August 8, 2025 • 39 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
A new AP poll finds that 86 percent of Americans are stressed over rising food prices and their ability to afford increased costs of living. How policy impacts prices that we pay for food, goods and services...
Guest: Dr. Frank M. Sorrentino - Political Economic Analyst & author of Presidential Power and The American Political System
How one Massachusetts company is quietly leading the Made-in-USA movement!
Guest: William Gagnon - Excel Dryer Exec. VP and COO
What are moon jellyfish? Why do they sting off Cape Cod but nowhere else?
Guest: Nicole Corbett – Local marine researcher – Director/President of the Popponesset Water Stewardship Alliance
Weekend Weather Forecast for Boston
Guest: AccuWeather Meteorologist Brian Thompson checked in!
A new AP poll finds that 86 percent of Americans are stressed over rising food prices and their ability to afford increased costs of living. How policy impacts prices that we pay for food, goods and services...
Guest: Dr. Frank M. Sorrentino - Political Economic Analyst & author of Presidential Power and The American Political System
How one Massachusetts company is quietly leading the Made-in-USA movement!
Guest: William Gagnon - Excel Dryer Exec. VP and COO
What are moon jellyfish? Why do they sting off Cape Cod but nowhere else?
Guest: Nicole Corbett – Local marine researcher – Director/President of the Popponesset Water Stewardship Alliance
Weekend Weather Forecast for Boston
Guest: AccuWeather Meteorologist Brian Thompson checked in!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I will take all of you to the weekend. It's
for some people it's the weekend right now tonight. But
for those of us who are still laboring in the field,
doing whatever you're doing, or maybe driving home from work,
it's not your weekend yet. We'll get you all the
way till Saturday morning. Good evening, everybody. My name is
Dan Ray, host of night Side Rob Brooks. Back in
(00:26):
the control room, Rob and I had kind of a
wild finish last night. Rob handled the situation with great apploum,
and it was it was an interesting five or seven minutes.
Right as the show ended, Rob and I think probably
most people have no idea what the heck was going on,
but you were under control and you studied the ship,
(00:48):
and I just want to say, did a great job
last night. We have some great guests for you lined
up tonight. We're going to talk about rent control. We
invited someone from the group that is pushing a ballot
Initia to for rent control. Unfortunately they were unable to
join us tonight, so we're going to talk with a
representative of the Great Boston Real Estate board, and then
at ten o'clock we will have with us a friend
(01:10):
of this program for many years. Make no mistake about it,
Alan Dershwitz, Professor of Law emeritus at Harvard Law School,
someone who I admired greatly and had some trouble purchasing
parogis down in Martha's vineyard, and it is blown up
into a huge story which in my opinion, my opinion
shows that the people in the world who think they
(01:31):
are the most tolerant of everything turned out to be
the most intolerant. I will explain that, and we'll talk
to Alan Dershwitz live. He didn't get his parogies, but
I think he made his points. We're going to start
off tonight talking with doctor Frank Sorrentino. He's a political
economic analyst and author of presidential power in the American
(01:53):
political system. Doctor Professor Sorrentino, welcome. The one thing I
know about presidents is that all of them, Democrats or
Republicans love to accumulate power. From Franklin Roosevelt right through
the current president. Good evening, sir, how are you tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I'm doing great. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Dan Well. I hope you feel that way at the
end as well, because I'd love to know what you're
talking about here tonight. Tell us about the book or
tell us about current events, whichever you'd prefer to chime
in on.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, we could talk about current events, and I think
a big topic is food and inflation, the effects of tariffs,
and the overall economy.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, well we could start with tariffs if you want.
The tariffs haven't had much of an impact yet, and
I know that ever since Liberation Day, some of my
friends who are economists on the left have been predicting
big spikes, big spikes, big spikes. Haven't quite seen those yet.
What do you see?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
We haven't seen them yet. Of course time will tell.
But I think the general consensus is that tariffs don't
cause inflation. Money supply causes inflation. Tariffs can affect the
individual prices, So there may be a spike in prices
(03:25):
of things coming from abroad from different suppliers and domestic
suppliers who have parts that come from countries that are
received tariffs. But what we could say is that so
far that has not taken place. And then the first
term of the Trump presidency, we did not see it,
(03:48):
although the tariffs in the second term are broader and
more extensive.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It appears to me, and I am not an economist.
I'm a lawyer by training, and I don't know as
much about the economy as you do, but it appears
to me that the president currently is playing the game,
and it's kind of a bait and switch game from
where I'm looking, and that is that he's threatening big, big, big,
big big tariffs and then he backs off on it
(04:17):
and comes to somewhere that's a little better for us,
in his words, that he's leveling the playing field. Do
you buy into that at all?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I do. It's part of the art of the deal,
if we could use his own book. But what we
do have is a situation in the United States where,
since the nineties in particular, although some people will go
before that, is that the corporations and the economic elites
(04:51):
had a business plan, and that business plan was to
move production to offshore and then to guarantee that they'd
be low tariffs in the United States through their political contributions.
And that's had a devastating effect to what we sometimes
(05:13):
or euphemistically call the Roust belt of the country. And
that devastation is the motivation for many people to put
Trump into the White House a second time. And I
don't know if people fully recognize how many people not
only lost their jobs, but their jobs that were replaced
(05:36):
were at a much lower salary, less stability, less benefits.
So there was a situation that I think was very
serious and had a tremendous impact on the lives of
millions of Americans.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
There was a time, and I don't think I'm wrong
on this, when a lot a lot of our computer
chips were actually manufactured in Puerto Rico, and there was
a law passed in nineteen ninety six which Newt Gingrich
and Democrats came together on which basically allowed, you know,
(06:15):
computer chips and medicines that are so vital for all
of us to be moved overseas. So I don't want
to use the phrase, I don't want to fall into
the globalist phraseology, but I think you're correct when you
talked that there when I think the point you're making
is that there were people in positions of power who
(06:36):
said what's good for the corporation again back in the
nineties is good for us, but it wasn't necessarily good
for people who earned who were blue collar workers and
factory workers in America.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Then I think you're absolutely right. And you may recall
in nineteen ninety two, in nineteen ninety six, HRUs Parole
was famous not only for being a third party president,
but he had that great line that he could hear
the sucking sound of jobs going to Canada and Mexico.
(07:11):
And then later on in the nineties, we admitted that
China to the World Trade Organization, and then Sina becomes
the factory of the world. So everything just accelerated geometrically,
and as you said, the large parts of the blue
collar contingency of America was devastated where they had once
(07:37):
good livings and now some of the things are going
to change anyway, to automation and other changes. But this
was a planned decision and it made tremendous amounts of
money for some of the large corporations in America.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The best thing that I see, and if again, if
I'm going to correct you, I want you to help
me out. The best thing that I see right now
is that, for whatever reason, gas prices have seemed to
have stabilized, I can actually find gas prices here on
Cape cod which is a vacation mecca. Normally they are
(08:14):
a good ten percent higher than what you get back
across the bridges. If you know the geography of Massachusetts,
gas prices from the cape are like in the two
to eighty range for just you know, for regular gas.
