Best News
Smell You, Nancy Drew!
Luke and Elena discuss a guilt-ridden mail bag, a lemonade stand raising money for the Humane Society, and an anonymous French man who's donating his lottery winnings to help the planet.
-
Luke Burbank: [Theme music] Hey there and welcome to the best news podcast from Live Wire, brought to you by Alaska Airlines. This is the show where we like to talk about what's good in the news and get emails from people who've been guilted in to reaching out to us. I am Luke Burbank, right over there is my friend Elena Passarello. Hi Elena!
Elena Passarello: Hi. It sounds like the guilt trip was successful!
Luke Burbank: I really kind of am conflicted about this because on the weeks when we don't get a lot of email in the mailbag or maybe any email, I'll mention it and then all of the responses are people basically saying, "I emailed because I felt bad for you." Like Susan said, "okay, you've begged again. So here's an email." Come on, Susan. Although Susan says "I'm delighted that Bubbles will be joining the podcast soon." That's a kitten that I'm adopting. Susan's in Portland, Maine, by the way. Then Barbara said, "Luke and Elena. I paused the podcast to write you immediately because you both seemed so dejected you hadn't received any emails."
Elena Passarello: Oh, that's wonderful. Barbara for president!
Luke Burbank: If it sounded like dejection, I went too far. I promise you, Barbara, I will survive the week with no emails on the Best News podcast.
Elena Passarello: We got to be like my grandfather, who's about to turn 98. And if you haven't if you haven't called him in a while, he'll be like, "Oh, I'm so glad you called. I was trying to figure out where to send the flowers." And I was like, "What? Flowers?" And then he's like, "Yeah, I hadn't seen you and I expected you was dead." [laughter]
Luke Burbank: There's some A-level Southern passive aggressivity. And also Steve reached out to say "Hello Elena and Luke! I'm a big fan of the Best News podcast. Hearing about good news is so much better than hearing about bad news." See, Steve, you zeroed in on the concept of this show. And then last but not least, Jojo sent us an actual handwritten letter, says, "I enjoy having the Best News as a separate podcast. I've lived on and off in Portland for four years and I'm excited to see you in person soon." Coming to us from the Alberta Street neighborhood is Jojo with the with the very, in these days, unique handwritten letter which you loved to see.
Elena Passarello: Yes.
Luke Burbank: The other thing I have to clear up before we get to the actual meat of the show this week is that last week I identified this as week 14 of the Best News podcast, but it was actually week 15.
Elena Passarello: Oh, no.
Luke Burbank: That means this week is actually week 16.
Elena Passarello: Didn't we say episode five happened twice?
Luke Burbank: This is why our executive producer, Laura Hadden, doesn't want us to number things. Because with it will come confusion.
Elena Passarello: Mm hmm.
Luke Burbank: But I think that's part of the charm of this podcast, is that we're often going to be wrong about what episode we're on.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, we should just start making numbers up.
Luke Burbank: Email me if you think it's charming that we're going to mess the numbers up a lot on the podcast.
Elena Passarello: Please, email us... please!
Luke Burbank: Wait! That sounded really desperate. Bestnews@livewireradio.org. [music]
Luke Burbank: All right. Let's get to the actual best news this week, Elena. What are you seeing out there?
Elena Passarello: Well, you know how we have... we have a great help in Jonas, our Best News intern.
Luke Burbank: Jonas Myers, the intern of the year.
Elena Passarello: Yes. And I feel like every once in a while he'll plant one in the list that we look through that is just like, "oh, this is just low hanging fruit for the Passarello."
Luke Burbank: It's Elena-nip.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's definitely Elena-nip. And that's appropriate because it's a cat story.
Luke Burbank: Okay.
Elena Passarello: Although now that Bubbles Burbank is on the horizon, I feel like we both. We both kind of will enjoy these cat things.
Luke Burbank: I probably will start, you know, becoming more focused on feline-related news content as well. I can, I can already feel it happening.
