The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - How Did Today's Podcast End Up Talking About Space Junk?

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Okay so its a Thursday potpourri and we cover a lot of ground in a mere 27:31!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of the Bridge Daily. It's Thursday of week 32, and this Thursday will forever be known as the day the last debate between the two presidential candidates in the United States for the 2020 presidential election took place. Hasn't happened yet, though, but I'll be sitting there. I'll be sitting there watching every moment. We had a great podcast last night with Bruce Anderson, The Race Next Door and our special guest last night was Jerry Butts and we have had a lot of reaction and thousands of downloads

of that podcast which is very encouraging we're glad that you found it interesting and a lot of people wrote in, talked about it. Jerry, of course, has got a lot of experience in the political game, has managed I don't know how many winning campaigns, both at the federal and provincial level. So he is a man who knows what he's talking about.

Not uncontroversial, of course, but nevertheless, for last night, for this issue, I'm sure glad he was agreeable to coming on and being our guest. And I'm pretty sure he's going to come on again at some point because there's going to be lots to talk about, not only on that situation but our situation here. You know, last night I didn't bother with dealing with this, the government's going to fall thing. You know, I'll tell you why.

Because I covered so many minority governments when I was either in Ottawa or anchoring the National in Toronto. And when there's a minority government, every couple of weeks somebody says, going to pull the plug on these guys, government's going to fall. And everybody gets in a panic, and the news media included, as they should. I mean, you've got to be prepared for these things. You know, some of us are old enough to remember December 13, 1979, when the conservative government fell unexpectedly.

And that led to an election, and they got trounced. So these things can happen. But my own sense was, look, we're in the middle of a pandemic. Nobody wants an election. The people certainly don't want an election. They may want a change in government, some of them, but they don't want an election right now. We've got other things to do and to worry about.

They'd like to see a little cooperation among the political parties to deal with the main issue at hand, the fact that people are suffering as a result of the pandemic and some people are dying. That's what they want from government and from politicians. And in some cases in this country, that's what they're getting. Anyway, I didn't go in, I didn't fall for that story yesterday. I'm glad I didn't because I'm really pleased with what we ended up with

on the podcast last night on The Race Next Door. And to give you a sense, tomorrow night, we will deal with the fallout from whatever happens in the debate tonight. And we'll have another special guest. And our special guest tomorrow night is Lisa Raitt, former Conservative MP, former Conservative Cabinet Minister, former Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

And I'm really looking forward to having her opinions on the podcast tomorrow night, her sense of what she thought happened, and where she sees this whole campaign going south of the border. And I think she's pretty excited about being on the podcast as well. She even tweeted about it today, so that was very good. All right. One thing to talk about is sort of not really related, but related in the sense that it's a little bit about the U.S. election. This happens every U.S. election, where both parties have got to be ready for A, the possibility of winning, and B, the possibility of losing. But on the possibility of winning, and B, the possibility of losing.

But on the possibility of winning, you only have a couple of months to prepare before you take over, if you're not the incumbent party. So you've got to be ready for Inauguration Day, and part of being ready is having the team that you want surrounding you, both in terms of advising and cabinet level. So Politico has an interesting piece out this week. In a preview of what might be Biden's cabinet should he win the election, Politico reports that Biden's transition team is vetting some GOP candidates, Republicans. This is the Democrats vetting some Republicans for potential big roles in a Biden administration.

Despite concerns, and you can bet there are concerns, from some of the progressives within the Democratic Party. Beyond it being customary that presidential transition teams would vet candidates from across the aisle, Biden is also in the unusual position of having won significant support from former elected Republican leaders. And every day you hear new ones coming out and saying they're going to vote for Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. So he's got quite a pool of potential

Republican candidates to choose from if he's going to try and put together, we're not talking about a coalition cabinet here, but we are talking about a cabinet that does reflect some partisan diversity, if there's such a phrase. He wants to show that his government is for all Americans, not just for the people who supported him in terms of traditional support from Democrats.

So over these next few weeks, up until the election, and certainly over the next couple of months after the election, if Biden wins, we're going to see some of those names floated out. And, you know, you can probably already guess what some of them are. Now, you know the phrase October surprise? We're always hearing about that. It's going to be an October surprise. It'll change the whole dynamic of the election.

Maybe. There are still, what, 10, 11 days to go before the election. Some of them are in October. And therefore, there could be a surprise. There was supposed to be a surprise in this Hunter Biden laptop thing, and maybe that will develop into one. I don't know. What I've seen already looks a bit hard to take.

That was all dreamt up by Rudy Giuliani. Well well he's getting an October surprise of his own and I'm sure you've read about it we won't go down into the depths of that story right now but I'm sure he's got some splainin' to do now here's this October surprise it's of a different vein. Despite a significant rise in COVID-19 cases in many parts of the country, we're talking about the U.S.,

it appears that more people are flying on commercial jet landers than at any time over the last seven months. This comes from National Public Radio. More than a million people were screened by the Transportation Security Administration at airport security checkpoints just a couple of days ago on Sunday. All right, they total these every day. How many actually go through security at the various airports in the United States. And on Sunday, there were more than 1 million.