And as long as gas prices stay low, that's going
to work against inflation because one thing that will really
(08:35):
fire inflation up is higher gas prices, higher diesel prices
to get products to market. Whatever it is that's going
to be built into the price of the products that
are transported by higher gasoline prices if they were to come.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Energy is part of every production, that includes farm products,
that includes industry, auto work, other factories. When you also
the transportation of goods throughout the country. As the price
of energy goes down, that has ad inflationary dimension. Now
(09:14):
what we're basically talking about is maybe a supply side
view of this. If you can increase the energy supply,
the price will go down. In fact, we know from
January twentieth the price was about seventy seven dollars and
now it's sixty three dollars. Yep, that's a significant decline.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Sure, that's close and on.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Top of that, Yeah, the price of gasoline or energy
in general was affected by looking at the various reservoirs
that we had where we were restoring oil and gas,
and that was being manipulated. What we have is, in effect,
(10:03):
many outlets for energy were deprived, and also the infrastructure deprived.
And infrastructure does not rebound overnight. It takes years to
build pipelines, to build refineries, to engage in drilling. So
I think the prospects are good, although we have to
(10:23):
be I think a little bit cautious. Labor costs are high,
and some of the expenses of the high. And while
you made temper inflation, it's very hard to really bring
back lower prices from the pre inflationary period. So I
think that sixty dollars a barrel is pretty good. I
(10:46):
don't know if we'll ever get down to thirty dollars
a barrel. I think that may not be possible in
the modern.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Network without something like COVID. If I recall during the
early days of COVID, when there was no desire for
anybody to leave their home, the prices of a barrel
of oil were actually in the negative.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
They were actually you're absolutely right matter of fact, the
government interfered to raise the price.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It was well, Doctor Sarantina, I've enjoyed our conversation. The
book is Presidential Power in the American political System. You
and I are very much on the same page, I suspect,
and I'm delighted because I know you're probably a lot
smarter than I am. And whenever I can find myself
(11:36):
in alignment with someone who's smarter than me, it makes
it makes it for a good start to my program.
Thank you very much, Professor Sardine.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
You it's always a pleasure to talk to you, and
good questions elicit my own thinking and positive feedback.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Thank you very much. Have a great weekend, Professor. We
only get back. We're going to talk about a Massachusetts
company who was quietly making it in Massachusetts, leading the
Maid in the USA movement, Excel Dryers from East Long Meadow, Massachusetts.
We're going to be talking with the executive vice president
and COO of Excel Driyers back on Nightside. My name
(12:15):
is Dan Ray. No phone calls, but you could if
you want, just go to our talkback feature on our
IHAT radio app and hit that red microphone. Send us
a message. Compliment criticism either way. I'll explain to you
a little bit later on. If you don't know how
to get the app, we'll explain how I get the
app as well. Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
All right, welcome back. Oftentimes we hear about making it
in Massachusetts or making it in the USA. We talk
a lot about what is going on in terms of
the world economy. But I'm delighted to welcome William Gagnan.
He is one of the leaders of a company in
(13:01):
Massachusetts that frankly I didn't know much about. It's accelerated
hand dryers out of East Long Meadow and they have
been making it in Massachusetts for a very long time.
William Gagnan, Welcome to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
I'm great?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Thank you, Dan, So tell us about your company. How
you've been around for a while out there in East
Long Meadow.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Yeah, it's uh, it's a funny story a little bit,
but it's a family run company out of East Long Meadow.
My my dad had a lot of manufacturing experience and
he bought a local manufacturing company that happened to make
hand dryers. And and what year what year we talking about?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We talked about somewhere in.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
The nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Okay, that's that's more recent than I thought.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
So well, it was started in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Okay, so it was started by someone else. Your dad
bought it. This is a privately held company.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
It is now. Yeah, it's a family run company. So
him and I own it together.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, it was. It was interesting when I read about it.
These are a lot of the hand dryers that when
you go into a restaurant or a public facility, you
don't have to worry about. You just hit the button
and the and the air drives your hands. Is that
the product line that that you folksactur.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Yes, but I will tell you that that's the old
product when you hit the button, and yeah, that he
had to, you know, wipe your hands on your clothes
to dry it. But what we did is we created
a better one.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Okay, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
So when my father bought the company, he realized he
made a product that people didn't like to use. Even
though it was a cost savings product, it was better
for the environment. It didn't really work. It didn't dry
your hands, and so he instant Lee had to shift
to say, hey, I got to create a better mouse trap.
And he ended up aligning with an invent company out
(15:09):
of Boston, Massachusetts that were literally former rocket scientists from
raytheon and they all went to MIT and they came
to us with an idea of moving air faster. And
they called all the handwriting companies out there, and my
father was the only one that replied back. So that
(15:31):
basically led to us together inventing the first fast speed,
high efficiency hand driver.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Sure. So in other words, if obviously, if the if
the air comes out slowly, it's less efficient, but when
you hit your products, you can hear it and you
can feel it, uh, and it's effective. So where is
the company? How many people do you employ out there
in East Long Meadow?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
So we're about at fifty five plus right now. We're hiring.
We continue to grow. We just finished our sixth expansion
on the facility at East Longmeadow. But they're still all
made right there, and they're shipped all over the world.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
All over the world. I mean, give me a name
of a couple of countries that I would we recognize,
or maybe a couple they wouldn't recognize. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Well, one story that I personally love is that we're
have a great distributor in the United Kingdom and we're
in Wembley Stadium and Heather Airport, which is where Dyson
is headquartered and their competitor, but they chose our hand
dryer over theirs. We just put six hundred hand dryers
(16:48):
into the new Istanbul Airport that's being built, which will
be the largest airport in the world, and they tried
hand driers from all over the world and chose ours.
So that just happened. And we're in World Cup stadiums
in South Africa that date back to when it was there.
(17:09):
So we really have a lot of signature places all
over the world where they're choosing the American made East
Long metal made hand drier over others.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, you were head of the curve here because I
think that the White House wants to bring manufacturing back
to America. You never left, and I thank you and
your company for the people that you've employed. You said
you're hiring. If there are people in my audience who
want to get in touch with the company, give us
a website, because there's someone out there who would like
(17:38):
to learn more about the company. I'd love to be
able to get them in touch with you.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Well, that'd be wonderful, thank you. It's Excel Dryer dot com.
And we're looking for engineers, marketing people across the board.
We're growing fast and we love some local Massachusetts talent.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Give me that one more time. It's Excel draw Hire
dot com.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Is that it e x C E L d R
y e R dot com. Perfect and would love to
hear from people.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, William, thank you very much. Every once in a while, uh,
as matter of fact, we will do a show and
we'll have people calling in about how they're doing. And
people are always staying there. They're having a tough time
finding a job or whatever. And I assume that you
have some jobs that people have a prerequisite set of skills,
(18:29):
certainly in the engineering department, But do you have jobs
where people can learn and can can can be taught
how to help your company as well?
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Absolutely. We we build from within, We hire from within,
and we have open positions in our factory line right
now as well, so from top to bottom, and and
we invest in our people and we try and grow
them professionally. So when they come to us, we feel
(19:03):
like it's a career. We don't want them to leave.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
William, you represent some some older values, but tried in
true and trusted values. And I just say you are
a head of the curve and you really represent Massachusetts
remarkably well. And thank you for what you do. And
thank everyone at Excel Dryer for what they do for
(19:27):
the company and for all of us and for our country.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Thank you, sir, well Dan, thank you very much. But
I just have to apologize to you. You now have
the curse. And every time you go into a bathroom.
Now you're going to start looking and you're going to
notice what's inn there. You won't be able to get
rid of it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Now, I will be proud to say this hand this
hand dryer was made in Massachusetts and even more importantly,
made in the USA. Thanks will I really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It, right, thank you?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
All right, all right, we have the news at the
bottom of the art count app. Let me just for
those of you who don't have the new improved iHeart
Radio app. It's a cool way to become a part
of the night side broadcast. I have been pushing for weeks. Now,
you as a listener, you as a caller, a part
of this broadcast. Yeah, I'm part of it as the host,
(20:19):
but without you, without you as a listener, without you
as a caller, there's no need for night Side. You
can utilize our talkback feature on the iHeart Radio app.