Elena Passarello: P.S. Personal cat-related news: my cat horked up a blade of grass that was like stuck up in his like sinuses at like four in the morning. It was so long, it must have curved all the way around his brain. That's what you have to look forward to.
Luke Burbank: But also, what a relief to get that out. I mean, like, you know, you get a piece of like, you know, corn stuck in the back of your tooth and that can just, like, ruin your week. Think about how your poor cat was feeling with the blade of grass that in his otolaryngological situation.
Elena Passarello: Smell you, Nancy Drew.
Luke Burbank: Do cats have that or is it just humans? Isn't that at the intersection of the sinus and the back of the eye in the throat? Isn't that otolaryngology?
Elena Passarello: I think that's exactly right. I think it's your larynx and...Yeah, but whatever. Well done, Dr. Burbank.
Luke Burbank: To your cat story.
Elena Passarello: Oh, so my cat story. Well, it's actually a small business story... There's a small business. It hasn't been a great time for small businesses, but this one is now in its third year of operations. And I guess it's not really a small business as much as it's a nonprofit run by a nine year old named Ben Miller, who has been running a lemonade stand in his hometown of Boise, Idaho, giving all the proceeds to the Idaho Humane Society because he loves cats.
Luke Burbank: Oh, man, that's awesome.
Elena Passarello: He started the stand after a visit to the Humane Society with his grandma, and he saw that not all of the cats had their own toys to play with. And so he was like, "I got to do something about this." This is three years ago. So he switched his... He was already planning on running a lemonade stand. That was already the business plan, but he changed the profit model. And I saw a photo of the stand and it's so cute. It's just like classic. It's like that long card table with a cloth over it and those glass jars that your grandma had with, like, the little spigots that are like, attached...
Luke Burbank: Oh those are so great. I feel like if you really want to nail the classic lemonade stand... I'm sure they don't charge $0.05 anymore. How are you going to raise money for cats that way? But, you know, I feel like it was always the cent thing was always backwards. You'd be like 25 and then like that, you know, that little C with the line through it would be like turned the wrong way.
Elena Passarello: That's a good branding, honestly. But so lavender lemonade, regular lemonade, plate of cookies, big smiling kid behind it. And in 2019, when he opened the lemonade stand, he raised $200, which, like you said, that's a lot of lemonade. That's pretty good profit. 2021? Tripled that. $600. Idaho Humane Society was so grateful they started talking about him on their social media pages and then, of course, the larger community fell in love with Little Ben, and some people drove like an hour to his front yard in Boise so they could patronize his lemonade stand. And so he just dropped off his 2021 - 2022 earnings just in time for kitten season at the Humane Society, which is a very expensive time. And this year's proceeds are nearly double the amount from last year, $1150.
Luke Burbank: Wow.
Elena Passarello: And it's going to go to vet care. It's going to go to food, it's going to go to toys. So... Very exciting.
Luke Burbank: That's one of the cutest things that I've heard in a long time. Is he keep... I don't know if it says anything in the article, is Ben keeping a little five bucks here there for himself? I mean, you know...
Elena Passarello: There is no information that says that he is keeping any of this money himself. You know, the thing I'm wondering is, maybe the lemonade is like really good?
Luke Burbank: But it must be.
Elena Passarello: I mean, I would give him all of my money just because that story is so adorable, but what if on top of that, it was like really amazing lemonade? Or what if it was terrible? [laughter] What if people keep on paying him all this money and then they're like, "Ehhh, stick to fundraising, kid."
Luke Burbank: I will tell you that I am constitutionally incapable of passing a lemonade stand without stopping, unless I am, you know, like on my way to a fire or something... which would be weird because I'm a radio host and podcaster and not a fire man, but...
Elena Passarello: The lemonade could put out the fire.
Luke Burbank: Unless like, if I am, if I have any, any kind of wiggle room in my afternoon and I'm either walking or driving and I see one of those lemonade stands I'm pulling over.
Elena Passarello: What if an adult is running it?
