It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBSY, Boston's news radio.
Nicole, thank you very much. As always, this chili weather continues. I got to tell you something, all this chilly weather, we may have a storm coming. I don't know it's going to be necessarily this weekend, but just as someone has been around New England for a while, it concerns me.
It concerns me. We will spend us some time later on tonight talking about, well, we're going to deal with Harvey Silverglade is going to join us, the great Civil Liberties Union lawyer, great friend, a friend of the First Amendment, and we're going to talk tonight with Harvey Silverglate about whether or not the government should be able to do more to monitor some of the extremist websites out there. And I don't care whether it's an ISIS website or
a Kitty Pown website or ku klux Klan website. I think that if people go to those locations to move, for our law enforcement people to try to figure out they're becoming radicalized. And then later on we will talk about the funeral today in the passing of Jimmy Carter, a president who I got to know fairly well. And I have some Jimmy Carter stories, and I hope some of you have some Jimmy Carter stories as well. That's what's on the agenda for the night. We might get
also to a breaking news story here there. And we have a four very interesting guests coming up, and we're going to start off with Paula Sebastiani. She's a doctorate. She has a doctorate. She's the director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science at Toughts Medical Center. So it's actually doctor Sebastiani, and we're going to talk about why Celery, doc Chell, what Celery, dark Chocolate and
Parsley may have in common. And I'm going to tell you, doctor Sebastiani, I love Celery and salad and I love doc Chocolate, and as I understand it, those are good things for you. Tell us about it. May you're going to be able to maybe give us the secrets of a longer life. Welcome to Night Side.
Thank you very much for inviting me. And yes, I hope to trigger some curiosity about this. So the story about behind the Dark Chocolate and Parsley and Celery is that we study centenarians. And we have a study centenarians for many years. We have collected many, many days about them, including blood, and we'll measure some we call them biomarkers, some biomarkers in blood that show what these people have,
these different compared to younger individuals. And then we founded in many centenarians there are markers that suggest they have nutrition that is healthy and in particular includes products from salary party and dark chocolate. And the level of nutrition is comparable to young people. So the ipolies this is not still evidence, but the ipologies that maybe these nutrients can help people age. Well, yeah, you'll like chocolate.
Oh, I loved I loved dark chocolate, love all sorts of chocolate. But there's also you know, you know, people have heard about the Mediterranean diet and and I know that we always get conflict the information. So a couple of weeks ago, the Surgeon General's warning us that too much, well alcohol, any amounts of alcohol are bad for you. And yet I've always thought that a lot of folks in your field and in the medical community as a whole, will tell you that things like red wine actually are
not bad for you. No, obviously we're not talking about ten glasses of red wine at night. But you know, sometimes the food charts and the food pyramids get inverted. It seems in one year of this saying drink this to eat that, and the next year they're changing their minds. How long has celery, dark chocolate, and parsley been considered positives? Is this a new development?
We knew something about dark chocolate, but the salary and partly this is evidence that is coming out now. But the difference between the study that I have done in collaboration with many people, it's not just me collaboration with many people, is that it's based on markets that you have in the blood. It's not based on what you report that you are eating. And markets in the blood don't lie. So it's pretty strong evidence, but of course
it has to be validated. And we're not saying, oh, you have to eat a lot of dark chocolate or eat a lot of calories every day. We have to also understand what is a good balance in your diet.
So do you have thoughts on red wine? Because I know a lot of people who are listening. We don't get a chance to talk to folks with your background and your knowledge often and I'm just wondering because we have the surge in general earlier earlier, well, I guess it was late last week saying you know, any use of alcohol and wine is a negative, and that's kind of a change in what the government's position has been. Obviously.
Well, I was kind of yeah, I was kind of disappointed to hear the news. But the evidence that has been in the field for a long time is that there is a substance in red wine that is actually someone that enhanced your longevity. The question is how much of the substance you have to drink to use every day. But I would be careful with this conclusions set are not based on really biomaster in the in the in the body, and that this is veratrol is the substance in the red the red wine is actually one of
these chemicals have dis tested. There are many studies looking at the effects of these medicals on extending lifepun and longevity. So I will still drink a glass of red wine a day.
