The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Courtroom Drama - Mick Jagger versus Donald Trump?

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Love a courtoom brawl? The White House versus the Stones could be a good one. Week 16 of the "bridge daily"kicks off Canada Day week with some pretty interesting stuff. Enjoy.

and hello there Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily and here we Here we are, Monday of week 16. And week 16 is Canada Day week. And as a result, I'm going to treat this week as I have for Canada Day is going back a long way. I'm going to take it easy. I'm going to take a few days off. I encourage you to take it easy. Enjoy the weather if you've got good weather where you are. And think about the country. And think about good things. Anyway, here's my plan for the week. Obviously, this podcast today for Monday. But tomorrow, on Tuesday, which is Canada Day Eve, I'm going to take that off.

I'm going to take Canada Day off from the podcast. So today, obviously, there is one. Next two days, no podcast. Back Thursday and Friday of this week. And I'm sure you understand. I'm sure you're going to take it easy as well, trying to enjoy some downtime in whatever way is possible in our crazy days that we're living through right now. But I decided that today I don't want to do anything heavy. I want to give you a few things to think about and talk about over these next few days.

So let's see what I can come up with. Because, you know, you can't always get what you want, right? Wouldn't that be a great title for a song? You can't always get what you want. Of course, it was a title of a song. The Rolling Stones. The Stones. I went to see The Stones live a couple of years ago

with my son, Will. And they were fantastic. I'm biased. I was around when they started in the 60s. But they were great. And there was Jagger in his 70s rocking around the stage, Keith Richards looking like Keith Richards often does, like he was on another planet somewhere,

or certainly on something. That Keith Richards is Keith Richards. He does his thing. And he has the ability to come up with the best opening notes for songs. You know, lots of them that you can recognize after two notes what the song is. Anyway, the Stones are suing Donald Trump. Who's going to win that contest of the Titans? I put my money on Jagger. But it's no easy lawsuit.

The Stones are trying to get Trump to stop using their music at his rallies. And one of the ones they use, Trump uses a lot, is you can't always get what you want. And the Stones say, no, you do not have our approval to use that. You do not have the rights to use that. They've sent cease and desist orders. That hasn't worked, so they're going the full route. They're suing. They're going to sue the Trump campaign.

I don't know what will happen there. I don't know. I don't quite understand the whole rights thing on music, but, you know, the music that I use on this podcast is in a section of the Internet called free music. Anybody can use it. And that's where I picked the opening theme for the podcast. I don't know where it came from.

I don't know who wrote it. But whoever it was, it's happy just to let anybody use it. But the Stones, they've had it with Donald Trump. As it appears, if you believe polls, have a lot of other people had it with Donald Trump. This is probably the least of his concerns right now. But, I don't know. I wouldn't want the stones coming after me.

Topic two. Now, this has always puzzled me, and it may have puzzled you in this debate over masks. I say wear masks. You've got to wear masks. You should absolutely wear masks when you're ever indoors and in places other than your home. But there are masks and there are masks. And, you know, we're kind of used to the non-surgical masks and the cloth masks and masks that you might make yourself. But there are also these

masks and you see them every once in a while, on people that have a kind of valve on the front. You know, it's about the size of a coin. And, you know, as the appearance, whoa, this is a pretty heavy-duty mask. This must be a great mask. Well, maybe not so great. Washington Post yesterday, the headline, Why Simple Cloth Masks Without Valves Are Better at Fighting the Spread of COVID-19.

This is a piece by the Washington Post's Angela Fritz. And I guess she decided, seeing these things were popping up, they cost a little more, they're kind of specialized masks, she figured, well, I want to find out about these masks. So this is what she did. She wrote about it. The opening line is, those face masks you see with coin-sized valves on the front may look intriguing, but they are not as good at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus as the seemingly lower-tech non-valved masks. She went to the 3M company, which

makes valve masks. And she asked them how this works. In fact, I think she just went to their website. Which we all could have done, but none of us did.