You got to download this free and improved and new
iHeart Radio app. Just go to your app store. You
can bring it, put it on your laptop, on your desktop,
(20:39):
on your tablet, on your smart watch, whatever. Okay, you
put it on and in the upper right hand corner
there is a microphone talkback button in red. You just
hit that button and you can send us a personalized
audio message. You can compliment us, you can criticize us,
you can constructively criticize us. Got to keep it clean.
(21:01):
We are FCC regulated, and we will play that back
on the air. It's that simple. Once again, hit the
red microphone button in the top right corner of the
app while you're listening to Nightside, or while you're listening
to WBZ during the day, and you just say, look,
I want to leave this message for Nightside or whatever.
Send us that audio message and you'll probably hear it
(21:22):
on your radio. All right, go take a break. Coming
right back on Nightside after the news at the bottom
of the hour.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's Nightside with Boston's News Radio. Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
We are going to talk about Look, the word jellyfish
has always terrified me from the time I was a
little kid, which is a long time ago. But when
you add the adjectives of the stinging moon jellyfish off
Cape Cod, I don't even want to go near the
(21:57):
ocean with us. Is Nicole Corbett. She's a local marine researcher,
director and president of the Pompanessen Water Stewardship Alliance. Nicole,
welcome to Nightside. How are you this evening?
Speaker 5 (22:10):
And well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Well, thank you very much. I hope that you're not
in the presence of a stinging moon jellyfish. We all
know what a jellyfish is, but I didn't realize that
we were distinguishing between various types. Tell us about the
stinging moon. This guy sounds like someone I don't want
to get anywhere near.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
No, this has been a bit of a wild story
that started when I was a teenager back in two
thousand and seven. There are various species of jellyfish that
are off the coast of Massachusetts. Some of them are
some of them, you know, stinging ones, and some of
them have things that are not supposed to impact people,
(22:55):
and moon jellies are supposed to be one of those
more harmless species. And when I back in two thousand
and seven, I saw this very large moon jelly washing
it into popin Esse Beach, where my grandparents had a
summer cottage, and I was a very nerdy science kid
and said, oh, it's that's awesome. It's a moon jelly.
(23:18):
And I wanted to try to pull it back out
two more oak water, and when I came in contact
with it, it stung me pretty good, and I was
I was quite surprised. That experience stuck with me for
up until this point when we started doing all this research.
(23:39):
Back in twenty thirteen, I was an intern at the
New England Aquarium in visitor education and one of the
parts of the job is to work with some of
the jellyfish there. And I was talking to researchers and
aquarus and I said, you know, yes.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's you know, it's one thing like working with the
puppies at an animal shelter, but to work with moon jelly,
stinging moon jellyfish go ahead, I interrupted you. Unfortunately, no, no.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I joke, I go.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
I kind of wish I worked with dolphins or turtles,
but we ended up falling into jellyfish. But I when
I was interning at the aquarium, that was one of
the pieces in the visitor Education department was to work
a little bit with these jellyfish. And I explained, I
don't want to work with these they sting, and the
(24:35):
aquarius and researchers were saying, we've never heard of a
stinging moon jellyfish, and I said, well, where I am
down the cape, we're getting these very large ones that
sting almost every summer. And so at that point I'm thinking,
maybe I'm just have a really bad reaction to jellyfish
and there's something odd. But when I started working with
the ones at the aquarium, there was no reaction, no sting, nothing.
(25:00):
So fast forward through the twenty tens, down in mash Pee,
Foulmouth and Barnstable, people are reporting that they're being stung
by what they believe are moon jellies. And additionally, these
jellyfish starts stinging people without being in direct contact with
(25:24):
the jellyfish. The jellyfish could be a foot away and
people are feeling the impacts of the stick and.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Something.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
So that's what we're trying. So, you know, this is
before I start really delving into this and I go,
this is something going on. There's no way that this
is quote unquote normal moon jelly behavior. So back in
two thousand and twenty one, I'm a very avid open
water swimmer and I have a little underwater camera I
(25:56):
take along with me, and I like taking pictures of
different marine species underwater, and I started taking pictures of
some of these moonjellies and posting them to the Pilmouth
Wildlife Facebook page, and the director of the time at
the Marine Biology LABT Woods Whole, looks at my photos
and says, I want to come out to pop in
Assea Beach and we're going to take a look at
(26:17):
these because I believe what you're saying. And this was
the first time that someone had said they believed that,
you know, this moon jelly was delivering impactful things. We
have pictures of the stings, pictures of the species. So
he comes out and says, go get this genetically tested
at Northeastern University. So at the time, the nonprofit was
(26:41):
just starting the pop and Nessa Wire Stewardship Alliance. We
were just getting this going. I In twenty twenty three,
we collect tissue samples from several moon jellies along pop
Andessea Beach, have it sent to Northeastern for analysis, and
the results come back and say that they do not
mass known moon jellies that had already been genetically tested, which.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Means which means I'm going to push you a little
bit here on time.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
So oh yeah, no, absolutely, so there was some sort
of genetic variation. This was not a genetic match. So
this is some type of variant moon jelly. So what
we're doing today is we've collaborated now with research institutions
throughout the country to try to figure out what is
going on with the jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
She discovered inadvertently a new species of.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Jellyfish, maybe a new subspecies of moon jelly or some
moon jelly that was from a completely different location that
somehow has established a very localized population in Nantucket.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Sound wow, wow boy, that that is interesting. How just
a couple of quick questions at the end here, yeah common?
Or how prevalent are these now called stinging moon jellyfish?
Are there are a lot of them that people need
to worry about it when they're waiting, you know in
(28:06):
ankle deep knee deep water, but you have to get
out a little deeper than that.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
So it's actually very tied and wind dependent. So and
it really depends on the year too. Back in twenty
twenty three, we had hundreds of these washing into the
beach and there was a period of time in late
July and August. You can not go in the water
with the number of jellyfish they have washed in.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And the ones that Washington did dead they're washing up.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
No they were oh they were no, they were like
rate and shallow water. They were alive and.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Good news. So the problem so much good news for
the people who are on the beach were go ahead. No.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
So they so really depends on the year there they
go through kind of boom bus cycles. There are some
years we have a yeah, so we have a moderate
number this year.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So it's not let me ask you this nical, what
advice would you give to people who not necessarily the
people going out, you know, in ten feet of ocean water,
they know what they're doing, But the person who's kind
of waving along, what advice would you give them other
than stay out of the water.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Oh, keep your eyes open, because that it's always good
if you're going anywhere near the ocean to be vigilant.
If you feel like you are having some sort of
like sting or reaction to something, probably get out of
the area because that probably means the same or what
of these jelly fish are nearby?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Okay, Nicole, you're a great sport. Again. I learned a
lot about a species that I had that I knew
nothing about. But I got to tell you. You have
not induced me to head to the to the beach time.
I will stay at least thirty yards on the dry sand,
make sure that there are no jellyfish nearby. And the
(30:03):
other thing, which I don't understand and I shouldn't ask you.
This might be a long question, but supposedly every species
has a purpose. You know, I still don't understand what
the purpose of mosquitoes are, but we'll leave that outside.
What did these stingy moon jellyfish bring to the world? What? What?