Luke Burbank: You know? I could see that happening in Portland, I really could.
Luke Burbank: A mustachioed guy.
Luke Burbank: I was about to say "that doesn't happen," but then I'm thinking about Portland and the deep weirdness... I could see it. I would be less inclined if it was a grown up, but if it's a kid, get a couple of kids... there could be a grown up, you know, hiding in the bushes. Yeah, just like using the kids as a prop. But it works on me.
Elena Passarello: I'm such a sucker for any kid trying to sell me something. I buy all the candy and all the weird fundraising sprays.
Luke Burbank: They have fundraising sprays now?
Elena Passarello: Yeah. I buy tickets to a pancake breakfast that I have no intention of attending... Spaghetti nights, like, they know.
Luke Burbank: I buy a lot of, like the Girl Scout cookies, which, you know, they're yummy, but I don't need... Like my nieces have done Girl Scout cookies over the years and, like, I'm just going to be honest, and if they're listening, Maddie and Mary, I love you, but, like, Uncle Luke doesn't need twenty boxes of Tagalongs or whatever. But then you give them away and you're a hero, so I guess it all works out. Speaking of big bucks, the best news that I saw this week, it was slightly north of $1100. It was involving a sum of money, about $217 million American. That is what an anonymous person in France won back in 2020 in what's called the Euromillions Lottery. This is like a lottery that involves multiple countries in Europe, so it's like France and the UK and all these other countries. This guy... and by the way, when I say guy, that's sort of accurate because in France I guess you're allowed to be anonymous even if you win one of these big things, so he hasn't given his name, but they're calling him "Guy." That's just like the nickname, which I feel like is... I mean, that seems like an extremely common name in France. Like, if somebody in America won a lotto and they didn't want to tell you their name, so we just said we're going to call him Joe.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank: Like isn't "Guy" basically the Joe of over there?
Elena Passarello: I think it's pretty... I mean, Guy de Maupassant, the writer. Guy Smiley, who's the French version of Guy Smiley.
Luke Burbank: The French Muppet, absolutely. Those were the two Guys I could think of as well. [laughter] Anyway, this anonymous person that we're calling "Guy" hit this seven number lottery, which also had two other like things that this person had to pick correctly. Like he's a very, very, very difficult thing, you know, statistically to get right. And he did. Got $217 million and just announced this week that he's giving most of it, if not all of it away, to try to help save the planet. So he has formed this foundation. It's called Anyama, and this is named after a town in Côte d'Ivoire where this anonymous person, Guy, spent some amount of time during his childhood. This was all relayed to the newspaper, Le Parisien. Apologies for my truly merde French accent.
Elena Passarello: Pas de problème.
Luke Burbank: Can we say "merde" on a podcast? Is that all right? Can we use slightly bad words in other languages? Anyway, he was telling the paper, Le Parisien, that he spent time in Côte d'Ivoire when he was a kid and he just remembered seeing this procession of trucks that were coming out of the forest with all of these trees that have been felled, all this kind of, you know, logging and harvesting of trees. And this anonymous "Guy" person watched this as a kid and it just imprinted on him. And so all these years later, now that he's an adult, he wins all of this money and he said he knew immediately when he realized that he had actually really won. First he had the reaction that most people do, which he couldn't quite believe it was real. He kept double checking and looking at the ticket and going online... When he finally and under, probably pinching himself like actively and aggressively... That'd be my first move if I thought I won $217 million, I'd be like, "Is this really happening?"
Elena Passarello: A lot of pinching.
Luke Burbank: After he realized this was real, he says his next thought was, "I know exactly what I need to do with this money, which is donate it to go create this foundation and then use this money to actually try to make a substantial change in what's going on as far as our relationship with this planet." Which is amazing and also pretty rare, I think. I don't know if you've seen these documentaries or other articles, but it turns out that for a lot of people who win the lottery, it's not great afterwards, because, you know...
Elena Passarello: Surprisingly bad.
