An octopus sits on a drillhead used by scientists at the University of Victoria. The drillhead’s named Cork, and hence it’s inhabitant, this octopus was nicknamed Corky. (Photo: NEPTUNE Canada)

Sound travels much faster in water than in air, and thus plays an enormous role in the lives of marine species. Reef fish rely on sounds to communicate. So do whales and dolphins.

But over the last century, we humans have filled the oceans with noise. Most of our commerce happens through ships which are noisy. We’re increasingly exploring the marine environment for oil, using airguns and underwater explosions.

So, how is this noise pollution affecting marine animals? That’s what Michel André has been trying to answer for most of his career. He’s a bioacoustics expert at the Technical University of Catalonia, in Barcelona. I first spoke with André back in April this year, when I blogged about his study showing human-made noises in the ocean may be hurting giant squids.

Until recently, Andre had limited access to sounds in the seas. He could only work with sounds recorded over brief periods of time from a boat out in sea.

So “the dream was to have the (acoustic) data flowing to our desks,” says Andre.

Recent technological developments have helped make that dream come true. Now, scientists all over the world are putting underwater microphones in our oceans and connecting them to satellites or to the Internet. So researchers like Andre can continuously monitor the marine soundscape and do so in real time.

That’s why a few years ago, he launched an ambitious global project called Listening to the Deep Ocean. It connects existing deep sea microphones (they were put in place mostly by geologists interested in studying under water seismic activities) to a website. You can learn more about his project in my story which aired on The World today.

The website allows anyone to listen to sounds in the deep ocean. You can click below to hear some of the sounds these underwater microphones are recording. They include sounds of ships, under water explosions, humpback whales and dolphins.

It is still early days for Andre’s project. So we’ll have to wait to see what he learns about the impacts of noise pollution in the oceans. In the meantime though, he thinks he’s on the verge of a major discovery from analyzing sounds from a network of microphones off Vancouver Island, in Canada.

“We are suspecting that we might detect the presence of the right whale,” says Andre.

That’s the North Pacific right whale, which hasn’t been seen in the region for some 30 years.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: On June 15 the Canadian city of Vancouver was like a war zone.  Thousands of disappointed hockey fans took to the streets after their team, the Canucks, lost in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals.  Massive crowds torched cars, smashed windows and looted stores.  Now, a government report has been released looking at how to avoid something like that happening again. Chris Brown with the CBC in Vancouver, you’ve been following this story, what were the key findings in the report?  Why did the riot happen?

Chris Brown: Well, the report says the riot happened basically, because there were too many drunk people who’d been drinking all day in a very tight part of the downtown, 150,000 people that were really jammed into a few city blocks.  Authorities underestimated the size of the crowd.  They underestimated the amount of alcohol and booze that would be in play.  And they underestimated the fact that even once the riot started people would keep coming into the city’s downtown on public transit, and basically, making a bad situation worse — piling in, someone said it was like putting a cork in a bottle, keeping all these people in a small area.

Werman: Does the report actually kind of assign blame to the failures of policing or does it kind of isolate the too many drunk people in a confined area?

Brown: You know, it kind of gives a big fig leaf to the police and the mayor, and a lot of other people.  It doesn’t blame the police or the city of Vancouver.  It does blame really about 200 instigators, people who came downtown.  You know, you mentioned in your intro, hockey fans.  There’s a lot of debate in the city whether they were actually hockey fans or really just professional troublemakers who saw an opportunity to cause trouble. Those folks came down and really there was a mob mentality that took over.  Once a few of them torched cars, store windows broke, things were taken and wham, about 2,000 other people seemed to have jumped into it.  Obviously not on the sort of scale of the riots we saw in London earlier this summer, but clearly extremely intense for Vancouver over the four or five hours it was going on.

Werman: So what happened to those 200-some odd professional troublemakers as you put it?  Were they ever prosecuted?

Brown: The short answer is no, not yet, but the police tell us they’re going to.  They’ve been working on this for a number of months and this is another really interesting element of what came out of this riot.  You had tons and tons of surveillance camera footage and cellphone video and whatnot, but unlike Britain which had a lot of closed circuit TVs that we controlled by the police, that were really easily admissible as evidence in court cases, all the video for this riot has to be verified and it just takes a very, very long time. So they’ve had to hire a lab in the University of Indiana to really go over all this video to pinpoint people’s faces, to make sure that they actually did the things that people have confessed to doing, and sort of aren’t just lowballing their actions to try and get a lighter sentence. So we’re told that the prosecutions are actually going to take several more months, maybe not even until the next time the hockey playoffs roll into Vancouver, which would be in the spring.

