NightSide News Update

It's Night Side with Dan Ray on BZ Boston's news video.

And ironically, Jansen was also the last batter in today's game in the bottom of the ninth for the Red Sox when he struck out and the game ended. So he was the last batter for the Blue Jays when the game was suspended, and the last batter tonight when the game ended a couple of months later. Pretty weird, one of those weird things in the world. My name's Dan Ray. I'm not weird. No no, no, no no.

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.

How difficult is it to get back into your Facebook account? I find Facebook a complete enigma. I mean, it's a mystery wrapped in an enigma. I have no idea. It's like a Gordian knot why we even do it. God only knows why this is easier than becoming an astronaut or becoming the president of the United States. I think.

You might be right. I found that once people lose access to that Facebook account, they're shocked by the way that they're kind of dumped into this, you know, healthscape of not being able to get support, not being able to get answers, and not being able to get back in.

So it's sort of like a modern day purgatory. You don't know, you can't get to heaven and you can't I mean, it's well, maybe it's a hell of sort. Seriously, why does Facebook make this so impossible? There's no way to contact anyone. I wish I had Zuckerberg's number and I'd call them directly. And Quesse, it's no longer even Facebook. What do they call it now? Metta?

Yeah, metas metas the umbrella you know company and then you've got the app Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp inside of there, and you know it's I'm glad you mentioned it because I've found this to be true for Instagram as well, that when people get locked out of their accounts, they really really struggle to recover them. And that's because it seems from the outside like Meta dedicates a starting start,

Do they actually care at all? Honesty? I mean you you really immersed yourself in this. I don't think they care. I really don't.

I think that you know, Facebook's real customers are advertisers. Right, it's free to use if you're like you and me. So you know, the people that are really beholden to are the people paying money and that, and that's not you and me. So I think that for them, the cost of helping people with account recovery might be higher than the cost of just losing a user here and there and just kind of letting them, letting them languish.

So is there any sort of I hate to bring up the whole question of morality because I think that we're not a particularly moral nation at this point. I think everybody wants to get what they can get. Does Facebook feel any sort of like moral obligation to the people who they have accepted as members? I mean, people have wedding pictures and babies pictures and important information on their Facebook account. Don't and you have too you know,

I think that's a beautiful question, and I think that while it's while it's totally impossible to answer, I'm sure there are individual employees a lot of these big tech companies who who might care deeply about users and who you know, want to make the world a better place. But I think that it's important as users of technology

They didn't.

They didn't care about you when you were in your account either, But now you're feeling I.

Think there's the solution is for Congress to take away that three twenty, that section three twenty protection from Facebook. That'll get their attention, that'll get the owners of Facebook's, the people who run Facebook's attention they have. They have a very protected realm. They can do whatever the hell they want, and they going to be immune from from all sorts of lawsuits. One of the few institutions in this country that is immune from any form of legal action, legal recourse. I think.

I was going to say, for anyone who's not familiar with section two thirty, it just means.

That thirty I misspoke. I meant to say two thirty I misspoke.

I pull, Oh, you're fine. Yeah, Like it just makes these companies, you know, they don't have legal liability for what their users post. And there have been instances where hackers have you know, posted, have posted you know, sex abuse material, have have you know, gone on to spread scams and fraud, and so that that happens as lower hackers get their hands on accounts and go on to post harmful stuff.

Every everything that is new is not necessarily good. I think that's that's the rule of thumb, and Facebook would be exhibit a in that in that category, Hunt Tatum, I really enjoyed our conversation. I'm delighted that there are people like you out there who know a lot about this stuff than I do. And I hope that I'm very serious. I hope that your work will basically mobilize people to say get to their members of Congress and say, hey,

Thanks for having me, You're very welcome.

When we get back, they say every dog has its day. Well, today is the day for every dog. It is National Dog Day. I'm going to talk with Aurora Velasquez about how we can celebrate National Dog Day back on nights out after this. Now back to Dan Ray Live from the Window World Nice Side Studios. I'm WBZ News Radio. Well, as I mentioned before, there's an old saying that every dog has its day. Well, every dog has a day today,

Thank you for having me.

