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W. Kamau Bell says ‘We Need to Talk About Cosby’… even though it’s hard

January 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

W. Kamau Bell is not afraid to have a tough conversation about the man once hailed as “America’s Dad.” Bell’s new docuseries, We Need to Talk About Cosby, premieres Sunday and will provide an unflinching look at Bill Cosby’s groundbreaking legacy as well as his downfall for allegedly raping dozens of women.

Speaking to ABC Audio, Bell addresses how Cosby’s camp has panned the upcoming series and called him a “PR Hack.” The 49-year-old admits the insult caught him off guard. “Of all the things I envisioned them calling me, that was not on my list. So, you know, I’ll take it,” says Bell.

While Cosby’s camp made it clear to Bell they want the upcoming docuseries to focus only on the positive, the United Shades of America host said, “I think if they watch the doc, they’ll see that we also highlight the good things he does while we have a different opinion of his innocence.”

The docuseries balances Cosby’s fall from grace with his legacy as a performer and educator. It is a “difficult” discussion, Bell admits, but says “it’s time” to have it because it’s so “hard to talk about.” He says the docuseries “reckons with his legacy and all the good he did with all the things that I’ve come to believe that he did as far as assaulting and raping women.”

“It was always a conversation about Bill Cosby, not a conversation with Bill Cosby,” Bell continued. “And after you talk to so many survivors, it just feels like it’s less and less a room for him to come in because that would feel like a betrayal to all the survivors.”

We Need to Talk About Cosby premieres Sunday, January 30, at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime.

Shinedown wants to “tell the truth” with pandemic-influenced album, ‘Planet Zero’

January 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

When ABC Audio spoke with Shinedown‘s Brent Smith at the end of March 2020, we asked him if the band’s next album would be called Isolation or Quarantine — then two words the world was just learning about. His response? “I don’t think anybody’s ever gonna wanna talk about this. Ever.”

Two years later, Shinedown will release Planet Zero, a record that could not help but be influenced by what’s been going on in the world since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“It ultimately was inspired by the last two years, that everybody on the planet Earth…what we’ve all dealt with,” Smith now tells ABC Audio.

Remembering back to those early days of the pandemic, Smith says that he and his band mates tried to “crystal-ball-method” writing new music.

“‘Let’s try and write three years from now,'” Smith recalls thinking. “‘No one’s going to want to talk about this, we’re going to want to move on.'”

“We attempted to do that,” he says. “But then everything just kept getting worse.”

The result became Planet Zero, a journey that reflects a world in crisis. For example, the record’s title track, which premiered earlier this week, is a reaction to media coverage of the pandemic.

“You can’t really tell who’s telling you the truth,” Smith says. “With the flip-flopping of everything that was going on, where certain outlets were, like, ‘Well it’s this.’ ‘Well, actually, no, it’s this.’ ‘Well, we thought it was this, but now it’s this.'”

“It’s about telling the truth,” he shares. “That’s what Planet Zero is about. Tell the truth.”

One thing Planet Zero does not do, though, is give up on humanity.

“There’s an empowerment to this album,” Smith says. “There’s a lot of triumph in this album.”

Planet Zero arrives April 22.

Even Will Smith loves “Heat Waves”: Glass Animals’ frontman says, “It’s totally blowing my mind”

January 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Glass Animals‘ “Heat Waves” has been around since June 2020, but only recently broke into the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, thanks to a late 2021 surge on TikTok. It’s also earned the band a Grammy nomination, the number-one spot on Spotify’s Global Top 50 Chart and so many other accolades that frontman Dave Bayley can barely take them all in.

“I feel like I’m kind of holding on to its coattails at the moment and trying to keep up, so much has been happening,” Dave says of “Heat Waves.” “It’s totally blowing my mind!”

Dave initially wrote “Heat Waves” about missing a close friend who’d died, but he says the song’s success has given it a whole new meaning.

As he explains, “I think seeing people have such an amazing reaction to it…saying that the song really helped them, and…the way people have responded creatively: making remixes, covers, doing amazing things in the digital space, like creating Minecraft castles and even memes…all of that just makes what was a very sad situation so positive.”

And speaking of the digital space, Dave says he really enjoys the TikToks that focus on the “Heat Waves” line “sometimes all I think about is you.”

“I made one about missing my dog while we were on tour. So I’ve seen a few of those now…adorable,” he laughs. “I’ve seen some funny ones about somebody eating a salad and then they look out the window and…they’re looking at some really unhealthy burger joint — that was hilarious.”

Best of all, Dave says, “Will Smith did one the other day! About The Fresh Prince and kind of reminiscing about his time on that show…I love that show! Brilliant! So that was, like, super-special to me.”

Asia planning 40th anniversary tour, introduces new singer/guitarist Marc Bonilla

January 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Prog-rock supergroup Asia has announced plans to launch a 40th anniversary tour this summer, while also revealing that the band has welcomed a new member into the lineup.

