

SC: Well, we don't release how many are or who is armed guardian team members. They're there in case there is an imminent threat to deploy. We don't discuss what we do and how we do that. We've gone through that, we go through training on that every single year. Everything from talking on stuff at the range or on regular skills to actual scenario situations in the buildings.

CO: You have a sign outside your school that warns anybody that there is this program. What does this sign say?

SC: Basically it says it be advised that certain staff members are armed and we use whatever force is necessary to protect our students and staff.

CO: Do you think — now the program and the sign and all this and the knowledge that this is what you have at your school — is it that you feel you can defend the students or do you think that the knowledge of that might deter a shooter from going into your school because they might confront someone else with a gun?

SC: Well, I think that in most cases you know your active shooters tend to really target soft targets in areas where there's not, you know, pushback. You know, you don't see them going into the gun ranges and, you know, creating a mass shooting situation. You know, they tend to target the helpless and the innocent, you know so much. And, you know, I think it's one of the things we don't really — we want them to know we're not a soft target.

CO: The FBI has done a study of active shooter situations and they found that in almost half of those cases the police took casualties, the police were wounded or killed in those encounters with gunman. And so the question is, is that if the police, who are trained to do this and do it all the time have that kind of a casualty rate, what might happen to those who don't do it all the time, who end up in an active shooter situation? I mean, you're not concerned that you're going to lose those people who are who are carrying the weapons to defend your students?

SC: Unfortunately in an active shooter situation quite often you lose people, you're going to lose people — that's unfortunate. Well we're trying to mitigate that the best we can not to lose anybody. I know saying, OK you're going to be an active shooter situation and nobody in there is armed, OK versus you have some people armed, in which one of those scenarios do you lose more people? See what I'm saying, that it make sense? I mean, you know, you're telling me that well somebody may get harmed, I'm well aware of that. We pray every night that this never happens. But at the same time taking a gun away from the people who are set out to protect kids is supposed to keep everybody safer?

CO: And how did the people who you have trained to do that, how did they feel about the possibility that they will become casualties because they're going to be in the front line?

SC: Everybody on our team is a volunteer. You know, nobody is forced or coerced to serve on our team. It is all volunteers.

CO: I know you're in Texas, you can appreciate from the Canadian point of view, we often just don't get it. I mean, that the best scenario for us would be why you wouldn't have someone an active shooter in the schools because you reduce the number of guns available to everybody, best not to have any guns in the school on either side. So it's hard for us to understand where you're coming from in Texas.

SC: It's easy to make that law. The problem is, the people that come in to do active shooting aren’t following the law anyway. I mean, you understand what I'm saying? You know, it's like Chicago, Illinois has got very, very strict gun laws yet they've got some of the highest homicide rates with guns in the country.

CO: Well the young fellow who was in the high school had a legal firearm and was able to go in and do what he did. So I guess he was — until he started shooting — he was inside the law.

SC: When he stepped on campus he was, you know, in violation of the law. But, I mean, that's immaterial, he’s gone in and committed an atrocity.

CO: He sure did. Again, your people that you're depending on to take care of things, we saw in the Florida shooting there was an armed guard, there was someone outside the school who was the deputy who was supposed to be armed, supposed to be taking care of the students at Stoneman Douglas and he stayed outside. So how do you know that they're actually going to confront that that shooter if it should happen?

SC: I believe that you protect that which you love. It's kind of like most moms are pretty passive but you let somebody get a hold of one of their kids try and run off with them at a park, you’ve got full blown grizzly bear on your hands. Teachers, in who they are or are, you know, teachers love kids. You know, whenever one of those shootings you hear about teachers giving their lives trying to protect their kids. The only difference between that and us is we're trying to put them in a position to be better equipped to do just that. Our teachers love our kids.

CO: We will leave it there. Mr. Clugston, Thank you.

SC: Thank you and I appreciate it.

JD: Steve Clugston is the superintendent for the Callisburg Independent School District. We reached him in Callisburg, Texas.

[Music: Country]

Coquihalla Accident

Guest: Graham Zillwood

Today authorities in British Columbia reopened part of the Coquihalla highway. But last night that section of the highway looked like the end of the world. More than 100 people were involved in a multi vehicle pile-up. Dozens were sent to the hospital after the crash, which involved buses, semis and cars. Lacey Shepherd was on a bus that was hit. She shared a video of the accident with global news. Here's what it sounded like and a warning of course some listeners may find this disturbing.

SOUNDCLIP

PEOPLE SCREAMING.

LOUD IMPACT.

JD: That was the sound of a multi-vehicle crash on a B.C. highway last night. Graham Zillwood could see that scene from his house — and he has seen something similar many times before. We reached Mr. Zillwood at his place by Hope, British Columbia.

CO: Graham that tape we have just heard is so disturbing to hear what people were going through at that moment. What do you understand was going on in that bus?

GRAHAM ZILLWOOD: From what I can gather I think they saw a semi or another vehicle coming towards them. So the fear of being hit and not knowing how hard you're going to be hit and what's going to happen has got to be terrible.

CO: And so what did they do, what happened to that bus, do you know?

GZ: You know, there was two buses that went off. One went off the highway and I believe onto its side or its roof. And the other one that was across from me that I could see was hit by a semi and bumped ahead but I don't think they sustained any serious damage, physically anyways. I think that one was okay, but the other one I think there was injuries, from what I understand.

CO: Well let’s go through what you know happened. Last night, when did you know that something was going very badly on that highway?

GZ: I was actually watching a TV show and I know it was ten to eight I happened to glance just as it happened, I heard a bang. It sounded like crunching metal and it sounded like a tree snapping. And I've heard those sounds before across the river. So I knew roughly what to expect. So I grabbed my phone and I ran to my front windows dialing 911 as I got there and about 200 feet to the south of the highway looking out my window, was a vehicle down the embankment towards the river, not in the water right down. And then as I was looking at that, I peripherally looked to my left and right across from me I could see a semi barreling down, because all the cars ahead were stopped. The semi was coming and he hit the car, one of the cars was stopped on the highway. That car went down the embankment and then the semi went towards the embankment and rolled down onto its side onto that car.

CO: Oh my gosh. And what were the weather conditions like?

GZ: The weather — I just looked at the temperature it was around zero, minus two. So not crazy bad but definitely freezing weather and it was a bit of hail at the time. It was only like a quarter of an inch or so of fresh stuff. I looked right away to see what the conditions were. So it wasn't like we were in a major snowstorm.

CO: Was it a bit slippery?