Werman: Hm, you know, the Stanley Cup happens every year, Chris, there’s always a team that wins and a team that loses.  Why does it always seem to be Vancouver where things end in tears.

Brown: It’s sad, but true, this is a beautiful city and they put on some great events, the Olympics are obviously one of them.  Hockey is really a passion here and there was an awful lot of emotion.  A lot of people had really emotionally invested in this team and that’s really the only explanation that I can suggest.  I don’t think people in Vancouver are worse or bad, or you know, misbehave any more than people in Toronto or Boston, but you know, that’s the way it is.

Werman: Chris Brown, a reporter with the CBC in Vancouver.  Thanks very much, Chris.

Brown: All right.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

So, did Vancouver go too soft on its rioters? Or, was England too heavy-handed when it came to prosecuting its troublemakers?

What is the appropriate response to riots in the streets?

Post your thoughts in the comments below.

Vancouver International Airport is the answer to the Geo Quiz. The airport recently organized a contest to celebrate its 80th anniversary. Jaeger Mah won the contest and will be spending 80 days and 80 nights at the airport starting August 17, 2011.

No, I haven’t discovered the secret to time travel. I’m just experiencing a profound feeling of déjà vu today.

Just like that June day 17 years ago, I’m mourning the Canucks loss in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.

But it isn’t the repeated sporting loss that has me remembering 1994. It’s the embarrassment I’m feeling about being from Vancouver.

I’m embarrassed that my city is in the news this morning because of angry drunken people rioting after the game. People took to the streets last night and they set cars and garbage cans ablaze and smashed windows.

And they showered giant TV screens with beer bottles and danced on overturned vehicles.

And I’ve seen it all before.

This is what happened when the Canucks lost in 1994 to the New York Rangers. Drunken rioters took the streets on that June night for some post-game looting and burning.

Yes, it hurts to lose. I’m a Canucks fan and I was heartbroken to watch last night’s game. The Canucks have had a great run and it looked like this was their year to win the Cup.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

And when the game was over the Canucks players shook hands with the Bruins players and congratulated them on their victory. I saw Bruins goalie Tim Thomas stop to offer warm words and a pat on the shoulder to Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo.

It was a dignified end to a hard-fought series.

When the riots happened all those years ago, Vancouverites were shocked at the violence and destruction.

But it is not 1994.

We can’t be shocked anymore.

In Vancouver, losing a hockey game is an excuse for some people to destroy property and steal things. I’m sad we lost the game.

I’m embarrassed we haven’t learned to lose with dignity.

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Marco Werman: The Vancouver Canucks are one win away from claiming Hockey Stanley Cup. They’ll try to earn that victory tonight against the Bruins here in Boston. The Canucks lead the series, three games to two, but Bruins have the home ice advantage tonight. One of their longtime do-or-die fans is Bill Estabrooks. But here is the thing about Estabrooks, he’ll be pulling for the Bruins as he watches the game from home in Nova Scotia, that’s in Canada and he won’t be alone. Mr. Estabrooks why are you cheering for the Bruins?

Bill Estabrooks: Well I’m a longtime Bruins fan. I was a Bruins fan before Bobby Orr played for the Bruins. I grew up on the Tantramar marshes, which is basically at the head of the Bay of Fundy between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. And as a little guy I listened to transistor radio, of course and I always sat [?] when the Bruins games on. That’s the original connection with them. Subsequently then of course it’s just been a concept like affair with [?] hockey in this part of the country and then the Bruins have always been my team.

Werman: Well, you need to help us out here because you’re not only a Bruins fan, you’re also, you know, an official, a public face, you’re a member of parliament to Canada and Nova Scotia’s Transportation Minister. So what is the connection between Halifax and Boston?

Estabrooks: So, Werman  what does that have to do with being a Bruins fan?

Werman: (laughs), I’d expected I’d be rooting for -,

Estabrooks: I mean I can be [xx] bad at being a Bruins fan just as well as being a patronizing politician too, you know.

Werman: So, what is the connection between Halifax and Boston?