That's encouraging, And I suspect there's probably some folks out there tonight who are listening and who are willing to drink a glass of red wine. Well, look, thank you very much for this so dark chocolate. I must tell you that a doctor who I highly respect, one of my doctors, actually on his own, recommended to me dark chocolate, and I after every dinner at night, have a couple of little pieces of dark.
Chocolate, and I do the same.
I do the same.
Okay, all right, well I ever have you over for dinner. Maybe we'll have some red wine and some dark chocolate.
Okay, that sounds like a good fun Thank you.
Very much, doctor Paula Sebastiani, Director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science and Tough Medical Center, Thanks so much for joining us tonight. I really enjoyed our conversation and I feel better having talked to you tonight actually about these subjects, and I think a lot of people feel better as well. Thank you so much, doctor Sebastian. I've got to hear that.
Bye bye, good night.
Bye bye, Happy New Year. All right, we get back. We're going to talk about how can people who are addicted to Facebook, and there are lots of people addicted to Facebook, how can they, if not beat the addiction, at least cut down on the screen time. I'm going to talk with doctor Donald Grant, National Advisor on Healthy Device Management at Newport Healthcare. Back on night Side. You're listening WBZ ten thirty and am Donald. My name is
Dan Ray. We're a talk show. We've been doing this now into our eighteenth year and we're doing very well. As a matter of fact, we have lots of listeners out there, you and now amongst them. If you new tonight, please lock us in on your either your car radio or your home radio, or you can always get us on the new iHeart app anywhere in the world. We love to expand our audience and we of course love
to hear from you when you do find this. We had two callers last night from Canada who were both first time callers and two excellent callers, by the way, in the eleven o'clock hour last night. So please feel free to join us any night Monday through Friday from eight to till midnight. We're here for you, that is for sure. Lots of information, lots of some entertainment as well, and sometimes we get into some political controversies. So believe me, it is a it is a very full plate that
we have here on Nightside. We'll be back and we will talk about cutting down on addictive screen time dealing with Facebook. Back after this quick break. Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio. With us is doctor Donald Grant. He's a national advisor on healthy device management and Newport Healthcare, and he's going to talk to us how people can
cut down on screen time. Doctor Grant. I gotta tell you, I think everybody I know has some level of addiction to the Internet and to screen time. All those stupid funny videos thirty seconds long, people you know, jumping off of cliffs into the water and ending up and paled on tree branches. You just got to keep watching them, and they are addictive. How are you tonight?
I'm all right, Dan, Thanks so much for having me. And yes, yes, and yes, it's a real problem all my work.
No, it's a real problem. You know. I'm a big sports guy, and so if I see something that pops up, you know, the twenty stupidest plays in baseball, you know, I start to want to say, yeah, I remember that player. I never remember that, And you know it's innocent. We're not talking about porn here, but we're talking about you know, there's that there are some comedians now who are funny. There's that you that you listen and you know, I just wish, to some extent we could just get rid
of it. I mean physically get rid of it. Do you know what I'm saying. I mean, I hear you.
I hear this a lot. But I've got some news that you know, it's not going anywhere. And as you've seen, and those of us who you know, we're maybe the I'm a digital immigrant. I'm one of the last generations of digital immigrants. Stand I'm a gen x er, so this all came, you know, at some point in my life. But I'm the father of the first generations of digital natives. So I watched this, and you know, I work with kids and young adults, and you know, I see the impact.
It's only going to increase. And I think even if we look over the last several years, my refrigerator now can have a screen, which I don't know that that's a great idea, but this but they're winning because what we're now learning and those of us who do what I do, Dad, we've known this. This is I've been doing about fourteen fifteen years looking at this and investigating and researching it across all of the you know, the
silos that digital engagement can occur. And now we're learning and the public is learning what those of us who do what I do have known for a long time have been trying to tell you all. The game is gamed against us. You know, the creators and the producers of these things have used psychology and some you know flaws in something in our Olympics system to keep us, you know, as you said, addicted. We can't really call it addicted yet because it's not really the rest of
the world has. There's some some you know, gaming and certain things in the other in the rest of the world has been identified and classified as addiction. But we all know what it is. And I just want to be clear. I am not anti devices. I am not anti information and entertainment that's digitally driven, and I'm not anti social media. And even if I were, I'm an i'd be an endangered But it's really, like I said, I teach healthy device management and the practice of got
digital citizenship. It's all about balance.