GZ: Yes. See what happens, I've unfortunately had to call in this type of accident before. I've been here 14 years and I've called in in many, many years. About a kilometer south of my house going up the highway is quite a steep hill that winds up on as you're going into Hope. And when the roads get slippery it only takes one or two vehicles to get stuck on that hill and then the traffic starts to back up and it backs up for a long, long ways. And that's what happened here. They were stopped right up to where I could see them at my house. And then the semi was coming and I don't think they were speeding, doing normal speed, but then they don't have enough time to react, to slow down because the vehicles were stopped right in front of them, they don't know. And so they either go to the right, head to the river or they go to the left in between the highway to try to avoid hitting vehicles. It's just terrible. As I'm talking to 911 I'm saying here comes another semi. There was a total of three semi's that came while I'm on 911 watching it and I'm calling play-by-play, it's just horrible. I can see it and I can't do anything except call 911.

CO: Well that's a lot to do because that's the most important thing is to try and get people out there. And they're saying, B.C. Emergency Health Services their report is that there were at least two transport trucks, two busses. And you saw three and that seems like from what you can see the wreckage there was another one there two buses, and how many vehicles do you think altogether?

GZ: Well I saw — there was two vehicles off the upside down the embankment. In fact the one semi and the one car still down there, they haven't got them out yet. The other semi was halfway down the bank and it was kind of speared into the first semi. And then the third semi came along and hit the back end of the second semi. And I believe another car, from what I could see, it was dark last night. I think another car kind of got tangled between the third semi and the bus. So, how much damage I couldn't tell because it was dark, all I could see was lights for miles up and down the highway. Red lights, blue lights, headlights, tail lights — went on for hours. And one of the really hard things to watch was when when the emergency got here, like I told them to come through the u turn route between the highways because if they had gone to the exit like they were mentioning on the news, they would have taken hours to get back through all the traffic to get to the accident scene. So luckily I got them a little bit faster. But when they finally got down to the first semi that rolled down we could hear them at least an hour it seemed like two hours, that they were using Jaws of Life, hammering, banging, yelling trying to get into the truck, I believe. It was definitely stuck in there. It took forever to get them out but they did eventually get them out, thank goodness.

CO: You say you've been there for 14 years. How many times have you called in accidents?

GZ: It seems like almost every year. Last winter I don't think — actually there was an accident but I didn’t call that one in. I didn't see it right away it went because it went down between the highway. But every year, every winter except for maybe two or three out of 14. But then there's also — I called in two during the summer — and that's stuff from slippery conditions, just people falling asleep, I don't know what it is. So two vehicles I called in last summer.

CO: And again, because if they're doing it and having these accidents even when it's not slippery, it sounds like a really dangerous pass.

GZ: Yeah. And it shouldn't be, it's a very level spot. It's pretty well straight. It doesn't make sense why — this time of year it does because of that hill. People can't get up that hill and that backs it up. That is our problem in the wintertime here. I am absolutely sure that's what causes the accidents here. And I have talked to the Ministry of highways about it before over the years to see what can be done to get some kind of warning to the exit before when this happens so people know to stop or to take a detour through that exit and not stay on the highway and freeze to death all night. Sometimes that highway is closed for two three four days in bad weather.

CO: And what kind of response do you get from the government when you give those suggestions?

GZ: They didn't really know what to do about. They said not much we can do.

CO: Of all the accidents that you've called in, you've seen there. Have you seen one like this one?

GZ: Yeah, I've actually — I'm sure the one about four years ago was more vehicles. I think it was up to a dozen vehicles that time. So I don't always hear about injuries and that kind if stuff. I just see the vehicles. So as far as vehicle count, this is not the most I've seen.

CO: Graham, I'm glad you heard that. And you got the phone so quickly and I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

GZ: You're very welcome. I just hope that I wish everybody well that was involved and hopefully everybody's okay.

CO: We hear you, thank you.

GZ: Thank you very much for calling.

CO: Bye.

GZ: Bye-bye.

JD: Graham Zillwood witnessed a major smash up on the Coquihalla Highway near his home by Hope, British Columbia and that is where we reached him. As we went to air today there were no reports of fatalities. And we have more on this story, including images of the pile up, on our webite: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Guitar Plucks]

Okanagan Accent

Guest: Bob Pritchard

JD: One professor has been saying for a while that people from British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley say things differently, especially when compared to city folk a few hours away in Vancouver. Well now Bob Pritchard from UBC has set out to prove it. He is recruiting people from the Okanagan to go online and record a reading, which he will analyze for what he calls the Okanagan twang. We reached Professor Bob Pritchard in Vancouver.

CO: Professor Pritchard, what first made you think there might be a distinctive Okanagan twang?

BOB PRITCHARD: Well, when I was teaching a few years — several years ago — I noticed what I suspected was the Okanagan accent having grown up in the valley. And at one point in a music theory class in the middle of talking about Mozart, Beethoven et cetera, et cetera, I had five students stand up and ask them to say the name of the city we were in and they all went Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver etc. And I said to the rest of the class what do you hear. And met by blank stares so I had them do it again. And then one of the women in the class said they all said “Vain-couver.” Then I asked each of the students who were standing to name the city they grew up in. And it was an Okanagan city. So that's where that started.

CO: “Vain-couver” is your first clue someone who says that is possibly from the valley?

BP: Possibly. We do hear it in other areas in British Columbia but that sort of maybe one of the first clues. Then you start listening for harder R's and things like that.

CO: What are some other distinctive words or dead giveaways on this?

BP: Well, one of the things I notice is the way I say Vernon and the way people I know of my age who say Vernon, this “rrr” sound, this very tight high ‘R’ sound, it's very hard or early, things like that. That's one of the things but also just a general and becoming an “and” this sort of nasality I sometimes hear.

CO: So what are you doing about this? Tell us about your study.

BP: Well, I emailed Molly Babel over in linguistics and said, is there such a thing, has anybody done a study? And her response was well, I don't know but we should have coffee. And out of that, last year, we got some research funding and we're now studying this, collecting samples from people reading a story.

CO: We have a recording someone sent you from the Okanagan let's just listen to this clip.

SOUNDCLIP

OKANAGAN VALLEY WOMAN: After the accident things had gone south. The dance of endless meetings, the lag between promises and payments. A metal pin in his leg, and Verna, a pain in his neck.

CO: Okay so what gives it away there?