Estabrooks: Well, in the, prior to politics, might be I should point out to you that I was a History teacher in the public school system here in Nova Scotia. The connection of course is in the First World War there was an explosion when two ammunition ships collided in Halifax harbor. It basically destroyed the downtown poor of Halifax environment[?], with over 2000 people dying and in the midst of that natural disaster that happened at that time, the very first city that responded was, with nurses and with doctors and with a shipload of supplies and food, were the people of Boston. So in return we’ve always had a strong connection. We make sure we send a Christmas tree down to Boston, just thanking them again for their help those many long years ago. Right, that’s the history, that was pretty good, I guess from the old History teacher.

Werman: Well that’s interesting, because History apparently goes real deep for you, deeper than National sports allegiances?

Estabrooks: Well, National sports aside, I know of many Canadians are saying you know that as a, I, you know, patriotic public figure, I should be cheering for Team Vancouver. Eh, not so much OK. Like, there’s a lot of reasons to cheer for the Bruins, they’ve got some Canadian kids playing for them. My connection comes down to the fact that Brad Marchand also constitute of mine, we’re the Marchand family within my community and I’ve known barely since he was a little boy and he’s one of those great hockey players, you’ll love to have him on your team. You hate him when he doesn’t play for you, so.

Werman: (laughs)

Estabrooks: He’s got a special connection issue, and particularly he’s had a great playoff run and it’s great to see him doing well.

Werman: Now your support of the Boston Bruins, I wonder if you know, those are kind of like fighting sentiments up in Canada. There’s a picture of you on the front page of the Boston Globe today and you’re missing a couple of teeth, did that come about because of your support of the Bruins?

Estabrooks: (laughs) No those aren’t recent losses. I lost one playing hockey and I lost another one playing hockey university football. But, yeah, it’s a tradition in my home, like when the Bruins are playing in the playoffs, I, you know, I take my teeth out. I mean, that’s old timers hockey, I just continue to play old timers hockey here in Halifax area, but that’s all just part of being a Bruins fan. I’ve been a hockey fan, anybody who’s a fan of hockey, of course understands the passion of the game and what it brings out in this country and I’m sure in the Boston area too. I mean loyalty is a wonderful particularly through the ins and the outs and the downs and ups of professional sports, so, Bruins have had a great ride and there’s only one way to finish the season, like we say and that’s of course to win it all.

Werman: Bill Estabrooks who is a member of the Canadian parliament and Nova Scotia’s Transportation Minister, he’s also a Boston Bruins fan. Thanks very much for speaking with us.

Estabrooks: Go Bruins, go.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

• Canadian authorities to try 3D image of child to slow drivers
• BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation
• The Community Against Preventable Injuries

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MARCO WERMAN: It’s back to school time. Suddenly there are lots of kids on the sidewalks and crossing the streets near schools. One of the perennial challenges for school officials, parents and local police is how to get drivers to slow down when driving by schools. Well, the city of West Vancouver, British Columbia has come up with a tech solution that sounds, well, kind of creepy. It’s a virtual speed bump that generates a 3D version of a little girl chasing a ball. As the vehicle approaches, the image of the girl and ball appear to the oncoming driver. When the car goes over the speed bump, the 3D image fades back into the road. The idea is to jolt the driver into slowing down. David Dunne is behind the idea of the 3D image. He’s the Director of Traffic Safety for the British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation. David, is the way I described this essentially how the thing works?

DAVID DUNNE:  The description of it as a speed bump is not really quite accurate. It’s not a bump, just an image that’s on the road.

WERMAN:  So, the image is always there or does the driver actually trigger this thing to kind of like arise or pop out or…?

DUNNE: Yeah, the image is always there. It’s actually just an optical illusion. It’s actually affixed to the road. It’s a heat treated type of method. It would appear as though just that it was painted on the road, like a crosswalk would be or any other kind of road markings would be on the road. It gradually appears in front of the driver and then recedes. There’s no mechanical trigger or anything of that nature. It’s just an illusion. The image is equivalent to a cartoon as compared to a photograph. So if a photograph would represent a real person, this is more the nature of a cartoon type of image. So it’s not a startling image at all. It’s not meant to shock or jolt the driver. It’s more so to alert the driver that there are things in their environment that are unexpected.

WERMAN: It sounds like an innovative solution to an age-old problem, but isn’t the problem with the solution that it will jolt drivers and end up by being hazardous?

