Weekend Digest: The bull-riding grandma, betting the farm, and tired of divided government edition

TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

Talk Politics
The governor wants more tax reform, but legislators are resisting several initiatives that could create new revenue. Where does the leader of the Arkansas State Senate stand? Sen. Jonathan Dismang is our guest.

Roundtable Roundup
Our political roundtable includes Rep. Vivian Flowers and State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson. What’s their take on the Presidential race and what do they want to see happen with criminal justice reform in the next legislative session?

4 Minutes, 4 Questions
Plus, 4 Minutes, 4 Questions with Wes Brown. Are we seeing a stronger economy heading into the fall? What ballot issue could impact Arkansas’ economy the most?

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

HOW ABOUT A THREE DAY WORK WEEK?
According to a study published by the University of Melbourne “working more than three days, or 25 hours, per week is bad for cognitive function.”

Go figure!

In fact, cognitive abilities were dramatically improved in both males and females when working up to three days or 25 hours. But once they pass the threshold, a steep decline in cognition was found. However, there is bad news, millennials: this study only focused on the cognitive abilities of people over the age of 40. Whether or not these results apply to the entire population remains to be seen.

For more on this remarkable study, click on this link from Tech.Co.

WHY STARTUPS ARE IGNORING THE RISKS AND BETTING THE FARM
Forbes says, “Crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending, social finance, however you choose to describe it, is settling into its stride and evolving into a well-established industry.”

“Last week, Seedrs went further, declaring that crowdfunding had come of age, with results of its portfolio update report showing better annualized rates of return than most other asset classes, since its platform launched in 2012.”

Even more encouraging is the World Bank forecast that global crowdfunding will reach $90 billion by 2020, though at the current growth rate, many believe this figure could be reached by 2017. Then you cast your mind back to Europe’s biggest Kickstarter project, the Zano mini-drone, that crashed and burned last year, leaving many of its 12,000 backers, who’d put in £2.3million ($3.5 million), with nothing, and the crowdfunding cynics saying ‘told you so’.

The crowdfunding dichotomy is puzzling; mature enough to be considered almost mainstream, yet still fraught with risk, as highlighted by the Zano failure. Nevertheless, for many startups crowdfunding is still their best and possibly only hope of getting products to market.

Want to read why? Go to this link.

BEYONCE IS THE TECH INDUSTRY’S NEWEST CELEBRITY INVESTOR
“Silicon Valley has some new royalty,” posts Mashable.

Beyoncé just pumped $150,000 into a concert merchandise and line-cutting app called Sidestep by way of her Parkwood Entertainment management company, according to TechCrunch.

“The startup first caught the singer’s eye when it started peddling t-shirts and posters for her Formation World Tour earlier this year. Within a matter of weeks, Queen Bey decided to join the app’s seed funding round.”

While it’s not a huge sum of money — especially relative to Beyoncé’s estimated half-billion-dollar net worth — the publicity her outsized star power brings to the table is no doubt worth much more.

And for much more on this story, connect here.

MAKING THE CAR A MOBILE, CONNECTED WORKSPACE
“Carlos Ghosn has made a career out of handling crises. In the 1990s, the celebrated car executive essentially saved first Renault and then Nissan, and for the past 11 years he’s served as CEO of both. A Brazilian-born Lebanese-Frenchman – the very embodiment of globalization – he somehow manages to be a hands-on executive on two continents,” reports Harvard Business Review.

He is also among the most recognizable figures in the industry. By restructuring Renault and restoring it to profitability, he earned the nickname “Le Cost Killer.” For his success in overhauling Nissan, which formed an alliance with Renault in 1999, Ghosn won the sobriquet “Mr. Fix-It.” And he is famously portrayed as a superhero in a Japanese comic-book series.

“But technology can humble even the most successful executives, and Ghosn these days is focused on trying to remain an innovator. Dramatic advances – electric cars, vehicles that operate with significant autonomy, fully self-driving cars – threaten to shake up the industry. Upstarts like Tesla and even Google are now in the automotive business. The transformation is sure to crown new market leaders and ding some incumbents.

“We expect major disruptions in technology,” says Ghosn, “which will change the product mix.”

Learn more about Ghosn’s vision at this link.