BP: They're not so much in that but some Verna, a pain in his neck. And in that same recording we didn't quite hear it when the reader says cigarette or sink it's a very high very high closed sound the way she's pronouncing that vowel. So people read this and the reason we use the story rather than just reading the words is if you're given a list of words to read probably concentrate on pronouncing the words, whereas if you read the story you're concentrating on how the flow of the story goes. And so it's an attempt to make you read more naturally. So once people have read this then this is downloaded or uploaded to our servers then we download it and then we have research assistants who go through and they place markers on these words and then there's software that goes through and runs an analysis so we can look at the different format regions, which are the resonant regions of vowels and other things and we look at this and do a comparison to see how the accents are working.

CO: Comparison to what will you compare different regions in British Columbia?

BP: Certainly different regions but also probably different ages. And it's early days in the research right now but I wouldn't be surprised, and also based on anecdotal comments by people who have contacted us, I think we will see a shift in the Okanagan accent by age between people my age, I’m in my 60s, and the younger generation of 20, 30s. I think we will see a definite shift but it's early days, we can't say that's for sure yet.

CO: A shift away from having a twang?

BP: Yes, and a change of pronunciation. One person who read for me, I was quite surprised with saying pajamas, a person from Kelowna, and a young person from Kelowna saying pajamas, which really surprised me to hear that. And I've only heard one person saying that so far but we still haven’t run an analysis, we have many, many, many, many readings to analyze.

CO: What do you think were the influences? What you think created the distinctive accents in the valley?

BP: So in the Okanagan, as prior to the Coquihala going through et cetera, et cetera. When it was a fair distance it used to be seven or eight hours from the coast to get to the Okanagan. There might not have been much mobility or as much media coming into the valley — and this would be the same throughout British Columbia.

CO: Now you're a 60-something from the valley. How come you don't have a twang?

BP: I do have a twang when I say Vancouver sometimes, and I do say ‘Vernon’ and ‘really’ and things like that. And I also shorten except when I'm giving a professional presentation at a conference or some very public speaking where I'm very much aware of my pronunciation. I use ‘gonna’ I'm gonna do this or to what — t-u-h instead of t-o — that was pointed out by somebody from the Okanagan how we shorten it and a lot of places do that but we tend, some people tend, to slur through those things and maybe that's a characteristic of the Okanagan maybe not.

CO: You’re gonna to go to Vancouver you're taking your pajamas.

[LAUGHTER]

BP: Oh my goodness that sounds dreadful.

CO: It does. It's all very interesting. I'm sure we'll hear from people who agree or disagree.

BP: Well, just point out there is no correct way of speaking. We all speak differently. So it's just investigating differences at this point.

CO: Professor Pritchard, thank you.

BP: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye.

BP: Bye now.

JD: Bob Pritchard is a professor in the Faculty of Music at the University of British Columbia. We reached him in Vancouver.

[Music: Rock]

Coffee Health Study

JD: Two pieces of good news everyone — a new study says coffee is definitely good for you and it is the last coffee study ever — I mean no one has come out actually and said that for sure it's the last one. But it is, it is, it has to be. Because how many coffees studies have we endured? Dozens? Hundreds? I don't know. One day science tells us coffee is a miracle elixir, the next day different signs tells us, no actually coffee causes chronic problems, it's evil — and so I'm calling it. This one by researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer or IARC and Imperial College London, this is definitive. It is exhaustive. It is the very last coffee study ever. Now the March 2018 issue of National Geographic reports on his brand new study, which involved more than half a million people in 10 European countries over 16 years. And here's the bottom line quote, “We found that higher coffee consumption was associated with a lower risk of death from any cause and specifically for circulatory diseases and digestive diseases.” unquote. Did you hear that a lower risk of death from any cause and it even suggests decaf is beneficial. This is great news and it is a terrific ending to the most recent, last ever — oh no. This study is in the latest issue of National Geographic, but the research is from July of 2017. And even the most cursory look at the news shows that there have been — oh no — so many studies since then oh that's just great. Well listen up science, health benefits aside, you should probably cut down because you're never ending work on coffee is severely over caffeinated.

Part 2: Syria Resident, Syria Ceasefire: Sweden, Marci Ien: Driving While Black

Syria Resident

Guest: Nour Adam

JD: On paper the cease fire went into effect immediately. On the ground, however, residents of eastern Ghouta say the fighting hasn't just continued, the fighting has intensified. On Saturday, after days of delays and disagreements, The United Nations Security Council voted to approve a 30 day cease fire in Syria. Soon we will hear from a member of the Sweden UN mission who helped to craft that cease fire resolution. But first Nour Adam the 22-year-old citizen journalist lives in Eastern Ghouta. He says the so-called cease fire has done nothing to stop the airstrikes and the missiles.

CO: Nour, you are in your office right now. What can you hear? It's night, but you can hear the planes, is that right?

NOUR ADAM: Yes, I can hear the planes above Eastern Ghouta. I can hear the missiles on the towns and the village and the bombing.

CO: How long has this attack been going on at this point?

NA: In this week, I mean, it's like it's like nothing else. Until this moment the warplanes and the missiles did not stop. After the a cease fire were noises from a Security Council the United Nations and the Assad regime and Russia and Iran did not act for this cease fire in Ghouta.

CO: And the cease fire was supposed to go into effect on Saturday. Did you see any difference at all in the intensity of the bombing?

NA: No, no actually there were more bombings after they are knowing the cease fire more bombings. Yesterday, at night the Assad regime targeted a town in Ghouta with chlorine gas and killed the one child.

CO: And we have seen reports and images of those attacks, the chlorine gas attack. You're confirming that suffocated a child who was caught in that gas attack. What do you want to say to the U.N. Security Council that's spent days composing that resolution? The Russians delayed it by three days after it was proposed saying they wanted to improve it. What do you want to say to the U.N. Security Council right now?

NA: The U.N. Security Council, I mean, for seven years they met and discussed and they agreed not to stop the Assad regime or Russia. I mean there was mass murder. And they killed their children. They killed the whole family. I mean, they killed, in just one week, they killed more than 500 people.

CO: Russia sits on the U.N. Security Council. It was saying for days that it was it was in favour of this cease fire and trying to make this cease fire stronger or to improve the language. What do you want to say to Russia?

NA: The government of Russia who kills us and supports Assad's regime, I mean, what kind of country would do that? I don't know. They killed our children and they killed our friends they killed our family. I don't know actually what to say because they are they are killing us. They used the new weapon and killed our friend and tortured him. They just want to do whatever they want to do to keep Bashar al-Assad as the president.

CO: You know we're talking to you. You're in a building. Most people we talk to are underground. They've gone into basements and cellars, terrible conditions but it's a bit safer to be down there. Why are you above ground?

