NightSide News Update

It's night Side with Dan on WBZ Boston's radio.

Remember to call. I don't have the exact date, but I know the Red Sox truck leaves for spring raining about a month from now, first week in February. It's only yes, yeah, no, no. All we got to do is get through January. It's as simple as that. And then the sun is shining for so you know what I'm saying. Once that truck leaves, we're in good shape. Thanks to call, Nicole and I bonding over sports topics and scores and all of that. My name's Dan Ray.

I assume, uh, not quite.

Maybe we're cousins twice or three times removed.

Tough boxer, let me tell you, tough boxer. But we're going to not talk about boxing. We're going to talk about trends, top trendsing resolutions here in America, and how people can keep their their resolutions. I guess we don't do really well at that. I believe that there's a report out of the Pew Research Center. You're a Google tech expert, but I assume you're familiar with the Pew Research Center Research Center report that we're referring to.

Yeah, that's about forty people who make resolutions will give them one or all of them up in the first three weeks of the new year, and our hope is that we can motivate some people to keep those resolutions a little bit longer this year.

Yeah. It's interesting because I guess younger people, you know, younger people in the eighteen to thirty make about half of the resolutions. Well, miss seniors kind of like myself, people who are on the wrong side of fifty, they don't nearly approach young people. Why such a difference in an age approach to this and the approach of different ages to the concept of resolutions.

Yeah, that's a really good question. I wonder if maybe there's a little bit of influence from social media. There's a lot of interest in maybe going after your passions and your interests, and when you're seeing those things online, maybe it starts to influence how you think about your own time, like what do you want to do with your time? How do you want to take care of

Yeah, it's funny. I was thinking actually the opposite, meaning, if you're over fifty or sixty, you probably have messed up a lot of things in your life that you like to straighten out. When you're in your twenties, you haven't had too much time to mess things up yet. But I guess maybe your theory is it makes more sense to most in terms of there's also a disparity

Well, when we were looking at the data, we really looked at the aggregated data of what Americans were looking at. So when we talk about hobbies and interests, there wasn't interest in things like learning how to draw or maybe learning how to crochet, and things like making a sour

Also a big disparity on work or career issues. Older folks they kind of got to figure it out their work and career are sixty five and older. But people who were in that young trench, two thirds of them make resolutions about again career or their professional work.

So we actually saw a really interesting trend this year around careers. So people were either looking for how to choose a career that they love, change a career, or even start a career. And I know that for some folks maybe they don't know exactly what they want to do, so they may turn to a tool like people search

Of course, those people, those young people with archaeology majors, they don't have to worry about finding a job because there are no jobs in archaeology at this point, so that probably have a little bit of a factor as well. Not much about sports or activities. It looks like a lot about relationships with family and friends. Fairly tight shot group there what irrespective of the age, seems everybody is

Yeah, so we did see a huge interest in things like work life balance and wellness. Some of our top searches were around just how to have better mental health, how to how to communicate better, how to have better relationships. So it seems like people are really wanting to be intentional, apparently regardless of age, on creating better, stronger relationships with their friends and family, and we've seen that in our search data too.

Now you are is it a Google text tech expert? Is that that's the way I think it's. It's it reads here you're a Google tech expert? What does that mean?

So what we do as Google technology expert we look at how Google tools can help people on topics that matter most to them. So, for example, when we're talking about things like careers, we look at what people are searching for like how to maybe build their resume, and we have different tools that we look at. So, for example, our Grow with Google team has a really awesome interview warm up tool. So let's say you're about to go do some interviewing, you haven't done it in a while.

All right, well, Christina, I think you and I have bonded here tonight. So the next time that I can't get into my Google account, can I call you?

Of course, But I've just given you a hard time.

Give me your hard time. Check out the box of Carmen Basilio. It's a really good boxer fifties and sixties top son of a gun. You might be interested. Basila was not a very common name, as I'm sure you know, so you might be related after all. Thanks. You've been a great sport, Christine. Enjoyed having you on the program, and we'll have you back maybe. Okay.

