Today’s guest host was Kevin Sylvester.

Satire

It's Friday October 21st....and Hurricane Wilma continues to gather strength in the Carribbean, people who name hurricanes have run out of the letters. If still another one follows Wilma, as climatologist are predicting, they will begin using the Greek alphabet.

Currently, if they run out of Greek letters, then climatologists are just going to start IGNORING the hurricanes...'cause if we IGNORE climate problems, then it's like they don't exist....right?

The is the Current.

Baseball Talk Tape

The Houston Astros defeated the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night and booked their first ticket to the World Series. They'll be in Chicago tomorrow night to take on the White Sox, who are trying to win their first World Series since 1917. It's the boys of summer playing in the Fall Classic, a time when the guild of baseball writers spill purple ink for their rhapsodies about clutch hitters, defensive gems and mighty sluggers humbled by ungodly sliders and curveballs.

That's the game on the field and the broadcast booth but in the front offices of teams across the major leagues, there's been another heated baseball rivalry reaching a fever pitch. It's a brash, young generation of number-crunching statistics gurus slugging it out against a savvy, older generation of baseball men who trust their gut and intuition more than newfangled data. So do the truth and beauty of baseball lie in an algorithm or in a well-executed sacrifice bunt?

For more on how this philosophical feud is playing out, our producer Chris Wodskou joined Kevin Sylvester in studio.

Moneyball Panel

We talked to a couple of representatives from the different camps in the debate over whether talent trumps statistics or whether numbers are king when adding up a team's potential to take it all, we were joined by two people. Bill Shanks was a long-time commentator on The Atlanta Braves, and he's the author of “Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way to Build a Winning Team”. He was in Macon, Georgia. And Steven Goldman is one of the stats gurus at Baseball Prospectus and the author of “Mind Game: How the Red Sox Got Smart and Finally Won a World Series”. He was in our New York studio.

Listen to The Current: Part 1

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 2

Moneyball Panel (cont’d)

Before the break we talked about statistics versus instincts, and which method is the least crazy way to make World Series predictions. Bill Shanks is a commentator for The Atlanta Braves, and the author of “Scout's Honor: The Bravest Way to Build a Winning Team”. He was in Macon, Georgia. And Steven Goldman is one of the statisticians at Baseball Prospectus, a publication that corrals all the numbers. And he's also the author of “Mind Game: How the Red Sox Got Smart and Finally Won a World Series”. He was in New York.

Wanda Young Case

Well, we've been talking about the idea of luck or chance. Our next story is about when luck runs out and deals a cruel blow. It's set in Newfoundland, but raises an issue that resonates across this country--because it's being deliberated by the Supreme Court.

It's the case of Wanda Young -- who was a student at Memorial University back in 1994. As part of an assignment for a social work course, she took a first-person account of a child who had been sexually abused from a text book and added it to her essay. Her professor mistakenly thought it was something she had written, and after talking to superiors alerted Child Protection Services.

Provincial law requires people report all cases of suspected child abuse. For the next two years, allegations that Ms. Young was a potential abuser were passed between the university, the child protection service, some social workers and police. Ms. Young was rejected as a full time student.

When she finally realized she was under suspicion she showed Child Protection officials the original text book with the story. She also sued the university for negligence and won more than $800,000. But the Newfoundland court of appeal overturned the decision. So yesterday Ms Young went before the Supreme Court of Canada. We aired an excerpt of Wanda Young talking to CBC television about the effect of this ongoing ordeal on her life.

At the crux of her case is the delicate balance between the rights of the individual and the responsibility to protect children in our society. To delve into that, we were joined by Peter Dudding. He's the executive director of the Child Welfare League of Canada, which has intervenor status at the case before the Supreme Court. He was in our Calgary studio. Micheal Vonn is the Policy Director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and we spoke to her from Vancouver.

Listen to The Current: Part 2

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 3

Foie Gras

When Oscar Wilde once said, "I hate people who are not serious about their meals" he certainly was not talking about the French. For hundreds of years France has been turning out some of the world's gastronomic delights, Champagne, truffles, brains and Brie to name a few. But its most controversial delicacy is Foie Gras. Loosely translated, foie gras means fatty liver, and for connoisseurs it's nirvana for the mouth. But animal rights activists say the production of foie gras is the ugliest kind of cruelty in the world. Even Pope Benedict the 16th and Ex- Beatle Paul McCartney have taken up the cause to ban it.

Foie gras is made by force-feeding ducks and geese so their livers enlarge and soften. Twelve countries around the world have already banned the production and or sale of foie gras. France however, sees it as an affront to their culture, so much so that this week, the French senate passed a law stating that fois gras is a part of the national heritage.

In Canada, Quebec is one of the largest producers of foie gras -- exporting to customers as far away as Japan. Aux Champs D'Elise is a farm half an hour outside of Montreal and is run by Élisé François and his daughter Isabelle.

Foie Gras Debate

Quebec may soon be the only place in North America left where it is legal to produce foie gras. And it's easy enough to find on the menus of finer restaurants across the country. In a moment, we'll introduce you to a chef who passionately defends the practise of making and enjoying foie gras, and one who's recently stopped selling it.

But before we do that, we're going to quickly speak with someone whose organization helped get it banned in California. In 2004 that state passed legislation banning all production and sales of the delicacy by 2012. The law was pushed through by the Humane Society of the United States. Paul Shapiro is the manager of the factory farm division at the Humane Society of the United States.

We also talked to two afficionados of French cuisine. Marc Thuet is the owner and chef of an acclaimed Toronto restaurant called Thuet. You'll regularly find foie gras on his menu. Michael Altenberg, the owner and chef of the highly rated Chicago restaurant Bistro Campagne. He took foie gras off his menu three months ago.

Music Bridge

Artist: Harry Manx
Cut: CD1 “Diving Duck Blues”
CD: “Jubilee”
Label: Northern Blues
Spine: NBM0014

Last Word

We opened the program today with a discussion about baseball and we often like to close the Current with a meaningful song. And today's song is Autumn Sweater, brought to you by the band Yo La Tengo. We chose the cut because it reminds us of the jerseys ball players sport this time of year. But also because members of Yo La Tengo are huge baseball fans, especially of the New York Mets, which actually gave the band their name.

Here's the story. The center fielder of the New York Mets in 1962, Richie Ashburn, kept crashing again and again with Venezuelan player, Elio Chacon. Every time Ashburn went for a ball, he would scream, "I got it! I got it!" only to collide with the 160-pound Chacon, who only spoke Spanish. Finally, Ashburn learnt to say "I got it" in Spanish, which is "Yo la tengo. It seemed to work. Chacon backed off. And Ashburn relaxed.

But the next time he positioned himself under a high flying ball, yelling "Yo La Tengo" it didn't help. He was rammed hard by the 200-pound left fielder Frank Thomas who understood no Spanish. We leave you now with Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo.

Music

Artist: Yo La Tengo
CD: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
Cut: CD 8, “Autumn Sweater”
Label: Matador Records
Spine: OLE 222-2

Listen to The Current: Part 3

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

CBC does not endorse content of external sites - links will open in new window