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The AIH transcript for April 22, 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: The papal chase. Very soon, cardinals from around the world will lock themselves inside the Sistine Chapel to elect the next pope. The CBC's Vatican analyst tells us what to expect from Conclave 2025.

CH: Going private. Not all of Joan Didion's writing was intended for public consumption -- so the publication of a new collection of the late author's writings pulled from her diaries feels invasive to some critics.

NK: Chasing rainbows. A Canadian author's book about a puppy at a Pride parade is at the centre of a U.S. Supreme Court case on 2SLGBTQ+ books in schools.

CH: All aflutter. We'll talk to a photographer who spent two years documenting the epic migration journey of the painted lady butterfly -- which takes generations to complete.

NK: That other sinking feeling. We'll find out how one Michigan man's recent experience of becoming mired in quicksand ended with him and a longtime friend professing their love for one another.

CH: And...local colour. By carefully stimulating the retina, scientists enable just five people at one specific lab to see a colour called "olo" that no one has ever seen before -- which is like blue-green, but more exclusive.

CH: As It Happens, the Tuesday Edition. Radio that had you at "olo".

[theme]

Part 1: Pope Francis: Conclave, Pride Puppy, Quicksand Couple

Pope Francis: Conclave

Guest: David Perlich

CH: The world has entered the "Papal Interregnum": the period between the death of one pope and the election of the next. The Catholic Church will be in official mourning for nine days. Cardinals from around the world have made their way to the Vatican to pay their respects -- and prepare for the conclave: the election of the new pope. A centuries-old process that -- hit movie aside -- is shrouded in secrecy. The term "conclave" is literally Latin for "locked room." As the rules dictate, the conclave will begin 15 to 20 days after the death of Pope Francis. David Perlich is the CBC's Vatican analyst. We reached him in Calgary.

NK: Dave, when do you head to Rome?

DAVID PERLICH: Tomorrow evening, actually. I'll be on an airplane

NK: That's not a lot of time to get ready. Are you packed?

DP: I am packed, halfway packed at least. But because Pope Francis' health was declining there several months ago, I was already sort of in a preparatory stage, so I've just sort of kept going.

NK: And I suspect that preparatory stage was probably in effect at the Vatican as well, knowing what you knew and what they knew, and that his health wasn't good at the time. You've covered conclaves before, 2005 and 2013, obviously this is a time of deep grief and mourning for so many people around the world. But inside the Vatican, the preparations to get to the point where the conclave begins, what's happening there right now behind closed doors?

DP: So, there are two primary rules right now in the Vatican. There's the Cardinal Camerino, who is an Irish American Cardinal, Farrell, who is looking after day-to-day operations of the Vatican. And then there's the Cardinal Dean, Cardinal Re, who is calling as, and in fact, this morning already, there was what's called a general congregation. He called the cardinals together that could get to a meeting to discuss when, for example, they would have the Pope's funeral. They made that decision today. And then, after that's over, into the conclave, how the cardinals are summoned to Rome, and everything is already sort of set in stone. They're very, very good at this.

NK: And from what you've seen and what you're hearing so far, people may remember Pope Francis, there was a relatively short conclave. He was elected on Day Two, after five ballots, if we're remembering correctly. Do you have a sense of how this one might go?

DP: Conclaves, modern conclaves are very short. So, when people talk about these, you know, endless month-long, years-long conclades, that's a historical relic. Pope Francis has appointed what I believe is about 80 per cent of the cardinals who will be voting cardinals in the conclave. So, I think it's likely that there will be more of a consensus. There will be no doubt a lot of animated conversation in those general congregation meetings, but also as the Cardinals meet for dinner, as they have drinks, as they talk to each other on figuring out who they think is a likely candidate and who isn't, who they wouldn't back.

NK: When you think about all of the rituals and customs, the specificity, the details, are there moments that you always find the most fascinating or fulfilling, having been to at least two?

DP: It's paying attention to what is said in the homily for the election. Because that's generally an indication of what's been said behind closed doors. The moment extra omnis in Latin, everyone out when they close off the Sistine Chapel, that's a very particular moment. And then, there's the moment that none of us ever get to see, and we can only hear about, and Pope Francis actually wrote about in one of his, in his autobiography. Which is when the Cardinal Dean in the conclave walks up to the person who's had the two-thirds vote and says, acceptio, do you accept? And that is a moment that I wish I could witness in my life, but none of us will see.

NK: You know, witnessed what it's like as they set up the conclave in the Sistine Chapel. Those of us who had been lucky enough to go to Italy may have seen it, you know on a regular day with the crowds, but that's a very different moment. So, what is it like in there in those moments?

DP: In 2013, I think it was the day before Conclave started, I had the opportunity to be inside. And it's where you would think that it would be entirely solemn. It's a matter of pounding nails, setting up those long tables that the cardinals sit behind, making sure the red cloths are there, making sure that the books that actually lay out the procedure for this is there. Still, you're under the world's most amazing frescoes. So, there's a great sense of being present in history. And, of course, looking at the stove as they prepare the stove for the famous smoke, that's deeply significant as well.

NK: Remind our listeners the different colours of smoke, what that means.

DP: So, white smoke means we have a pope, a bemus papa, which is one of the great moments, we have a pope in Latin. And we know there's been an election. Black smoke is when they haven't reached the two-thirds majority and they burn the ballots in this little stove in the Sistine Chapel and they put a chemical in with it so it comes out black. Problematically in 2013, it was an extremely, it was at night and it was a rainy day and it kind of came out gray. So, in the beginning, nobody really knew. So, they also toll a bell now just to let us all know.

NK: [chuckling] Just to make sure the message is as clear as possible. Then, when the news breaks and you're in the square, how would you describe that feeling?

DP: It's an incredible moment. So, it was cold, it was rainy, but it was amazing watching. There were a couple thousand people in the square to start and it's late at night. And then, there was the smoke. Bianco, people were shouting in Italian. It's white, it's white. The bell began to toll. And then, I was in St. Peter's and I turned around and I looked down the Via delle Consolazione, and you could see from every street and every angle, people running to be under that balcony for the announcement of the name. And it was such an incredible moment. So, it was in the 2005 conclave we'd gone from the very sad death of John Paul II to this very joyful moment. And that's also what makes this sort of after a pope dies, you go through the sorrow of public veneration and a funeral. But then there is over these weeks this period of joy and anticipation towards who will be next.

NK: Safe travels, Dave, and thanks for this. Take care.

DP: My pleasure. Bye-bye.

CH: David Perlich is the CBC's Vatican analyst. We reached him in Calgary.

[lofi]

Pride Puppy

Guest: Robin Stevenson

CH: A book about a prince falling in love with a knight as they battle a dragon. Another about a young girl worried her uncle won't have time to spend with her, after he marries his boyfriend. And a rhyming alphabet book about a puppy that gets loose at a Pride parade. These are a few of the books at the centre of oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court today. The court is weighing parents' argument that they have the constitutional right to opt their children out of lessons involving books with 2SLGBTQ+ characters, for religious reasons. The books are included in the English language arts curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland. Canadian author Robin Stevenson's book, Pride Puppy, is one of those books. We reached Ms. Stevenson in Victoria, B.C.

NK: Robin, I imagine anyone who writes a book wants it to reach people, but what was it like as you listened to oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court today to hear them talk about your book?

ROBIN STEVENSON: It was pretty surreal, actually. Yes, one does want one's book to reach people, but having it end up tangled up in a Supreme Court case like this was definitely not something I ever anticipated, or would have wanted to have happen.

NK: I want to ask you more about the hearing itself and what you heard the justices say and the other arguments, but let's tell our listeners what Pride Puppy is about.

RS: Sure, yeah. Pride Puppy is an alphabet book about a family going to a Pride parade with their dog. It's a rhyming alphabet book. So, it begins "A for awake, animals and all". And it includes lots of items on that first page that start with the letter |A, so aloe, almonds, airplane, abacus, apple, astronaut, lots of little elves in in the background of the illustration. And it continues on that format throughout the book as it follows the family through their day. So, B is for breakfast, C is for cars, the family is getting ready to go, D is for dog, who's coming with them, and then they arrive at the parade. They meet up with Grandma, that's G. The kids get too hot, they buy ice cream, and then the main character child trips and the dog gets free, and M is for missing. And then, the second half of the book shows the dog causing havoc, running through the parade, and other people in the community coming together to try to help out and to try to reunite this family with this puppy. And, of course, it ends happily with everyone reunited and going home exhausted. So, it's a pretty short, simple alphabet book, but it's really beautifully illustrated by Julie McLaughlin, and so it's very colorful and very vibrant. We both live on Vancouver Island, and the book really reflects the Pride parades that I've been to here with images of people of all ages out celebrating together. And it very much came out of my own experience attending Pride for more than 30 years, including the years that my partner and I attended with a young kid and met up with the grandparents at the parade.

NK: So, that personal experience was the inspiration?

RS: Definitely, yeah. And, I think, experience as a parent where my own kid was small that, you know, at that time, it was really hard to find books about families like ours. So, I think the inspiration was also that as well, just wanting to write a book that did include a family, you know, like our family.

NK: Your book was pulled from the curriculum in Maryland last year. A group of parents there is arguing that they should be able to opt their children out of reading any books, including yours, that have 2SLGBTQ+ characters. Your book did come up, though, as you know, at the hearings today, Justice Neil Gorsuch spoke about it.

NEIL GORSUCH: And they're being used in English language instruction at age three. Um, some of them.

MAN: So, Pride Puppy was the book that was used for the pre-kindergarten curriculum. That's no longer in the curriculum.

NG: That's the one where they are supposed to look for the leather and things and bondage things like that.

MAN: It's not bondage. It's a woman and a leather --

NG: Sex worker, right?

MAN: No.

NG: No?

MAN: That's not correct, no.

NG: Gosh, I read it. Drag queen?

MAN: Correct. The leather that they're pointing to is a woman in a leather jacket and one of the words is drag queen in this.

NG: And they're supposed to look for those?

MAN: It is an option at the end of the book, correct.

NG: Yeah, okay.

NK: What would you want to say in response to what you heard there, Robin?

RS: Yeah, that was a shock to hear. It's blatantly untrue. So, either he's repeating misinformation that he has seen elsewhere and has not bothered to actually look at the books at the centre of the case, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in his ability to do his job, or he's actually choosing to lie about our book, which is equally disturbing. So, I have no idea where he's getting the idea of bondage from. It's not coming from anything in our book, unless he was confused by the dog being on a leash. As for leather, yeah, there's one child's parent who is depicted wearing a leather jacket on the L page, along with other things that start with L, like lemonade, lion, lollipop, loudspeakers, and ladybugs. And it's a kid's mom wearing a leather jacket that looks like a jacket many people, including parents, might wear. There is nothing remotely sexual about the image or about any of the pictures in the book. If anyone wants to see what the pictures actually look like, Illustrator Julie McLaughlin has done a great post calling out some of that misinformation and showing the actual illustrations. And you can find the link to that on my website. But it's definitely been something that's been a thread for the last couple of years of people taking images out of context and suggesting and linking them in ways to suggest that they're somewhat salacious. So, for example, zipper is another one of the ones that often gets brought up. The zipper is actually literally a child's hoodie. It's very dishonest.

NK: The lawyer for the families has argued that the families' children should not have to be exposed to things that those families do not believe in. Justice Jackson, I believe, was weighing in on that saying, you know, if you don't like what is being taught at a particular school, you can take your children out of that school. But what do you say to the families and their lawyer, who are saying that they shouldn't be exposed to what they don't believe in?

RS: I think teachers have a difficult job in that they are teaching classes full of kids from different families with different beliefs and they're working very hard to try to make sure that all those kids feel seen and supported and respected. And that's challenging. But I think that removing access to books takes away some of those age-appropriate resources that teachers actually find helpful in creating welcoming and supportive classrooms that include all kinds of kids from all kinds of families. Our kids all go to school together. And I don't think it is reasonable to expect schools to be complicit in hiding the existence of an entire group of people. All kids, regardless of their family's religious faith or views, and regardless of their connection to LGBTQ+ community, they attend public schools together. And those schools and teachers have a responsibility to make sure they all feel seen and supported. And I think diverse books are a great tool for the teachers who are doing that.

NK: Robin, I appreciate your time. Thank you for this.

RS: Thank you.

CH: Robin Stevenson is a Canadian author, who has written over 30 books for kids and teenagers. We reached her in Victoria.

[ambient]

Quicksand Couple

Guests: Mitchell O'Brien, Breanne Sika

CH: Few things bring people together quite like hardship. And when it comes to hardship, there's nothing quite like quicksand. Just ask Westley and Princess Buttercup, who was ready to despair moments after he rescued her from some in the Fireswamp.

SOUNDCLIP

PRINCESS BUTTERCUP: I’ll never succeed. I may as well die here. [deep sighs]

WESTLEY: No, no. We have already succeeded. I mean what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp? One, the flame spurt, no problem. There’s a popping sound preceding each. We can avoid that. Two, the lightning sand, but you were clever enough to discover what that looks like. So, in the future, we can avoid that, too.

PB: Westley, what about the R-O-U-Ses?

W: Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist. [a deep growl. In case you haven’t seen this movie yet, they are, in fact, not very inconceivable! That’s a reference I hope you get.]

CH: Flame spurts. Lightning Sand. And, of course, R-O-U-Ses. All nightmarish. But all responsible for forging an unbreakable bond between the Princess Bride's star-crossed protagonists. Fortunately for Mitchell O'Brien and Breanne Sika -- all it took was the sand. The Michigan friends were recently out for a walk on the beach when Mr. O'Brien got mired in muck. And when I say mired, I mean mired. But he emerged with his life, and a girlfriend. [NK chuckles] We reached Mitchell O'Brien and Breanne Sika in Traverse City, Michigan.

NK: Breanne, I'll start with you. You decide to go for this walk on the shores of Lake Michigan. Sounds beautiful, but why did you wanna go out there in the first place that day?

BREANNE SIKA: Well, we like to do rock hunting just as mental health therapy. It's really good just to get out there and see what the small things the world has to offer. And so, we headed out there. It's not too far from my house, but it's far enough that you're not surrounded by a bunch of people, so.

NK: So, a bit of a bit of an escape. And then, things sort of sort of take a turn. [chuckling] When did you realize, Mitchell, that you were in trouble?

MITCHELL O'BRIEN: So, we had been at the beach for about 10 or 15 minutes. We combed around and found some rocks. And she points at a specific spot and goes, that looks dangerous. And then, I just turn around and go, I'm going to look for rocks by this, by the waves. And I, I go step in the exact spot that she was pointing at.

NK: What did you say, Breanne?

BS: I said that is the exact spot that I just pointed to. [laughter all around]

MO: you said what are you doing?! I remember that. [chuckling]

BS: It was the exact spot, not even an inch over, the exact area.

MO: So, I've dealt with quicksand before at a beach that's just south of here, but I didn't have anything in my pockets that I was worried about that day. So, I did what everybody tells you to do, drop down and either roll, shimmy, or army crawl out. But this time, I spent the extra second to take my phone and my keys out of my pocket. So, my left foot went straight down and suction cupped me in there, so.

NK: Gosh, so at which point, Breanne, do you decide that you're gonna need to call for help?

BS: I thought right away because I could tell that he was not moving, but I also was not able to get to him.

MO: She did want to call for emergency help immediately, and I was, like, macho man trying to impress the girl on the beach. And so, I tried for about 15 or 20 minutes. And every time I tried to scoop sand away from my leg, the waves just put it right back.

BS: But he kept telling me I'm going to get out of here with a smile on his face.

MO: I was talking her down from her panic attack [NK chuckles] while I was in the hole.

NK: That's a good friend, and sometimes, yeah, the one in the most dire situation ends up doing that for the other person. So then, as if it couldn't get more interesting, it does. You both end up on separate phone calls with emergency responders. What happened, Mitchell?

MO: So, she tries to call at first. I got to the point where my hands were numb, oddly, couldn't feel the cold as much as I think I should, but I was like, okay, my foot hasn't moved. It's time to call for help. And she thought that I meant run to a house and get a shovel.

BS: Which I was going to.

MO: It would have, and I love her for that. I appreciate the effort, but I said, no, we're going to call 911. And she had both the phones. So, she grabs her phone and starts calling 911. And there's really bad cell service out there, so she couldn't get through. She called, like, three times. So, I told her, I was like, okay, carefully hand me my phone back and we'll both call. So, I just, what I was doing, I wasn't paying attention to what she was doing because I was finally on the phone with the 911 operator. So, I just, I told them where I was, what was happening. And then I just ended my part with my girlfriend's trying to call too. And I didn't realize that about 20 feet away from me, she had gotten through to the operator, the other operator on duty. And what did you say?

BS: I said my boyfriend is stuck in the sand. [laughing]

MO: And that's the first time we referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend.

NK: How long, Breanne, had you two been friends -- just friends?

BS: So, about two years. And we met at a recovery coach training. Um, we both have battled with previous addiction. And as a recovery coach, we need extra support ourselves, too. And Mitch has been my biggest support outside of my family. And it was scary to think about losing that kind of a relationship. So, that's why I think I didn't really say anything or tried to move further because I was afraid to lose him as he has been for so long.

NK: Do you think that's what it was that why it took a really a near-death experience for you to both blurt it out?

BOTH: Yeah.

MO: I think it was like, you know, I never felt like my life was in danger. She did from the get-go, but I just knew that she never left me. She tried to put herself in danger to help me. I just realized at that moment, all of the insecurities that kept me from saying it before, like, flashed by my eyes in that moment and I just let it all go and it just came out.

NK: I'm glad it did, but have screenwriters been reaching out to you? Because this is a rom-com waiting to be written, it sounds like.

MO: My boss at the recovery community organization I work at is very, he does a lot of media, so he goes, I walked into work, he goes I have video rights for this. I'm writing the script. [laughter all around]

NK: Well, you guys protect yourselves and your relationship. That's the most important thing.

BS: Yeah.

NK: Really glad you're both doing okay and that you found each other in this way. Thank you both.

BS: Thank you!

MO: Thank you. We appreciate you reaching out. We really do.

CH: Mitchell O'Brien and Breanne Sika are officially now boyfriend and girlfriend. [NK chuckles] We reached them in Traverse City, Michigan. And just for the record, we weren't talking to him in the sand. [NK laughs] He got out of the sand safely with the help of first responders.

[rock 'n roll Rubber Duckie]

New Colour

CH: You are about to hear a sound that no one on Earth has ever heard before.

SOUNDCLIP

[I heard this sound of trumpet fanfare in the movie Princess Bride, which you should watch, BTW]

CH: That wasn't, that was not it. That was just to get you ready. Now, we cannot know how you will respond to the sound, so we do advise you to sit down. If you're not wearing a diaper, you definitely should be. And if you don't turn your radio off, you have legally agreed to hear the sound, and absolved us of any and all liability. Here it is.

SOUNDCLIP

[a capybara squeak backwards… or a R-O-U-S]

CH: A brand-new, never-before-heard sound: the sound of a capybara squeaking, slowed down and played backwards. Ultimately, I'd have to say it wasn't quite the triumph I was hoping for. It was amazing -- but it wasn't olo. "Olo" is the brand-new colour revealed by scientists in a paper in the journal Science Advances. It is blue-green. But it's not the blue-green we're imagining, because we haven't seen it. Only five people in the world have seen it. And one of them is Professor Ren Ng. He told the BBC what differentiates this explosive, never-before-seen blue-green from the outdated, garbage blue-green we're all so sick of.

SOUNDCLIP

REN NG: Let me try to give an analogy, okay? Let's say that you go around your whole life and you see only pink, like baby pink. You know, like a pastel pink, okay? You go around the whole life that way, and then one day, you go to the office and someone's wearing a shirt and you say what is that colour? And it's just the most intense baby pink you've ever seen. And they say, it's a new colour and we call it red.

CH: [NK laughs] Look, I don't know quite what he means, but I can't argue with him, because, as I mentioned, he's one of only five people to ever see the super-saturated blue-green colour they've named "olo". That's because the researchers found a way to target only one of the three types of cone cells in the eye. Which is impossible without extremely specialized equipment. And that means you and I will probably never see olo. But this research might end up helping people with various visual problems. So, I guess you can colour us impressed.

[Latin flair]

Part 2: Joan Didion Diaries, Painted Lady Migration

Joan Didion Diaries

Guest: Cory Leadbeater

CH: What Joan Didion wrote, the world read. The iconic American writer was a pioneer of what was called the "New Journalism", and famous for her incisive essays in collections like Slouching Towards Bethlehem. And later in life, she wrote about more personal sorrow and struggle -- about the grief she suffered after the deaths of her daughter Quintana, and her husband and fellow author John Gregory Dunne. But before and in between those masterpieces, she did a lot of other writing. Much of which she kept to herself during her lifetime. As we told you before on As It Happens, hundreds of boxes of Ms. Didion and Mr. Dunne's papers were recently acquired by the New York Public Library. And today, a book of Ms. Didion's personal material, found in that archive, was published. It's called Notes to John, and it consists of diary entries Ms. Didion wrote after she started going to therapy in 1999. But not all of her devotees are celebrating. Cory Leadbeater is a writer and a former personal assistant to Joan Didion. We reached him in Jersey City, New Jersey.

NK: Cory, I'm wondering how you reacted when you found out that this was going to happen, that these notes were going to be published?

CORY LEADBEATER: Oh, I was very sad. I don't believe that she would have chosen the same fate for this document that it has been met with. And yeah, I just wish that she were able to decide the fate of this document and tell us all sort of a little bit more about its placement and how we should feel about it, its reception, all of that.

NK: And is that sadness still the overarching feeling you feel now [CL chuckles] that they're published? Or is it sitting differently with you now?

CL: No, that's still the overarching feeling. I mean, this document existed long enough at a period of her life when she was still at the height of her intellectual powers. I mean, she was really, really functioning at a very, very high level as a writer, an artist, and thinker. It highlights for me the tension that I will always feel about her, which is she was a person to me. And she was not just an artist. And so, the moral question is slightly different from the artistic question as it were. I, of course, understand everyone wants to know how was Joan possible? How did she make sense of her life? How did you write about the things that she wrote about in the ways that she wrote about them? But this document, whether it gives clues to that or not, is also incredibly revealing on subjects that she was really guarded about.

NK: What do you think, knowing what you know of her, what would Joan Didion make of it?

CL: My sense, frankly, is she would not be thrilled that so much of her private life is being exposed in this way. I think she was very careful and meticulous about the details she decided to share in Year of Magical Thinking, and Blue Nights, and in interviews, and in public. On the other hand, she absolutely understood, would have understood the artistic interest. You know, why the public would be so eager to have access to this document, why people would be so excited that some of the details that were left out of those memoirs are being filled in. But I think also, it's important that we grant her the human response, which is, yeah, you know, the discomfort that comes with being exposed in this, having your private life exposed in this way.

NK: And these are notes she wrote to her husband about her therapy sessions when she started seeing a therapist around 1999. A critic with the New York Times, Alexander Jacobs, has argued that that famous writers know that they need to dispose of papers that they don't want people to look at it. And her argument is that Joan Didion, in a way, this is her speaking for herself. And she might prefer that through these notes, rather than having someone else, a biographer, interpret, or summarizing all of that. What do you make of the argument she's making?

CL: Yeah, I respectfully disagree with that. It was not in Joan's nature to destroy anything. I think if you read the reports on the scope and volume of the archive, one can quickly see that she kept everything. I think it would be more accurate to say that she believed that her own curatorial sensibilities would extend to her professional representatives. And that they would know what she wished to remain private, or if not private, then at least left in the archive for academics and scholars and others to discover. I think it's very different packaging a document and publishing it as a book. That comes with a certain sort of fanfare and attention that maybe it would not have necessarily received, or it would be presented slightly differently if it were in a biographer's hands, or an academic's hands.

NK: And the specificity and the documentation and the keeping of things that you talked about, we certainly talked about that with a librarian at the New York Public Library after the library acquired hundreds of documents from Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. And I hear what you're saying about access with a library card with someone who wants to dig through that is different than the publication of this book. You know that there are so many Joan Didion fans who will still want this book and want to read it. And you've made the case for what you hope people are thinking about. But ultimately, as they turn those pages, if they do decide to do that, what do you want them to keep in mind as they make their way through it?

CL: It seems pretty clear to me that she used that material the way that she wanted to in Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights and turned it into finely wrought, delicate, immaculately crafted books, memoirs. And so, I hope that our collective astonishment sort of revolves around what a top-flight artist and mind was able to do with incredible tragedy and tension and sadness and all of the really difficult stuff she's working through in that document, the stuff that she was living through, the real stuff of her life. I hope that people remember that she is a person. And that she's not just this flattened, two-dimensional image that sometimes prevails. She loved, she felt pain, she worried, she had regrets. She was such an intimate writer. And this, in some ways, is the most intimate thing [chuckling] that's now being shared about her. And so, it's just, yeah, I just hope people remember that they're having access, they're being given access to something extraordinary.

NK: But maybe you wish that they didn't pick it up at all?

CL: Well, it's not for me to say. It's not for me to say. I, going back to what I said at the beginning, this is why I wish that she were here to make the decision and tell us all what her wishes are right now. Because it's not for me to say. And that tension, I don't think will ever go away -- the tension between artist and human.

NK: I know she meant a lot to you, Cory, so I appreciate this, and I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you.

CL: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. That means so much to me.

CH: Cory Leadbeater is a writer who was Joan Didion's personal assistant for almost 10 years. We reached him in Jersey City.