Joining Asia as its new lead vocalist and guitarist is Marc Bonilla, a former member of late Emerson, Lake & Palmer keyboardist Keith Emerson‘s solo band. Bonilla replaces ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, who joined Asia in 2019.

The group currently also features two founding members, drummer Carl Palmer and keyboardist Geoff Downes, as well as bassist Billy Sherwood, who joined the band in 2017 after the death of original lead singer and bassist John Wetton.

Downes and Sherwood both are also part of Yes’ current lineup, while Palmer, of course, is a co-founder of ELP and the famed prog-rock trio’s last surviving member.

Asia’s 40th anniversary tour is expected hit the U.S. leg in late summer.

“40 years of ASIA is a real musical milestone for us,” says Downes. “The success we experienced with our early albums has carried us through and gave us the foundation when we reformed in 2006. ASIA has been together ever since, although we lost John in 2017 to cancer. Still, we have endured and will carry on now with Marc Bonilla, who we know will be a great addition to the band.”

Adds Palmer, “The fans have never left ASIA. That first ASIA album with all those radio and MTV hits weaved the fabric of the music scene in the early 1980s. Those great songs like ‘Heat of the Moment,’ ‘Sole Survivor,’ and ‘Only Time Will Tell,’ still hold up today.”

In December, Asia released a 10-CD box set titled The Official Live Bootlegs Volume 1 that features five full concerts by the band’s original lineup from various years.

Ian Anderson says Jethro Tull’s ‘The Zealot Gene’ is a collection of songs based on “extreme human emotions”

January 28, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Jethro Tull‘s latest album, The Zealot Gene, the veteran prog-rock band’s first new studio effort in over 18 years, was released today.

Frontman Ian Anderson tells ABC Audio that he considers the 12-track collection something of a concept album, because the songs are based on a list of positive and negative “extreme human emotions” he compiled, that he then recognized as “words that I remember reading in the Bible.”

Anderson explains that the list included “nice stuff, like love, fraternal love, erotic love, spiritual love, compassion, loyalty,” as well as “bad stuff, like anger and rage and jealousy and vengeance.”

Ian notes that he felt the song “The Zealot Gene” was a good choice for the album’s title track because it’s “about that extreme of emotion, the degree to which things are polarized into black and white, and opposites, especially in the populist world of politics today.”

The singer/flutist/guitarist says he began work on the album in 2017 and had recorded seven of the songs with his band in the studio before the COVID-19 pandemic started. After the pandemic began, Anderson recorded the basic tracks for the other five tunes by himself, then enlisted the group’s other members to add their parts remotely.

Ian says this resulted in an album with “a little bit more dynamic range,” because the last five songs wound up being more sparse and acoustic-based than the first seven.

Anderson made The Zealot Gene with the members of his longtime solo band, but says he decided to release the record under the Jethro Tull moniker because “it seemed appropriate to recognize the, on average, 15 years of long service that the members of the band have had playing with me over the years.”

Here’s The Zealot Gene‘s full track list:

“Mrs. Tibbets”
“Jacob’s Tales”
“Mine Is the Mountain”
“The Zealot Gene”
“Shoshana Sleeping”
“Sad City Sisters”
“Barren Beth, Wild Desert John”
“The Betrayal of Joshua Kynde”
“Where Did Saturday Go?”
“Three Loves, Three”
“In Brief Visitation”
“The Fisherman of Ephesus”

Effects Of Cold Weather!

January 28, 2022 by John Tesh

Cold weather does more than make you shiver. It impacts your body in different ways.

For example: Your nose keeps running. Health professor, Dr. David King, from the University of Queensland, says breathing in cold, dry air boosts blood flow to your nose and mucus membranes, to help warm and humidify the air headed for your lungs. And that causes “cold-induced rhinitis” – AKA a runny nose.

Cold weather can also trigger a bad back. Research found construction workers working outdoors, were more likely to have neck and lower back pain than those working indoors. That’s because cold air makes us tense up. And the colder the weather, the more pain we’re likely to feel.

Cold weather also raises your risk for blood clots. Our body constantly tries to maintain a core temperature around 98 degrees, to protect our cells and organs. But as our body temperature drops, the stress to maintain that temperature causes our blood to become thicker and stickier, and more likely to clot. And that raises your risk for heart attack or stroke. Health expert Dr. King recommends keeping the room temperature above 65 degrees, the level when blood starts to thicken. Also, wear layers, and keep moving throughout the day to keep blood flowing around your body.

Get A New Job!

January 28, 2022 by John Tesh

It’s time to maximize your LinkedIn profile!
That’s according to career columnist, Charlotte Cowles.

She says, now that we can’t network in person the way we used to, having a profile on LinkedIn has become essential if you want a new job.

Here’s how to make the most of LinkedIn’s algorithms to get noticed.