NA: Because they are all full of children and women. And actually the warplanes target the shelters. Two days ago a whole family was hiding in a shelter and the at night the Russian warplanes targeted that shelter and killed them all.

CO: So in a shelter, they were down, they were underground.

NA: The family is underground and they are also targeted by warplanes and missiles.

CO: You're describing right now there are planes overhead. There are missiles striking your city. Can you describe what it's like for those families, for those children? You know because it's been going on for seven years. What are they going through tonight as we speak? What do you think the children those families underground are going through?

NA: They are scared to death because we don't know any minute if we’ll be killed by Russian warplanes or missiles of the Assad government. Everyone abandoned us, every country abandoned us, no one helps us. Lots of families did not eat anything for day now.

CO: Now this ceasefire that is now obviously falling apart, this was only 30 day ceasefire. And this wasn't to end the war. This was a very simple cease fire of a short duration to do one thing and they're not able to do that. What do you want to say to thw international community that can't even arrange a ceasefire of some hours of the day in order to bring food and medicine to people in your community?

NA: I want to say to every country voted for ceasefire in Ghouta for three days, after 13 days what will happen. Of course there were events that were within 48 hours. And all the world is just watching while we are dying and we are suffering from lack of food and lack of medical supplies. More than 22 hospitals have been targeted by warplanes. 14 hospitals are completely out of service.

CO: Nour in just a moment we're going to speak with an ambassador, part of Sweden's United Nations mission. We're going to put these questions to him. But I want to thank you for speaking to us tonight. And please stay safe.

NA: I will try to stay alive.

CO: Thank you.

NA:Thank you.

JD: Nour Adam is a resident of eastern Ghouta that is where we reached him earlier today

Syria Ceasefire: Sweden

Guest: Carl Skau

JD: And as he mentioned a cease fire resolution was approved by the U.N. Security Council on the weekend. It was written by Sweden and Kuwait. Carl Skau is an ambassador to the Security Council for the Swedish mission to the U.N. We reached Mr. Skau in New York.

CO: Ambassador Skau, you spent days trying to get this Syria cease fire resolution approved by the U.N. Security Council and it appears that it's already fallen apart. How do you explain that?

CARL SKAU: I think it's too early to say that this is falling apart. We are actively engaging with all relevant parties to ensure the implementation. First of all, with the guarantors of the de-escalation agreements the guarantors, of course, have to use their influence. There are also positive signs. The two largest armed groups in Eastern Ghouta have stated ready to comply. The U.N. is standing ready to do the delivery of aid that are needed and also the evacuations. And so today we are meeting at experts level with humanitarians of U.N. and on Wednesday we’re meeting again on Syria in order to keep the pressure up for implementation. So I wouldn't say that we have backtracked. We are rather moving forward.

CO: Well that doesn't — because we were speaking with people on the ground, Syrians who live there who are describing a very different situation. It may appear like there’s progress in New York today, but they are describing how the attacks on their cities and the communities have intensified since this agreement, that they are describing warplanes in the air, the missile attacks are more intense, the chlorine gas attacks, children who are suffocating with these gas attacks. They're not seeing, in fact, man we just spoke to said all the world is just watching us die.

CS: The intention of this resolution is really to de-escalate of course and to decrease the level of violence. So we will continue to push for that. I mean, all the council members signed up to this resolution on Saturday. These decisions are compulsory. And so I think we are receiving these reports as well with deep concern. But what we are trying to do is to move forward to ensure that this has effect those on the ground.

CO: We’re hearing from Russia and from Syria even within this cease fire plan there's a kind of a loophole for them, isn't there? Because it excludes attacks on terrorists and whoever the Russians or the Syrians regard as. So they can continue their campaign against terrorism even within the cease fire. And they're saying that these are terrorists that they have to continue to fight and they won't stop doing that. So how complete can this cease fire really be?

CS: There is indeed a caveat in terms of military operations against terrorist groups designated by the Security Council. But the letter of spirit of this resolution does not open for any escalation of violence but rather the de-escalation of violence. And so we are following up with influence on the ground and also with the capacity to make sure that that the resolution is implemented.

CO: And I understand the efforts you have put into this and how difficult it's been to get the Security Council resolution to counsel. But at the same time, does it not appear that Russia and Syria are making a mockery of this and particularly Russia since it's a member of the Security Council, that they are saying well you can say that but no one can authorize the de-escalation of attacks on what they call designated terrorist groups and they think that they are fighting terrorism and they will continue to do so. Are they not making a mockery of your resolution?

CS: As I said, I think it's too early to say. We have a meeting in the Security Council on Syria on Wednesday. That will be the time also for the secretary general to report back on what has actually taken place in these initial days.

CO: If the entire apparatus of the international community, the Security Council, is not able to deliver a simple 30 day cease fire of some hours of the day when this kind of aid can be brought in. What do you say to the people of Syria who have lost faith in you?

CS: Well, I understand if there's a loss of faith. I mean, there have been Security Council resolutions in the past that have not been implemented. What I think is important now is that we managed to reach consensus on this resolution. It has strong language in terms of de-escalation, in terms of humanitarian access, in terms of evacuations and I certainly hope that this time around, given that the Russians have signed up to this as well, that this will have an impact on the ground.

CO: I understand that you have worked hard to get to this place but what do you make of the fact that after seven years of this and the intensifying of it just over the weekend as we saw, that the most powerful nations on earth cannot resolve this, cannot bring to an end a conflict that has killed so many people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

CS: There is no other word for it than deep frustration. And it's painful to see month after month to hear the reports of the humanitarian or the human suffering in Syria in the Security Council. But what we now hope that we have is some decision to hold on to and to see to it that this is implemented. I mean, at the end of the day what is needed is a political solution, a political agreement to the overall peace process and we hope that although the primary objective of this resolution is humanitarian that by creating some de-escalation on the ground an environment that is at least somewhat more conducive to political agreement that this will also be a building block towards reaching that overall agreement. We are by no means see this as an imminent opportunity but we hope that we are now starting to build the blocks for both an agreement in the Security Council on Syria but also in the medium term a contribution to the overall political process and settlement. It's clear to us that Russia has the most influence when it comes to also bringing the Syrian government to the table and making them responsible to implement their part of this resolution.

CO: And what hope do you have that Russia will use that influence?

CS: I can't comment on what hope, I can just say that they have engaged and they have agreed and they voted in favour and we will discuss with them as early as later today, but also on Wednesday and in 15 days to make sure that they also implement what they've agreed to.