That's how I end my show. My son has a Shorky who I spent a lot of the weekend with part Shorky, a Shorky, part Shitsu in part Yorky. My daughter has a beautiful, beautiful Corgie that she adopted from an animal shelter just about a year ago, and I was once the proud and happy owner of I think the best breed of all and that is a Cavalier

Yeah?

I love that question, especially today, So Best Friends Animal Society. You know, our goal is to help the whole country get to Nokie, and we want to see that happen in twenty twenty five. The great news about Massachusetts is you guys are almost there, and there are a couple of really easy ways to get there. Get a ninety percent savorate, which is how we define no kill. You know,

Yeah. Well that's what my daughter did. She actually went to the Situate animal shelter. She was looking for a corgy, and uh, I never realized what what what a lovable dog? Mustard the corky his it's just incredible or these are great? Yeah, I never realized it. I always thought of them as kind of be Queen Elizabeth's dog or something, and they would have to follow a few paces behind the queen or something. But oh, Jess wants to play. And when he sees you come downstairs in the morning, he howls

Weather certainly plays a part in it. You know, the laws of nature. Animals reproduce when the weather is nice and warm, and you know, are going to help young, fragile animals survive. So certainly areas of the country where a bit more temperate and they don't have the cold winters, we definitely see more animals, you know, born into the community. But also, you know, not every part of the country is as fortunate as the northeast when it comes to

So how can folks get in touch with your organization, Best Friends Animal Society and what can they do to help?

So everything goes through our website best Friends dot Org. One thing that I love to recommend to people when visiting our website is checking out our life saving dashboard and that can give you everything from a national overview of you know, what's happening in animal welfare across the country.

Sounds great, Aurora, Thank you so much, Thank you so much for what you do. Thanks for joining us tonight and keep us posted whenever you need to talk about this issue. Or we are all ears here on nightside. Trust me, we're all animal lovers here on nightside.

Sounds great. Thank you so much, very welcome.

And again, if you have a dog, or if it's not too late, there's still three and a half hours left in National Dog Day, him an extra give him or her an extra treat, maybe a hug. Let us sleep in the bed tonight. Whatever it is, Whatever it is, making a special day for your dog, and I guess you can do it for your cat as well, even though it is National dog damn sure, there's a National cat Day. Now. On the other side of the news break, which is coming up, we'll be talking about a Boston

Night Side with Dan Ray, I'm Boston's news radio.

All right, it's getting two of that season. Labor Day is that week away, okay, just just a week from today as a matter of fact, and all of us, of course, none of us are really happy about the passing of summer, but there's nothing we can do about it. But one of the great things about summertime in New England is you can get out, go to some area farms, pick some apples, or get lost in a corn maze. Joining us is Sabrina Lamb. She's a Boston Globe correspondent. Sabrina,

I'm doing very well. How are you doing?

You're just great. You wrote an interesting piece which we saw in the Boston Globe about a Boston celt esteemed corn maze up at Kimball Farm in Havevir. I think most people know about Kimball Farm. They've done this corn maze project for some time now. Tell us a little bit of the history of it, and tell us, obviously, there's good reason to pick the Celtics for corn maze this this year. They just won title number eighteen.

Yeah, so you're exactly right. They did pick this year to do a Celtics steamed corn maze in light of the eighteenth championship win. The owner, Tyler Kimball, and his wife are very big fans of the Celtics, and I've never done a Celtics themed corn maze, so they thought, why not do it this year? And I know their farm has been doing custom design corn maze since nineteen ninety nine, so this will be their twenty fourth annual

So I have never been to a corn maze. I have a friend of mine who got lost in a corn maze once. Uh, it's a fun experience. Have you ever done a corn maze yourself? You're up to I have no idea how high the coin is at this point, but I assume it's starting to get up up there by the end of August. Correct.

Yes, I've heard that it's very high. Unfortunately, I've never done a corn maze, which is surprising because I've done all the other fall festivities like pumpkin patches and state fairs and stuff, but never a corn maze. So I guess this one would be a good opportunity to go to my first one.

Now, tell as I understand it, there's a cost to participate, both for adults and kids that I think to some break for active duty military personnel, which is great. So it takes a lot of effort to create this corn maze. Anyone who has seen the people the picture in the globe tell us what the area of view shows. Besides eighteen, they also have Lucky the lepre call in the from obviously ten thousand feet or five thousand feet. What do you say?