Luke Burbank: If you have a, you know, this huge windfall of money and then, you know, you sort of think maybe you've, quote unquote, solved all of your problems because now you can afford as many jet skis as you want. You know, it turns out that you're still you, you still got maybe a different set of problems now. And so I've never heard of anyone just basically giving it away to charity, though.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's incredible.
Luke Burbank: I know, right? Do you ever play the lottery, Elena, or buy any of those, like, Powerball things or anything?
Elena Passarello: No, especially. And that's especially weird because I think about what I would do with my lottery winnings constantly.
Luke Burbank: Like jet skis.
Elena Passarello: Yes, jet skis. Like I'd invent, like, a desert jet ski that could go over dirt.
Luke Burbank: No, really. What do you think you would do, though? Like if you won one of these things, what do you think you would buy?
Elena Passarello: I would start a fully funded nonfiction grad tracks at all of my favorite schools that I visited as a writer over the course of my life. So there'd be.. And it would be for like a like a person, like a person who wouldn't traditionally get accepted, like somebody who comes from a more marginalized background, like a first generation college student or a person of color or a trans person. And it wouldn't just be at one school, though. It would be all of these different schools all over the place. And and then it would be like, "Oh, she's on the Passarello Fellowship." Or maybe I mean, you know, maybe an even after like my cat...
Luke Burbank: The Spooner?
Elena Passarello: The Spooner Fellowship. "I got a Spooner!"
Luke Burbank: That's actually... That kind of has a nice ring to it, right?
Elena Passarello: Yeah!
Luke Burbank: That is so much more altruistic than mine. I don't even know what I would do if I won all that money, but the good news is, there's, like, no chance of it happening because I only buy the ticket when it's already, like, over $500 million. Like, I wait until the maximum number of people are playing it, which drives down the chances of me winning it by myself, because you have more people, you know, buying a ticket to the to the dance. But I do have to say, when it gets to, like an absurd level, I'll buy like a $1 ticket, and then I just I'll buy it on Monday and I always joke with my friend, it's like walking around with a little sunshine in your pocket, just like for a dollar. And this is not an ad for lotteries, which are many well-founded criticisms of, but in my own personal experience, I do like walking around the whole week with that little ticket thinking, "What if? How many jet skis could I could I... could I get a jet ski that could ride on the back of a different jet ski?"
Elena Passarello: You could get a yacht that was basically a gigantic jet ski.
Luke Burbank: And then invite all of the Spooner fellows onto it for a celebration of their graduation!
Elena Passarello: It's like a residency, like a writer's residency, only it's a residence-ski!
Luke Burbank: There you go. [laughter] Now all we have to do is win, Elena, I think we have the rest of this totally planned out.
Elena Passarello: Sweet.
Luke Burbank: Residence-skis and you know, me possibly having a yacht. That's the best news that I heard this week! [music].
Luke Burbank: Hey, coming up on the radio show this week, we're going to talk to Gregory Gourdet about his early battles with addiction and what it's like to be a chef who is now sober. Also, what it's like to cook on Top Chef, which he's done a number of times with great success there. Also, he now apparently knows Oprah Winfrey, so we're going to have to ask about that as well. We are also going to talk to Julian Saporiti about how he transformed a doctoral research project on Asian-American history into concerts and albums and films all under the name No-No Boy. And we're going to hear a song from his latest album, which he basically went to a site where there had been Japanese internment camps and he recorded things there and has turned it into this music. It's really incredible and very powerful. So make sure you tune in on Friday or on a radio station somewhere in the country where Live Wire is on as we play that this weekend. [music].
Luke Burbank: All right. Thank you so much to the team of folks who make this show possible. Of course, Laura Hadden, our longsuffering executive producer. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko, our assistant editor is Tre Hester. Special thanks to our intern Jonas Myers. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer. Our theme music is composed by A. Walker Spring. And thanks to all of you, our listeners, for tuning in. Tell your friends about it, why don't you? We will see you very soon. In the meantime, head on out there and have the absolute best week.