Thanks, Happy New Year everyone, and good luck with your resolutions.

Yeah. I have no resolutions. It didn't make didn't make one because I always break them. I figured, why why make something that I know I'm going to break. But there's a lot of people out there who do have the resolutions. Thanks again, we'll talk soon, Thank you very much. When we get back, we're going to talk about making the food supply safer, healthier, and more resilientlliance more resilient with a woman who's the Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

All right, moving right along, we are now going to talk with Jenny Moffatt about making our food supply safer, healthier, and more resilient during disruptions and in the future. Jenny Moffatt. You are a former Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the US Department of Agriculture. Welcome to Nightside.

Thanks for having me, Dan, it's a pleasure to be.

On When were you serving in the Department of Agriculture? Are you a career you know GS fourteen or fifteen or resist the position that you held for a period of time or have you recently? Are you still holding it? It says former, So I assume this is in your past.

I'm actually still holding it. I am in the Biden Harris administration. So I will be on board until January twentieth, and then we'll transition to the Trump administration.

So okay, so everybody has to leave. You can't stay a little longer. Okay, fair enough, So tell us what what have you done? Tell what what successors you have? You know this area much better than I do. Tell us what you've done. We always hear about these food recalls, and there's a lot of that, and how much of it is proactive? How much can you anticipate or do you have to wait for a problem to develop and get the word out and you know, throw throw that,

Yeah, well, well, a lot of our work actually been on building a more resilient in local and regional food supply chain. And so, really, if we rethink back to the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic, there were lots of food supply chain disruptions we saw right all across

I was recently, matter of facturs this morning. I'm a big strawberries and banana and blueberries guy breakfast, and so I'm looking at my package of blueberries and I guess, and I realized they're not from Maine at this time of year, as they would be during the summertime. They're from Peru. Do we make sure that particularly fruits and vegetables that we're bringing in from outside other countries are safe that a lot of the you know, the chemicals that maybe we no longer use here in America are

Well, I'd say there's a handful of different processes to ensure the face safety of food. So there there's definitely government oversight between federal government as well as state government oversight of food that is being sold, whether that is food that is being produced here in the United States and sold or food that's being imported and sold as well.

So I mean, I get that if I'm you know, running a you know, a fruit farm or whatever, blueberry strawberries, that if I'm doing it in Maine or California anywhere in between, I assume that there are safety inspectors from the U. S d A who who can periodically show up and say, hey, what do you use and what aren't you using is the Is there any concern and I just am looking to actually feel better any concern about stuff that's coming in from overseas, you feel that

We do definitely provide oversight of product that's coming in from overseas. We also, you know, we're doing both food safety inspections for product that's coming in as well as food quality inspections. So we have inspectors at courts of entries looking at product and making sure that it meets the standards that are required for whatever the product might be.

Now, I know that you got those of you in USDA don't make policy. Obviously Congress makes policy. But as someone who is under Secretary for Marketing and regulatory programs, will you feel as confident when there's a change of administration, irrespective of whether it's from Democrat to Republican or Republican and Democrat, that the same good standards that you were involved with will be carried on with your successors.

Yeah.

So one thing I'll say, Dan, is the rules and the regulations continue. They might change over time, and it takes but it is a public input process for any of those rules and regulations to change, whether, of course you know it is through the congressional process or what we call our federal rule making process. One thing I will say is while I work at USDA and Biden administration, there are over one hundred thousand employees at USDA that

So where will your next career stop be? I mean, on a resume, it's pretty good to have under Secretary of Marketing and Regulatory Programs for the USDA. Where do you think your work will take You? Tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you get to that position? Not often we get a chance to talk with under secretaries here on Nightside.

Yeah.

Well, I grew up in agriculture. So I grew up on my family's farm in California. My family raises walnuts, organic walnuts, and so I grew up on the farm. It was very interested in agriculture from a young age. And after college worked in the nonprofit sector for a little bit and then came back to the farm and

So I've been.