But here's my question. Okay, I got two questions. One sure, I'm a talk show host, so I have on Facebook side I'm on an X, which used to be Twitter. I'm on Instagram. People can find me. I want people to follow me. I want to be able to get information out about my show.
Of course.
And when you when all of a sudden you're looking at you know, well, the hockey fights. It takes something that's simple. There's no advertising with it. It's just people are throwing up these reels of twenty minutes of hockey fights, and it's the sort of stuff you just or car crashes. You know, we all can't. You have to watch the car crashes. How are they making money on it because there's no advertising, they're just throwing stuff up there.
Well, okay, so this is where I talk about this a lot. It's a great point. There's two things you said, and the first time'm going to address is for just about everyone. I'm just going to let everyone know. If it's free, you're the product. So when you say there's no advertising, there actually is. And it depends on the platform. But these producers and these creators and meta and X and they're not just providing a public service, so there are always that they monetize it. And these have to
do with algorithms and pushing products and pushing ads. So none of it is just free. And that's what people don't understand because they think that, oh gosh, it's just there. But here's what I also want to share with you, because certainly your role and your career and your job requires you to be a consumer of information. So in your case, yes, you do need to know what's going on. You need to no code events, and that is not including your outside interest in your personal life. And there's
a lot of people and I'm one of them. I mean, I have to spend a lot of time every day keeping up with everything digital, whether it's the late trends on TikTok, whether it's you know, current events, legislation. So that's where it kind of gets tricky for someone like you. But here's who might help you and your listeners. I came up with these. These are mine. I came up with a really, you know, kind of simple self assessment and your listeners and no one has to tell anyone,
but just be regulously honest with yourself. If you're starting to feel like maybe you're a little too drawn in, and once you by the way, once you get lowered in, you're we're all done. I mean, it's it's they get us in there. And then there's all the clickbaits and all the things you're talking about in the auto play. We'll talk about that maybe in a minute. But here's just a little self assessment. And it's from the old school. Remember the old five w's is in an h Remember that from school?
They all thought dubs, who, what? When?
Where?
Why?
So here's what I came up with. So I suggest and ask people and invite them just go through these in your mind. When you're engaged with any devices, go through these questions. Why are you engaging? What are you doing on the device? Sure, where are you using the device? When are you engaging with the device? Who are you engaging with through the device? And how are you engaging
or not? And when I say device is I'm really looking at, you know, anything that can deliver Internet driven content or social media or news or the videos you're talking about. So that's just a little self assessment that I say, you know, just go through it. And if you find that the answers might be a little bit maybe that's not healthy, that's problematic, that's interfering or subjugating some other things I need to do. Then you might want to look at maybe making some even small changes.
Yeah. What I'm talking about is, look, I know a lot of people get drawn in to this stuff, and there's a lot of stuff that's dangerous on the internet.
Okay, but I'm for the kids.
I'm talking about absolutely, But I'm talking about the senseless stuff. Meaning again, I'll look at a reel and you know, say that you know the ten greatest hockey fights. So I was a hockey player, uh, and you know I know most of many of these guys who are in the league, and you know, I wanted to go to include one from this guy or that guy, or you know, the ten goofiest plays in baseball whatever. I mean. There's there's I'm not talking about weird stuff. I'm talking about
very normal stuff. There's there's a couple of comedians who when I see it, I'll click on them because they're funny. They're just funny comedians. And you need you need the discipline to say, okay, I'm out, I'm out. And I just think it's a real problem. And I think it's a real problem for a lot more people than realize it. And so I thank you for what you do. Doctor grant and I'd love to have you back, and maybe we'll have you on some night for an hour and take some phone call from listeners.
I would love I would love to do that, and I just want to also just at the end, and there's nothing wrong with what you're talking about, because that's entertainment. That's you know, people sit down at night and watch four hours and sitcoms. It's about what you said, it's about the balance, and it's about once you're in it, are they auto suggesting and can you get out of it?
Or are you finding four hours later you've watched fifty thousand you know sports flaws and you don't remember any of them?
Yeah?