Yeah, So that aerial picture was taken a little bit ago and put it on Facebook, and that's how the globe actually found the farm and the corn maze. So I spoke to Tyler. He said that the whole corn maze is dedicated to different Celtics little themes. So there's obviously the huge Lucky the Leprechaun on the right, and in the center is the number eighteen kind of over like a three leaf shamrock, obviously for their eighteen championship.

They basically cut it out and all of that. And how many did you get a sense from them, since they've been doing this for nearly a quarter century, how many people will venture up to haveoral to walk through whatever themed corn maze they have developed any year? Is I assume it's a pretty big attraction.

Yeah, yeah, I think that from my knowledge, it is a pretty big attraction for them because people in the area and just people Massachusetts in general, there's a big thing with just very fun family funding false festivities. So I know that also since this is like a very long running the thing they do, that it's been pretty

So did they give you some idea when you when you did the story as to how many people they might expect this year or any any estimates?

No exact number. Unfortunately I did not get an exact number.

Okay, but I was hoping maybe for an estimate. I assume that to do something of this complexity, it's not something It's not like someone mowing their back lawn on a half an acre and putting some of this. This is a huge project. It's it's it's there's a charge associated with going to it. I think, if I'm not mistaken, you did describe that in the Global article. What's what are the costs? It's it's not outrageously expensive, right.

No, I wouldn't say so. I think, let me check. It's fifteen dollars for adults, and then the four children who are at thirteen and under it's eleven dollars, and then there's an additional five dollars discounts for veterans and active duty.

So you can kind of just get lost in the corn maze and meet other people and wear your Celtics jerseys or whatever, and think about how good is going to be when they win in nineteenth title next year. And I think they have a pretty good shot at it because this team has stayed together, and I assume that at the farm there's probably some apple grooves and

Exactly.

All right, Sabrina, thanks very much for having joined us. We will follow this along and it'll be interesting. Maybe we'll have Tyler Kimball come on as we get a little closer to the day and he could answer some of those questions about how many They must have some idea about how many people will be going up there. I bet you they expect big crowds this year. So when when is it open? Now, by the way, that's that's my last question. Is it available this weekend? If

Point, so not just yet next weekend, not this upcoming weekend Labor day?

Okay, so at the weekend after Labor Day. Glad I asked that question, I would have had people Nightside listeners heading to Haveril to no Avail. It's always the question you almost don't ask, Sabrina. That is the most important of all. Thanks for hanging with me. Appreciated, Sabrina. We'll talk again, Okay.

Thanks, yes, of course, thanks.

All right, when we get back, our final guest tonight is going to talk about a very interesting phenomenon in the next thirty years. The population of Americans living to the age of one hundred and beyond. The centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next thirty years. We're going to talk with Katerina Schaefer, a research analyst at the Pew Research Center, Great Research Center. When we get back here on Nightside, stay with us. My name's Dan Ray.

Nightside Studios on WBZ, the news radio.

Well, if you're listening to Nightside, then I have some good news for you. The chances that you might live to one hundred are much better than the chances of your forebears. Your ancestors with us is Catherine, who's written incorrectly when I introduced her earlier. It's Katherine Schaeffer. She's a research analyst for the Pew Research Center. And Catherine, this is I guess one of your areas of expertise. How are you tonight? Right?

How are you?

Dan? Doing just fine? Doing just fine? Here? And look, everybody thinks, oh, you know, how long will I live? And now it looks like according to your research, our sentitinarian population will quadruple over the next thirty years. What's going on? I assume there's a number of factors that are at play here.

Yes, that is true. And I will say although the number of centenarians is growing and will continue to grow. It still is fairly unusual for folks to live to be one hundred. In the United States. Right now, there are only about one hundred and one thousand people who are one hundred years or older, according to the Census Bureau. So maybe a small, mid size city is worth Yeah.