What is their purpose? Is there any positive thing about
(30:25):
the They're not cute, they don't sit up and do trigs? What?
What's is there a purpose?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
And no?
Speaker 5 (30:33):
So they may help to keep a smaller jelly organism
species in check that eats oyster larvae, which is not
a good thing. We like oysters. They help with water quality.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
The other thing.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Jellyfish are great food for some species of turtles. So
when they leave Nantucket's Sound and they head out to
open ocean, the leatherback turtles, they're waiting to eat jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It's a buffet. Okay, thanks so much, iCal, appreciate thank you.
Just want to get more information. Can they follow you
or get more information on these these stinging moon jellyfishes
or a website you can offer us.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yep, yes, so poppywater dot org poppywater being one word.
We are also the Popiness at Water Stewardship Alliance on
Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And I'm sure poppy water is spelled p opp y
w A D E R.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Yep, that's right, got it, dot org.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Okay, thank you so much, Nical appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Having good night.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
All right, we get back. We're going to talk with
an acuweather meteorologist about the weekend weather. Old friend Brian
Thompson will join us and give us a look ahead
for tomorrow and Sunday and even a peak into next
week when I'm pretty sure it's going to warm up considerably.
My name is Dan Ray and this is Nightside. Let's
keep it rolling here all the way to midnight.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well weather is something we all always talk about. Every
day of the year. Weather forecast is oftentimes leading the news,
but during the summertime, on a Friday night, I think
it's almost imperative. And we had delighted to have Brian Thompson,
ACCU Weather meteorologist with us. And Brian, this summer has
been kind of the summer not of smog, but the
(32:21):
summer of smoke. But the smoke is dissipating and we've
had a couple of really nice days, but the really
nice days are about to warm up. How are you tonight, Brian?
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I'm doing fine, Dan, How are you good?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Not looking to steal the leave here, but can you
give us maybe the weekend Tomorrow is supposed to be
pretty nice day, but it's going to get warm beginning Sunday.
As I understand that, tell us what's going on.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Yeah, the temperatures are going to be rising over the
next couple of days. Like you said, it's been very
pleasant the last couple of days, and the sky's.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Been looking a little cleaner again.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
How about that, U?
Speaker 6 (32:55):
Yeah, and in the summer that. Like you said, we've
been dealing with this for really off and on since June,
even the end of May. I mean, we've just been
talking about the smoke coming down, and the problem's been
anytime we get more comfortable air moving on in it
comes from Canada, it's been kind of pulling the smoke
with it. But we've had more of an easterly flow
(33:16):
developing and that's helped to push the smoke more to
the west. And it's going to give us a pretty
sunny weekend ahead. As we have a big area of
high pressure sitting nearby, it's going to kind of act
as a shield to keep any rain away from us.
And Tomorrow is going to be a very nice day.
Highs will be upper seventies near the coast. I think
most inland spots will be in the loads of mid eighties.
Temperatures do rise considerably. Sunday will be in the mid
(33:37):
to upper eighties. I don't think it's a bad day,
though the humidity is still going to be pretty low,
so it is going to be warm, especially if you're
in the sun Sunday afternoon, you're going to feel it,
but it won't be that really humid weather we've had
a lot of this summer, but.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
But next week it's going to be toasty.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
Yes, we could be certainly looking at a heat wave
across parts of the area. There might be some wonkiness
around the coast at Logan Airport with some sea breezes
that may kind of keep temperatures maybe a little below
ninety and maybe prevent a true heat wave. But I
think as you get away from the water, it's looking
more and more like we're gonna have a heat wave
from Monday to Wednesday. High temperatures in the load to
mid nineties Monday. The humidity is going to be in
(34:18):
the process of rising. It won't be maybe as humidis
as it will be into Tuesday and Wednesday, but certainly
going to be an increase in humidity after Sunday and
as this heat gets underway early next week. So again
expect the high temperatures ninety to ninety five accuate weather
real field temperature is probably in the ninety five to
one hundred degree range as that humidity starts to increase,
(34:39):
and then maybe later next week there are some signs
the heat will ease up a bit.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Do you think that will be the end? You know,
you guys look at long term cycles much more than
the weather guys talk about on TV. But I know
you guys are real meteorologists. Although the weather guy's a
meteorologists to it, but I really trust Aki Weather to
be honest with you. Do you guys look at stuff
(35:05):
long range and say, Okay, this is going to be
the end of the heat. I always think of the
last full week in July as invariably the hottest week
of the summer, But this coming week might actually be
hotter than the last week of July. How uncommon is that?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Not terribly uncommon?
Speaker 6 (35:27):
When you look at the climatological averages, mid to late
July is pretty much the hottest time of the summer.
It's when our average temperatures are the highest. The average
high in Boston's the highest from about July sixteenth to
about the twenty second, So climatologically speaking, that's usually the
hottest part. But there are many years where we get
heat waves deep into August. It's not uncommon to have
(35:50):
ninety plus degree days into September. Especially in recent years,
the autumns have been a little slower to develop. We've
had warmer weather deeper into autumn. That's been a trend
seen in recent years, and so it's not uncommon at
all to see ninety degree tempts into September. Now now,
as we get toward the end of August into September,
I tend to find that the anytime we get heat,
(36:12):
it's not usually as humid as it is in the
middle of summer. A lot of times the heat's a
little drier as we head into the fall, but certainly
can get some hot weather pretty deep into the summer
and even into early autumn.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
Okay, my final couple of questions, how are the tropics looking?
All of a sudden, I'm noticing on the weather boards
on television they're showing us this little area off the
coast of Africa, Eastern Africa, and this little area down
in the Caribbean. Any of that stuff starting to concern.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
You, It's a little too early to say concern. We
are going to be watching there's a disturbance outhing the
kind of between Africa and let's say Puerto Rico right now,
even if that system develops, it's going to turn more
to the north. It's the one behind it that's just
emerging off the coast of Africa. Now that one bears,
(37:05):
with perhaps a little more watching, that one may stay
a little bit farther to the south. If you have
been on the weather boards, you may have noticed people
talking about some of our computer models have been positioning
some storms off the near the East coast in about
two weeks time. And again it's something we will have
to watch these as as these systems come off the
(37:26):
coast of Africa. But it's way too early to say
there's any threat to the East coast just yet. But
we are anticipating several storms developing during the month of August.
So it does appear after what's been a relatively quiet
start to the tropical season, it does seem like it's
going to be heating up a bit over the over
the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Okay, anybody who watches the weather maps knows that our
weather in the United States moves from west to east,
or moves from the Gulf of Mexico a over to
Carolina and then up up the East coast. This stuff
coming out of again the Eastern Atlantic, the lower Eastern Atlantic.
(38:06):
That sort of counterintuative that it's going to come at
us from that direction is that because that's in the
Southern hemisphere and things are going in opposite directions in
the south southern hemisphere. What's the science behind that.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
You're talking about the stuff coming off of Africa. Yeah, yeah,
that what the reasoning is. As you're farther south that
in that case, and as these get closer to the
East coast, we're still into the summertime here, the jet
stream still is generally off to the north or at
least farther north this time of year, so that kind
of leaves the door open for these storms that are
(38:39):
generally moving westward. That's kind of the prevailing flow in
the summertime and even into the autumn months from Africa
toward the toward the Caribbean. Everything kind of moves from
east to west in that region, and then as they
start to move to the north, a lot of times
they'll get pulled by systems and fronts that are moving
from west to east across the country and that can
(38:59):
help steer those yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Still stem back into the colder waters. Of the North Atlantic.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
I guess yeah, kind of pull them northward. We see
that a lot of times. But it's just these sometimes
very subtle things in the atmosphere that helps steer these
these massive storms.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Great every time I talk to you, Brian and learn
a little bit more about whether, I appreciate your patience
with my questions and I appreciate your time tonight, and
have a great weekend. I hope you got a couple
of days off.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I do, Danna. I hope you have a good weekend too.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Thanks very much, Brian Thompson of AKI Weather AKI Weather Meteorologists.