CO: We'll be watching. Ambassador Skau, thank you.

CS: Thank you so much.

JD: Ambassador Carl Skau is a spokesperson for the Swedish mission to the U.N. We reached Ambassador Skau in New York City and we have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Guitar Strums]

Marci Ien: Driving While Black

Guest: Marci Ien

JD: She has been on television for more than 20 years as a journalist and a news anchor. She's currently the cohost of CTV's The social. She is one of the most respected and recognizable figures on Canadian television. But she says police officers who have stopped her are only seeing the colour of her skin. Today Marci Ien published an op-ed in The Globe and Mail. It is called ‘The Double Standard of Driving While Black in Canada.’ In it she writes about being stopped and questioned by police near her Toronto home, which she says has happened three times in just eight months — even though she has broken no laws. We reach Marci Ien in Toronto.

CO: Marci, set the scene for us. How did this latest interaction with the police, how did it begin?

MARCI IEN: I was just returning home from driving my daughter to her cousin's, my sister's house, for a sleepover — it was Family Day weekend in Ontario — and was making my way home. I pulled into my driveway and noticed lights behind me.

CO: It was police.

MI: It was the police, a cruiser was behind me. I turned the car off, got out and he told me to get back into my vehicle.

CO: Did you — I understand at that point — you were getting out to ask him what he was doing in your neighbourhood?

MI: I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know it was about me and wanted to know what was happening, what was wrong and he told me to get back into my vehicle. I said pardon. He repeated it, got back into my vehicle and then he made his way over to me and I cracked the door open to hear what he had to say. And he told me to shut the door. He gestured with his hands for me to lower the window so I did that and he said that I hadn't stopped, I had run — it was a flashing red stoplight signal down the street about 500 metres and he said that I didn't stop.

CO: But he didn't address you there, he followed you home?

MI: No that's why I didn't notice him. And he said I want to let you know that you're being recorded and he asked for my identification. And I gave it to him and as he was looking at my information he asked me if I lived here.

CO: You're in your own driveway. He's got your I.D. with your, presumably with your address on it.

MI: That's correct. And I said I do. And he then went back to his vehicle to do his work. And I started texting my family to let them know what was happening. I felt so uneasy, Carol. I was I was afraid. I felt powerless. I felt wronged. I had been stopped. This is the third time inside of eight months in my neighbourhood. And I thought, wow this is really happening.

CO: At this point you're sitting in your car and not knowing where this is going. How is your family, as you're texting them and you're talking to them, how are they responding to your situation?

MI: My sister responded first and phoned me and she said “Marce, make sure you get his badge number.” And she was with my mom and I could hear my mom in the background asking if I was okay. Then my daughter, who now is with her cousins, has received a text of her own from her best friend, also our neighbours who see lights, who see the cruiser on our driveway. And so my daughter is now texting me panicked saying ‘Mom what's happening. Why is this police car there?’ And I quickly just said to her, you know, he said that I ran a red. And the officer came back and said that he was giving me a warning and I said if I've done anything wrong please just give me the ticket. And I said to him, you know, this has happened to me now three times. And the initial questions have been the same. Do you now live here, because we were in my driveway, previously had been do you live around here? And is this your vehicle? And I said, you know, I don't know how to explain this to my children who I teach kindness and respect. And yet I'm being disrespected on my driveway.

CO: And the reaction you were getting from your mother and your sister who are worried saying get his badge number. They don't know, you don't know how this is going to end. This is a scenario that for me, if I were sitting in my driveway, I would be presuming this is some kind of a misunderstanding, I’m going to get a ticket and this is the end of it. You're a black woman. That's what is making them worried, isn’t it?

MI: That's what's making them worried. And my father has been stopped. My husband has been stopped. My best friend, you know, fellow journalists, Dwight Drummond, has been stopped. And saying this, Carol, this is not about being anti-police because there are great cops out there. It is sharing what happened to me and knowing that this happens to so many others who don't have a voice.

CO: And what goes through someone's mind who is stopped like this by police, and you know that you're black while driving?

MI: Why? What is the whole idea of you don't belong here? Why does that go through someone's mind possibly? You know, this person doesn't belong here. So I need to find out what they're doing here. You know, we read, I read, I've read the headline for a living. We know what has happened. And so it is when I say fear, I still frankly, am shaken. It's trauma. And as a mom, I have to tell, you know, my 13-year-old because we don't hide things, I told her what happened said, you know, should I get my license? I want to get my license in a couple of years, you know, should I? This is the trauma and it is exponential, it ripples. It's not just me, it's family it's friends, it's everybody who now has to support me because of this. But Carol, I have support and I have a voice that I can use and tell my story. What about those that don't?

CO: You wrote in The Globe, “I'm an award winning journalist, that didn't matter. That I cohost a national television show didn't matter. That I have lived in this neighbourhood for 13 years didn't matter, but being black mattered.”

MI: For me to tell this story there are those out there that would think, ‘What this happened to mercy?’ And that's what I was trying to illustrate that it doesn't matter. I'm a black woman out there. And, I mean, listen I don't know this officer, obviously, but I felt scared.

CO: What did he say to you when you challenged him, when you said this is the third time this has happened to me?

MI: Nothing. And I said to him, listen, this is the third time and I'm having real difficulty explaining why I'm getting stopped in the place that I live. I'm having a real hard time. He didn't address what I was saying he said have a good night and left.

CO: Have you heard anything from the police since your article was published.

MI: I've not.

CO: Marci, it’s disturbing but it's eye-opening and I appreciate your writing it and talking to us. Thank you.

MI: Thank you very much, Carol.

JD: Marci Ien is the cohost of CTV's The Social. We reached Ms. Ien in Toronto.

[Music: Piano Ballad]

Olympics

Guest: Amanda Schochet

JD:The Winter Games were good for Canada. More medals than ever before, 11 golds. Number three in the overall standings, Tessa and Scott. We’re not shy about our winter sporting prowess but do you know who is? Norway is. At these Olympics they were number one, 39 medals. One third of those for cross-country skiing. The New York Times reports that by killing it on the ski trails the country worries it's killing the sport. And so Norwegians want other countries to try to beat them — even if it's futile. And so they subsidize skiers from other countries to visit Norway to see how their athletes do it. I guess they use whatever money is left over from the million dollars they spent on the two story high waxing truck for their cross-country athlete skis. Knut Nystad is one of 30 people in charge of that wax and he for one doesn't get why Norwegians aren't just a little more, well, Canadian about their success. He told the Times quote “It's a strange thing but some people in Norway yell at us when we win too much. Other countries dominate other sports. Why is the argument against success made only in the sport where we are succeeding.” Now that is waxing philosophical.

[Music: 90’s Pop]

James Laxer Obit

JD: The Canadian left lost a hero over the weekend. James Laxer, professor, political commentator and former politician died Friday. He was 76 years old. Mr. Laxer was best known for his role in forming the movement for an independent socialist Canada also known as The Waffle. It was a movement within the NDP in the 1960s and the 70s that pushed for that party to move further to the left. Mr. Laxer ran for the NDP leadership in 1971 and while the leadership ultimately went to David Lewis, Mr. Laxer came away with a full one third of the votes. He went on to teach political science at York University. He died unexpectedly while he was in Paris researching a new book on Canada's role in the Second World War. In September of 2008 Mr. Laxer spoke to As It Happens guest host Helen Mann about rising gas prices. He said the best way to counteract the ever-increasing price of fuel would be to run the oil industry as a public utility. Here's part of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

HELEN MANN: Jim Laxer, what would it mean to run the petroleum industry as a set of public utilities? How do you see that working?

JIM LAXER: Well, a public utility is an institution or a set of institutions that you set up in really basic sectors of the economy where the competitive system, the market system, just doesn't work very well and where the industry is so basic that you can't let it fail and you can't let it be too turbulent. We think of things like the telephone system, we think of rail service, electric power or we think of public transit in cities as all areas where public utilities have been used for decades. Now in the case of the oil industry we're dealing with an industry that is also not competitive. What you have is a so-called world price of oil, which is a very, very artificial entity. It's an entity that is affected by OPEC deciding how much oil it’s going to produce at any given time. It's affected by the big companies colluding. It's affected by crises in the Persian Gulf. It was affected last week by Hurricane Ike. So you have this rather ridiculous spectacle across Canada of gasoline prices going up 13 cents a litre on average. Meanwhile in the Gulf Coast, where the storm was actually hitting, the price of gasoline on average went up by about five cents a litre. So you've got a system that doesn't work. And what I think would make a great deal more sense, in terms of husbanding our resources and planning for the future, would be to establish a public utility in the petroleum sector in Canada. And the way it would work is that you could have the producing provinces — that is the cases of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland that produce oil, they actually own the petroleum. They could be part of the consortium, the federal government could be, you could throw into the mix municipalities, you could throw in other investors like pension funds and what you could do is to establish a public utility that would then set goals for how we're going to run our petroleum industry.

JD: That was James Laxer speaking to guest host Helen Mann on this program in September of 2008. James Laxer died Friday. He was 76 years old.

Part 3: Cancer Wait Times, Homer's The Iliad,

Cancer Wait Times

Guest: Nadia Bhuiyan

JD: A Cancer diagnosis obviously comes with all kinds of stressors. Nadia Bhuiyan believes waiting around should not be one of them. And so she has developed an algorithm and software that she believes could cut wait times for cancer patients by almost half — or to be more precise by 44 per cent — and precision is important to Professor Bhuiyan. She is a professor of mechanical industrial and aerospace engineering at Concordia University in Montreal. And that is where we reached her.

CO: Professor Bhuyain, your background is in aerospace engineering. You've worked for the Department of Defense. How did you end up getting into cancer patient wait times?

PROFESSOR NADIA BHUIYAN: So my background is industrial engineering in particular. And so a lot of what we do is we look at how to improve systems and processes. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. And, you know, as we went through the process things were going well initially and over time the wait times were increasing because there was more demand. There are more cancer patients coming in.

CO: Wait times for what?

NB: Waiting to see doctors, waiting to get treatment and so on. So actually sitting in the clinic waiting for your next appointment to take place. Over time the time that I was waiting with my mom just increased the, time grew and that's when my, you know, my profession kicked in I was looking around and thinking there must be something I could do to help.

CO: So this is wait times actually in the waiting room. This isn't wait times just waiting for the appointment that you need to book in order to get there to wait in the waiting room for that for the next wait?

NB: Exactly, so you already have your appointment you're sitting in the waiting room waiting to see your specialist.

CO: What did you identify was the biggest problem?

NB: Every patient that comes into the clinic they go through several steps, say they have to visit oncology, hematology. They don't have to visit pharmacy but that's one step in the process and then they get their treatment, their chemotherapy treatment. What we found was that one of the biggest sources of waiting was occurring at the validation of the prescription. So the pharmacist will receive from the oncologist a blood test diagnosis or analysis and then based on that they have to create a prescription for chemotherapy. And we found that in 33 per cent of the prescriptions there are exceptions that would cause their work to be interrupted for more than 20 minutes and that was the biggest source of waiting for patients.

CO: When did you start to realize that you might have a solution?

NB: It's a very complex system. You have patients that have different types of cancer stages, grades, treatments and then the variety of patients in terms of their health history and how they react to treatments. We've developed a team and the team would go into the clinic and observe, we used historical data and we used all the information and data that we had to create a simulation model.

CO: When you approached the Jewish General Hospital to offer your help, what was the reaction? Was it like you don't know how complicated this is and you just go away you're not part of the system. We yes we know there's wait times. What was their response?

NB: You know, I was expecting exactly that type of response. My mom's oncologist Dr. Gerald Batist also happens to be the director of the Segal Cancer Institute. And so one day after one of her appointments, I guess, I was trying to be careful what I wanted to ask for but I basically offered my help. They knew that there were problems and they were working on it. But, I guess, he was really happy to have more eyes on the problem. So he immediately, you know, he had a big smile on his face and said I would be happy to get more help.

CO: What is the approach you took that was different? When you looked at the movement of people, the sort of the system and why it wasn't functioning, what did you bring to that?

NB: I think we tried to take a very detailed look at the entire system and by building a simulation model we were able to come as close to reality as we possibly could because in the simulation model we're accounting for the inherent variability in such systems.

CO: So with this algorithm and the software program that you developed what were you able to do?

NB: We were looking at basically the scheduling and we decided we would develop this algorithm to create an appointment schedule for any combination of patient trajectories on a given day such that the arrival rates of the patients to the key steps in the process would be matched to the capacity of those particular steps throughout the day. And so by doing this, what we were able to find is that we could reduce times by about 21 per cent and get a much smoother flow.

CO: Ultimately you could get the wait times cut by about 44 per cent, is that right?