Really excited about the work and just love the work that we've been doing at USDA in this administration. Back in twenty twenty one, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan and then at that time in the American Rescue Plan was five billion dollars for us to really transform that food system. And so when we got that money, actually it's four billion dollars, but still a significant amount of money. When we received that money from Congress, our first question.

Well, Jenny, thank you for what you've done in the USDA, and best of luck in your future career plans. I know your career will change a little bit on January twentieth, but I really thank you for all the work you've done and I appreciate you spending some time with us tonight. Thank you so much.

Thank you very welcome.

We get back on to talk about Boston's traffic. We rank fourth worst in the USA, twelfth in the world worst traffic. We spend about eighty hours those of us who commute eighty hours a year sitting in traffic.

Wow.

Dan Mozilla, director of traffic operations for the Total Traffic News Network, back with him on Nightside right after the news at the bottom of the hour.

You're on Nightside with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.

Thank you, Nicole, give you update on the Bruins. Unfortunately, the V's are down three nothing to the Edmonton Oilers as they come close to the end of the second period. With us now is Dan Mozilla. He's the director of Traffic Operations for TTWN Total Traffic and News Network right here in Boston. Hey, Dan Mozella, welcome back to Night's Side.

How are you Hey? I'm doing good. Dan. You know when you say the title, it actually like sounds grander than when I say as the people.

No, I know, I give it the broadcast presentation the director of co operations for TTWN. Oh yeah, that important.

So we now very important.

Had the fourth worst traffic congestion in the good old US of A behind I guess New York, Chicago and LA But even more importantly, we are we are the twelfth worst in the world. I think of all the countries and all the cities around the world where traffic is nuts in Paris, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Rome, and we're we're number twelve. That's quite an accomplishment.

It is and we don't even have the Olympics, and it's and you know it's bad, man.

I mean, wouldn't have been great to have had the Olympics back in twenty twenty five? Oh yeah, I mean that has gone perfectly.

It would have gone without a hitch, without a hitch.

Of course.

You can just see those opening ceremonies with the cars driving down the Charles.

Right, Yeah, exactly. It would be our own Olympic sports. It would be great. I would I would think I would get a gold medal in that.

Oh no, we had we had a lot of fun with that when they were thinking about that in terms of what, you know, I remember what they could do. But yeah, so look we're sitting. There's a lot of people who sit in traffic. I had never commuted nine to five one year. One year when I was a TV reporter, I was on like the ten to six shift, but always off hours, so I don't know the agony of sitting on the Expressway every morning at eight thirty.

I mean, I'm always I mean, I've always said that. You know, there's nothing express about the Expressway. It's it's a it's a terrible name, but it does mean something. It's the way the road is designed of why it's called the expressway.

Well there's also but there are a lot of people who do express themselves from behind the wheel.

One thousand, one thousand percent. They express with a verbal and nonverbal communication, as we call it.

Very important, very important, but they the I mean, look, can can realistically do we just have to throw up our hands? Can it or can it get worse?

It can always get worse, It can always always at worse. And right now, you know, I'm gonna go with the fact that you know, it's winter or right back from the holidays, people's routines are are still you know, not where they should be. So I think a lot of people in the winter definitely do a more work from home because you know, they got to people are getting sick. You know, we've got a lot like the flus on the rise, COVID on the rise, you you name it.

Well, I just think that intuitively, those of us who have driven in the Boston area for years, we know when the traffic is going to get really bad and we want to be out in it. Do you know, we don't want to be ahead of that curve of behind the curve. We want to be right in the middle of that curve.

C of course, of course you got to be there where everybody is, you know, because that's Boston. We all want to be around our friends.

Yes, on Sunday this past was it Sunday or Saturday? I think it was Sunday, so it was Sunday. You know, the city's kind of quiet. My wife doesn't like to drive on Storrow Drive, so we drove down Beacon Street about twelve thirty in the afternoon. It took like about fifteen minutes to get from Arlington Street down past Charles Street or from Barlington Street to Mass Avenue. There's two bike lanes on each bike lane on each si to Beacon Street.

