Steve Mencher

Biography: Steve writes about culture, politics, the news, and other subjects for AARP. He's also a jazz musician with the Willis Gidney Quintet. He has worked for Carnegie Hall, NPR and the Library of Congress as an audio, video and multimedia producer.

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Steve Mencher 'sPosts

Julie Andrews to Grads: ‘Go Out and Kick Butt’

Posted on 05/17/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin Today | Entertainment | VolunteeringGet over yourself. That was the message delivered by Julie Andrews, 77, to the graduates of the University of Colorado, Boulder last week. The late writer David Foster Wallace presented similar thoughts in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address, the starting point for a new viral video that’s been viewed on YouTube more than five million times since being uploaded at the start of this year’s graduation season. More on that later. (Watch the two videos below and let us …

How Alligators Could Keep You Out of the Dentist’s Chair

Posted on 05/16/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin Today | Personal HealthYou’ve heard of royal families having “an heir and a spare” in waiting to become the next king. Well, the same is true of alligator teeth: Behind every tooth is a replacement tooth, just in case, as well as the material needed to keep more teeth coming — as many as 50 times throughout the scary reptile’s life. Why should we care, other than to know that if an alligator breaks his tooth while eating us, another will grow back? …

A Four-Time Lottery Winner Reveals His Secret

Posted on 05/15/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin TodayWho you gonna call for luck as tonight’s $360 million Powerball drawing approaches? (Update: the jackpot has grown to $550 million in advance of the drawing May 18 – it’s now the third largest in history.) Well, if you want someone to blow on your ticket, you could do worse than to find retired postal worker Melvyn Wilson, a four-time winner of Virginia’s scratch-off lottery games. “Mr. Lucky,” as Wilson, 72, has come to be known, just won $500,000 in …

Ground Control to Commander Chris Hadfield: ‘Hallo Spaceboy’

Posted on 05/14/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin Today | Entertainment | TechnologyHe’s an astronaut, and a rock star. As Commander Chris Hadfield, 53, heads back home from the International Space Station, his video of David Bowie’s Space Oddity is trending on YouTube and approaching 2 million views exceeding 10 million views in just a couple of days. It’s being called the first music video recorded in space. Bowie himself is tickled pink, tweeting ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ to the astronaut in honor of another celestial Bowie tune. Hadfield is using his new status as a …

Newt Gingrich Asks: Just What Is That Thing in Your Pocket?

Posted on 05/13/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Bulletin Today | TechnologyNewt Gingrich is turning his attention from outer space to your mobile phone. In a video uploaded to YouTube by the team at Gingrich Productions (no joke) just last week, the former House speaker and presidential candidate announces a contest of sorts to name that phone/camera/web-surfing thingy you carry around and to celebrate its vast potential to change the world. Smartphone? He doesn’t mention the word. Up until recently, he’s been partial to “handheld personal computer.” Or maybe he’s smart …

Why Complaining Is Bad for You… but Might Feel Too Good to Stop

Posted on 05/7/2013 by Steve Mencher | News, Culture, Sights and Sounds | Comments

Your LifeMy dad was a master complainer. A king of kvetching. He had a symphony of noises and a palette of winces and scowls to make his annoyance known to all. Dad would never have taken part in a growing fad: purple rubber bracelets carved with the words “A Complaint Free World.” Ten million bracelets are supposedly out there in more than 100 countries, although who knows how many are being worn. The bracelet is inspiration for nitpickers, grouches and grumblers …