When we come back, we're going to talk about an
effort to restore rent control in Massachusetts, which could actually
be on the ballot statewide in twenty twenty six. My
name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on a Friday night.
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going easy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I will take all of you to the weekend. It's
for some people it's the weekend right now tonight. But
for those of us who are still laboring in the field,
doing whatever you're doing, or maybe driving home from work,
it's not your weekend yet. We'll get you all the
way till Saturday morning. Good evening, everybody. My name is
Dan Ray, host of night Side Rob Brooks. Back in
(00:26):
the control room, Rob and I had kind of a
wild finish last night. Rob handled the situation with great apploum,
and it was it was an interesting five or seven minutes.
Right as the show ended, Rob and I think probably
most people have no idea what the heck was going on,
but you were under control and you studied the ship,
(00:48):
and I just want to say, did a great job
last night. We have some great guests for you lined
up tonight. We're going to talk about rent control. We
invited someone from the group that is pushing a ballot
Initia to for rent control. Unfortunately they were unable to
join us tonight, so we're going to talk with a
representative of the Great Boston Real Estate board, and then
at ten o'clock we will have with us a friend
(01:10):
of this program for many years. Make no mistake about it,
Alan Dershwitz, Professor of Law emeritus at Harvard Law School,
someone who I admired greatly and had some trouble purchasing
parogis down in Martha's vineyard, and it is blown up
into a huge story which in my opinion, my opinion
shows that the people in the world who think they
(01:31):
are the most tolerant of everything turned out to be
the most intolerant. I will explain that, and we'll talk
to Alan Dershwitz live. He didn't get his parogies, but
I think he made his points. We're going to start
off tonight talking with doctor Frank Sorrentino. He's a political
economic analyst and author of presidential power in the American
(01:53):
political system. Doctor Professor Sorrentino, welcome. The one thing I
know about presidents is that all of them, Democrats or
Republicans love to accumulate power. From Franklin Roosevelt right through
the current president. Good evening, sir, how are you tonight.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I'm doing great. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Dan Well. I hope you feel that way at the
end as well, because I'd love to know what you're
talking about here tonight. Tell us about the book or
tell us about current events, whichever you'd prefer to chime
in on.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, we could talk about current events, and I think
a big topic is food and inflation, the effects of tariffs,
and the overall economy.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, well we could start with tariffs if you want.
The tariffs haven't had much of an impact yet, and
I know that ever since Liberation Day, some of my
friends who are economists on the left have been predicting
big spikes, big spikes, big spikes. Haven't quite seen those yet.
What do you see?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
We haven't seen them yet. Of course time will tell.
But I think the general consensus is that tariffs don't
cause inflation. Money supply causes inflation. Tariffs can affect the
individual prices, So there may be a spike in prices
(03:25):
of things coming from abroad from different suppliers and domestic
suppliers who have parts that come from countries that are
received tariffs. But what we could say is that so
far that has not taken place. And then the first
term of the Trump presidency, we did not see it,
(03:48):
although the tariffs in the second term are broader and
more extensive.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It appears to me, and I am not an economist.
I'm a lawyer by training, and I don't know as
much about the economy as you do, but it appears
to me that the president currently is playing the game,
and it's kind of a bait and switch game from
where I'm looking, and that is that he's threatening big, big, big,
big big tariffs and then he backs off on it
(04:17):
and comes to somewhere that's a little better for us,
in his words, that he's leveling the playing field. Do
you buy into that at all?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
I do. It's part of the art of the deal,
if we could use his own book. But what we
do have is a situation in the United States where,
since the nineties in particular, although some people will go
before that, is that the corporations and the economic elites
(04:51):
had a business plan, and that business plan was to
move production to offshore and then to guarantee that they'd
be low tariffs in the United States through their political contributions.
And that's had a devastating effect to what we sometimes
(05:13):
or euphemistically call the Roust belt of the country. And
that devastation is the motivation for many people to put
Trump into the White House a second time. And I
don't know if people fully recognize how many people not
only lost their jobs, but their jobs that were replaced
(05:36):
were at a much lower salary, less stability, less benefits.
So there was a situation that I think was very
serious and had a tremendous impact on the lives of
millions of Americans.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
There was a time, and I don't think I'm wrong
on this, when a lot a lot of our computer
chips were actually manufactured in Puerto Rico, and there was
a law passed in nineteen ninety six which Newt Gingrich
and Democrats came together on which basically allowed, you know,
(06:15):
computer chips and medicines that are so vital for all
of us to be moved overseas. So I don't want
to use the phrase, I don't want to fall into
the globalist phraseology, but I think you're correct when you
talked that there when I think the point you're making
is that there were people in positions of power who
(06:36):
said what's good for the corporation again back in the
nineties is good for us, but it wasn't necessarily good
for people who earned who were blue collar workers and
factory workers in America.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Then I think you're absolutely right. And you may recall
in nineteen ninety two, in nineteen ninety six, HRUs Parole
was famous not only for being a third party president,
but he had that great line that he could hear
the sucking sound of jobs going to Canada and Mexico.
(07:11):
And then later on in the nineties, we admitted that
China to the World Trade Organization, and then Sina becomes
the factory of the world. So everything just accelerated geometrically,
and as you said, the large parts of the blue
collar contingency of America was devastated where they had once
(07:37):
good livings and now some of the things are going
to change anyway, to automation and other changes. But this
was a planned decision and it made tremendous amounts of
money for some of the large corporations in America.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
The best thing that I see, and if again, if
I'm going to correct you, I want you to help
me out. The best thing that I see right now
is that, for whatever reason, gas prices have seemed to
have stabilized, I can actually find gas prices here on
Cape cod which is a vacation mecca. Normally they are
(08:14):
a good ten percent higher than what you get back
across the bridges. If you know the geography of Massachusetts,
gas prices from the cape are like in the two
to eighty range for just you know, for regular gas.
And as long as gas prices stay low, that's going
to work against inflation because one thing that will really
(08:35):
fire inflation up is higher gas prices, higher diesel prices
to get products to market. Whatever it is that's going
to be built into the price of the products that
are transported by higher gasoline prices if they were to come.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Energy is part of every production, that includes farm products,
that includes industry, auto work, other factories. When you also
the transportation of goods throughout the country. As the price
of energy goes down, that has ad inflationary dimension. Now
(09:14):
what we're basically talking about is maybe a supply side
view of this. If you can increase the energy supply,
the price will go down. In fact, we know from
January twentieth the price was about seventy seven dollars and
now it's sixty three dollars. Yep, that's a significant decline.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Sure, that's close and on.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Top of that, Yeah, the price of gasoline or energy
in general was affected by looking at the various reservoirs
that we had where we were restoring oil and gas,
and that was being manipulated. What we have is, in effect,
(10:03):
many outlets for energy were deprived, and also the infrastructure deprived.