This is what she says. The 3M company, which makes valve masks for such occupations as construction work, illustrates on its website how they work. Inhaled air is filtered through the fabric part of the mask, and hot, humid, exhaled air goes out through the valve. You know, I, for some reason, had assumed that the valve had something to do with incoming, but it's not. It's about outgoing. The system may be what you want when tearing out a kitchen for remodeling, because we all do that, but the valve defeats the purpose when you're trying to slow the spread of a virus. Public

health experts have been recommending mask wearing to prevent respiratory droplets from spreading into the air when you exhale, speak, cough, or sneeze, and the valves allow those droplets through. Medical masks do not have valves. In its guidelines for mask wearing, San Francisco stipulates that masks with valves do not meet its standards. And here's the quote. Any mask that incorporates a one-way valve, typically a raised plastic cylinder about the size of a quarter on the front or side of the mask, that is designed to facilitate easy exhaling,

allows droplets to be released from the mask, putting others nearby at risk. All right. The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommends simple cloth masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Okay. to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Okay? So there's your mask story for today. But remember, wear your mask.

And there's so many of them now. I think I told you, it feels like months ago, that I'd ordered masks that were being put out by the Toronto Maple Leafs, my favorite hockey team, and the Toronto Raptors, my favorite basketball team. And I ordered them, paid for them, and then got a note from Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment,

the company that owns the two teams, saying there is such a demand and we want to make these right that it's going to take a while before they're ready. That seemed like months ago. They already have my money. Anyway, I just got a note over the weekend saying, hey, the masks are ready.

They're going to start sending them out. So I'm looking forward to that. But I got lots of cloth masks now. You know, many communities are doing fundraising drives for food banks and hospitals and you name it, and they're selling masks. And that's great, and that's good for them. There's so many great community activities that are taking place,

you know, in small towns and big right across the country. I hope you're involving yourself. You know, I told you that I've been, you know, along with my neighbours, we've been out at 7.30 at night doing the clap for health care workers. And it started to wind down. And as we moved into phase two with the hopes that we'll be into phase three soon in terms of reopening and numbers very consistently low in our area. Some of the health care workers are saying,

hey, it's okay, you don't have to keep doing this. So a lot of places in my town have started, have stopped. So we had our final one on Friday night. For the time being, as we said. Obviously prepared if we need to, to come back. And it was kind of emotional in a strange way, because here we had been as neighbors since March, out on our

front steps, front porches, front lawns, clapping. One of the fellas played a drum. Somebody else played a trumpet. Another person played an accordion. I played the harmonica at times. But basically we all clapped and we hooted and hollered. And, you know, it was only a minute or two minutes at the most.

And when we finally kind of stopped and looked at each other, we realized that, hey, as a neighborhood, we've been doing this for, you know, four months, March, April, May, June, every night. And we probably, you know, we've, you know, most of us have been here for 20 years on this block. And we've never seen each other so often as we have in this last four months. Anyway, you know, so that's happening in different parts of our town and I imagine in your communities as well. But community action is great. Okay, here's a different story.

Very different. You may have heard that in different areas have gone into phase one and phase two, that especially in Canada where film production is a big deal, it is in Toronto, it is in Vancouver, it is in some of the other cities. I think Calgary has its different film work going on, so does Winnipeg, Halifax. Sudbury, Ontario has become a popular spot for a TV series to shoot in because the costs are lower than certainly in Toronto. Anyway, so film production has started up again.

They've been given the clearance, and I think it's phase two that film production gets reopened. But here's the challenge, that those in the film industry, and obviously I hear some of this because my wife has spent some of her time in both television and movies, and so what happens in a lot of TV shows and a lot of movies? There are scenes of intimacy, shall we say. Love scenes.

So how exactly is that going to work? With COVID-19 and concerns about distancing? Because most of these TV shows have those kind of scenes in them, right? They can be just simple kiss or they can be a little more involved in that. So how are they going to do that? Are they going to just drop those scenes altogether? I don't think so. It seems a lot of programs, depending on having some of that action in their films or shows.