Absolutely, no question, no question. We'll get in touch with your folks. By the way, you're with a group called Newport Healthcare.
Yeah, I'm the national advisor.
Sorry.
If people have problems or feel they're truly addicted to this stuff, does Newport Healthcare provide any help or tell us about very quickly because I'm running out of time. Sure what what can people avail themselves off through Newport Healthcare? Well?
Newport Healthcare is a national healthcare program that really provides mental health treatment for adolescence and young adults. But there are a lot of resources. In fact, I was just putting one together. There's some resources on our website. I've been able to work on some great projects, so there's
resources that can be provided. It's not necessarily you know, if you call and you say, I have an individual problem, but if they contact Newport, then either me or someone else can maybe either help or guide them to the correct recess because there's a lot of people doing great work in this area and everybody's digital issues are different.
Sounds great, sounds great. My producer will get back to your folks and we'll do an hour something that because I think this is Oh.
That would love that, that would be really good. We could get and we could take some calls and that'd be great.
Yeah, these segments that we do here in the eight o'clock out is for them. So they're all about seven, eight, nine minutes long, and it's great for an interview and it gives me a great idea to a sense as to who might be a really good guest for an hour show with callers. And I think you fit that criteria, so we'll be there.
Oh I appreciate that. Yeah, let's try to help some people who may be struggling and maybe getting caught up in some doom scrolling. And then four o'clock in the morning, like I said, they don't remember what they watched and they've got to be up for work in two hours.
Yeah, you got it. Well, that takes us to our next topic. On the other side of the news, We're going to talk about zombie employees. So those could be some of the.
Maybe this is the reason why some of them are.
It's a perfect segue, as we say, of the business. You're welcome, Jactor Grant, Thank you very much, Don Grant, thank you them here great, thank you very much of Newport Healthcare. Coming right back. When a little long with him, but I think it's going to be worth it when we have him on for an hour. Coming back on Nightside, you are you a zombie employee? I don't want anyone ever think I'm a zombie employee because I am anything but that. We'll be back on Nightside right after this.
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Well, here's a depressing subject. Zombie employees. Just one in five workers thriving at work with us as David Allcott. He's a workplace expert CEO of Samurai Success at international Executive, organizational and personal coaching firm headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Got me snow out there yet, David Allcott? How are you going?
I'm doing well, Dan, Thanks so much for having me on the show. And yes, we're having some pretty good snow going on here.
Are you really literally as we're.
Speaking, Yes, we're speaking.
Well, we're freezing back here, but so far we haven't seen much of the white stuff, although we periodically get big storms back here in New England, maybe not as consistently as you good folks do out in Colorado. So tell us, how do you figure out first of all, this what is a zombie employee? That's a very descriptive phrase.
I agree with you. As a matter of fact, a lot of our folks that are watching, you know, the new generation coming into their businesses. We grew up in a time where business was so competitive and we're are so well educated to be able to, you know, compete against other people who are looking for the same job. And today that's a very different idea for a lot
of the new generation. They don't want to work that hard and so we've you know, people are just saying, well, they're lazy, they're this and then that, and they're zombies. And the truth is it's a lot deeper than that, is that they just want something very different. They want the experience of life, and a lot of that doesn't have anything to do with business.
Yeah, so basically, don't work and maybe the government can support you for your entire life.
I mean, that's the unfortunate truth.
Yes, it is an unfortunate truth. And you know, we live in you know, America, you know, the the Home of the Free, the Land of the brave, and all of that. And and and someone said, you know, you know you have to earn. Stuff is not given to you in in our system. Is it is the problem that we live in a capitalist stick society. I mean, it's the best in the world in my opinion. Why are people in their twenties saying, I'm just going to put in the minimum. They're never gonna go anywhere. They're
gonna turn out, they're gonna be zombie employees. If you're a zombie employee in your twenties, man, I feel badly for you.
Yeah, and we've got to go back to how they were raised. And I don't mean to blame anybody about this. This is just what's happening. And we grew up in a very competitive place where wanting to work are parentsly focused on. You know, you've got to earn the right to be able to do these things. And the new generation has been given so much as they grew up. That's their expectation, that's what we've taught them to believe.