That's the first time the Daily Traveler count has topped the 1 million mark since March the 16th, basically since when we got into all this. And this wasn't just a one-day surge in air travel. The TSA's daily throughput figure has topped 900,000 eight times already this month in October. And the TSA reports that the 6.1 million people passing through U.S. airport checkpoints between October 12th and October 18th

was the greatest weekly travel volume measured since the start of the pandemic. But experts say despite there being a lot of pent-up demand for air travel, it's important to note that even with this modest increase, the number of people flying is still down more than 60% from the 2.6 million who flew on the same October Sunday last year. Still, it's a bit of good news at a time the nation's airlines are burning through tens of millions of dollars a day and reporting huge financial losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Airlines have been looking for bailouts from government or loans, interest-free loans, gifts, something to help them through what is an enormous struggle for the airline business and for the tourism business in general. And it's not just restricted to south of the border. Air Canada and WestJet have taken a hammering in the last seven months. They continue to do so right now. And they too are pleading for help. So far they haven't got the help they're looking for,

but those negotiations continue. Now, here's another one from NPR. And this is something we have touched on a number of times on the Bridge Daily over the last seven months, and it kind of strikes at the inequities that exist between men and women and what's happened to them through this pandemic. So NPR highlights a labor department, that's a U.S. labor department, finding that in September, 865,000 women dropped out of the workforce, which is, wait for it, four times the number of men who dropped out. For highly educated, high-income women who are dealing with virtual schooling,

stepping down the career ladder puts promotions, future earning power, and also their current roles as leaders at risk. Now, some of those choices have been made by employers, but many have been made by employees who have made the decision that they have to do this because of the situation at home. Now, here's something interesting. Did you watch Barack Obama yesterday and the speech he gave? At one point during that speech, when he was comparing what's

happened in the U.S. on the way they have tried to deal with the pandemic, where he compared it with other countries, and he specifically mentioned South Korea having done a considerably better job than the U.S. and a better job than Canada, I might add. But here's an interesting thing. While we've got the focus on South Korea and we're thinking about that issue about women, there's a piece in The Economist finds that in South Korea, authorities are working on a series of policies that focus on making it easier for women to join and remain in the labor market where they are underrepresented. The government is pouring money into child care, family support,

and regularly asks parents what they want the city to do for them. The local civil service allows flexible working hours that enable both men and women to enjoy a more equal distribution of labor at home. So, maybe there are a few things we could be looking at South Korea for to see how they are handling the pandemic situation on any number of levels, from health care, from prevention,

from some equality for conditions within the labor force. Back in February, our fridge here at our home in Stratford basically conked out. That was in February. We'd had it for close to 20 years. Good fridge, big fridge. And man, fridges don't cost what they used to cost. They're a lot more expensive.

Anyway, we decided, well, it wasn't much of a decision. We had no choice. We've got to replace this fridge. And we kind of liked the fridge we had, so we dealt with that manufacturer. And to make the story shorter, we basically got it all done before the end of the month of February. We had the new fridge in. And, you know, it took a couple of weeks. It took a lot of huffing and puffing and hauling things in and out of the house. But the people who were handling it were great and we got our new fridge in. And then, bang, the pandemic hits. And there have been more than a few times we have said, we have looked at each other and said,

thank God that the fridge crapped out before the pandemic. Now, why am I telling you this story? Because the Wall Street Journal's reporting that Whirlpool said supply chain disruptions are preventing it from making all the kitchen mixers, refrigerators, and washing machines that Americans are ordering as they wait out the coronavirus pandemic at home. The company shared this week that backlogs for its products remain higher than usual and that revenue in North America fell 1.6% due to coronavirus-related supply constraints in its third quarter. So, that's all talking about a lot of people that could have included us. By the luck of the draw, our fridge went out before this started. For a lot of people, this is not a good time to have to replace a major appliance.

It's not a good time on so many fronts. There's backlogs in the work order, the hassle of having to bring one into the house, take one out of the house during a pandemic, having strangers in and out of the house. It's funny how we tend to see our homes as this kind of zoned-off area that, like, nothing can get into because we've got it totally isolated just to us well as fauci and others say listen the virus doesn't respect doors yeah if it wants to find a way in it's going to get its way in on top of whatever you bring into the home.

The doors open and whatever. I mean, you know the story. However, I think we've all had this kind of feeling. And for the most part, it's a realistic feeling that our home is our castle, that our home is protected. And once you close that door, nothing's going to get in. Well, we can certainly hope for that, right? Okay. Here's another story.