So here's how they're getting around that. Well, they're not getting around it, but this is how they're doing it. In some shows, I think the Bold and the Beautiful, one of the daytime soaps. I know nobody who listens to the Bridge Daily watches daytime soap operas, but you've probably heard about them. How are they going to do that? They're getting, you know, say one of the female actors is in the show and has a scene of intimacy with her TV show boyfriend or lover or whatever. Well, they're going to ask the TV actress to ask her spouse to come in

and be a body double for that. Okay? Because that obviously would not be an issue. Others are saying, we're going to shoot this with, wait for it, a plastic doll. And use that in such a way that it will appear that they're together.

You know, such are the challenges of television in today's world, especially today's world with COVID-19. But here at The Bridge Daily, we want to keep you informed. We want you to know exactly what's happening. So when you look at your next television show that's being shot during this time period, take a really close look at those next television show that's being shot during this time period, take a really close look at those scenes of intimacy.

All right. Next topic. I love this story. Okay? I love this story. This made me very happy to read. Dylan Byers, who works for NBC News, he has a daily kind of column that he puts out

that kind of looks at the entertainment industry and the journalism industry and political world, and he finds things that other people haven't found and the journalism industry and political world, and he finds things that other people haven't found and mentions them. Well, I mean, this is a holiday week for Americans too, right, as they run up to the July 4th weekend. And so he was looking for something good to tell his followers. So he plucked this story.

I think he got it out of the New York Times, actually, but I read it in his newsletter. So there's this Argentine guy living in Portugal when the pandemic hits. And they put all the restrictions in. You can't travel anywhere. You can't go anywhere. All the flights are canceled. Just as he had been planning his spring around being at home in Argentina

for his father's 90th birthday. So how was he going to deliver on this promise to his dad that he'd be there? Can't fly. Obviously can't drive. There are no cruise ships. So what does he do? He gets a sailboat. He gets a sailboat. He gets a sailboat. And he sails solo for 85 days from Portugal to Argentina. He didn't quite make it for the birthday.

It was a tough trip. But he did make it for Father's Day. Don't you just love that story? You know, he was probably the safest guy on the planet during those 85 days. He's at sea, I believe alone, in a small sailboat crossing the Atlantic. Doesn't see anybody. Doesn't stop anywhere.

Not allowed to stop anywhere. I mean, I think he wanted to stop on the Canary Islands, but they wouldn't let him. All he had with him were tins of tuna. That's what he ate. And fresh water. As he crossed the Atlantic in his sailboat to see his dad. You got to love it.

Stories of the pandemic. Listen, I hope you have a great weekend. Not a weekend, great week. That you find ways to celebrate our country and celebrate the special people who are helping us get through this. You know who they are. There are lots of them.

We used to just talk about the health care workers, but hey, it's a big circle. You know, health healthcare workers, first responders, grocery store clerks, farmers, truckers, guys who collect the garbage, guys and gals who collect the garbage, people who are working in banks. Restaurants that are starting to open

at least with their patios. There are lots of people out there, and many of them are you. And there are the teachers, you know, who for the last four months have been jumping through hoops trying to help their kids and now are trying to deal with the summer of, are they preparing for in-class or online? And the kids themselves. So anyway, we've got lots of people to think about. And we've got a great country to think about.

And hopefully you can relax the tension and the pressures somewhat. As a country, we're doing a heck of a lot better than our neighbors to the south who we hope will come to grips with what they're dealing with. They could try what others are doing where they need it, and that's wearing a mask. Some of the pictures, again, this weekend of places in the Sun Belt in the States. It's like it's unbelievable. Keep that border closed until they sort themselves out, please. All right, enough already.

As I said, I'm taking tomorrow off, Tuesday, taking Wednesday off, celebrating Canada Day. We'll be back on Thursday. So for the Bridge Daily, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thank you so much for listening. And we'll see you again on Thursday. Thank you.