And so a lot of it has to do with our socialization of our kids and then then they're bring by into the real world and it just does the theory doesn't go into application.
So how do we turn this around? I mean, the school systems obviously have been failing kids for a long time in my opinion. You know, you go to most kids today and you say, you know, name three members, three founding fathers. You know, they have no idea if you if you say, yes, you know, give us the name of the second president. They might be able to name Washington Bush Adams place.
And they'll probably mention he's a slave owner and those kind of things. And that's so that's the whole distribute.
Where are they.
Getting that information from? Yeah, where it's a long term process, because unfortunately, the kids that have gone through the school system and have learned this from our teachers are going to carry that for a long period of time. So what's the solution is not to think about how do we change those kids or that generation, is what do we need to do as business owners entrepreneurs to really take advantage of that situation and say, Okay, here's how
these guys are going to come in. These guys are going to come in and they want to be here at eight oh five because they're going to be late, and then you know they want to leave it a quarter or two before they take off. So how do you manage that into your business? And that's where we really work with our clients at Semurai Success with It says, okay, there is a solution because here's the facts.
How do we deal with that.
So the thing is that we have to provide structure for our businesses more so than we've ever done so before, because if you only have a short period of time that employee is going to be working for you, you've got to maximize the quality control and profitability with that employee. At the same time, with a shorter period of time and the structure to be able to do that is processes, and each one of these folks processes the.
Other thing too. If I could just add, if if these young young people and I want to sell like an old guy, I am an along side of fifty. But if these young people are coming into work to work without a work ethic and look at it as if somehow they're doing the company a favor. No, the company is employing you. The company is paying you to make the company money. And if you make the company money, you become a more valuable employee. That's why I want.
Soto just signed to seven one hundred million dollar contract with the Mets because the Mets feel that he will help them make make more money. I mean, it's it's sports is the way in which people should understand how competition works. It's the same model should be in the office, and someone who hustles and works a little bit more, that person should be compensated accordingly.
And I couldn't agree with you more about that, because that's exactly how our society is currently structured. To be able to do that with a capitalist market, you should be based upon your performance, and that's the missing element that a lot of our kids are I'm not connecting to is. You know, you get paid upon your performance, and if you really believe you can move the company, and the company believes you can move them forward, they're going to pay well to be able to do that.
But in the meantime, until we get that belief system back in our society, what do we do with these this whole generation of folks that are in employees right now and deal with that And the real solution that we're finding is to be able to really provide the structure so when they are there for that short period of time during that day, you really maximize the efforts.
Yeah. I have a couple of friends of mine who own small businesses, small private businesses, and I hear exactly what you're talking about from yes, and they're good people. They employ people irrespective of their background. There's no age discrimination. All they want to find are people who can who will come in and do an honest day's work and be available. How can companies get in touch with summarize success?
It sounds to me as if if you're a company, whether you're a big company or a small company, but particularly if you're a small company and you have a handful of employees or you know, less than fifty employees and you're not getting the maximum out of them. I assume that there's some lessons that they can learn from from your company to make their company better.
I'm hoping, yes, sure, that's exactly what we're designed to do.
You know.
I came from the seminar business and working with Anthony Robbins and stuff like that, and we found a way to really approach this new problem with real viable solutions to be able to get things going and moving in the right direction immediately. And so when you provide that kind of structure and strategy and reach us at samuraisuccess
dot com, you'll find out about our business. We're doing a lot of social media and stuff like this right now, but there's some real solutions to what people are looking for, and when you want to go beyond that, hiring us as coaches is what we.
Do, okay. And so even though you're in Denver, Colorado, companies here in New England, and we get into half the country with our signal at this hour of the night, anywhere within the sound of our voice, and of course on the internet, we're we're everywhere in the world. Literally, they business people can get in touch with you and talk to you a little bit and maybe you can provide some incredible help to them.
And sure as more fact, COVID if there was any benefit of that gave us this access to video conference thing. We just a lot of people just didn't buy into before, but it became so necessary to be able to continue commerce that video conferencing is such a big part of our coaching concept. That has been for the last fifteen years, but the last three years of course, has been really
focused on really how to make those improvements. So yes, we can coach people from all over the world and currently do using video comferencing.
