“Live Below Your Means”: VW Beetle Ceases Production 70 Years After Coming To America

From NPR.org article by Laurel Wamsley

Volkswagen Beetle ceases production - NPRAn emblem of the hippie era in America, the car was marketed in the U.S. as adorably uncool. Volkswagen promoted the Beetle with cheeky advertising campaigns using slogans like “Live below your means” and “It’s ugly, but it gets you there.” In 1969, one of the vehicles cost $1,799.

It’s the end of an era — an era that has stretched on for a very long time, albeit with slightly different silhouettes.

The last Volkswagen Beetle, a third-generation Denim Blue coupe, will be produced in Puebla, Mexico, on Wednesday.

“It’s impossible to imagine where Volkswagen would be without the Beetle,” said Scott Keogh, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America. “While its time has come, the role it has played in the evolution of our brand will be forever cherished.”

Read more by clicking link below:

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739865991/the-last-vw-beetle-rolls-off-the-assembly-line-in-mexico-tomorrow

Led Zeppelin Celebrates 50th Anniversary With Episode 4 Of Video Series

As part of its ongoing 50th anniversary celebration, Led Zeppelin has launched a new video series on its official YouTube channel looking at key highlights of the legendary band’s history.

The first episode of the Led Zeppelin History series begins in September 1968, when the band began recording its self-titled debut album at London’s Olympic Studios, starting with “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” and “You Shook Me.”

Using archival footage of the group in concert as a backdrop, and soundtracked by “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You,” the video goes on to note that the album was self-financed, was recorded in just 30 hours, and cost 1,782 pounds — equivalent of around $2,300 in today’s money.

The clip also offers the following quotes from the band members about the making of Led Zeppelin I:

Jimmy Page: “The group had only been together for two-and-a-half weeks when we recorded it.”

Robert Plant: “We weren’t in a position at that time to be able to block whole studio time.”

John Paul Jones: “We did it in about 15 hours, with another 15 hours for mixing, so it was 30 hours in all.”

Page: “We deliberately aimed at putting down what we could reproduce live on stage.”

Check the Led Zeppelin YouTube channel soon for the second episode of the series.

“The Mueller Report”: An Adaptation By Mark Bowden, Illustrated By Chad Hurd On Insider.com

From Insider.com (via Business Insider):

The Mueller Report Adaptation at Business InsiderIt feels as if nobody read the Mueller report. That’s a shame, because it’s an important document, depicting possible crimes by a sitting US president.

But not reading it makes sense. As a narrative, the document is a disaster. And at 448 pages, it’s too long to grind through. For long stretches, it reads less like a story and more like a terms-of-service agreement. The instinct to click “next” is strong.

And yet, buried within the Mueller report, there is a narrative that reads in parts like a thriller, like a comedy, like a tragedy — and, most important — like an indictment. The facts are compelling, all the more so because they come not from President Donald Trump’s critics or “fake news” reports, but from Trump’s own handpicked colleagues and associates. The story just needed to be rearranged in a better form.

So we hired Mark Bowden, a journalist and author known for his brilliant works of narrative nonfiction like “Black Hawk Down,” “Killing Pablo,” and “Hue 1968.”

Read the full adaptation by clicking link below:

https://www.insider.com/mueller-report-rewritten-trump-russia-mark-bowden-archer-2019-7?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mueller%20Report%20Alert%20Send%20-%2007102019&utm_term=Mueller%20Campaign%20-%20Alert%20Send%2007102019

Exhibitions: “Andy Warhol: Portraits” At McNay Art Museum In San Antonio, TX

From McNay Art Museum website:

McNay Warhol Exhibit San AntonioAndy Warhol: Portraits features over 120 paintings, prints, photographs, and films that depict the artist’s favorite genre: the portrait. This exhibition presents a snapshot of New York’s art and social scene from the 1960s through the 1980s through portraits of Warhol’s friends and patrons, movie stars and musicians, and celebrities of the day that range in style from the pristinely-idealized to the heartbreakingly-raw. Personalities who populated Warhol’s inner circle are represented; some widely recognized names include Joan Collins, Debbie Harry, Dennis Hopper, Mick Jagger, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol himself. The presentation takes a multi-dimensional approach to the work, exploring the formal, conceptual, social, and political implications of portraiture, identity, and fame. Andy Warhol: Portraits invites the viewer into Warhol’s world, by examining the artist’s personal life, studio process, and use of a variety of mediums.

https://www.mcnayart.org/exhibitions/current/andy-warhol-portraits

Top New Travel Videos: “USA – Ground Effect” By Michael Fletcher Celebrates Yosemite, Western National Parks

Filmed, Edited and Directed by: Michael Fletcher

“USA – Ground Effect” is a title I gave to this little edit I created from my last trip to the United States. I was hoping I could revisit my origins to create a somewhat pleasing landscape film which didn’t involve the use of a drone. Hence the name “Ground Effect”. I must admit I came close to chucking in a few beauties I captured with my drone but it would of meant not being faithful to what I was trying to achieve.

USA - Ground Effect Michael Fletcher

Drones have revolutionised the process of landscape videography and it has made it too easy to create stunning results even if you are new to shooting landscapes. As much as it’s an important tool to get the big wow! factor from the masses I reckon you cant beat a carefully composed shot from your actual stand point using a camera like the C300. In actual fact the way restrictions are going with drones there won’t be too many places left for you to shoot with a drone so my advice is to not forget the basics.