DUNNE: This is in an environment that is a very controlled environment. It’s in a school zone and so in Canada that means the 30 kilometer zone. So speeds are already reduced. There is a crosswalk immediately in front of the image. There’s a four-way stop immediately behind it. Of course, there’s a physical school and a playground directly around the image as well. So there’s lots of visual cues. In addition, when we put the installation in, we put additional signage up to forewarn drivers to expect the unexpected.

WERMAN: Has this 3D virtual speed bump idea been tried anywhere else or is West Vancouver the first?

DUNNE: To our knowledge, it’s the first time it’s been used in this application. It was first seen as street art and the idea was then adapted for this traffic safety environment. And we’ll see how it goes. It’s been installed for a week and we’ll do a debriefing after the fact with the police and the engineering department and we’ll see what the results have been.

WERMAN: I could imagine a senior citizen with a heart condition sees this 3D image and then they panic and crash. Are you worried about that?

DUNNE: Well, again, the image is such that when you see the effect in real time it’s not that startling an image. It’s like a marking that’s on a road indicating direction for traffic and that sort of thing. It’s not an actual girl clearly. It’s not even a photograph of a girl. It is more of a cartoony type of depiction of a girl. So, there’s no concern that somebody with a heart condition or those types of conditions would react in an unintended way to this kind of image. It is very apparent from the first sighting of it that it’s not an actual person. There’s no chance that somebody would misinterpret what the image was.

WERMAN:  Are child fatalities near school the big problem in British Columbia?

DUNNE: No more so than in any other place. What we say is the potential for child fatalities and serious injuries. We know that September and October we see a spike in pedestrian injuries and fatalities and most of those occur in marked crosswalks where pedestrians have a greater sense of confidence oftentimes, an over inflated sense of confidence, because they are in a crosswalk, but yet drivers may not be aware of them. We also see repeated erratic driving behavior. Mostly parents are the offenders when it comes to that sort of driving behavior. Dropping kids off where they shouldn’t. Clearly there’s usually marked signs to indicate that there’s no parking. The parents ignore them. Oftentimes people speed through school zones. So I don’t think our situation in British Columbian or in West Vancouver or at this particular school is unique. I think you talk to a school administrator at any jurisdiction and you’re going to find the same type of general problems with driving and safety around schools.

WERMAN: David Dunne, director of Traffic Safety for the British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation. He’s piloting the use of a 3D image of a child chasing after a ball as a way to get drivers to slow down when they drive by schools. David, thanks very much for speaking with us.

DUNNE: My pleasure.

WERMAN: Still perplexed by this image of the girl and ball?  Then come to TheWorld.org. You can see a photo of how the image looks to a driver.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Rick Hansen carrying the Olympic flame into BC Place Stadium (Photo: Nicholas Wolaver)

• BBC coverage
• Rick Hansen Foundation
• Rick Hansen videos

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP:  I’m Jeb Sharp and this is The World.  The United States has another chance to win a hockey gold medal in Vancouver.  The Winter Olympics may have ended a couple of weeks ago, but athletes from around the globe are still competing in British Columbia; this time in the Paralympics.  And tomorrow is the hockey final between the United States and Japan.  Rick Hansen is following the Games in Vancouver.  He’s a former Canadian Paralympian and an activist for people with spinal cord injuries.  You may remember him from the opening ceremonies a few weeks back.  He was one of the torch bearers in his wheelchair.  Rick Hansen, what are some of the highlights from the Paralympics this week?

RICK HANSEN:  Well it’s just been fantastic.  You see amazing downhill skiing and the athletes are just flying.  Sledge hockey is, what can I say about that?  If you’ve seen a Sledge Hockey game, you just get blown away by it.  It’s tough, rough, physical hockey.

SHARP: What does it look like?

HANSEN: It’s basically hockey and you’ve got guys that are in these modified sleds that are on skates and they’ve got picks to propel themselves and then they have a hockey stick blade on the other end so when it’s time to shoot they just rotate and shoot the puck.  It’s a great game to watch.

SHARP: And just to be clear, Paralympics, are all the athletes in wheelchairs or some approximation of a sitting position?

HANSEN: For something like sledge hockey, there’s people with a variety of disabling conditions.  They usually have lower limb or lower body disabilities and there’s also people who are blind or visually impaired who are doing the skiing, either Nordic or the Alpine skiing.  And there’s biathlon.

