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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It's an NBIT special. We got lots of stuff for you today. That's coming right up. Well, here we are halfway through the week. It's Wednesday. You're listening to The Bridge. Wednesdays are... Either Encore days or NBits days. And so far we haven't had an Encore this year.
We're almost at the summer break. And we have some interesting stuff on our NBits special. NBits, of course, are those kind of like interesting little tidbits of news that didn't quite make it onto programs. Or at least the programs I listen to. And therefore, we save them up for Wednesdays and slip them into the program.
Now, if you read The Buzz, my weekly newsletter comes out Saturday mornings. It's got a good readership. You know, more than 20,000 people subscribe to The Buzz. There's no cost. Just sign up at nationalnewswatch.com slash newsletter. Just have to give your email. That's it. That's it. Nothing else. And you'll get it every Saturday morning at 7 a.m. What is it?
Well, my newsletter is simply the stories that I watch during the week that I found interesting. They could be headline stories or they could be just sort of interesting tidbits. News you can use stuff. So that's what's in the buzz. And, you know, a few of my comments about various things. So it's an easy read. Comes out 7 a.m. Eastern Time, Saturday mornings in your inbox.
So it gives you something to read on Saturdays if you're so inclined to kind of sit back, relax, and read some interesting material, stuff that will go beyond the headlines. Okay, what have we got for... Well, first of all, I should remind you, tomorrow is your turn. The question of the week, and you've only got the next couple of hours until 3 p.m. Eastern time today to get your answers in.
The question of the week is... How do you describe your identity? Are you, say, Canadian? Or are you a hyphenated Canadian? Or do you distinguish yourself by the province you live in? You know, I'm a Manitoban. Or the city, I'm a, you know, Haligonian. What might it be? So you come up with the answer to that question and why you have that answer.
You send it to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. You keep it under 75 words. You include your name and the location you're writing from. And you have it in, once again, by 3 p.m. Eastern time today. So that doesn't leave you much time. We have lots of answers already, and we appreciate that.
Okay.
If you read the buzz, as I was trying to get to, and if you listen to this program, then you probably heard me say in the last couple of weeks that there is a A country in the world that has now declared itself smoke-free. What does smoke-free mean? Does it mean that absolutely no one in that country smokes? No. It means that less than 5% of people smoke.
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Chapter 2: What does it mean for a country to be smoke-free?
I wasn't happy. There was only one problem. first of all, there were only two floors in the hotel. And the first floor was the bar. So the second floor was the room. And I had the room that was immediately above the main bar and where the occasional band played, immediately below my room. So that was like every night till 1 a.m. at least. And it was a great band.
But they really only knew a few songs. So I kind of got used to them. Especially On the Wings of a Snow White Dev. Yeah, I knew every word of that one. Anyway, I was living in a hotel. And... In that first year, I was working full-time at Transair, the airline. But shortly after I got there, somebody heard my voice in the airport and they offered me a job at the radio station.
It's a long story, you've heard it before. And because they couldn't get anybody to fill the late night show, so I did that. So none of these paid very much. My Transair, my main job, paid me $225 a month. That was what they paid me. So getting the second job was handy. It's helpful. Now, I wasn't flush in cash, but I had always wanted to buy stock in something.
I just thought, man, if I ever have some money, I want to buy shares in something. So I had a little bit of money. Now, we're not talking much. You don't save much when you're only making $225 a month. But I decided, okay, I've got a little bit of money. If I'm going to buy some shares, what would it be? So I'd always been fascinated by the airline business.
Chapter 3: What is Canada's smoking rate compared to Sweden?
I mean, I was working in it. But ever since I was a kid, I used to look at planes and I was fascinated. My dad flew in Lancaster during the Second World War when he was in the Royal Air Force. So there's a bit of connection there.
Chapter 4: Which country is known for having the highest smoking rates?
I tried flying myself. It hadn't worked out so well. Anyway, I decided Pan Am. Pan Am Airways, which was kind of the signature airline out there, certainly of the North American airlines, and pretty much the world airlines. Pan Am was one of the first airlines to start flying regular commercial traffic across the Atlantic and across the Pacific.
They had the great big aircraft, like the 707 and the 747. So I thought, okay, Pan Am. And it was a great success story business-wise. I thought, okay, Pan Am. So I'm in Churchill. It's not like there's... you know, offices that sell shares, investment houses, the only place you could go was to the bank. And there were two banks.
There was one in Churchill, and there was one just up the road in Fort Churchill. So I went to one of these two banks. I can't remember whether it was Bank of Montreal or RBC. I can't remember exactly. Anyway, which one it was. But anyway, I went there, and that's where you bought stock. And so I said, I want to buy some stock. I want to buy some Pan American airline stock.
And they said, okay, we can do that. How much do you want to buy? Now, I can't even remember how much it cost. It wasn't very much. And I said, I'd like to buy five shares. Okay. Not like a thousand shares, but five shares. This was going to be my push into the great world of owning stock. Looking at the Dow Jones every day, following my shares. Anyway, they kind of snickered and
But went ahead and we bought the shares. And I went back every day saying if my shares arrived, thinking like something was going to happen. I was going to see a certificate or something. Of course, that never came. But the notice came that, in fact, I'd got my shares. So there I was, a stockholder with my first shares at Pan Am Airways. And... It was a turning point for Pan Am.
It didn't mean there was a terrific new investor in the company. Something happened to Pan Am.