Cowles says to regularly engage with the site – whether that’s commenting on something someone posts, sending friend requests, or simply liking things. Those actions can boost your profile and get you on potential employers’ radars.

Also, the skills section of your profile is really important. Because recruiters often hunt for candidates using those skills as keywords. And you’re 20% more likely to get hired if your skills have been verified by your colleagues or LinkedIn connections.

Now, this last one may be harder to do – so you’ll need to set up notifications for when new jobs are posted to the site. But if you apply for a job listing within 10 minutes of it being posted, you’re four times more likely to hear back from a hiring manager.

Top intel official warns ‘deficiencies’ in classification system pose national security threat

January 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In a scathing rebuke of the nation’s current classification procedures, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has told lawmakers that the current system classifies so much information it puts national security at risk — because of how long it can take to process.

“It is my view that deficiencies in the current classification system undermine our national security, as well as critical democratic objectives, by impeding our ability to share information in a timely manner, be that sharing with our intelligence partners, our oversight bodies, or, when appropriate, with the general public,” she writes in a letter dated Jan. 5 and sent to Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

The classification system, she wrote, reduces the intelligence communities capacity to “effectively support senior policy maker decision making, and further erodes the basic trust our citizens have in their government.”

The challenge on how to protect national security information, but appropriately share it is not a new challenge, nor is it easy, she said.

The senators wrote the Haines in October to express concern about the current classification system, noting numerous reviews of the process have “documented concerns across the entire lifecycle of the current system.”

“In the meantime, the volume of classified material produced continues to grow exponentially in a digital first environment, bringing with it the expanding burden of mandatory declassification requirements,” Haines said.

Haines said there are already efforts currently underway, but those were not disclosed in the letter obtained by ABC News.

She says the issue of classification is also “great importance” to President Biden.

The letter was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Holocaust Remembrance Day comes as many worry lessons are being forgotten

January 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday, the warning to “never forget” took on renewed meaning.

President Joe Biden, who was scheduled to host a 90-year-old Auschwitz survivor Bronia Brandman in the Oval Office, released a statement honoring the lives of the 6 million Jews and millions of others murdered by the Nazis while also highlighting the dangers of forgetting, denying and warping the history of the Holocaust.

“We must teach accurately about the Holocaust and push back against attempts to ignore, deny, distort, and revise history…We must continue to pursue justice for survivors and their families,” he said in a statement.

Thursday’s day of remembrance, the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, comes amid rising concerns about antisemitism. A report released last fall by the American Jewish Committee found that one in four American Jews were targeted by antisemitism in the previous year.

Less than two weeks ago, a rabbi and three others were taken hostage for hours at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, resulting in the death of the gunman by police.

And the Holocaust has been invoked repeatedly in the debate on masks, sparking outrage that its atrocities are being minimized.

Last May, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said the Capitol mask mandate was similar to the gold star of David Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust (a claim she apologized for after visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), and Lauren Boebert, R-Col., called door-to-door vaccine administers “Needle Nazis,” just two months later.

There have also been concerns that Holocaust history is being whitewashed in the nation’s classrooms.

The latest controversy arose on Wednesday, when a Tennessee school board voted to ban “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel depicting the Holocaust from the curriculum due to profanity and an image of a nude woman. In the book, cartoonist/artist Art Spiegelman tells the story of his parents’ time in a Nazi concentration camp.

Some of those lessons were on display Wednesday, when the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum held a virtual commemoration with reflections from Holocaust survivors on their experiences and the challenges that remain in the fight against antisemitism.

“Every day, we relive and remember how hatred tore apart our families, our communities and our world. Now we see a number of alarming events that we never imagined could happen in our adopted homeland,” said Péter Gorog, a volunteer at the museum, who was forced to flee his home as a young boy and live in a ghetto in Budapest.

“There are attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions in cities and towns across the world, fueled by antisemitic rhetoric, conspiracy theories and the persistent misuse of the Holocaust to promote an agenda.”

New Hampshire to sell rapid tests at liquor stores

January 27, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(CONCORD, N.H.) — The New Hampshire Executive Council on Wednesday approved a request to buy 1 million at-home COVID tests and sell them at state liquor stores, according to Gov. Christopher Sununu.

The governor expects they will be hitting shelves in the next two weeks.

“We will buy them for a certain price. We will put them on the shelves and sell them for that exact same price, approximately in the $13 range,” Sununu said during the press conference.

New Hampshire made the move to help meet the high demand for tests, according to Sununu.

“We also know that a lot of folks in New Hampshire might try to get some at stores and maybe there’s not as many on shelves with the federal government buying up so much supply. And we know that demand is still going to be there,” Sununu said.

New Hampshire provided free tests in November and these tests are becoming available in addition to those provided by the federal government, he said.

The Biden administration set up a plan to ship a total of 1 billion free at-home COVID tests to Americans’ homes. They are expected to begin arriving in late January.

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