SHARP: I just have to stop you.  How do you compete in skiing if you can’t see?

HANSEN: Well they’re dealing with markers or some audio cues.  Others have guides; they’re with guides that are actually giving them cues.  Then there’s sit skiing, modified skis where you’re again, sitting in a really tightly formed seat.  I did it myself.  Not near what you’d consider a Paralympian, but I just thought wow, this is really cool.  It’s a lot of fun.  As a matter of fact when people see someone in a sit ski on the slopes, they go wow, how can I get one of those?  I’d like to try it.

SHARP: Now Rick, the Paralympic Games do not get the attention that the Olympics get, obviously.  There’s no blanket media coverage, no nightly highlights.  As a former athlete what is it like to see the spectacle and the attention for the Olympics and then see the smaller crowds and more limited attention that the Paralympics get?

HANSEN: You know, I’ve experienced it all.  I had a chance to be part of the first ever exhibition event for the 1,500 meter wheelchair race in Los Angeles at the Olympics in ’84 and have been too a number of Paralympic events and games.  It’s actually an interesting challenge.  But every year the Games get covered.  They get covered more and more and I think these Games will definitely be a benchmark for coverage success.

SHARP: Rick in Canada you’re often referred to as the man in motion and as someone who’s tackled these seemingly impossible athletic tasks.  For those who may not know what the Man in Motion Tour was, what was that?

HANSEN: Back in the ’80′s it was often perceived to be challenge wheeling across the street on your own in a wheelchair, let alone wheeling around the world.  So I wanted to wheel around the world to demonstrate what was possible.  We embarked on this Man in Motion World Tour through 34 countries, 4 continents and 24,901.55 miles, the distance of the circumference of the earth at the equator.  The sub-goal was to also raise money for spinal cord injury.  We completed our journey after two years, two months, and two days and raised $26,000,000.00.

SHARP: You spoke at the opening of the Paralympic Games to a crowd of 60,000 people that you had dreams of going to the Olympics as a child but you thought those dreams were dead when you had your accident.  What did it mean to you to become a Paralympian?

HANSEN: It meant the world to me because I was born an athlete.  When I had my accident I thought the dreams of representing my country, going to the Olympic Games were shattered.  And of course it wasn’t until I was introduced to the fact that Paralympic sports existed, which I had no idea, and then I met role models who just exude athletic ability.  I didn’t see disability in the way they pursued their sport and I went wow, those guys are amazing.  So I had to shift my mind and my view of what it meant to be an athlete and recognize that the fact I couldn’t use my legs didn’t prevent me from just going up there and giving it.

SHARP: Rick what did actually happen to you?  What was your accident?

HANSEN: I was hitchhiking home from a fishing trip at the age of 15 with my buddy.  We got a ride in the back of a pickup truck on a rough gravel washboard road and the guy went around the corner and rolled it and I was thrown back first against a steel tool box and it shattered my vertebrae and also damaged my spinal cord and I was paralyzed.  That was a pretty big trauma for a 15-year-old kid from a small town in rural Canada who never even knew anyone with a disability.  It was a long journey back but boy, I would never trade it for anything.

SHARP: Well thank you so much for telling us about it.  Rick Hansen is a former Paralympian athlete.  He’s an activist for people with spinal cord injuries.  Rick thank you so much.

HANSEN: Thanks Jeb, appreciate it.

SHARP: If you want to see photos of Rick Hansen carrying the Olympic torch and video of him wheeling around the globe on his Man in Motion Tour, it’s all at our website, the world dot org.  Just in case you were curious about our choice of ’80′s classics, that one was actually written for Paralympian Rick Hansen.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

I’m not sure there has ever been a Winter Olympics where spectators were wearing shorts to watch ice hockey and curling. It was an unseasonably warm winter that looked a lot more like spring. But when the rain stopped bucketing down no-one cared. Vancouver shone like a precious gem when the sun came out. Visitors and locals enjoyed the best of both worlds. The Winter Olympics were happening and the cherry blossoms were blooming.

Celebrate!

But that leads me too another complaint I heard a lot. Canucks didn’t know HOW to celebrate. As a nation, they contended, the Canadians are too reserved and understated. They chided us for not reacting with enough enthusiasm when Alex Bilodeau won Canada’s first gold medal on home soil.