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Chapter 5: How has smoking prevalence changed over the years in Canada?
There was a collection of different things. Some mistakes internally, business-wise, rising price of oil, crushed by the early 70s oil crisis. And Pan Am stock went in the tank. Dropped like a rock. And I was left holding this, you know, not worthless. I'm still worth something. But not anywhere near what I paid for it. So my first experience in the stock market was not a good one.
And then things continued to just keep getting worse. And then there was the terrible Lockerbie crash. And that was pretty much it for Pan Am. They went under. So why am I telling you this story about Pan Am? Well, it's because for our NBIT special, when I picked up a copy of this from CNN Travel, the headline is, Can you bring a legendary airline back to life? Pan Am is about to find out.
I thought, man, I better read this. Maybe I could dig up the stock. So let me read a little bit of this because I find it interesting. I don't know, you know, Pan Am is like, Pan Am is Pan Am. Anybody over a certain age is going to go Pan Am. That was the big deal in the airline business. Few brands in aviation have been as influential as Pan Am.
Founded in 1927 as Pan American Airways, this legendary airline had a key role in defining the modern air travel experience. Under the leadership of its energetic and visionary founder, Pan Am not only pioneered long-haul routes across two oceans and set new standards of service, but was instrumental in the development of some of the most iconic passenger aircraft to ever take to the skies ā
including, hey, as I said, the 707 and the 747. For nearly 40 years, Pan Am was the most prominent U.S. carrier internationally and a symbol of American soft power. However, a combination of questionable strategic decisions and external shocks, such as the 70s oil crisis, the 88 Lockerbie bombing, led to its closure in 91.
Nevertheless, the Pan Am brand became so intertwined with the idea of a so-called golden era of air travel that its name remains a symbol of cosmopolitan sophistication to this day. The appeal of the Pan Am brand is such that several attempts have since been made to try to resurrect it in one form or another. And the latest and most ambitious of them all is beginning to take shape.
In February of 2024, a group of investors led by a California entrepreneur named Craig Carter announced bought the Pan Am trademark and its related intellectual property for an undisclosed sum with the idea of resurrecting the legendary airline as a lifestyle brand. In the future, we could be staying in Pan Am hotels or waiting for our flights in Pan Am airport lounges.
We could be toting a Pan Am bag as we eat in a Pan Am restaurant or Even better, we could be taken to the skies in a Pan Am plane, delivering a taste of the glory days of flying to frazzled 21st century travelers. But that all depends if the new owners can pull it off. There really is a nostalgic factor to this Pan Am story.
I mean, you see the old pictures of what it looked like on the aircraft. Everybody in suit and tie. Everybody's dressed up carefully. You know, very nice meals served on tables that are propped up between the seats. Not on little fold-outs from the back seat of another seat, you know, traveller. Okay, just two more paragraphs here.
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Chapter 6: What factors contribute to China's rising smoking rates?
Hannah Sampson wrote this just a couple of days ago in the Washington Post. Here's part of what she says. Michelle Montez, a flight attendant for 20 years, said barely a flight goes by where someone doesn't poke, tap, prod, or otherwise touch her. It's almost a rare occurrence when it doesn't happen, she said. In a video clip from the Jump Seat Chronicles podcast,
which she co-hosts with colleagues Joshua Boyd and Darian Foy, the trio said they've heard the complaint from multiple people in the industry and experienced it themselves, getting poked in the arm, the side, the rear end. Many consider it a violation, even if passengers are not acting maliciously. You can talk to any flight attendant for any airline and they will all agree that
that that's something that we cannot stand and that we deal with so often. It's insane, said Foy, who said he's been pinched on his butt multiple times. Pinched? Pinched on his butt. Please. Flight attendants know you need them for a drink or a snack, to toss your trash, to answer a question. but they really, really want you to communicate your needs without using physical contact.
It's a situation that unfolds so frequently on planes that some cabin crew wear patches, lanyards, or decorated aprons with the no-touching plea. Sarah Nelson, she's the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, says, said there may be several factors at play. Passengers and crew are in close quarters on a plane.
Travelers may feel like flight attendants are part of the furniture. People are out of their ordinary routines. And I, you know, I get that. I kind of see that when I travel. You know, it's not normal. You've got like certainly on the major planes. You've got like a couple of hundred people crammed into this little aluminum tube, hurtling across the skies at 500, 600 miles an hour.
And there are four or six flight attendants, women and men who are there to help those hundreds of But they're right there. They're like just beside you, walking up and down the aisle, maybe looking at the people on the other side. And there's this temptation to reach out to talk with them that sometimes people get carried away on how they try to attract their attention.
Sarah Nelson says, all of those things sort of come together to also create this dynamic where you might do something that you would never think of doing in another situation. I hear that. Flight attendants would prefer that passengers interact with them like they would with employees at any other place of business.
said Sam Wilkins, a flight attendant for 28 years and first vice president of the union local that represents Southwest Flight Attendants. You probably wouldn't go into a restaurant and poke your waitress. You wouldn't go into a coffee shop and grab the shirt of your barista. She said the best way for passengers to get the flight attendant's attention is to use their voice.
followed by a gesture or wave. Crew members have frequently urged travelers not to overuse the call button for simple requests. But Wilkins said that a good option for an urgent matter, including a medical emergency, she emphasized that flight attendants' first priority is safety over customer service. Boyd, one of the podcast hosts and a flight attendant for 11 years, said if it comes down to
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