Music: “A Hand Carved In Stone” by Dario Forzato

https://vimeo.com/user655337

Top Retirement Cities: Flagstaff, AZ Enjoys Mix Of Students, Professionals & Retirees, Outdoor And Seasonal Activities

From Kiplinger’s online article by Brendan Pedersen:

Flagstaff AZ Smart Places to RetireResidents can enjoy four beautiful seasons in Flagstaff, says Meg Roederer, of the Flagstaff Convention and Visitors Bureau. She graduated from Northern Arizona University (located at the heart of Flagstaff) 30 years ago and never looked back. “Between the student, professional and retirement populations, the city has a real vibrancy,” she says. Don’t be fooled by downtown Flagstaff’s sleepy western vibe. “It’s really a mountain-foodie town,” Roederer says. It has more than 200 restaurants and award-winning craft beers in abundance along a “brewery trail.”

At an elevation of 7,000 feet, this mountain town swaddled by sweet-smelling Ponderosa pine trees has plenty to offer retirees by way of outdoor activities, top-tier dining, volunteer opportunities and seasonable weather. Snowbirds, take heed: This is not the sun-bleached Arizona you may be thinking of. Despite its crisp lack of humidity, it regularly receives about 100 inches of snow every winter.

To read more click on link below:

https://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T047-C000-S002-flagstaff-arizona-a-smart-place-to-retire.html

Prescription Drugs: BioEthicist Travis Rieder’s Personal Struggle With Opioids (Podcast)

From NPR podcast of Fresh Air with Terry Gross:

FreshAir Terry GrossRieder likens his experiences trying to get off prescription pain meds to a game of hot potato. “The patient is the potato,” he says. “Everybody had a reason to send me to somebody else.”

Eventually Rieder was able to wean himself off the drugs, but not before receiving bad advice and going through intense periods of withdrawal. He shares his insights as both a patient and a bioethicist in a new book, In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle With Opioids.

Press play button above to hear interview.

Travis Reider book In Pain Review

In 2015, Travis Rieder, a medical bioethicist with Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, was involved in a motorcycle accident that crushed his left foot. In the months that followed, he underwent six different surgeries as doctors struggled first to save his foot and then to reconstruct it.

Rieder says that each surgery brought a new wave of pain, sometimes “searing and electrical,” other times “fiery and shocking.” Doctors tried to mitigate the pain by prescribing large doses of opioids, including morphine, fentanyl, Dilaudid, oxycodone and OxyContin. But when it came time to taper off the drugs, Rieder found it nearly impossible to get good advice from any of the clinicians who had treated him.

Read more

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/08/738952129/motorcycle-crash-shows-bioethicist-the-dark-side-of-quitting-opioids-alone

European Travels: Retracing The Ancient Path To The Oracle At Delphi In Greece

From NY Times Travel article by Liz Alderman:

Greece and Delphi Map NYTBut as I stood on the archaic plateau, I was riveted. The broken columns of once-mighty altars rose like spirits in the pure air. A timeworn stadium and a prodigious stone amphitheater reigned silently over the mountain. The Temple of Apollo, where the Oracle dispensed her cryptic prophecies, was ringed with paths trod by truth-seekers who had labored up the steep valley from the Corinthian Gulf.

 

Voyage to the Center of the World NYT Travel

The peaks of Mount Parnassus shimmered on a warm spring afternoon above the temples of ancient Delphi. In a verdant valley below, silver-tipped olive trees stretched to the sea. The sun traced a golden arc in the azure sky. On a flat plateau surrounded by this natural theater, I looked up to find myself standing at the center of the world.

At least, the center of all things as the ancient Greeks knew it. In front of me was a black ovoid stone, known as the omphalos, set on the spot in Greek mythology where two eagles loosed by Zeus crossed paths at the earth’s nexus. It marked Delphi as one of the greatest enigmas of the ancient universe.

Read more by clicking on link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/travel/delphi-ancient-greece-oracle.html

Health Issues: One Man’s Long, Determined Road To Recovery From A Stroke

From NY Times article by Jane E. Brody:

Reversing Damage of a Stroke NYTThe learning curve was steep: “I couldn’t read; I couldn’t write. I could see the hospital signs, the elevator signs, the therapists’ cards, but I couldn’t understand them,” he wrote. The aphasia — the inability to understand or express speech — “had beaten and battered” his pride.

But he refused to give up. With age and prestroke physical conditioning on his side, he had convinced himself that “100 percent recovery was possible as long as I pushed hard enough.”

Strange as it may seem, the stroke Ted Baxter suffered in 2005 at age 41, leaving him speechless and paralyzed on his right side, was a blessing in more ways than one. Had the clot, which started in his leg, lodged in his lungs instead of his brain, the doctors told him he would have died from a pulmonary embolism.

And as difficult as it was for him to leave his high-powered professional life behind and replace it with a decade of painstaking recovery, the stroke gave his life a whole new and, in many ways, more rewarding purpose.

Read more by clicking link below: 

www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/well/live/reversing-the-damage-of-a-massive-stroke.html

Boomers Retirement Abroad: You Can Escape State Tax In Seven States, But Never The IRS

From a Forbes.com article by Larry Light. Interview with Rick Kahler, founder of Kahler Financial Group, in Rapid City, S.D.:

Retiring Abroad Tax Consequences

“You have nothing to worry about if you live in one of the seven states with no income tax: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nevada, Washington, Texas, Florida and Alaska.”

The best way to escape paying taxes to a state you no longer live in? Move to a state with no income tax first before relocating abroad. You must prove to your old state that you have left and have no intention of ever coming back.

This means moving for real—cutting as many ties to your old state as possible and establishing as many as possible in your new state. You will want to sell your home, close bank accounts, cancel any mailing addresses, change healthcare providers and health insurance companies (including Medicare), be sure no dependents remain in the state, and register to vote and get a driver’s license in the new state.

Read more by clicking link below:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencelight/2019/07/09/how-to-escape-the-american-tax-man-when-you-retire-abroad/#7f37e40d574e

News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious