04:35:57Â 01/10/2017
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Relying on strength to get us through
Hey there, it’s Tuesday, one of the most awkward and challenging days of the week. We’re looking for some extra strength to get us through this one. A lot of people start getting sick this time of year and just going to the grocery store can mean coming home with something unexpected. The fluctuations in temperature don’t help any, either. We’ll talk more about weather in a bit, though. In the meantime, grab a tissue and maybe some tea with honey and lemon to get you through the day.
A lot of today’s news items are things that carry over from previous stories, as sometimes happens. The one big new thing this morning is that Clemson beat Alabama for the NCAA football championship, 35-33 with a last minute touchdown. From everything I’ve read this morning, it was a very exciting game. Personally, though, my pillow was more exciting. Oh, and hearings start today for the president-elect’s cabinet picks. I’m sure we’ll be talking about those later. For now, though, here are the 5 things you should know.
Rain that just won’t stop
We typically don’t think of January as the rainy season, but that’s definitely the way it’s shaping up for parts of the country. Locally, we’re looking at chances of rain, strong winds, and thunderstorms today through Thursday. We’ll be needing umbrellas and coats as we get out this week, but at least we’ll be in better shape than folks in Northern California and Nevada where another round of rain is making an already bad situation worse1.
Rescue crews have their work cut out of them as parts of Northern California have gotten over a foot of rain in the past 72 hours, more than they typically see in an entire year. California has been suffering through a drought the past several years so they were initially glad to get the rain, but this is just too much! This is having a very widespread effect with even San Francisco issuing coastal flood warnings. In the Sierra Nevadas above 7,000 feet, four to eight more feet of snow are expected through Thursday. There just doesn’t seem to be any respite in this storm, and yes, we’ll all be paying for it somewhere along the line.
One of the regions hit hard by this storm is the Sonoma wine country2. They’ve had over 13 inches of rain there since last Friday. Vineyards along River Road are completely submerged. Not only is this going to affect this year’s wine production, but also almonds and some tree-based crops. Trees weekend by the six-year drought have been toppling, including some large trees that were several hundred years old. With both the Sacremento and Russian rivers prone to flooding, officials are advising residents to stay home unless they need to move to higher ground for safety.
This won’t be confusing, will it?
In a move that I’m already finding confusing, Yahoo announced yesterday that it will be changing its name to Altaba and that CEO Melissa Mayer will be stepping down once the sale of the company to Verizon is complete4. Ms. Mayer’s departure is no big surprise. Verizon is paying some $4.83 billion dollars for the struggling company and Ms. Mayer’s inability to turn the company around is well documented. No one can really be surprised there. But the name change could be a problem.
Not that the company didn’t need a name change, mind you. While Yahoo! sounded all cute and friendly back in 1995 when people were still new to the Internet,  now it seems silly and childish up against Google, Apple, and other tech giants. The problem I’m seeing with the name Altaba, though, is that it is way to close to Alibaba, the Chinese search engine-slash-tech giant that dominates the Internet across Asia much like Google does in the United States. In fact, Alibaba’s CEO was meeting with the president-elect just yesterday. Alibaba will own a minority share in the company at the end of the deal. No, that’s not going to get confusing quickly.
Now, while Verizon is continuing through with the deal, the whole thing could still be called off because of that huge hacking problem Yahoo announced last month. With some 1.5 billion user accounts compromised between two breaches last year, the full extent of the fallout has yet to be determined and Verizon has already said the second breach could end up being a deal breaker. I’m sure Ms. Mayer is hoping the deal can be completed quickly, though. She could really use a break.
Say goodbye, Mr. President
As the days of his administration wind down, President Obama makes his farewell address today in Chicago, where his political career started5. This isn’t going to be the easiest speech the president has ever made by any stretch of the imagination. Not only is it full of emotion, not only is he leaving with his popularity amazingly high, he still has to try and convince the American people that the country is going to survive the unqualified, ridiculous personality filling the office behind him.
President Obama told the Associated Press that he has learned two primary lessons over the past eight years: That Americans are fundamentally good, and that change can happen. “The system will respond to ordinary people coming together to try to move the country in a better direction,” he said. Of course, what he’s not saying there is that the system responded to his changes by electing an idiot with a spray tan.
The speech will, of course, contain a lot of reminiscing, looking back over the successes of the president’s administration and trying hard to gloss over some of failures, such as Guantanamo and Syria. His audience at McCormick Place will be friendly and supportive. I would imagine someone will be handing out tissue as people arrive. This is the sort of occasion where tears are expected. I don’t think there’s anything the president can say, though, that sufficiently calms the fears of progressives. 75 million people did not vote for the president-elect. Those 75 million and more are very concerned about our future.
Any exercise is good exercise
Not all of us have what it takes to exercise every day. In fact, the greater majority of us don’t have that kind of discipline. The majority of us do well if we get in a little fast-paced walking every once-in-a-while. That’s always been a problem as we’ve been told by our gym teachers in school and personal trainers that we need to be consistent for our exercise to have any benefits. A new study from George Washington University tells a different story, however. Any exercise is better than no exercise at all6.
Now, let’s be careful to listen to exactly what the study says. The dominant portion of the study is aimed at those so-called “weekend warriors” who can only get out and do things on Saturday and Sunday. For those people, the research says, their weekend adventures are almost as good at avoiding death as is daily exercise. While the official suggestion remains at 150 minutes of exercise a week, which is more than one can cram into a weekend, two days of vigorous exercise is almost as good.
What you should know, however, is that those who never get off the couch are in trouble. The same research shows that people whose lifestyles are completely sedated are cutting massive amounts of time, more than ten years in many cases, off their lifespans. Just getting up and taking a walk around the block, or around the mall, or being chased by a vicious poodle is better than nothing at all. You’re hurting yourself. Stop it.
And finally …
Take a look around you and see how many people are on their smartphones. Maybe you’re even reading or listening to this report on your phone. Now, stop and think about the fact that ten years ago this wouldn’t have been possible. Say “Happy Birthday” to the iPhone, the device that revolutionized the entire world in less than ten years7. That’s right, it was ten years ago the late Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and said, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” I’m not sure even he understood just how revolutionary that product would be.
The iPhone was revolutionary in many ways. It had a 3.5-inch screen. You could use your hand to open these things called apps. And it even had a built-in web browser so you could access websites on the go. All those things that you take for granted now were new and different back then. The iPhone had something else that was new: a hefty price tag. Many industry insiders questioned whether we would pay anywhere from $600 and more for a cell phone. They did, in droves.
Immediately, the race was on for developers to create apps for smartphones and other players in the industry struggled to keep up with Apple’s new invention. When Google introduced the Andriod operating system a couple of years later, they managed to give the iPhone some competition, but by that point Apple was already dominating and controlling the market. Now, smartphones are the primary means of communication around the world. Steve Jobs would be pleased.
And that’s all we have time for today. Please be careful as you go about all the things you do in the course of a day. Take an umbrella in most places. Give someone a smile. We’ll keep watching the news and be back with five more things you should know in the morning.
5 Things You Should Know: 01.11.2017
04:26:16Â 01/11/2017
Wait, it’s only Wednesday?
Hi there, welcome to Wednesday, January 11. If you’re like me, this week seems to be taking forever. At least we’re past the severe wind and thunderstorms of yesterday. Today should be a lot calmer and afternoon temperatures are going to feel more like April instead of the middle of January. Don’t worry, it doesn’t last long. We’ll see more rain tonight, though not as much as the West coast is getting. Temperatures fall Thursday night and we could be looking at a very slick weekend. Maybe a slow-moving week isn’t a bad thing.
Locally, you’ll just want to largely stay away from the West side of Indianapolis as the Rockville Bridge at 465 is being demolished after being hit by a semi truck yesterday morning. That mess will likely last a month or more. Black Senators testified against Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions yesterday. And a new Pew survey says police officers are more reluctant to make stops and use force. A lot happened in the past 24 hours and not everything you’ve heard is verifiable. Here are the five things you should really know.
Taliban Terror In Afghanistan
The Taliban is taking responsibility for twin bombs in the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul that killed 28 and wounded at least 72, then later a third attack occurred at the guesthouse of the governor of Kandahar, injuring the Ambassador and other diplomats from the United Arab Emirates1. A suicide bomber struck first followed by a car bomb in Kabul. Those two attacks did the majority of the damage with the attack against the Ambassador coming later.
The attacks in Kabul were carried out near a government center where several lawmakers have offices. At least four police officers were among those killed. The Taliban, which is a hyper-right-wing extremist group, once ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist until it was toppled by American forces in 2001. In the fifteen years since, they have been a constant and often deadly source of terror throughout the region as they attempt to wrestle back some form of control.
If all this sounds familiar, it is. This kind of battle in Afghanistan has been going on for decades. The mountainous geography of the country provides plenty of hiding places for small terrorist cells and makes it difficult to directly attack those responsible for giving the orders. While US forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001, Russia had an unsuccessful war against the Taliban prior to that. This is not a group that is easily eliminated through conventional warfare. Expect this to continue until someone finds a solution.
 Dylann Roof Gets To Die
After telling a South Carolina jury that, given the chance, he’d do it again, Dylann Roof was sentenced to death yesterday for the murder of nine black people attending a Bible study at a Charleston church. In doing so, Roof becomes the first person to be ordered executed for a federal hate crime. The jury, deliberated a mere three hours, most of which was procedural, bringing to end a trial in which the accused often acted as his own attorney and refused to offer testimony in his own behalf.
Roof  had specifically selected the Emanuel AME Church, the South’s oldest black church, with the intention of bringing back segregation or starting a race war. He sat through 45 minutes of the Bible study and waited until the group was praying before opening fire, at times standing over his victims and shooting them a second time to make sure they were dead. His crime didn’t have the effect he wanted, though. If anything, it can be attributed for bringing the Confederate battle flag down from the South Carolina statehouse.
There is some speculation that Roof might have avoided the death penalty had he used mental health records that allegedly show a history of mental illness. However, Roof refused, saying that he didn’t believe in psychology and didn’t want to do anything that might embarrass his family any further. Roof was stoic as the verdict was read with only a few family members showing any sympathy for him.
American Made In Canada
American Apparel finally sold in a bankruptcy auction with Canadian clothing giant Gildan taking on the manufacturing equipment and intellectual property rights of the once-edgy fashion retailer3. However, Gildan did not take on the leases for the manufacturing facilities, nor did it pick up any of the brands’ 110 retail stores. This leaves open a lot of questions as to where the clothes might be made and whether Gildan might close any or all of the current retail outlets.
The hot button issue here, though, is the manufacturing locations more than the retail stores. American Apparel has long touted its “Made In America” label, but Gildan would not promise that all the American manufacturing facilities would remain open. While Gilden currently manufactures thread in South Carolina and Georgia, the only garment they currently make in the US is socks. The greater majority of their 42,000 employees are in low-cost Caribbean and Central American countries.
For their part, Gildan executives say they will consider the feasibility of maintaining current manufacturing facilities as they develop an integration plan over the next several weeks. Be sure, though, everyone in fashion is watching. The president-elect has been bullying manufacturers to make more in the US, but with Gildan being Canadian-owned the orange one’s tweets may not have as much effect.
Saying Goodbye To An Old Friend
As President Obama gave his farewell address in Chicago last night, the last planned speech of his presidency, he did so with his popularity rating 20 points higher than that of the incoming president-elect and the gratitude of a large portion of the nation4. The rhetoric was soaring and emotional, the same sort of speech that got him elected in the first place, full of hope and encouragement with a definite eye toward the future.
While the president touted this success and admitted some failures, the portion of his speech that brought out the tissue was when he spoke of his wife, Michelle, and the journey they have made together the past eight years. Referring to her roots from the often-troublesome South side of Chicago, the president thanked her for taking on a task she didn’t ask for and making it her own, as well as making the White House, “a place that belongs to everybody.5” By the time he finished, I’m pretty sure even the security team was needing tissues.
Speculation has been high as to what the president might do next. He has frequently said that he’s not going away, but as to exactly what role he might take on next is uncertain. Perhaps that is why streaming music provider Spotify posted a job opening yesterday for “President of Playlist.6” The job description includes a requirement of “at least eight years experience running a highly-regarded nation” and a Nobel Peace Prize. There is no word yet as to whether Mr. Obama is considering the position.
And finally …
File this one under “What The Living Fuck Are You Thinking?” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of the former Senator and nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy, said yesterday that he has been chosen to review vaccine safety and science. Kennedy said that the president-elect, “has some doubts about the current vaccine policy. He asked me to chair a commission on vaccine safety and scientific integrity. I said I would.7”
Immediately, this announcement set off all kinds of bells and whistles within the medical community. The common fear is that such a commission would give credence to a widely and frequently discredited study linking vaccinations to autism. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University who advises the federal panel that sets U.S. vaccine policy, said the Kennedy news, “raised issues that have been settled securely and completely by good science.”
In typical fashion, the president-elect’s transition team attempted to walk back Kennedy’s statement late Wednesday, saying that “no decisions have been made at this time.” However, one has to wonder why the new administration would even allow this issue to come up. The only purpose it serves is to undermine the good faith and credibility of the medical community at a time when health care is already a national concern. This move is not just stupid, it’s careless, which appears to be a hallmark of the new administration.
For better or worse, that’s all we have time for today. Be watching for slick spots as you’re out this morning and gear up for the possibility of more thunderstorms tonight. We’ll keep an eye on the news, sort through the unsubstantiated rubbish, and whittle it down to digestible chunks tomorrow. Have a good day.