NB: Right, yeah so that was one part. So the algorithm itself could help reduce times by about 21 per cent. And the other 25 per cent and when you combine the two it gives you about 44 per cent. The other part was when we were analyzing the system we were looking at information transfers and key steps of the process. And the idea is that to reduce wait times you need a flow in the system and you can get this in part through better coordination. So that's when we found that there were issues with the pharmacist validation. So that was a huge part of the waiting. That was one portion by reducing that issue we can achieve 25 per cent reduction. And then with our scheduling algorithm which was the other part of the study we can get 21 per cent if the hospital implements both then we can achieve a 44 per cent reduction total.

CO: Are they going to?

NB: They're working on it, yeah. It's as I said, it's very complex and it's a fast moving clinic. So things are happening all the time so sometimes it's a challenge to actually, you know, stop people from their work and try to work on how to do things differently. However, my funding for this project has run out so I'm trying to look for, you know, more funding so if we're able to get more funding we are going to try to help implement the solutions in the clinic.

CO: How would things have been different for your mother had this been in place?

NB: She was, towards the end, having to wait long periods of time. So if we're able to get this these two solutions in place I think we would probably see her going back to the types of wait times that she is experiencing in the beginning, which were really minimal.

CO: How's she doing?

NB: She's doing well. She has to take other types of medications to keep the cancer at bay. That's difficult. But, you know, the important thing is that she's alive. Thank you for asking.

CO: And that also that you used that time so wisely to see what you can do to make it better for others.

NB: Right, exactly. It was it was hard sitting in those waiting rooms and, you know, the patients are having a hard enough time as it was. And, I mean, if there was anything that I could do to help that would have been important to me to at least try.

CO: Good work.

NB: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CO: Professor Bhuiyan, thank you.

NB: Thank you. Appreciate it.

CO: Bye-bye.

NB: Bye-bye.

JD: Nadia Bhuiyan is the vice provost of partnerships and experiential learning and a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Concordia University in Montreal.

[Music: Upbeat Orchestra]

Jacinda Ardern

JD: Dear New Zealand, you know how everyone has a creepy uncle? Sorry we got him to interview your PM. That is what one viewer tweeted last night after New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern was interviewed on the Australian current affairs show 60 Minutes. Viewers from both countries called out interviewer Charles Woolley online. In the segment, Mr. Wooley admits he is quote “smitten” and has never met a prime minister who is quote “so attractive.” Also Prime Minister Ardern recently announced that she is expecting and many of Mr. Wooley's questions focused on her pregnancy and what led to the pregnancy. And at one point he asks the Prime Minister and her partner about the date of conception.

SOUNDCLIP

CHARLES WOOLEY: There is one really important political question I want to ask you and that is what exactly is a date the baby's due?

PRIME MINISTER JACINDA ARDERN: The 17^th of June.

CW: The 17^th? It's interesting how much people have been counting back to the conception as it were.

[AWKWARD LAUGHTER]

CLARKE GAYFORD: Really?

CW: Having produced six children it doesn't amaze me that people can have children. Why shouldn't the child be conceived during an election campaign?

JA: I mean…

CW: Not why should — I’m not asking why shouldn’t it.

JA: The election was done. Yeah

CW: It was over.

[AWKWARD LAUGHTER]

JA: It was over. Not that we need to get into those details.

CW: The child is steeped in politics.

JD: Charles Wooley interviewing the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, and her partner on Australia's 60 Minutes last night. Earlier today, Mr. Woolley defended his comments on New Zealand's Newstalk ZB. Here he is speaking to host Larry Williams.

SOUNDCLIP

CW: It's a bit Orwellian, you know, I think. You’ve got to be so careful with newspeak thought crime and everything else. We suffer the same thing that Australia. It's not a good time to be a journalist. If you just say somebody is attractive — my dictionary lists attractive — the thesaurus about 50 choices from good looking to gorgeous to likeable. I mean, there’s so many different meanings. My wife thought my story was a bit — she thought I was too gushy — and we were all of us smitten by wonderful prime minister — you're so lucky to have her. So I'm going with winning, winning is one of the alternatives in my dictionary.

LARRY WILLIAMS: Do you regret anything. Do you regret anything about the interview? Your wife says it was gushy, were you fawning? I mean, some are saying that it was creepy and cringe-worthy. What do you say?

[LAUGHTER]

CW: Oh gosh. You're a journalist, I mean, you just you just go on. I mean, how can, you know, no I wouldn't regret because I thought she was terrific. It rated very well with us. I know that some people in New Zealand might be a bit annoyed that we didn't talk about housing or university fees but this is absolutely shocking thing to say, but the Australian audiences aren’t very interested in the minutiae of New Zealand politics.

JD: : Australian reporter Charles Wooley speaking to Newstalk ZB host Larry Williams earlier today. Mr. Wooley was defending comments he made in an interview with New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern last night on Australia's 60 Minutes.

[Music: Banjo]

Homer's The Iliad

Guest: Lynn Kozak

JD: Tons of university profs spend their sabbaticals writing books, travelling, researching, travelling, immersing themselves in the traditions of another culture so as to broaden their intellectual horizons. Relatively few spend their time in a bar known as the home of beer pong Tuesdays. And when I say relatively few, the fact is that I only know of one prof who is doing that — Lynn Kozak, an associate professor of history and classical studies in Montreal. And now that sabbatical is being spent in Bar des Pins on Park Avenue, also in Montreal. We reached Lynn Kozak in Montreal.

CO: Lynn, tell us what you are doing in this Park Avenue bar every week?

PROFESSOR LYNN KOZAK: Every week I'm telling another 45-minute to hour-long chunk of the Iliad and I'm going through it all the way in order.

CO: And why are you doing that?

LK: It's a research project that's grown out of my past research and thinking about how the Iliad works in terms of seriality, because I was thinking that a lot of its features that people think about in terms of its oral composition are actually similar to some of our long-form narratives now, in terms of how things are repeated or recapped. And so I wanted to kind of test those ideas out in real time because I had only been hypothesizing about those.

CO: Are you reading it or just reciting it?

LK: No, I'm actually performing it. So all of my performances are blocked out and they are memorized although, of course, sometimes I mess up.

CO: This is extraordinary. And you're calling this ‘Happy Hour Homer.’

LK: Happy Hour Homer. It’s at a bar you can have a beer. It's only an hour, you can go home for dinner it's fine, hopefully it doesn't eat too much into people's lives.

CO: Why in a bar and not in a theater?

LK: The Iliad isn't a theater piece. It's really a story. For me it's just important to be in a place that's casual and where I'm with the audience in the space.