Au contraire mes amis (a little shout out there for those who complained that there wasn’t enough French spoken at the opening ceremonies).

There was mad nationalism going on in Vancouver.

The streets were a sea of red and white jerseys. If you didn’t have a pair of those adorable red mittens you couldn’t leave your house. And everyone had the standard issue maple leaf temporary tattoo on their cheeks. Exhibit A would be the photo of myself above!

I was lucky enough to attend the USA-Canada women’s hockey gold medal game. The Canadian fans were wrapped in flags, carrying signs, and shouting out cheers for the home team.

And the crowd was on its feet for the final minutes of the game as Canada beat Team USA, 2-0.

And then came the medal ceremony. The Canadian crowd cheered loudly for the women from Finland, who were ecstatic over their Bronze medal result. And then came the American women’s team, visibly upset by their loss.

The Canadian crowd started chanting. First it was a handful of voices – and then it was thousands. Pretty soon, the entire arena was filled with the deafening sound of Canadian fans chanting:

“U-S-A!
U-S-A!
U-S-A!”

It was a nice reminder of what the Olympics are really about. It’s not about snow, or lack of it. And it’s not about “Owning the Podium.”

And maybe that’s what makes Canadians seem like we lack that fighting, nationalistic fervor. Canadians cheer for everyone.

We cheer the effort as much as the result.

We like our flag plenty, but we like yours too.

• Andrea’s story on Russian radio in Vancouver
• Andrea’s story on Vancouver’s Elbow Room Cafe
• Andrea’s story on Safe-Sex Superheroes in Vancouver

• Click here to start the slideshow

• Safe Games 2010
• See photos of Captain Condom

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  The many visitors in Vancouver are there to catch some Olympic action but a group of volunteers has taken to the streets to make sure the fans don’t catch anything else.  The World’s Andrea Crossan explains.

ANDREA CROSSAN:  About half a million visitors are here for the Olympic Games.  Crowds fill downtown Vancouver everyday.

SPEAKER:  What is this?  What is this?

TORI TALAVARA:  Free condoms and information.

SPEAKER:  Perfect, thank you.

CROSSAN:  Tori Talavara roller-skates through the teaming masses.  She is dressed as a blue condom package.  She is Captain Condom.

TALAVARA:  Here I am, dressed like a condom.  On roller skates.

CROSSAN:  Talavara or Captain Condom is from Los Angeles.  She’s in Vancouver to help out with the public health project, Safe Games 2010.  The caped, masked Talavara offers passersby bags filled with condoms, lubricant and informational material.

TALAVARA:  It really is a great idea if you think about the numbers of people that descend upon a city when the Olympics come and everybody’s out there you know, celebrating, having a good time and so we just want to make sure that everyone’s doing it as safely as possible.

CROSSAN:  Safe Games began 8 years ago at the Salt Lake City Olympics.  Luciano Colonna heads the project.

LUCIANO COLONNA:  The main goal is to educate people who are going to be celebrating around the Olympics and harm reduction, safer sex, safer drug and alcohol use, basically to respect everyone also with dignity.

CROSSAN:  Safe Games is a partnership with 40 non-profit groups.  They provide information on everything from where to get help for alcoholism, to where to get a clean needle.  The campaign has several superheroes in addition to Captain Condom.  They include Methadone Man, Buprenorphine Babe, Epidemiology Guy, Bi-Curious and the Caped and Always Protected Crusader.  Colonna says that the 120 volunteers of Safe Games do the lion’s share of the work.

COLONNA:  Basically our volunteers walk up and down the streets or they set up shop somewhere so to speak and they hand out condoms, they hand out lubricant, they hand out informational materials, they hand out DVD’s and they also hand out glow sticks which are a great way of engaging young people without having to hand them condoms or some of the more inappropriate material.  So we have something for everybody.

CROSSAN:  Safe Games hasn’t always received an Olympic welcome.  Some conservative religious organizations staged protests at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and Colonna recalls his efforts at the Beijing Games in 2008.

COLONNA:  I did go to China and met with the Chinese government about bringing Safe Games there.  They invited me there and we had some pretty long discussions about it but at the end, they decided that they were not going to focus on HIV and AIDS prevention.

CROSSAN:  But Vancouver has embraced Safe Games.  The city provides most of the money to run the project.  The fact is that Vancouver has a major public health problem.  HIV infection rates are six times the national average.  Captain Condom has almost finished her shift.  She has distributed just about all of her Safe Games bags.

