Diamond in the rough. The post “We cut it as a comedy track”: How a “crap” Rolling Stones song became a classic rock anthem first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The innovator. The post “I have great respect for him”: Sting believes all modern artists still imitate David Bowie first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

by Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News: The U.S. Navy’s USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, the world’s largest and most expensive aircraft carrier ever built, has reportedly withdrawn from the Persian Gulf and is now at a port in Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, after a fire burned on board for over 30 hours. More […]

Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. Curbing cars Back in 2022, RTBC Contributing Editor Peter Yeung reported on Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s war on cars. According to a study at the time, the proportion of journeys by car in Paris had dropped about 45 percent since 1990. Now, as Mayor Hidalgo prepares to leave office, the numbers for pedestrians and cyclists are even more impressive — although, as the Economist reports in a story shared by Peter this week, the motorists are not pleased about it. Peter says: With over 1,500 km of cycle lanes, Paris now boasts a bigger network than Amsterdam. More daily trips are now made by bike than by car. A homebuilding moonshot You probably haven’t heard of Operation Breakthrough, a 1970s effort by the U.S. government to build millions of modular and prefabricated homes. As Bloomberg Citylab reports in a story shared by Executive Editor Will Doig, what may have been the most ambitious federal housing program in the country’s history has been mostly forgotten. Now, an exhibit at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago is featuring the program and its prototypes — which, Citylab notes, could hold lessons for the future.  Will says: I love lost-to-history projects, like this audacious attempt in the ’70s to create tons and tons of affordable housing using NASA-style R&D. These kinds of inspirational long-shot efforts feel rarer these days. What else we’re reading Oil and gas prices are soaring. Some countries are ready with solar panels and EVs — shared by Will Doig from NPR Could Free Child Care Last the Full Day? Some Working Parents Hope So. — shared by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby from the New York Times Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating — shared by Contributing Editor Michaela Haas from the Guardian In rural West Texas, renewable energy brings a windfall for seniors — shared by Rebecca Worby from Grist In other news… If you live in Chicago or plan to visit in the next few months, you’re in luck: Theater of the Mind, a multisensory experience co-created by RTBC founder David Byrne and writer Mala Gaonkar, officially opens this week at The Goodman Theatre.  Here’s a bit about the show: Inspired by both historical and current neuroscience research, the show takes you on an intimate and immersive journey inside how we see and create our worlds. Peer behind the curtain of the physical realm as you move through a series of rooms with your guide, where you’ll participate in thought-provoking experiences — and marvel at the wonders of your mind. Learn more and buy tickets here. The post What We’re Reading: Paris Is More Bike-Friendly Than Ever appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

The ex-Genesis singer wanted them to be his backing band exclusively, leaving them to choose between his ambitions or their own

Despite falling record sales and changes in the musical landscape, Tyketto stayed true to their style. Now, with a new album on the way, they’re finding a new audience

To say the conservative movement has come off the rails would comically understate the damage. Wild accusations bounce from show to show. Members of Congress pick petty fights on social media. President Trump even waded into internet drama while another war rages in the Persian Gulf.Plenty of commentators blame podcasts for this new disorder, and the new ecosystem gives them no shortage of bad behavior to cite. But that diagnosis misses the deeper cause. Establishment conservatives treated their audiences the same way the legacy press did: as a resource to be managed, manipulated, and occasionally milked. A movement that spent decades being lied to will not be stitched back together by scolding the people who finally stopped listening.Conservative audiences will not return to reality through scolding. They will return through honesty.After Democrats lost in 2024 to a resurgent Donald Trump, they went hunting for culprits. They blamed a new breed of podcasters who cracked the information monopoly progressives had grown used to enjoying. Talk radio always bothered the left, but it remained a kind of cultural ghetto for older conservatives. Podcasts like Joe Rogan’s reached a younger, largely male audience that rarely participated in politics at all. Democrats screamed about “disinformation,” warned about the danger of free speech, then launched research projects designed to replicate what they claimed to hate.The right cheered the upheaval. Establishment conservatives, however, never fully grasped what the shift meant for them. The left’s control of mainstream media gave it a weapon of enormous magnitude, but Fox News and talk radio served a parallel purpose on the right: discipline the acceptable narrative, keep Republican voters inside a manageable story, and punish those who stepped too far outside it.Institutional conservatives also abused that power. They sold narratives that served donors, careers, and comfortable assumptions. They treated their base as a captive audience. This behavior helped fuel the Trumpian revolution in the first place. Trump did not rise only as a battering ram against progressive media. He rose as a middle finger to a conservative establishment that had earned the people’s contempt.That plan worked, then kept working in ways many people did not anticipate. The democratization of information that destroyed the progressive narrative machine has now turned its solvent on the conservative one. Populism behaves like universal acid. It rarely dissolves only the targets you prefer.Conservative gatekeepers now display the same panicked reflexes the left showed: warnings about “dangerous rhetoric,” demands for deplatforming, and pleas for “responsible” voices to regain control. These instincts never belonged to one ideology. They belong to institutions that sense their monopoly slipping away.RELATED: America First can’t survive an Iran quagmire Blaze Media IllustrationPodcast distribution changes the game. Commentators once required the reach of major networks and the production value that came with large teams. Now anyone with a microphone, a ring light, and an internet connection can reach millions.It turns out that younger audiences value relatability and long-form conversation more than professional polish. Even established names found the freedom of the podcast more attractive than a coveted cable slot.The low barrier of entry produces obvious downsides. Wild speculation spreads faster than corrections. Personal feuds drive engagement more reliably than careful analysis. The audience rewards charisma and intensity, not always judgment. The result looks ridiculous at times. This week, the president inserted himself into a juvenile online dispute while U.S. forces struck Iran, a perfect example of how unserious the culture can become when attention becomes the currency and everyone fights for a share of it.But all the moralizing in the world will not restore the old order. Mainstream conservatives cannot lecture podcast audiences about “responsible broadcasting” after years of manipulating their own viewers. The level of mistrust runs too deep.Censorship will fail too. Shaming and platform policing did not rebuild credibility for Democrats. It will not rebuild Republicans’ credibility.RELATED: The SAVE Act is the hill voters will die on Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesThis is the part conservative leadership does not want to hear. The path out requires admitting that the problem did not begin with podcasts. The problem began with institutions that treated truth as a tool. Restoring coherence demands that conservative leaders stop trying to reassert narrative control and start rebuilding trust. That means fewer games, fewer insinuations, fewer anonymous smears, and more willingness to say, “We were wrong,” and explain why.Conservative audiences will not return to reality through scolding. They will return through honesty. That will require a different posture from conservative leaders: less control, more candor; fewer moral lectures, more receipts; fewer slogans, more clarity about what can be done and what cannot. The movement will stumble until it learns that discipline beats drama.So expect things to get worse before they get better. Conservative media spent years breaking trust. The bill has come due. And now the only way out is through.