[winding instrumental]

FTR: Toronto Archbishop

CH: Frank Leo is in mourning. But today, the Archbishop of Toronto took some time to share his feelings about the 12-year papacy of Pope Francis -- and his own experiences with the late pontiff. On Saturday, Cardinal Leo will be in Vatican City for the late pope's funeral -- and for the conclave that follows, in which he and three other Canadian cardinals will take part. The Archbishop received his crimson cap when he joined the College of Cardinals in December, so this will be his first conclave. Here is what he told reporters when asked about what's next, as the Church prepares to elect a new pope.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANK LEO: Obviously, he is our supreme shepherd, he's our holy father, he's the visible head of the church on Earth. And now, we don't have one. And so, that it falls the responsibility on the cardinals to elect a new head shepherd. And this is a spiritual thing, we do it in prayer, you do it on the sermon, opening up to God, and having the Lord inspire us for this great ministry, service in the Church to be pope. And so, I'll be leaving tomorrow, actually. I need to pack tonight. And it'll be quite the spiritual happening, I think, before anything else. We put ourselves in prayer and invoke the Holy Spirit, that he may guide us. And it's important, you know, because again, the church is a family. In this family, we have different members, brothers and sisters, and there's different roles and vocations and ministries and responsibilities, and then there's our spiritual father. So, we're a little like orphans now. And so, we turn to the Lord that he may inspire, that he might guide, that he made lead. And it's important that we have a holy father, a new spiritual father to guide the church for the decades to come.

CH: For The Record, that is Cardinal Frank Leo -- the Archbishop of Toronto -- speaking to reporters, today. Of course, it's difficult to predict who will be elected. But candidates' names are being circulated, and they have some people asking if the next pope might come from Africa. The Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama, spoke with the BBC.

SOUNDCLIP

IGNATIUS KAIGAMA: Historically, we are told there were popes that were Black. But that was maybe in the early centuries of the church. But in modern times, there hasn't been any Black pope. And who says a Black person cannot be a pope? An African can be pope. We have many, we have some cardinals who are Africans. They have the same chance as anybody from America, anybody from Europe. So, it is possible that an African will be pope. But what we are praying for is not for an African pope, a Black pope, an American pope, an Asian pope. No, we are praying for a good and holy pope -- who can be Black, Asian, American, European. It's possible.

CH: The Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama, speaking with the BBC.

[ambient]

Painted Lady Migration

Guest: Lucas Foglia

CH: They travel thousands of miles, in a trek that takes generations to complete. Recently, for the first time, researchers mapped the migration route of the painted lady butterfly -- a route that takes them across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. And its epic journey hasn't just inspired researchers. Photographer Lucas Foglia dedicated years of his life to documenting the painted ladies' migration -- and the human beings he encountered along the way. His work is featured in the new book, Constant Bloom. We reached him at the Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York City, where an exhibition of his work will open later this week.

NK: Lucas, I think I've seen a painted lady butterfly before, but paint a picture of what a painted lady looks like.

LUCAS FOGLIA: Sure, I can paint a picture of a painted lady. [NK chuckles] A painted lady butterfly is a little bit smaller than the palm of your hand. They fly fast and they have orange wings and bodies that kind of glow in the sunlight, also an orange, with black on the top of their wings and black on the bottom along with the orange and blue eye spots.

NK: I was looking at your photographs in preparation for this conversation that I remembered you have one perched on a bit of lavender in France and it reminded me of a picture that I took last summer. And I zoomed, zoomed in and I think it's a painted lady based on your photographs. But it is, as you know, not just what they look like, where they go that is of so much interest. And it was only recently completely mapped -- their route. So, what drew you to documenting this migration?

LF: So, painted lady butterflies are almost all over the world. The people listening to this radio program will likely be able to see them outside in their gardens or nearby parks this summer. A group of painted lady butterflies was recently discovered to migrate farther than any other butterfly on Earth, from central Africa to Northern Europe and back again each year. And during the pandemic, when I couldn't travel and much of the world couldn't travel, learning about butterflies was my escape. And when I found out that some scientists were working to prove the longest butterfly migration, I thought that painted lady butterflies could become a symbol of the connection of nature across borders.

NK: Where did you start and where did you end up? Help us map your route.

LF: So, in 2021, as soon as I could travel, I went to Italy, I have family there and friends there, and I found the butterflies. And I also visited the scientists who helped to form the network of scientists who collaborated across borders to prove the longest migration in southern Spain. So, I started in Italy and Spain. And once I found the butterflies, I started following them from there. And it's now been three years, or four years, and I've gone across 17 countries. And in the beginning of the project, I thought I was gonna just photograph butterflies. But pretty soon, I realized that the longest butterfly migration now depends on people. And when wildflowers are not blooming, the butterflies depend on flowers that are grown for people in parks, farms, and gardens. So, I immediately started photographing people in the project.

NK: Those photographs are stunning as well, the ones I've seen at least. How did people react when you showed up and explained what you were doing?

LF: If I was looking at butterflies with a camera, people would come up and say what am I doing and can they help? And that actually created some of the most meaningful experiences and photographs in the project. The thing I learned about trying to find butterflies is that I don't look for butterflies, I look for what butterflies are looking for. And so, I would first look for flowers, and then during the hot parts of the day, I would usually find butterflies drinking nectar from those flowers. Towards the end of the day, if I asked people where they go on dates to watch sunsets, that's where butterflies go to date also. [NK chuckles] So, if I ask people about their romance, I would find the butterflies looking for romance, too.

NK: What are some of the memories that, you know, have stood out to you over all this time and stay with you?

LF: I went to Roman ruins in Jordan and saw flowers blooming in between the stones of these Roman ruins and thought that the butterflies had been flying to those flowers for millions of years before the Roman Empire had risen and fallen. And the people I met while I was looking for butterflies in the midst of Roman ruins were refugees from Palestine and Syria. And the layers of politics and power and history in that place stuck with me and also changed how I thought about my project as a whole.

NK: When you think into the future, what do you think you'll say if someone asks you how they changed you as a person and as a photographer?

LF: So, if I was talking to my grandchild, I might say that I did a project at a point in history when a lot of people and countries were isolating themselves. And borders were strong and militarized. And the lesson I got from following painted lady butterflies across countries and continents was that both people and nature are connected across borders. We all share a responsibility to care for nature and each other.

NK: You talked about the beauty of these butterflies, but also the darkness of the time that we can see, migration and refugees. Did you see people encountering difficulty and hardship?

LF: Sure. I went to the coastline at the northernmost point of Africa, and I saw butterflies on these beautiful purple flowers in between charred trunks of trees that had burned in a wildfire. And the butterflies would drink nectar from those purple flowers and fly across the Mediterranean Sea. And some teenagers came up and asked if they could help? And we spent an afternoon together looking for butterflies. And I photographed those teenagers with the sea behind them. And one of them called me on WhatsApp a few months later telling me that he had gotten to Italy on a boat and asked for help, and also asked if the butterflies had gotten there safely. That transformed the project for me. That route across the Mediterranean that the butterflies fly is now the deadliest human migration route in the world. After meeting people and having them ask me to photograph them, I felt like I had to interweave those photographs of people migrating alongside the, and with, the photographs of butterflies migrating across the sea.