Yeah, Well, Boston has a population about seven hundred thousand at night. During the day because of all the people coming in here becomes a much more active metropolitan area. So it'd be about one seventh of Boston's you know, maybe the size of Worcester or Providence, Rhode Island. But it's still a lot of people. I think. I read recently that the oldest living I think it was the oldest living American passed away last week at the age of one hundred and seventeen. We're just not built for

It is true, so US population sixty five and older in general is going to grow quite a bit over the next thirty years, and as a subset of that folks who are one hundred years or older. There are

I would also think that probably, and again I'm not a researcher here, but I would think that we o living in a society in a world when our jobs there were fewer of the dangerous jobs. I mean people used to There was a when we were an agricultural society that a lot of people who are working on the farm, and you you, when you're working with heavy equipment and a mistake is made, it can be very costly.

You know, it could well be. Like I said, my research didn't look too much at that. But I also imagine that, like I said, the healthcare aspect of it helps too. Rite So if you stub your toe, you're less likely to need to get it amputated.

I would think, oh, yes, I definitely would think so, but that that would be sort of the problem that people in white collar jobs would face. So also, the thing that is interesting to me that this year you mentioned that we have about one hundred thousand centurians centerarians. I should see sent ten aarians. Centenarians seventy eight seventy eight percent women, twenty two percent men. So did your research look at that factor at all or no?

Yeah, this is an interesting, interesting trend. So we know that women in general, pretty much anywhere you look in the world have longer life expectancies than men do, and there are a bunch of reasons for this, but this is kind of what you're seeing with this group of centenarians, right, because it's such a small portion of the population already. So any trend that is playing out in the wider population, you're going to see magnified here with this group of aging adults.

Oh sure, yeah, so.

Yeah, and we do see so over the next thirty years, we do see that men are going to make up a slightly larger percentage of the hundred plus population, but they'll still only be about a third. Women will far outnumber them even still.

But there's no reason for that that we know of, other than maybe what women are more intelligent and take better care of themselves than men. I'm still trying to figure that out out. I think it has.

I think it has. Like I said, not my my area of expertise, so there's much more reading that your listeners can do. But it does have something to do with like with body physiology you mentioned the very physical jobs before. Just typically men are more likely to be doing a very physical, laborious job. It's really hard on the body than women. And there are other factors too. But like I said, anywhere you look in the world, women have a longer life expectancy than men.

Now, is this something that you have studied and gone to school for I'm just curious, or at pure research is a topic assigned to you? I mean, you've been in a pure research for a while. How do you get to study this subject, which obviously is a very interesting subject? Is everyone hopes to live a full life. I'm just curious. Is it something that you guys have a luck of the drawer or you actually decide, Hey, that's something I'm interested in. Yeah.

So my background prior to Pew Research Center is I was a journalist and I studied or I've covered public education, so also studied it. So that's kind of my area of expertise. And a very cool thing about my job at Pere Research Center is on my team where like the data journalism division of Pere Research Center, So I get to cover a little bit of everything as long as there is a news angle that I can pitch

Now? Yeah, what your job is is this journalist and trying to get to the bottom of it and figure out, Okay, this you might you might identify the trend. But then some of the questions that I've been asking you, because I'm a journalist too, I'm always trying to figure out, well, why it's always that there's another question why, Like the little two year old kid who's who always asks why why is the sky blow? Well let's why why? Why? Why? Uh? And And clearly this is an area that that is

Yes, yes, we are based in Washington, d C.

It's a great organization. It's it's a great organization and I follow it fairly closely. And again, if this is just the perfect type story to look at and realize that that as our lives go by, very few of us will meet that we make this milestone. But all of us are fascinated, and all of us wonder, I'm sure, at some point in there in their own lives lives, how long will I live? And will I live to be one hundred? And the bad news is that the chances, the odds are not in favor of it. Folks don't

All right, Well, thank you so much, Dan, and I'd be happy to come on the air anytime. So thank you a call and enjoying the rest of your evening.

Will do that. I just have three more hours to do on the radio, so you can enjoy the rest of reading. I'm still working. Thanks much, Thank you very much. When we get back, when I talk with the State Arnor of the Comwalth in Massachusetts, one of our constitutionally elected offices officers, and Diana Desauglia has she I think is the most active state auditor in the history of the Commonwealth. And she is breaking barriers and she's she is someone who is not accepting of conventional wisdom. Let