So Zoom calls excellent. Yes, sir, Well look I really enjoyed it, David. I think that we view the world very similarly. I wasn't sure where we were taking this topic. I am not an employer. I've been an employee my entire life. But I'll tell you the people that make this country go are small businesses. It's not the big businesses. It's the smalls at the bottom of the pyramids. So I feel we kind of see the world in a similar way. David allcought workplace expert with Samurai Success Samurai
Success dot com. He's the CEO of the company, and you got to if you've got some employees out there, you got to light a fire under I think this guy's got the matches that will work. Thanks so much, very very much to meet you, David.
Thanks Dad so much for being on your show.
You bet you, you bet you. We'll do it again. We get back. We're to talk about something very important with Mike Defina. He's the media relations manager for the Animal Rescue League. Six tips to keep your pets safe in the cold. This is a tough time of year for pets, and I think about the faro cats that are out there at night. I have no idea how they survive. But listen carefully to Mike Defina, because if you have a pet, you got to take care of
your pet, particularly at this point. You don't want to leave a door open and have that pet find out find out they ran out back at mid and you have no idea where they are. Well, we'll explain it all with Mike Defina on Nightside right after this very quick break. Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ. The News Radio. Well, if you haven't noticed, it's very cold, very cold here in New England, and for those of you who have pets,
this is a particularly dangerous time of year. This is January. With us is Mike Defina, media relations manager of the Animal Rescue League, great organization. You know how we feel about pets Here at Nightside, he has some tips. I'm keeping your pets safe, Mike, Welcome back to Nightside.
Thank you, Dan. Always a pleasure to be here in A Happy New Year to you and here I think.
We could you can wish people happy New Year all the way through the end of December, so that's perfectly.
Thank you.
And I think you hit the nail right on the head. Yeah, I mean, cold temperatures have really settled in. You know, we're we're looking you know, last week or so and for the foreseeable future we're seeing blow freezing temperatures. There are no windshills in the single digits. So yeah, I mean it's time to you know, as we take extra steps for ourselves to protect ourselves from the cold, it's definitely that time of year to do the same for our pets.
Okay, give us a couple of things that maybe people aren't thinking of. I was talking with Rob Our producer, and when I babysit or dog sit for my son or daughter's dogs, a quirky named Mustard and a shorty part ships who in part yu Oki will be the wonder dog for my son and I need to take them out at night. They are not off the leash in the worter time at night under any circumstances. Is am I be some overly protective.
No, no, not at all. I mean when we talk about you know, wildlife, it's certainly concerned right now. You know, coyotes are always on head ower's minds, and you know we are kind of getting into their mating season. So yeah, whenever you go outside at night with your pets, you really want to keep them on leash for sure. But you know it's really just kind of taking some simple steps to to just better equip them for the coal. I mean we wear you know, jackets, scarves, hats, gloves,
et cetera. I mean, if you have a longer coat dog, you want to let let their coat grow out a little bit, but of course still keep it brushed and nicely groomed. You know, shorter coat dogs, they're going to get the chill a little faster. So things like sweaters, coats,
and booties. Booties are a great way to protect dogs as well, not just from the cold, but when we talk about all these snow melting salts and chemicals that are put on the sidewalks and any paved surfaces, you know, we really want to make sure even you know, even if you know your neighbors or someone in the neighborhood has the has the pet friendly variety of these chemicals, they're not. You know, pet friendly chemicals are not everywhere.
So whenever you get your dog back inside from a walk, you want to just make sure that you clean off their paws and wipe their stomach. You just the camicals can irritate their their paws and burn their paws, and we don't want them licking their paws when they get back inside and it can be chemicals and ingesting them. So we definitely want to keep that in mind as well.
And you know, I think simple as best. So I mean, if it's too cold for you to be out there, it's definitely too cold for your pets to be outside. And I think one of the interesting things about winter is it just it really mirrors a lot of what we talk about during the summer, the summertime months, there are many things in place in the state of Massachusetts that protect animals during hot weather. So it's illegal to keep your your pet confined in a vehicle during the
during the hot summer months. That law actually applies during extreme cold too, so that's something to keep in mind, so you never want to keep your animal confined to a cold vehicle. And then tethering laws as well. You know a lot of folks they're keep their pups tied up outside when we you know, when we have any sort of weather advisary or warning or watch as could be a heat, cold, wind, rain, snow, any sort of warning, your dog's not allowed to be tethered for more than
fifteen minutes. So that's that's another thing to keep in mind as well. And you know, just like us, you know, pets are they're susceptible the frostbite and hypothermia.