And infrastructure does not rebound overnight. It takes years to
build pipelines, to build refineries, to engage in drilling. So
I think the prospects are good, although we have to
(10:23):
be I think a little bit cautious. Labor costs are high,
and some of the expenses of the high. And while
you made temper inflation, it's very hard to really bring
back lower prices from the pre inflationary period. So I
think that sixty dollars a barrel is pretty good. I
(10:46):
don't know if we'll ever get down to thirty dollars
a barrel. I think that may not be possible in
the modern.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Network without something like COVID. If I recall during the
early days of COVID, when there was no desire for
anybody to leave their home, the prices of a barrel
of oil were actually in the negative.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
They were actually you're absolutely right matter of fact, the
government interfered to raise the price.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
It was well, Doctor Sarantina, I've enjoyed our conversation. The
book is Presidential Power in the American political System. You
and I are very much on the same page, I suspect,
and I'm delighted because I know you're probably a lot
smarter than I am. And whenever I can find myself
(11:36):
in alignment with someone who's smarter than me, it makes
it makes it for a good start to my program.
Thank you very much, Professor Sardine.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
You it's always a pleasure to talk to you, and
good questions elicit my own thinking and positive feedback.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Thank you very much. Have a great weekend, Professor. We
only get back. We're going to talk about a Massachusetts
company who was quietly making it in Massachusetts, leading the
Maid in the USA movement, Excel Dryers from East Long Meadow, Massachusetts.
We're going to be talking with the executive vice president
and COO of Excel Driyers back on Nightside. My name
(12:15):
is Dan Ray. No phone calls, but you could if
you want, just go to our talkback feature on our
IHAT radio app and hit that red microphone. Send us
a message. Compliment criticism either way. I'll explain to you
a little bit later on. If you don't know how
to get the app, we'll explain how I get the
app as well. Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
All right, welcome back. Oftentimes we hear about making it
in Massachusetts or making it in the USA. We talk
a lot about what is going on in terms of
the world economy. But I'm delighted to welcome William Gagnan.
He is one of the leaders of a company in
(13:01):
Massachusetts that frankly I didn't know much about. It's accelerated
hand dryers out of East Long Meadow and they have
been making it in Massachusetts for a very long time.
William Gagnan, Welcome to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
I'm great?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Thank you, Dan, So tell us about your company. How
you've been around for a while out there in East
Long Meadow.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
Yeah, it's uh, it's a funny story a little bit,
but it's a family run company out of East Long Meadow.
My my dad had a lot of manufacturing experience and
he bought a local manufacturing company that happened to make
hand dryers. And and what year what year we talking about?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
We talked about somewhere in.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
The nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Okay, that's that's more recent than I thought.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
So well, it was started in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Okay, so it was started by someone else. Your dad
bought it. This is a privately held company.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
It is now. Yeah, it's a family run company. So
him and I own it together.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, it was. It was interesting when I read about it.
These are a lot of the hand dryers that when
you go into a restaurant or a public facility, you
don't have to worry about. You just hit the button
and the and the air drives your hands. Is that
the product line that that you folksactur.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Yes, but I will tell you that that's the old
product when you hit the button, and yeah, that he
had to, you know, wipe your hands on your clothes
to dry it. But what we did is we created
a better one.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Okay, tell me about it.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
So when my father bought the company, he realized he
made a product that people didn't like to use. Even
though it was a cost savings product, it was better
for the environment. It didn't really work. It didn't dry
your hands, and so he instant Lee had to shift
to say, hey, I got to create a better mouse trap.
And he ended up aligning with an invent company out
(15:09):
of Boston, Massachusetts that were literally former rocket scientists from
raytheon and they all went to MIT and they came
to us with an idea of moving air faster. And
they called all the handwriting companies out there, and my
father was the only one that replied back. So that
(15:31):
basically led to us together inventing the first fast speed,
high efficiency hand driver.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Sure. So in other words, if obviously, if the if
the air comes out slowly, it's less efficient, but when
you hit your products, you can hear it and you
can feel it, uh, and it's effective. So where is
the company? How many people do you employ out there
in East Long Meadow?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
So we're about at fifty five plus right now. We're hiring.
We continue to grow. We just finished our sixth expansion
on the facility at East Longmeadow. But they're still all
made right there, and they're shipped all over the world.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
All over the world. I mean, give me a name
of a couple of countries that I would we recognize,
or maybe a couple they wouldn't recognize. Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Well, one story that I personally love is that we're
have a great distributor in the United Kingdom and we're
in Wembley Stadium and Heather Airport, which is where Dyson
is headquartered and their competitor, but they chose our hand
dryer over theirs. We just put six hundred hand dryers
(16:48):
into the new Istanbul Airport that's being built, which will
be the largest airport in the world, and they tried
hand driers from all over the world and chose ours.
So that just happened. And we're in World Cup stadiums
in South Africa that date back to when it was there.
(17:09):
So we really have a lot of signature places all
over the world where they're choosing the American made East
Long metal made hand drier over others.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, you were head of the curve here because I
think that the White House wants to bring manufacturing back
to America. You never left, and I thank you and
your company for the people that you've employed. You said
you're hiring. If there are people in my audience who
want to get in touch with the company, give us
a website, because there's someone out there who would like
(17:38):
to learn more about the company. I'd love to be
able to get them in touch with you.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Well, that'd be wonderful, thank you. It's Excel Dryer dot com.
And we're looking for engineers, marketing people across the board.
We're growing fast and we love some local Massachusetts talent.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Give me that one more time. It's Excel draw Hire
dot com.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Is that it e x C E L d R
y e R dot com. Perfect and would love to
hear from people.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, William, thank you very much. Every once in a while, uh,
as matter of fact, we will do a show and
we'll have people calling in about how they're doing. And
people are always staying there. They're having a tough time
finding a job or whatever. And I assume that you
have some jobs that people have a prerequisite set of skills,
(18:29):
certainly in the engineering department, But do you have jobs
where people can learn and can can can be taught
how to help your company as well?
Speaker 4 (18:41):
Absolutely. We we build from within, We hire from within,
and we have open positions in our factory line right
now as well, so from top to bottom, and and
we invest in our people and we try and grow
them professionally. So when they come to us, we feel
(19:03):
like it's a career. We don't want them to leave.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
William, you represent some some older values, but tried in
true and trusted values. And I just say you are
a head of the curve and you really represent Massachusetts
remarkably well. And thank you for what you do. And
thank everyone at Excel Dryer for what they do for
(19:27):
the company and for all of us and for our country.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Thank you, sir, well Dan, thank you very much. But
I just have to apologize to you. You now have
the curse. And every time you go into a bathroom.
Now you're going to start looking and you're going to
notice what's inn there. You won't be able to get
rid of it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Now, I will be proud to say this hand this
hand dryer was made in Massachusetts and even more importantly,
made in the USA. Thanks will I really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It, right, thank you?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
All right, all right, we have the news at the
bottom of the art count app. Let me just for
those of you who don't have the new improved iHeart
Radio app. It's a cool way to become a part
of the night side broadcast. I have been pushing for weeks. Now,
you as a listener, you as a caller, a part
of this broadcast. Yeah, I'm part of it as the host,
(20:19):
but without you, without you as a listener, without you
as a caller, there's no need for night Side. You
can utilize our talkback feature on the iHeart Radio app.
You got to download this free and improved and new
iHeart Radio app. Just go to your app store. You
can bring it, put it on your laptop, on your desktop,
(20:39):
on your tablet, on your smart watch, whatever. Okay, you
put it on and in the upper right hand corner
there is a microphone talkback button in red. You just
hit that button and you can send us a personalized
audio message. You can compliment us, you can criticize us,
you can constructively criticize us. Got to keep it clean.