CO: So you're doing the different parts and dialogue, it's all Homeric epic poetry but you have Agamemnon in there. You've got, of course, the swift-footed Achilles. Are you going to a voice with them are you performing them as characters?

LK: Yes, I have slightly different voices for many of the characters and then it kind of depends each week on my director in terms of how much they want me to embody characters and that can even depend on scene to scene.

CO: Now the presumptions are that Homer's work was written for recitation, it was an oral tradition. So are you finding that it does roll off the tongue, that it does seem to come alive in this kind of a forum?

LK: Yeah the funny thing is, is that things that scholars often complain about in terms of its oral-ness in terms of the repetition, I actually find that I have to repeat things more often than the Iliad itself does. So sometimes you'll have like a 10 or 15 line battle sequence where the names are not repeated and I find that I actually have to repeat the names of who's fighting just to keep it clear.

CO: Why did you decide to do the Iliad and not The Odyssey, which is, not to say happier, but there's a bit more romance in it while the Iliad is a war poem?

LK: Yeah, it's funny, you know, people talk about the Iliad and The Odyssey in classic circles, kind of like other people talked about the difference between the Stones and The Beatles. You know, and I've always been an Iliad person, it actually has a more interesting narrative structure in terms of how it works in terms of serial poetics because it doesn't have that massive flashback in the middle that you get in the Odyssey, although I think the Odyssey is playing with narrative structures in really interesting ways. I almost wish I would do the Odyssey as well because people have such a romantic view of the Odyssey and they forget that at the end you just, you know, you have a bunch of people slaughtered at a dining room table, which is pretty gruesome.

CO: Does it remind you when you're doing well the Iliad or even the Odyssey, does it remind you of any of the kinds of series that we watch now anything on TV that you would compare it to?

LK: Yeah, I compare it often to Game of Thrones actually because of the number of characters that you have to keep up with and also the fact that there's not always clean cut villains or are who you're supposed to be rooting for in any major scene, especially in battle scenes. And George R. R. Martin actually talks about the Iliad as one of his influences for the Game of Thrones novels.

CO: War is war, isn't it? And on this program we’re covering now the war in Syria, covering the siege of cities and the gruesome details and the horrible things we are learning from that. What does the Iliad tell us and tell your audience about war?

LK: Well, I think that the sad truth is that you often understand that so many things haven't changed in terms of human nature and that even while we create the structures of violence we can't always seem to break free of them. And you feel that compulsion in Achilles and you feel it in the Hector that they're kind of victims of the very structures that they've subscribed to in terms of violence. So it's a hard thing to get your head around because you just want them to stop and then you also feel so terrible when they can't.

CO: Especially since the prophecy throughout it is that the key character is not going to survive.

LK: Yeah, yeah that's right.

CO: Is there a part of it you want to perform for us?

LK: Oh, yes. I do have a little clip from tonight's performance. And this is from Book 5. Who is the first and who is the last that the son of Priam, Hector and the bronze god of war Ares killed. First it was Teuthras. He was a man like a god. And then it was Orestes, the horse striker and then Trechus the Aetolian spear fighter. And Oenomaus and Helenus son, Oenops. And Oresbius, you know, he had a shiny sparkling mitre that kind of warrior Spanx that they wear to protect themselves. He was a rich guy and he cared about being rich, he lived in Hyle that leaned on the Cephisus and all around him other oceans lived on their fertile land. And when the white armed goddess Hera saw these men being killed she went to the House Athena and spoke to her and her words flew. Oh daughter of Zeus Athena we will be called liars if we let this killer Ares rage like this. We promised Menelaus that he would sack Ilian, the city with its good walls and make it home safe again. So now come let's remember our furious courage. That's what she said and the bright eyed Goddess Athena did not disobey her.

CO: Everything in there, Gods and warriors and women and conflict and — life itself.

LK: All the good stuff and all the awful stuff.

CO: I wish you every success with your series, Lynn. It's really interesting thank you.

LK: Thank you so much for your interest, Carol.

JD: Lynn Kozak is an associate professor of history and classical studies at McGill. And Happy Hour Homer continues at Bar des Pins every Monday night at 6 p.m. probably through July. Beer pong is Tuesday. We’ve got more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient Piano]

Speculation Tax

JD: A new tax usually seems like a really good idea to everyone who isn't paying it. Now on the program last week we told you about the government of British Columbia's plan to help cool their very hot housing market. As part of its budget, the NDP introduced a number of measures including a speculation tax. And this speculation taxes aimed at people from out of province who own property in certain areas of B.C. Whatever cooling effect that is supposed to have is not working on those property owners, including some Albertans who have vacation properties in B.C. Albertan Deborah Hunter owns property on Pender Island near Victoria. She calls the new tax discriminatory and this morning she told David Gray, host Calgary Eyeopener, how the tax could affect her.

Deborah Hunter: So I'll give you the rundown here. It's not exactly a tax right. We still pay our normal property taxes from how we had it explained to us from our MLA. This is a penalty for being quote unquote “foreign” on top of our taxes. So in 2018 it's a point-five per cent increase a point-five per cent of our property value. It goes to two per cent in 2018. So the real math of this is we're going from what our normal property tax is — about 1,800 bucks this year without penalty, to by the time we add the penalty in 2019, over 9,000 dollars.

DAVID GRAY: Nine grand?

DH: Yeah. It's just it's just under a 500 per cent increase.

DG: So how did you find out about this?

DH: So we were out on the island, the kids had the week off school and the budget came out and it was kind of sketchy, they kind of threw in a one-liner there about foreign and domestic buyers. And we didn't quite get it and then it snowed when listening to lunchtime radio and they started a phone in on CBC and people started talking and it started to come out that we were getting nailed with this huge increase. So our next thing was we got to find out what's going on, so we start emailing our MLA for the area saying hey is this right. Are these numbers right? It's crazy. Yeah the numbers are right and we're targeted. Now here's the thing, right. We're going this isn't right, we're Canadians. You know, how can you do this to us just because we’re out of province? We brought up the Canadian Human Rights Activists in violation of Canadian Human Rights Act because it takes away equal opportunity and treatment from us. So it's a big mess, right.

DG: It's a big mess but it's also a reality. How do you feel about it?

DH: Well, it's not a reality because the budget hasn't been passed. We're fighting it right now. And that's why we contacted CBC because every Albertan that owns out there needs to know about this so that they can fight with us.

JD: That was Albertan Deborah Hunter speaking with the CBC's David Gray about how new speculation tax could affect her.

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February 26, 2018 episode transcript

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