So I can't imagine why, I really can't imagine why anyone on a night light tonight, or even in daylight today, would you know, put their dog on some sort of a run outside. I mean it's just because look very most of us me included the phone rings, your answer to the phone, and the next thing, the doorbell rings as there's a ups to arrive or there or something like that, and you say to yourself, oh my god, dog dog's been outside for not for ten minutes, but
for an hour and a half. I mean, it's just it's just the little nature. You forget that sort of stuff. So why even put them in that situation? That's you know, these are animals that are family members. Would you put would you put your mother in law? You know, well maybe the mother in law be an exception only kidding. I shouldn't have even said that. No, but you know
what I'm saying, You know exactly you're crazy. Uncle Harry upstairs in the attic may give him, but you would you don't want to do it with I mean dogs, dogs are just special as far as I'm concerned. I keep telling people, remember you spell dog dog backwards, it's g O D And I really, I just they are such loyal, loyal companions and not to you know, to go overboard, but you gotta protect them, particularly at this time of the year. And as you mentioned with with
the the how do the farewell cats survive. That's I feel so sorry for you.
Know, they're they're amazing, amazing creatures. They are extremely resilient. They just have a knack of finding a safe, warm, place to sleep and to eat. But you know, that brings up another point that one of those places we see it, I mean we see it throughout the year from time to time, but definitely in the winter time. Something to keep in mind, under the hood of your car for outdoor cats, community cats, that's a perfect place for them to coose the up. It's nice, it's nice
and snug, protected from the wind, safe from predators. But of course, when we go out to start our car in the morning, and if we don't know that an animal's under the hood, you know, unfortunately extreme injuries can happen. So when you go out in the morning to start your car, just give your hood, you know, just bang on it a couple of times, quick visual check to make sure there's no animals in or around your vehicle
before you set off for the day. But yeah, I mean, you know, we we help these community cats throughout the year, take in as many as we can. But you know, they're they're they're in the hundreds of thousands throughout the state of Massachusetts.
So I have actually I've seen in my neighborhood occasionally what I know is a feral cat, and I've literally tried to, you know, sit down so that the cat and try to talk to them and see if they would come over. Even sometimes go inside and bring out a little dish of milk and leave it there, but they just have no interest in any interaction.
And they will, yeah, some don't.
But yeah, there's the survivors. They can absolutely you know there their instincts kick in and and you know, they do what they do to survive. But yeah, they're they're they're they're really really resilient. But you know, another point being that we are cold now, but we you know, the mild temperatures kind of stay a little longer, so we're still actually seeing kittens being born outdoors. And the kittens, of course, are very very susceptible to these types of uh,
these types of temperatures. So I mean, if you do see a mom and kittens out there in the neighborhood, in your yard, anywhere where they might hold up for some warmth and some safety, you know, you definitely want to give the animal rescu League of Boston a call, because we can certainly come out, bring them in, get everybody spade new their vaccinated and uh andry home.
So that's great.
That's always great to keep an eye out for them, for sure.
Is that's so great, Mike Defina, thank you so much. Animal Rescue League, easy to contact. Everybody knows how to get in contact with it. And if you do see some little kittens somewhere in the yard or somewhere like that, please take action. Okay, thanks Mike. Let's do this in a month or so, just to remind people because on different nights during the week, and would love to have you back.
Okay, well, of course anytime.
Thank you, Thanks Mike, Mike Defeina of the Animal Rescue League of Boston. Well, we get back on to talk with the great Harvey Silverglade and we're going to reflect back on what happened in New Orleans kind of in our rearview mirror. But there's a lot of this stuff going on. People are getting radicalized as some of these sites of the dark Web. We're going to talk to Harvey about what he thinks, as a civil libertarian the government should be able to do to try to neutralize
some of this activity. We may agree or disagree. I don't know. We haven't discussed it. It should be fun. Love to have you participate in the conversation as well.