TALAVARA:  You get a lot of groups of folks traveling in packs and it’s funny because you’ll offer you know, a bag to them you know that’s like full of condoms and some other info and stuff and a lot of times they’ll all say no and then as soon as one person from the group takes it, everybody else is like okay, okay, okay, I’ll take one, too.  Because they really need it and they really want it.

CROSSAN:  The organizers of Safe Games are already looking ahead to the 2012 Olympics.  Expect to see caped crusaders in London taking to the streets to keep us mere mortals safe from danger.  For The World, I’m Andrea Crossan in Vancouver.

WERMAN:  And you can see photos of superhero Tori Talavara as Captain Condom at TheWorld.org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.  Here’s how one headline in a British newspaper read “Vancouver Games Continue Downhill Slide from Disaster to Calamity.”  The article said unfolding events are threatening to make these games the worst in Olympic history.  We might point out here that London will host the 2012 Olympics and so that paper may not be completely impartial.  Daphne Branham is a columnist with the Vancouver Sun.  She says calling the Vancouver Games the worst Olympics ever is overkill.

DAPHNE BRANHAM:  Every Game has some problems.  There were obviously some problems at the beginning of these Olympics but worst Olympics ever?  I mean heavens; there have been many much worse than this.  Atlantic had huge bus problems, people couldn’t get to events.  In Athens, they didn’t have any spectators so no, this is not the worst Olympics by a long, long margin.

WERMAN:  So you say it’s far from being the worst Olympics.  Would you say it is a good Olympics though?

BRANHAM:  Absolutely.  I spoke to an Estonian Alpine coach yesterday, an American, and he said that he’s been to three or four Olympics and he said this was the best one he’s been to.  He said it’s, you know, the transportation works, the venues are beautiful.  He said it’s a great place.  That’s what we’re hearing when you walk around in the streets.  People think it’s fabulous.

WERMAN:  So why do you think some people are picking on BC?

BRANHAM:  You know it’s hard to know why the British press in particular has been so negative.  There’s part of me that thinks that they looked at other Olympics and thought gee, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this and so maybe there’s a bit of that and of course, up here we had the tragedy before the opening ceremonies of the young Georgian luger dying.  That alone put a pall on the opening ceremonies and the beginning of the games.  The other thing, the weather was not very good.  The other thing is I think there is a slight amount of hubris in British Columbia in particular.  We, a few years ago, decided to put on the license plates British Columbia, the best place on earth and I think that’s a little bit of hubris and makes certainly Canadians like me a little bit uncomfortable.  We prefer to be the people saying sorry and one of our Olympians, one of our gold medalists, John Montgomery, he apologized for being too happy about winning and I think that’s more what people expect from Canada.  So I think, you know, some of it is that Canadians, we’re acting somewhat differently than we had in the past with things like Own the Podium which was the program …

WERMAN:  Yeah, I was going to, I mean the Own the Podium kind of concept was to basically, you know, the Canadian team said we’re going to dominate this year, we’re going to completely dominate and did Canada really think they were going to literally own the podium in these games?

BRANHAM:  I think there were people who wanted to believe that and certainly, you know, if you look at the people who should have medaled and came forth, had they done as they had been expected to do, we probably would be much, we’d be much closer to the United States than we are.  Own the Podium and one of the problems in Canada is that we really haven’t supported our mature athletes in a way that other nations have.  We certainly don’t put as much money into athletic programs as the United States does through both its college scholarship programs, as well as supporting athletes who are the elite athletes.  We aren’t anywhere near to countries like some of the former Soviet block countries and so this was Canada’s way of saying you know what?  We’re not going to be embarrassed on Canadian soil.  We would like to win.

WERMAN:  Daphne Branham, a columnist with the Vancouver Sun.  Thanks so much for your time, Daphne.

BRANHAM:  You’re very welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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Eurozone leaders say they will come to Greece’s rescue. But Greece’s Finance Minister, George Papaconstantinou, wants details, as to how exactly other eurozone nations will bailout his country. Papaconstantinou said the 16 countries that use the Euro need to devise a mechanism to help any nation that cannot pay its debts. At the same time, the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat, is saying that Greece falsified its data to hide the extent of its debts. Now the EU has given Greece until the end of February to provide more details of that.

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