WHAT THE DEBATES AGAIN NEED: JOURNALIST PANELS
According to Real Clear Politics, “Crystal ball predictions at this time of the year are for suckers, but the smart money says conservatives will again complain about media bias after the next presidential debate, which is Oct. 9 in St. Louis.”

That’s because the right has a history with one of the evening’s co-moderators, ABC’s Martha Raddatz. She moderated the 2012 vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. The complaint four years ago: Raddatz kept letting Biden butt into Ryan’s time.

The other St. Louis moderator is CNN’s Anderson Cooper. He and Trump had an uneasy interview back in August over Trump’s assertion that Hillary Clinton was a “bigot.” Cooper was Clinton’s first call when she wanted to set the record straight on her bout with pneumonia (to his credit, he called her out for withholding the information until after her collapse).

“I’m not suggesting that Raddatz and Cooper are biased journalists. But we do have a problem with a debate system that makes it too easy for one side of the aisle to gripe about the process,” says researcher Bill Whalen.

Here are three changes to ponder.

WHERE THE KEY STATES STAND IN THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RACE
“As the countdown to Election Day continues, the battle for the presidency is picking up steam, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the battleground states,” reports ABC News.

ABC News is breaking down the issues and ground games in play in five key battleground states: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina. Based on reporting and analysis, ABC News has determined that these five states are currently up for grabs for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Learn how the two campaigns are fighting to the wire for these key states at this link.

HOW CONGRESS AVERTED A SHUTDOWN
“Congressional leaders had the playbook for how to avoid a messy pre-election government shutdown all along. They just had to execute the plays.” posts The Hill.

“Republican and Democratic leaders had given hints about this possible path for days, if not weeks: Congress would attach aid to deal with the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., to a separate water projects bill, appeasing Democrats who had been holding the spending bill hostage over the issue.

Then lawmakers would pass the stopgap funding bill, leave town and get back to the campaign trail.”

After a flurry of phone calls and meetings, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reached a deal Tuesday night on federal aid to address Flint — the final major sticking point in negotiations over a 10-week bill to fund the government.

“The Senate approved legislation keeping the government funded through Dec. 9 on Wednesday afternoon, with the House approving separate legislation that includes money for Flint hours later. The House approved the stopgap measure Wednesday night, 342-85.”

For complete details, click here.

SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: ‘I’M TIRED OF DIVIDED GOVERNMENT’
POLITICO reports, “House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday promised to work with a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration, but acknowledged that he’s worn out from working in an ineffective, divided Congress.”

“Look, we’ll work with whoever wins whatever office,” Ryan (R-Wis.) said during a moderated discussion at the Washington Ideas Forum. “Obviously, I think with a unified Republican government, we can get so much more done.”

“I’m tired of divided government. It doesn’t work very well,” Ryan said. “We’re just at loggerheads. We’ve gotten some good things done. But the big things — poverty, the debt crisis, the economy, health care — these things are stuck in divided government, and that’s why we think a unified Republican government’s the way to go.”

Read more at this link.

REYKJAVIK GOES DARK FOR NORTHERN LIGHTS SHOW
“The lights went out in Reykjavik on Wednesday night to give people a chance to enjoy one of the night sky’s most impressive spectacles – the Aurora Borealis,” says the BBC.

Reykjavik’s city council announced that street lighting would be switched off for an hour in the city centre and several other districts from 22:00 local time, in order to cut out the light pollution that can hamper sky-watching. It also encouraged the capital’s residents to join in by turning off their lighting at home.

So how’d it go? Read on and take a look here.

BULL-RIDING, RACE CAR-DRIVING GRANDMA WANTS TO BE A BOXER
How’s that go again? Well ESPN W. has the scoop on 49-year-old Carol “The Cheyenne Storm” Limpy. There’s so much about this woman, but here’s a tease.

While she’s always looked for ways to test her limits physically, this particular boxing journey, she hopes, will have more of an impact on her community. She wants to use her involvement in the sport as a vehicle to connect with kids to discuss their academic and personal issues. And given that she’s divorced from her husband and now living with her female partner, Anita Wheeler, Limpy understands the value of helping those in her community who are afraid to come out, in light of the conservative values many in the tribe and state espouse.

So get to clicking up a “storm” about super-grandma Limpy.