Yeah.

Then of course there's the parking meters. Uh. Then there's cars that we have the special parking spaces. And then there's the people who double park their cars on a Sunday and literally in the middle of Beacon Street and cars are trying to it come down to one lane and there wasn't one police officer tagging anybody. It took about twenty minutes to get from again Arlington Street to ken Moore Square. I thought my head was going to explode.

Now, imagine doing that five days a week. Yeah, like almost like fifty weeks a year. You know that that.

Is a toleration, don't you think you do?

Yeah, a toleration. Another day, it's just just another day. And you know what when you when you only do it once, they're like, oh, this isn't that bad, this isn't the second day. Huh, all right, I can get used to this. Third day. All right, I'm finding another commute to work or and then on the fourth day, I'm working from home.

Now let me ask if this last question and I don't want to put you in the middle of a political kerfuffle here, But do we need more bike lanes to slow things down even more?

No, we we do not need any more bike lanes. They are they are, you know, as as environmentally friendly as they are. They have taken up a lot of space on the roads and that is part of our congestion problem.

By the way, do you know how much money Boston has spent on bike lanes. We'll take a guest.

Oh, guest, Oh, it's more than I think our salaries combined.

Speak for yourself. It's one hundred and twenty one that they've spent.

Oh yeah, Oh, I can't tell you the last time I rode a bike.

Hey, Dan Mozil as always, so, if if we get a snowstorm this weekend, let's hope it's on a Friday, because you know, we want to have some impact on traffic and give you something to talk about.

Okay, exactly, exactly, yeah, see see, I I want, I mean, everyone be safe. But yeah, let's let's talk about some uh, some congestion on STO Drive again.

Sounds great, sounds great, man, I love your calls. We have the same sort of sixth sense of humor, but we must.

Be related to It's definitely a Dan thing.

You got it. He thanks the dem Mozella, the director of traffic operations for t t WN Total Traffic and News Network Boston. Thanks Dan, talk to you soon.

Thanks Dan, everybody we.

Get back on to talk about the Titanic. Yeah, the exhibit which has now been extended because of popular demand right here in Boston. If you have missed it, we have some great news for you. Gonna talk with one of the event producers, Joe Gold, coming up on the other side of the break here on night Side.

Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.

All I want to welcome Joe Gold. Joe is one of the producers of the Titanic exhibit, which great news has been so popular that it has been extended. Its stay has been extended in Boston. Joe welcome. This is good news for people who haven't had a chance to get by to see the Titanic the artifact exhibition. How are you tonight?

I'm well, Thanks Dan, thanks for having me on again.

You're welcome, You're welcome. So really, the exhibit was going to the exhibition was going to close win.

It was going to close on February second, but the demand has been so fantastic. Nearly seventy five thousand people have come to see it, so we decided to extend it to June first.

So you're extending it not by four days or four weeks, four months, February, April and May. That is fabulous.

Now.

I remember that Boston, when we talked before, is one of the last major cities to host the Titanic artifact exhibition. Is my memory correct on that?

Your memory is exactly right. So in nineteen ninety eight, there was an exhibit of artifacts from the Titanic, but it was really just artifacts on their glass that people could come in and see, but there was no story behind it. This exhibit, which has toured probably every major city in the world, this is the first time it's been in Boston and it's been exceptionally well received.

So it's at what they call the Castle in Park Square.

Correct, that's right at the Castle at Park Plaza, and we're open Wednesday through Sundays, and the business has been really terrific. In fact, not only do we have an opportunity to see the Titanic, but I'm not sure if it's tomorrow. But once a month we do a promotion with Arthur Murray Dance Studios and you can learn to dance from the Titanic.

Wow, that's assuming you're able to learn to dance, but that's another story. Well, yeah, some of us are hopeless. So the thing that is so impressive about it is, I guess you actually see what it would look like the Grand Staircase. You know, a replica. Obviously the Grand Staircase. We know where that is. It's at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. But it's breathtaking. I've not seen it.