NK: I'm very glad we could speak, Lucas. Thank you.

LF: Thank you so much.

CH: Lucas Foglia's new book and photography exhibition is called Constant Bloom. It opens at the Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York City this week. We reached him there.

[folk]

SOD: Rescue Twins

SOUNDCLIP

BRIDGETTE AND PAULA POWERS: One guy, he was up there with our Mum, and he went up there and he was coming back down towards us and he goes, run, he's got a gun. And oh, our heart started to pound. And I said oh, Mum! Where's Mum? And poor Mum was stuck up there. But apparently, our brave Mum, she goes are you all right? Because he had blood all over his face. And he goes, I'll shoot you. She goes, hey, I'm here to help. And Mum distracted him to make him look the other way. And he looked the other way, and Mum ran into the bush behind the fence. And the guy goes to her, I'll find you and I'll shot you. All I was thinking about when we were running, I hope he doesn't fire. Yeah, we were so blessed.

REPORTER: How close to him do you think you were?

BRIDGETTE AND PAULA POWERS: Well, see, he was up there and we were past our drive, just maybe a few metres. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't think of all of that at the time. No, you just run for your safety.

CH: Our Sound of the Day, Australian identical twin sisters Bridgette and Paula Powers recounting a car theft they witnessed in Queensland, Australia.

[lounge jazz]

Part 3: Tariffs: Global Vision, Vaillancourt Fountain

Tariffs: Global Vision

Guest: Greg Wiens

CH: Global Vision 2020 is on a mission to help people around the world see more clearly. But in the midst of Donald Trump's trade war, how to do that work most effectively has become a lot less clear. The U.S.-based non-profit works to get cheaper prescription glasses to people in the developing world. And as a result of the uncertainty that has come with the new tariffs, the organization says it's decided to move its warehouse north to Manitoba. Canadian Greg Wiens is the director of operations at Global Vision 2020. We reached him in Whitewood, Saskatchewan.

NK: Greg, when you think back to when these tariff threats first started emerging, and then became more and more, they became real, did you imagine in those early days of those threats, the kind of impact it would have on your organization?

GREG WIENS: I was worried right off the bat, but I really became very worried when it started hitting, like, 40-50 per cent and just shooting up from there.

NK: Do you think that organizations like yours factored at all into the thinking of the U.S. president and this administration there?

GW: Well, I know talking to my friends, people who are in the importing business, definitely were, you know, running into the elections in the U.S. And then after, what is this going to look like? But it's way worse than we expected.

NK: If you could describe for our listeners, Greg, sort of the pipeline, if you will, how does your distribution, how does you process work in your organization?

GW: So, the eye testing equipment that we invented is made in the United States. So, tariffs don't affect that. It gets shipped from Ohio to our warehouse just outside of Baltimore in Maryland. And the glasses we procure wherever we can get the best price because that's what we're trying to do is get the system as cheap as possible. So, the ones we're talking about right now, they come from China. We have them shipped to our warehouses in Maryland and then we put the kits together for the organizations that go and use them in the distribution centres. So, they'll come from China to maryland, from Maryland to, say, University of Texas, and then University of Texas will take it to Mexico, or Johns Hopkins will take to Mongolia, or wherever they get used, ultimately.

NK: So, how does what has happened change that pipeline for you?

GW: Well, now with the tariffs that have been put on, which we did not have tariffs, we were exempt from tariffs before as a non-profit, and we're not now. Actually, nobody has any answers when it really comes down to it. We go from having no tariffs to being told we have to add 145 per cent as we speak to the cost of the glasses, which come out to under $5 per pair, but that's a huge increase when you're talking about making this a sustainable project for non-profits to get glasses onto the faces of the world's poor.

NK: And who pays for those glasses and testing kits?

GW: Organizations that use the kits in the field that we partner with. So, a perfect example is iDE Canada. We work together with them as they set up training and distribution centres in the countries that they're working in. So, for example, Ghana, I'll be going there in six weeks. We have about $25,000 worth of glasses that are going in. I'm coming in with them, training their teams on the ground. And then, we have a pipeline that keeps them resupplied. And again, it comes out to, on average, about $5 per pair U.S. per pair of glasses. So, IDE fundraises for it. And then, our ultimate goal is we enable local businesses, whether they're pharmacies or an eye hospital, that they'll sell the glasses for $10, $12, making themselves a sustainable project. And that's glasses at about 95 per cent cheaper, if they are available anywhere at a local cost. So then, ultimately, those locals buy them.

NK: And the conversations, the teams in Ghana and other countries where you send your kits and glasses, what kinds of conversations have you been having with folks in those countries in the lead up to all of this? What kinds of worries are they sharing with you?

GW: Well, actually, I just jumped to the pump, I guess you could say, that's a Winnipeg thing to say, right, Domo? I jumped to it and said, you know, what about doing this through Canada? And everybody immediately jumped on, they're like, yes, that makes so much more sense. And we're not worried that Canada is going to slap tariffs onto, whether it's China or other countries, because we can source the glasses through other places.

NK: And you do already have some training and distribution working out of Canada, what else are you moving specifically?

GW: That's right. It'll be, specifically, it will be the distribution centre and the packing that comes with it. So, we get things in large bulk orders. That's why the prices are so cheap. And then, we organize those into the kits in the way that the organizations, whether like I said, universities, IDE, they'll organize it the way they want it at that location So, I guess you could say it's to some degree packing and repacking and then sending out the order specifically how they want them

NK: Have you secured a space for this already?

GW: Yes, actually, iDE Canada, one of their founders, his name is Frank DeFehr, he's a large furniture manufacturer and sales in Manitoba, and they said, oh, we'll give you space for free in one of our warehouses, no problem, they've already got it all set up, as soon as the glasses come in, they even got shelving for me, I wasn't expecting that.

NK: Greg, thank you for this. I appreciate your time.

GW: Thank you so very much.

CH: Greg Wiens is the director of operations at Global Vision 2020. We reached him in Whitewood, Saskatchewan.

[instrumental]

Autumn Peltier

CH: This week, Indigenous leaders from all over the world are meeting at UN headquarters. And Autumn Peltier is one of them. Ms. Peltier is from Wiikwemikoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, and she's been fighting to protect Indigenous rights since she was a child. The Anishinaabe water-rights advocate spoke at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. This year's theme is the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples -- and challenges to that effort. Here is part of her speech.