I believe 1978. Somewhere around, I'm not sure, somewhere in 1978. The story was a big deal at the time. A Russian space satellite of some kind had basically been up there for a number of years and it had run out of its ability to move around. And it was, everybody knew, the Americans knew and the Russians knew, that it was going to come down. Where it was going to come down, nobody knew. Where it was going to come down. Where it was going to come down, nobody knew.

Where it was going to hit, nobody knew. Could it be damaging? Absolutely, it could be damaging. If it didn't burn up in the atmosphere, it was going to crash land somewhere. Most of the Earth is water, so the assumption is, okay, the odds are it's going to land in water. But there's no guarantee of that.

Anyway, what happened? Well, it landed in Canada. We made the headlines. Russian spaceship lands in Canada. Crashes. Crash lands. Now, it was in the Northwest Territories where it crashed, and it was not near anybody. So it didn't cause any casualties.

But it was still a big deal because it hadn't happened before. I mean, keep in mind, it was like only in the late 50s that they started throwing stuff up into space. Remember Sputnik? Well, you don't remember Sputnik, but all people like me remember Sputnik. Bing! Bing! And we were fascinated by the sound of this thing

when the radio reception came in. So there was nothing before that in terms of spacecraft in space until that one fell in the late 70s. And it was a big deal for me because I, you know, I was in Ottawa at that time.

I reported on it and I reported on it for CBS and I have, and it's and I reported on it for CBS, and I have, and it's one of my kind of career highlights, Walter Cronkite introducing me on the CBS Evening News to do a report for CBS. That's a classic

when you have Walter Cronkite saying your name. Anyway, as in the last story I told you, why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because there is a new concern, a new environmental concern. And that environmental concern is space junk.

Now, why is this suddenly happening like kind of now? Why are people talking about it now? Well, last week, two inoperative satellites nearly collided in orbit. Still in orbit, but they didn't work anymore. It couldn't be controlled, and they almost collided. Now, that's an event that apparently is becoming more common as debris builds up in space. Now, some of this stuff is going to really surprise you.

Rocket Labs, CBO's company that deals, obviously, in rockets, told CNN that his company is already having trouble finding safe ways to launch its customers' satellites in part because of the huge number of spacecraft and junk already in orbit around the Earth. The U.S. military tracks about 25,000 objects in orbit, but there are millions of other smaller pieces of junk that could still threaten the spacecraft and people.

Scientists also aren't sure exactly where any piece of space debris is at any given time, which obviously complicates efforts to clean up the orbit. I don't know. I don't know about you, but I find that fascinating. When you consider it was only, you know, 50, 60 years ago that there was nothing that we'd fired up into space, and now there's so much junk they can't even, they're concerned about when to launch something for fear that it's going to hit something.

So let's get those blue boxes out in space. Time for something pleasant to end the Bridge Daily for this day. This Thursday of week 32, keep in mind that tomorrow we've got our special guest, Lisa Raitt, joining us to talk about tonight's presidential debate and the fallout from it. I can't wait to find out what she says, what I say, what Bruce says. I don't think I've ever been more excited about a presidential debate because who knows what's going to happen.

Anything could happen. And listen, if you've got time, make sure you listen to last night's podcast before tonight's presidential debate. If you have time. Because there's some great things to consider. And I think it's even a great podcast to listen to after the debate. Because you can say, well, he did this or he did that.

Butts was right, Butts was wrong. Anderson was right, Anderson was wrong. Mansbridge just seemed to be right on everything he said, which would, of course, be unusual because he's been wrong on a lot of things lately. You know, last week, what was it I said last week? I said, come on, it's obvious which town hall will have more viewers. People love train wrecks. Wrong. Biden had more viewers than Trump. So,

whatever. Alright, here's our last story. For this edition of the Bridge Daily. And here we are. We're approaching the end of October, so we've only got a couple of months until the holiday season, right? And there are lots of different holidays that are celebrated at year's end. So as a result, manufacturers have been churning out holiday decorations. But this is a different year, right? This is a very different year. So some of the decorations are a little bit different too.

According to... I'm trying to find out where I found this. New York Times. This year, decorations will reflect the symbols of a highly unusual year. Menorahs in the likeness of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Dr. Anthony Fauci. Ornaments. Can you imagine? Dr. Anthony Fauci, ornaments. Can you imagine putting a little Christmas ball with Fauci's face on it hanging on your tree?

And also the inevitable flurry of various tongue-in-cheek decor items referring to the great toilet paper panic of 2020. Remember that? Every time I think back to that, that we got all panicked about toilet paper, that we're going to run out of it, that stores did run out of it because people started to haul out

basket after basket of toilet paper. These wacky items help people proceed with business as usual, acknowledge the grief and the anxiety, and hopefully make people laugh in the process. And as I said last week, we can all use a laugh. We can all use something that will make us smile under those masks. All right?

Okay, my friends. That's it for the Thursday Bridge Daily I'm Peter Mansbridge I'm sure glad that you were listening and thank you for doing that and we'll talk to you again in just

24 hours Thank you.