So in the exhibition, we've recreated a first class cabin, a third class cabin of a hallway from the first class deck. But as you said, the sort of the masterpiece of the exhibition is the recreation of the Grand Staircase. And when it came to installing it, first of all, we have to make sure that we had sufficient space because the towers up about thirty feet tall, and it's magnificent. People come in, they take their picture on the grand staircase,

Now all of us remember, I think that the Titanic sank the same month that Fenway Park opened, twenty twelve, and we remember the hundredth anniversary of Fenway Park and by extension, the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic. Refresh my recollection. Was this the first transatlantic trip that the Titanic had taken, or had it gone back and forth a few times before this disastrous voyage.

Now this was the maiden voyage. It had two stops, I believe, came out of the fast had two stops, and then it proceeded on its way to New York. And about two days before its arrival in New York, at late at night, it did strike the iceberg on April fourteenth, and it's sunk on the fifteenth, And you're absolutely right, that's the same year that Fenway Park opened.

Yeah, just an amazing coincidence. So let me ask you this. You said that this has been in cities around the world. Boston obviously because of it's you know, it wasn't coming to Boston, but because of the confluence of the opening of Fenway Park and we've all learned the movie The Titanic, et cetera. Is there as much interest in the voyage of the Titanic, the legend of the titan type the Titanic uh in cities worldwide as it is in places like England and the United States.

There is I just saw an article about two weeks ago that the producers of Titanic, of RMS Titanic signed a deal to take it to the Middle East. So it's going to play in Saudi Arabia, to play in United Arab Emirates, and it'll be there for about two or three years. So there's great interest from all around the world. And I believe one of the other exhibitions

So there are multiple exhibitions that the one in the Middle East. This the Boston exhibition is not going to leave Boston and head to the to the UAE correct that there's there's there's another exhibition in h in that part of the world.

Company that we took the exhibition from has a permanent display in Orlando, as a permanent display in Las Vegas, has two other touring exhibitions as well as the one that we have, and I believe for the Middle East they're creating a sixth unit that's going to be there. Since it was discovered and they first brought the first artifacts up in nineteen eighty seven, they brought up fifty five hundred artifacts. In Boston. We have about two hundred

So when you say in artifacts, people in Boston will be able to see actual objects which went down with the Titanic and have been.

Recovered, their personal effects from a number of the passengers. There's bathroom fixtures from the first and third class cabins. And in one area, which is particularly my favorite, is we have pictures on the wall of dishes that were at the bottom of the ocean. There's one of the deck benches that was there, and then in front of it in a glass case are the actual artifacts that

So just a crazy question from left field, and that is has this exhibit ever been in places around the world that we think are just far away, meaning Moscow, Tokyo, Peking How far a field has one or more of these exhibits actually experienced.

There's been to all these cities and more.

Okay, yeah, how many cities.

I was gonna say, I don't know how many cities, but thirty five million people have experienced Titanic.

I can just see the Titanic somewhere in Moscow. I'm thinking to myself, what would they know about it? But hey, it's it's worldwide. Okay, so how can folks still get tickets? Joe?

The tickets are available at Titanic Boston dot US. Just go online, pick the day in day and time that you'd like to see it, and tickets are available for all times, and especially now that we've opened up four additional months, there are plenty of tickets available.

Okay, this is great to talk to you again. It was fun to talk to you the first time. It was even more fun this time because I had to sort of deep into my head say okay, let me ask some questions that maybe he kind of answer, and you answered them. A great job, Joe, Thank you so much, the Titanic.

Man, and hopefully you'll get a chance to come see the show exhibition.

You know, Joe, I'm going to make it a point. I'm going to make it a point. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much. All Right, we get back. We're going to talk about issues a little closer to home. And the issue that we're going to talk about we come back is the inspections that are now finally, finally going to take place at some of the state run emergency shelters. It is a problem, It is a huge problem with implications far beyond the one arrest that has