SOUNDCLIP

AUTUMN PELTIER: Despite the negative in this world that our youth are absorbing, we still remain optimistic. For centuries, Indigenous peoples worldwide have endured dispossession, cultural suppression, and systemic marginalization. Despite declarations, treaties, and international frameworks like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, many communities continue to face land dispossession, inadequate access to healthcare, education disparities, and violations of cultural rights. A tragic and urgent issue that demands our immediate focus is the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. In North America alone, Indigenous women are murdered at a rate more than 10 times the national average in the United States and Canada. What are we as a society doing to empower Indigenous women? Colonial legacies, patriarchal structures, and systemic barriers continue to limit their opportunities to lead. We just seem to recognize this, but can we actually act on this? The future depends on the leadership of Indigenous women and our knowledge. We are the keepers of tradition and the architects of change and peace building. We are traditional healers spanning through generations. We must prioritize capacity building, mentorship, and policy reforms that elevate Indigenous women into decision-making positions, locally, nationally, and globally. Today, I urge the United Nations and its member states to reaffirm our collective commitment to uphold and implement the rights of Indigenous peoples, respecting their sovereignty and cultural integrity. Address the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women with urgency, transparency, and integrity. I speak to federal leaders and leaders all around the world, and what I hope for is more collaboration. Do we care about TikTok trends and selfies more than a sustainable offering for the next generation? What opportunities are we leaving for the generations coming behind us? What if? What if you shook the hand of the person behind you and said hello? What if we all started to really pay attention more often and listen to everyone around us? I believe it's your what if that could possibly influence something we will be talking about tomorrow. We start today. We start with every little step, and never forget that water is life. Miigwech.

CH: That was Autumn Peltier, speaking at the 24th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, yesterday.

[hip-hop]

FOA: Joe Nickell Obit

CH: Joe Nickell was many things to many people. One-thousand-and-sixty-six things, to be precise. That's the number of occupations he claimed on his website. The list begins with "accident victim" and ends with "yearbook editor" -- and in between are the jobs that made him famous, like "chupacabra hunter", "ghostbuster", and "werewolf researcher." Mr. Nickell was a former magician-turned-professional skeptic. He was a researcher into the paranormal who painstakingly investigated mysteries like the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, ghosts, and UFO's. And he took his work seriously, rigorously using science to debunk hoaxes. When we learned that Mr. Nickell had died a few weeks ago, we were reminded that he shared his healthy skepticism with As It Happens. From our archives, here he is talking to Barbara Frum in 1979 about his work reproducing a copy of the Shroud of Turin to show how it might have been faked.

SOUNDCLIP

BARBARA FRUM: Is something like a Turin Shroud just too much for a magician? Do you just have to solve the riddle?

JOE NICKELL: Well, we magicians are notorious skeptics, because we see our fellow magicians perform miracles every day.

BF: In the recent interest in the Shroud, we just have thought that these skeptics were just bitter, that they just were knocking at the real article.

JN: I felt that the problem was being presented in a somewhat misleading or rather phony manner.

BF: How did you do it?

JN: Well, I simply used a ball relief.

BF: But as though it were a human face.

JN: I then soaked cloth in hot water and carefully molded the cloth to the ball relief, continually working it until it dried, so that the cloth is formed to this relief rather like a mask. And then when the cloth was thoroughly dry, I used a 50-50 mixture of Myrrh and rub it on with a simple dauber. Then it hits the high spots. And so, when you make a photograph and you look at the negative, you have an excellent positive image on your negative.

BF: But how did you remove any vegetable evidence so that when it was tested the shroud there is apparently no, no read on any chemical?

JN: That's not so. The commission reported finding various globules and various colourless and yellow-red and orange granules, which they did not identify. I recently submitted one of my test prints to a forensic microscopist, and he extracted fibres from my cloth and put them under a microscope, and he found curious little globules. I was in touch with the official Shrod spokesman. And when I finally hit upon the technique I thought explained it, I wrote and said so. And I was given a sarcastic reply and no interest whatsoever in learning from me how I had done it.

BF: Well, true believers aren't easily shaken.

JN: That's true. I've had the dubious honour of having the Archbishop of Turin himself personally refuse to allow me to come and look at it.

BF: Well, you're just a magician, you see.

JN: Yeah, that's --

BF: And they're serious.

JN: I'm also considered not objective, as if they were.

BF: Well, good work, Mr. Nickell.

JN: Well, thank you very much.

BF: You're a true iconoclast.

JN: [chuckling] Thank you.

BF: Bye bye.

JN: Bye.

CH: From Our Archives, that was the late Joe Nickell, paranormal investigator, in conversation with Barbara Frum on As It Happens in 1979.

[chillhop house tour music]

Vaillancourt Fountain

Guest: Alexis Vaillancourt

CH: One local blog describes it as, quote, "Brutalist and not particularly well-liked." Unquote. Another welcomes its potential demise with the headline, "Bye concrete fountain! Hello urban oasis!" But for Alexis Vaillancourt, the proposed destruction of the Vaillancourt fountain in San Francisco's Embarcadero Plaza is troubling. The striking landmark was designed by his father -- Quebec artist Armand Vaillancourt. And since a proposal to redevelop the plaza didn't include any plans to protect it, father and son are preparing to make the trip to San Francisco to plead the fountain's case. We reached Alexis Vaillancourt today in Montreal.

NK: Alexis, this is not a typical fountain, when people imagine a fountain in a town square, what does it look like?

ALEXIS VAILLANCOURT: It's made of precast aggregate concrete. It's, like, a big square tube with really unusual angles, so it's a super dynamic sculpture. And people can walk under the arms of the the fountain and also go on top of it. So, it was to to invite people to participate, you know, to the fountain, not being just a static sculpture, it's something that people can live through and experience.

NK: And also, tag with graffiti. [chuckling]

AV: Ah, there's three with Bono

NK: Yes, Bono of U2, in case people don't know.

AV: Yeah, so I think it's in the late '80s, he made like a big show with U2, just in front of the fountain. And during the show, he jumped on the fountain, and did a graffiti, so, and the city at that time was fighting against graffiti, so they tried to not arrest him, but something like that.

NK: And he called your father, right?

AV: Yeah he called my father. Because at the inauguration of the fountain, my father came and jumped in the water and made a graffiti saying "Quebec libre". So, that's why Bono called my father and said, oh, Armand the sculptor already did a graffiti on the fountain. So, he invited him in San Francisco and they went, they did, like, the next show, my father did, like, a big speech during the show, talking for the youth, you know, for the liberty of expression. So yeah, he defend the gesture, not especially the one of Bono, but just the thinking --

NK: In general.

AV: Yes, the thinking in general.

