When an oil-laden train derailed last weekend, it turned into an inferno that killed dozens in Lac-Megantic, a small town in Quebec.
This week, the Canadian tragedy is morphing into something very different. It is becoming Exhibit A in the political case for building pipelines — as well as for opposing them.
LISTEN: NPR's Marilyn Geewax Discusses The Pipeline Debate On 'Hear & Now'
On Jesus as a political figure
"[In one story,] Jesus walks into the temple, and he begins to cleanse it. He turns over the tables of the money-changers, who are exchanging the foul foreign currency of the Roman Empire with the Hebrew shekel, which was the only currency that the temple would accept. And then, of course, in a loud, booming voice, he says, 'It is written that my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations, and you have made it a den of thieves.'
"Now, as all historians recognize, this was the action that precipitated his arrest, his torture and his execution by the state. And there's a very simple reason for that: The temple was not just the center of the Jewish cult; it was, in many ways, the representation of the power and the presence of the Roman Empire."
On using The Bible as a source
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The Cory Monteith that most Americans knew wasn't Cory Monteith at all. He was Finn Hudson, the high school football star turned Glee club member, whose singing talents were discovered in the shower during the musical comedy's pilot episode on Fox TV.
But outside of a love for drumming, Monteith said, the character on the hit show wasn't him.
"You see this young all-American quarterback-looking dude on the show, and you just immediately make assumptions," Monteith told Canadian talk show host George Stroumboulopoulos on his CBC show, Tonight. "And I think people really started identifying me with those assumptions."
And that wasn't the reality. Monteith wasn't a high school football star. He was a high school dropout.
Monteith, 31, was found dead early Saturday in his hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia. An autopsy reportedly is scheduled for Monday, but authorities have said that the Canadian's death doesn't appear to involve foul play.
Monteith got into drugs at age 13. He dropped out of school at 16 and found work as a Wal-Mart greeter and a taxi driver. At 19, he checked into rehab.
"I really had no idea what I was going to do. ... I was really lost. I was really lost for a lot of years," he said in the 2011 interview with Stroumboulopoulos. "For me it wasn't so much about the substances per se, it was more about not fitting in. ... I hadn't found myself at all."
But Monteith said acting changed that. He started landing small parts in TV shows like Stargate and Smallville.
And then came Glee.
"I think they were looking for the triple threat: singer, dancer, Broadway-type person for this part. And that's not really me," he said during the CBC interview. "I had never sang or danced or anything before this. And so I sent them a tape of myself acting, doing a scene. And instead of singing and dancing for the part I sent a tape of myself playing the drums on Tupperware."
Scientists and lawyers are scheduled to debate the safety of certain "BPA-free" plastics this week in a U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas.
At issue is whether a line of plastic resins marketed by Eastman Chemical contains chemicals that can act like the hormone estrogen, and perhaps cause health problems.
The court battle has attracted attention because the Eastman resins, sold under the name "Tritan," have been marketed as an alternative to plastics that contain an additive called BPA. BPA has been shown to act a bit like estrogen, though it's not clear whether people are affected by the small amounts that come from plastic water bottles or food containers.
Eastman has sued two small companies based in Austin, Texas, that published a study showing that a wide range of plastic products exhibit what's known as estrogenic activity. Some of the products were made from Eastman's Tritan.
Eastman's suit says PlastiPure and CertiChem have made false or misleading statements about Tritan in marketing their own services. CertiChem tests plastic products for estrogenic activity. PlastiPure, a sister company, helps manufacturers make plastic products with no estrogenic activity.
Both companies were founded by George Bittner, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and an author of the study that found estrogenic activity in most plastics. The study included tests of plastic products that had been subjected to heat, wear and radiation intended to mimic exposure to sunlight.
"We certainly thought the results were not going to be greeted with favor by at least some plastic manufacturers," Bittner says. But, he says, "by bringing suit, Eastman Chemical has effectively put its Tritan product on trial."
Eastman Chemical wouldn't comment for this story. But in an interview last year, Lucian Boldea, a vice president of the company, said Bittner's study used a screening test for estrogenic activity that is known to produce false positives.
"To misrepresent a screening test as conclusive evidence is what we have the issue with," he said.
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