(21:01):
We are FCC regulated, and we will play that back
on the air. It's that simple. Once again, hit the
red microphone button in the top right corner of the
app while you're listening to Nightside, or while you're listening
to WBZ during the day, and you just say, look,
I want to leave this message for Nightside or whatever.
Send us that audio message and you'll probably hear it
(21:22):
on your radio. All right, go take a break. Coming
right back on Nightside after the news at the bottom
of the hour.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It's Nightside with Boston's News Radio. Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
We are going to talk about Look, the word jellyfish
has always terrified me from the time I was a
little kid, which is a long time ago. But when
you add the adjectives of the stinging moon jellyfish off
Cape Cod, I don't even want to go near the
(21:57):
ocean with us. Is Nicole Corbett. She's a local marine researcher,
director and president of the Pompanessen Water Stewardship Alliance. Nicole,
welcome to Nightside. How are you this evening?
Speaker 5 (22:10):
And well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Well, thank you very much. I hope that you're not
in the presence of a stinging moon jellyfish. We all
know what a jellyfish is, but I didn't realize that
we were distinguishing between various types. Tell us about the
stinging moon. This guy sounds like someone I don't want
to get anywhere near.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
No, this has been a bit of a wild story
that started when I was a teenager back in two
thousand and seven. There are various species of jellyfish that
are off the coast of Massachusetts. Some of them are
some of them, you know, stinging ones, and some of
them have things that are not supposed to impact people,
(22:55):
and moon jellies are supposed to be one of those
more harmless species. And when I back in two thousand
and seven, I saw this very large moon jelly washing
it into popin Esse Beach, where my grandparents had a
summer cottage, and I was a very nerdy science kid
and said, oh, it's that's awesome. It's a moon jelly.
(23:18):
And I wanted to try to pull it back out
two more oak water, and when I came in contact
with it, it stung me pretty good, and I was
I was quite surprised. That experience stuck with me for
up until this point when we started doing all this research.
(23:39):
Back in twenty thirteen, I was an intern at the
New England Aquarium in visitor education and one of the
parts of the job is to work with some of
the jellyfish there. And I was talking to researchers and
aquarus and I said, you know, yes.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's you know, it's one thing like working with the
puppies at an animal shelter, but to work with moon jelly,
stinging moon jellyfish go ahead, I interrupted you. Unfortunately, no, no.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I joke, I go.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
I kind of wish I worked with dolphins or turtles,
but we ended up falling into jellyfish. But I when
I was interning at the aquarium, that was one of
the pieces in the visitor Education department was to work
a little bit with these jellyfish. And I explained, I
don't want to work with these they sting, and the
(24:35):
aquarius and researchers were saying, we've never heard of a
stinging moon jellyfish, and I said, well, where I am
down the cape, we're getting these very large ones that
sting almost every summer. And so at that point I'm thinking,
maybe I'm just have a really bad reaction to jellyfish
and there's something odd. But when I started working with
the ones at the aquarium, there was no reaction, no sting, nothing.
(25:00):
So fast forward through the twenty tens, down in mash Pee,
Foulmouth and Barnstable, people are reporting that they're being stung
by what they believe are moon jellies. And additionally, these
jellyfish starts stinging people without being in direct contact with
(25:24):
the jellyfish. The jellyfish could be a foot away and
people are feeling the impacts of the stick and.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Something.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
So that's what we're trying. So, you know, this is
before I start really delving into this and I go,
this is something going on. There's no way that this
is quote unquote normal moon jelly behavior. So back in
two thousand and twenty one, I'm a very avid open
water swimmer and I have a little underwater camera I
(25:56):
take along with me, and I like taking pictures of
different marine species underwater, and I started taking pictures of
some of these moonjellies and posting them to the Pilmouth
Wildlife Facebook page, and the director of the time at
the Marine Biology LABT Woods Whole, looks at my photos
and says, I want to come out to pop in
Assea Beach and we're going to take a look at
(26:17):
these because I believe what you're saying. And this was
the first time that someone had said they believed that,
you know, this moon jelly was delivering impactful things. We
have pictures of the stings, pictures of the species. So
he comes out and says, go get this genetically tested
at Northeastern University. So at the time, the nonprofit was
(26:41):
just starting the pop and Nessa Wire Stewardship Alliance. We
were just getting this going. I In twenty twenty three,
we collect tissue samples from several moon jellies along pop
Andessea Beach, have it sent to Northeastern for analysis, and
the results come back and say that they do not
mass known moon jellies that had already been genetically tested, which.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Means which means I'm going to push you a little
bit here on time.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
So oh yeah, no, absolutely, so there was some sort
of genetic variation. This was not a genetic match. So
this is some type of variant moon jelly. So what
we're doing today is we've collaborated now with research institutions
throughout the country to try to figure out what is
going on with the jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
She discovered inadvertently a new species of.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Jellyfish, maybe a new subspecies of moon jelly or some
moon jelly that was from a completely different location that
somehow has established a very localized population in Nantucket.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Sound wow, wow boy, that that is interesting. How just
a couple of quick questions at the end here, yeah common?
Or how prevalent are these now called stinging moon jellyfish?
Are there are a lot of them that people need
to worry about it when they're waiting, you know in
(28:06):
ankle deep knee deep water, but you have to get
out a little deeper than that.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
So it's actually very tied and wind dependent. So and
it really depends on the year too. Back in twenty
twenty three, we had hundreds of these washing into the
beach and there was a period of time in late
July and August. You can not go in the water
with the number of jellyfish they have washed in.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And the ones that Washington did dead they're washing up.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
No they were oh they were no, they were like
rate and shallow water. They were alive and.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Good news. So the problem so much good news for
the people who are on the beach were go ahead. No.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
So they so really depends on the year there they
go through kind of boom bus cycles. There are some
years we have a yeah, so we have a moderate
number this year.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
So it's not let me ask you this nical, what
advice would you give to people who not necessarily the
people going out, you know, in ten feet of ocean water,
they know what they're doing, But the person who's kind
of waving along, what advice would you give them other
than stay out of the water.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Oh, keep your eyes open, because that it's always good
if you're going anywhere near the ocean to be vigilant.
If you feel like you are having some sort of
like sting or reaction to something, probably get out of
the area because that probably means the same or what
of these jelly fish are nearby?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Okay, Nicole, you're a great sport. Again. I learned a
lot about a species that I had that I knew
nothing about. But I got to tell you. You have
not induced me to head to the to the beach time.
I will stay at least thirty yards on the dry sand,
make sure that there are no jellyfish nearby. And the
(30:03):
other thing, which I don't understand and I shouldn't ask you.
This might be a long question, but supposedly every species
has a purpose. You know, I still don't understand what
the purpose of mosquitoes are, but we'll leave that outside.
What did these stingy moon jellyfish bring to the world? What? What?
What is their purpose? Is there any positive thing about
(30:25):
the They're not cute, they don't sit up and do trigs? What?
What's is there a purpose?
Speaker 4 (30:32):
And no?
Speaker 5 (30:33):
So they may help to keep a smaller jelly organism
species in check that eats oyster larvae, which is not
a good thing. We like oysters. They help with water quality.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
The other thing.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
Jellyfish are great food for some species of turtles. So
when they leave Nantucket's Sound and they head out to
open ocean, the leatherback turtles, they're waiting to eat jellyfish.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
It's a buffet. Okay, thanks so much, iCal, appreciate thank you.
Just want to get more information. Can they follow you
or get more information on these these stinging moon jellyfishes
or a website you can offer us.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yep, yes, so poppywater dot org poppywater being one word.