NK: The fountain, as you know, has been threatened before, but when did you find out the fact that it might be destroyed, that idea, was back on the table?

AV: Yeah, we found it out, like, a little bit more than a month ago from my sister who lives and works in San Francisco. So yeah, we were kind of surprised that they didn't try to reach Armand or the foundation.

NK: Your father, yeah. We reached out to officials in San Francisco trying to get some clarity on what might happen with the fountain, what its future looks like. What have they told you about when and how a decision might come?

AV: It's not clear yet, but now the thing is that the fountain is not officially preserved in the new project proposal. And it's supposed to be the Art Commission of San Francisco that are going to decide about it. But there's no date or time scheduled for the decision. So, that's why I'm trying to move fast as possible, you know, to be sure that they have all the information about that piece of art.

NK: What kind of information do you want to make sure they have?

AV: First of all, that Armand is still alive and still, like, a really active sculptor and artist. Second thing is there's an history around that fountain. Many things happened during the build of the fountain, during the four years that Armand was in San Francisco. And it became a famous spot for skateboarders. And also, like, a really important part of skateboard history. And also, skate parks, modern skate parks, and modern skateboarding. I know that some people don't like the esthetic of it. And, you know, it's just to think about, like, what art should be? Should it absolutely be beautiful in everyone's eyes? I don't think so. Art have to make people react and talk about it, so it's normal that not everybody likes it. And the esthetic is, like, an intent, but it's not the main point of a piece of art. It is a good piece of art for many other reason before aesthetics.

NK: San Francisco's Parks and Recreation Department has said the fountain would need repairs, and that those repairs would cost more than $3 million U.S. What's your reaction to that price tag?

AV: So, that price, I'm not an economist, it's not my job, but my thinking about it is that the fountain worked for 50 years now, and it's still in good shape. And that price covers, to me, it's just normal that at one point, you have to change, to take care of a piece of art like that. And they didn't really take care of the fountain since the inauguration. So, $3 million for 50 years and for I don't know how many decades it will last after that $3 million, it seems not so much if you take it on all those decades.

NK: What does Armand Vaillancourt, your father, feel about all of this?

AV: Many things. At first, you know, he's now 95 years old, so he's really active. And, you know, he's still really out there. But he is 95 years old, so it's really hard to hear for him that one of his biggest projects that he ever made is about, maybe, to be demolished. You know, you don't have to go through that at that age.

NK: But you are going together to San Francisco to try to fight and make your case. In the meantime, what about Bono? Have you guys kept in touch? Maybe he'll step in.

AV: Yeah, I wish. No, they didn't keep contact, but if anybody knows him, he could make a call. [chuckle] That would help. Yeah, of course.

NK: Well, maybe Bono is listening. Alexis, I'm glad we could speak.

AV: Okay, thanks to you.

CH: Armand Vaillancourt designed the imperilled Vaillancourt Fountain in San Francisco. We reached his son Alexis in Montreal. We reached out to the supervisor for San Francisco's District 3, where the fountain is located...the city's Arts Commission, which oversees the fountain's sculptural elements...and the developer behind the proposed redesign of the plaza where it sits. A spokesperson for the commission sent us a statement citing a community meeting later this Spring and clarifying that, quote, "No final decisions have been made about the fountain." Unquote.

[chilhop house tour music]

New Whale

CH: The whale is one of the most amazing creatures on Earth. And one whale is two of the most amazing creatures on Earth. Its name is Mona Lisa, and it's hanging out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in Quebec. It is a male fin whale. It is also a male blue whale. Richard Sears is a marine biologist at the Mingan Island Cetacean Study. He and his team have been tracking Mona Lisa for years, and they've been able to confirm that he is a cross between both species. Mr. Sears told the CBC what that could mean.

SOUNDCLIP

RICHARD SEARS: Hybrids are just interesting because there's something interesting to note in a population. Why do hybrids exist? Well, we're not quite certain. Perhaps blue whales being more limited in number than finbacks. They have relations with the finbacks. Perhaps, someday, some of these animals might be able to better survive than others, but we still don't know if they can produce survival offspring. So, that leaves that up very much in the air. I mean, this obviously is an offspring of one or the other, but the question is really, can a hybrid produce offspring? That we don't know.

PETER TARDIF: And in terms of just science there, for people who might not be too familiar with this, they're not the same species of whale, if I can put it that way.

RS: But they're in the same family or group.

PT: But they're not supposed to be able to mate together, is that correct?

RS: Well, usually hybrids do exist in nature. We have several hybrids that we've seen in the Azores and in Iceland. Most of those are backed up by genetics. Some of them are just phenotypes where we have clearly both pigmentation patterns on the animal. It's a handful of animals, a very low percentage of the overall populations of both, but they exist.

PT: I'm curious what special characteristics might it have that it's combined with both of these types of whales. Does it have a, does this look like a brand new type of whale where it has different characteristics? It can be bigger, it could go deeper, I don't know.

RS: I don't know about how it operates underwater. It may be more variable. We know the blue whales specialize on ufosids or krills, small shrimp-like organs, whereas finbacks can eat those as well as several species of fish. So, this animal seems to operate the way finbacks do. On many of the hybrids, you can clearly see the pigmentation that is known for the right side of the head of the finback and you can also see modeling or spots that are characteristic of blue whales.

CH: Marine biologist Richard Sears, speaking to Peter Tardif, host of Quebec AM, yesterday.

[electronic]

Chat GPT Manners Cost

CH: There may be an "AI" in "AIH", but there is no AI in AIH. That is to say, we do not use artificial intelligence, no matter how taxing that choice may be to our un-artificial intelligence. But if we did, I expect we'd be polite about it; you know, we'd say "please" and "thank you" and "have a great day". Just to be nice. But also: to be jerks. Here's why it's both: recently, an X user named "Tomie" mused on that platform how much money OpenAI loses in electricity costs, when their models have to process all the “pleases” and “thank yous” that people offer. Or, put another way, how much energy is wasted. Generative AI requires an obscene amount of power to do all its computing. And each additional word is just more for the program to process. Well, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded directly to "Tomie"'s question -- putting the cost at "tens of millions of dollars". Yikes. So you might think he'd advocate for rudeness. But he stopped short of suggesting people drop their good manners, even cryptically calling the money "well spent". Now, some in the industry argue that good etiquette leads to more respectful outputs and can even improve performance -- not to mention encouraging a more natural communication style with AI, which, I guess, is a good thing. Then again, Mr. Altman may have been thinking about a survey late last in which some respondents reported being polite out of fear -- because when AI takes over they're hoping to avoid a rude awakening. And to those with that kind of foresight -- more power to you.

The AIH Transcript For April 22, 2025

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