We are also the Popiness at Water Stewardship Alliance on
Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And I'm sure poppy water is spelled p opp y
w A D E R.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Yep, that's right, got it, dot org.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Okay, thank you so much, Nical appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
Having good night.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
All right, we get back. We're going to talk with
an acuweather meteorologist about the weekend weather. Old friend Brian
Thompson will join us and give us a look ahead
for tomorrow and Sunday and even a peak into next
week when I'm pretty sure it's going to warm up considerably.
My name is Dan Ray and this is Nightside. Let's
keep it rolling here all the way to midnight.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well weather is something we all always talk about. Every
day of the year. Weather forecast is oftentimes leading the news,
but during the summertime, on a Friday night, I think
it's almost imperative. And we had delighted to have Brian Thompson,
ACCU Weather meteorologist with us. And Brian, this summer has
been kind of the summer not of smog, but the
(32:21):
summer of smoke. But the smoke is dissipating and we've
had a couple of really nice days, but the really
nice days are about to warm up. How are you tonight, Brian?
Speaker 6 (32:33):
I'm doing fine, Dan, How are you good?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Not looking to steal the leave here, but can you
give us maybe the weekend Tomorrow is supposed to be
pretty nice day, but it's going to get warm beginning Sunday.
As I understand that, tell us what's going on.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Yeah, the temperatures are going to be rising over the
next couple of days. Like you said, it's been very
pleasant the last couple of days, and the sky's.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Been looking a little cleaner again.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
How about that, U?
Speaker 6 (32:55):
Yeah, and in the summer that. Like you said, we've
been dealing with this for really off and on since June,
even the end of May. I mean, we've just been
talking about the smoke coming down, and the problem's been
anytime we get more comfortable air moving on in it
comes from Canada, it's been kind of pulling the smoke
with it. But we've had more of an easterly flow
(33:16):
developing and that's helped to push the smoke more to
the west. And it's going to give us a pretty
sunny weekend ahead. As we have a big area of
high pressure sitting nearby, it's going to kind of act
as a shield to keep any rain away from us.
And Tomorrow is going to be a very nice day.
Highs will be upper seventies near the coast. I think
most inland spots will be in the loads of mid eighties.
Temperatures do rise considerably. Sunday will be in the mid
(33:37):
to upper eighties. I don't think it's a bad day,
though the humidity is still going to be pretty low,
so it is going to be warm, especially if you're
in the sun Sunday afternoon, you're going to feel it,
but it won't be that really humid weather we've had
a lot of this summer, but.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
But next week it's going to be toasty.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
Yes, we could be certainly looking at a heat wave
across parts of the area. There might be some wonkiness
around the coast at Logan Airport with some sea breezes
that may kind of keep temperatures maybe a little below
ninety and maybe prevent a true heat wave. But I
think as you get away from the water, it's looking
more and more like we're gonna have a heat wave
from Monday to Wednesday. High temperatures in the load to
mid nineties Monday. The humidity is going to be in
(34:18):
the process of rising. It won't be maybe as humidis
as it will be into Tuesday and Wednesday, but certainly
going to be an increase in humidity after Sunday and
as this heat gets underway early next week. So again
expect the high temperatures ninety to ninety five accuate weather
real field temperature is probably in the ninety five to
one hundred degree range as that humidity starts to increase,
(34:39):
and then maybe later next week there are some signs
the heat will ease up a bit.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Do you think that will be the end? You know,
you guys look at long term cycles much more than
the weather guys talk about on TV. But I know
you guys are real meteorologists. Although the weather guy's a
meteorologists to it, but I really trust Aki Weather to
be honest with you. Do you guys look at stuff
(35:05):
long range and say, Okay, this is going to be
the end of the heat. I always think of the
last full week in July as invariably the hottest week
of the summer, But this coming week might actually be
hotter than the last week of July. How uncommon is that?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Not terribly uncommon?
Speaker 6 (35:27):
When you look at the climatological averages, mid to late
July is pretty much the hottest time of the summer.
It's when our average temperatures are the highest. The average
high in Boston's the highest from about July sixteenth to
about the twenty second, So climatologically speaking, that's usually the
hottest part. But there are many years where we get
heat waves deep into August. It's not uncommon to have
(35:50):
ninety plus degree days into September. Especially in recent years,
the autumns have been a little slower to develop. We've
had warmer weather deeper into autumn. That's been a trend
seen in recent years, and so it's not uncommon at
all to see ninety degree tempts into September. Now now,
as we get toward the end of August into September,
I tend to find that the anytime we get heat,
(36:12):
it's not usually as humid as it is in the
middle of summer. A lot of times the heat's a
little drier as we head into the fall, but certainly
can get some hot weather pretty deep into the summer
and even into early autumn.
Speaker 7 (36:24):
Okay, my final couple of questions, how are the tropics looking?
All of a sudden, I'm noticing on the weather boards
on television they're showing us this little area off the
coast of Africa, Eastern Africa, and this little area down
in the Caribbean. Any of that stuff starting to concern.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
You, It's a little too early to say concern. We
are going to be watching there's a disturbance outhing the
kind of between Africa and let's say Puerto Rico right now,
even if that system develops, it's going to turn more
to the north. It's the one behind it that's just
emerging off the coast of Africa. Now that one bears,
(37:05):
with perhaps a little more watching, that one may stay
a little bit farther to the south. If you have
been on the weather boards, you may have noticed people
talking about some of our computer models have been positioning
some storms off the near the East coast in about
two weeks time. And again it's something we will have
to watch these as as these systems come off the
(37:26):
coast of Africa. But it's way too early to say
there's any threat to the East coast just yet. But
we are anticipating several storms developing during the month of August.
So it does appear after what's been a relatively quiet
start to the tropical season, it does seem like it's
going to be heating up a bit over the over
the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Okay, anybody who watches the weather maps knows that our
weather in the United States moves from west to east,
or moves from the Gulf of Mexico a over to
Carolina and then up up the East coast. This stuff
coming out of again the Eastern Atlantic, the lower Eastern Atlantic.
(38:06):
That sort of counterintuative that it's going to come at
us from that direction is that because that's in the
Southern hemisphere and things are going in opposite directions in
the south southern hemisphere. What's the science behind that.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
You're talking about the stuff coming off of Africa. Yeah, yeah,
that what the reasoning is. As you're farther south that
in that case, and as these get closer to the
East coast, we're still into the summertime here, the jet
stream still is generally off to the north or at
least farther north this time of year, so that kind
of leaves the door open for these storms that are
(38:39):
generally moving westward. That's kind of the prevailing flow in
the summertime and even into the autumn months from Africa
toward the toward the Caribbean. Everything kind of moves from
east to west in that region, and then as they
start to move to the north, a lot of times
they'll get pulled by systems and fronts that are moving
from west to east across the country and that can
(38:59):
help steer those yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Still stem back into the colder waters. Of the North Atlantic.
Speaker 6 (39:05):
I guess yeah, kind of pull them northward. We see
that a lot of times. But it's just these sometimes
very subtle things in the atmosphere that helps steer these
these massive storms.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Great every time I talk to you, Brian and learn
a little bit more about whether, I appreciate your patience
with my questions and I appreciate your time tonight, and
have a great weekend. I hope you got a couple
of days off.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I do, Danna. I hope you have a good weekend too.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Thanks very much, Brian Thompson of AKI Weather AKI Weather Meteorologists.
When we come back, we're going to talk about an
effort to restore rent control in Massachusetts, which could actually
be on the ballot statewide in twenty twenty six. My
name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside on a Friday night.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!