Month: June 2025

Metal icon Ozzy Osbourne is 76 years old, and he has lived with serious health conditions for years now, including Parkinson’s disease. Osbourne announced that he had been had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease back in 2020, but his official diagnosis came earlier, in February 2019, so he waited a while to break the news to the public.

Now, Osbourne is gearing up for his final show with Black Sabbath and his solo band at “Back to the Beginning,” set for July 5 at Villa Park. The star-studded event will honor Black Sabbath with one final set, as well as bring performances from Metallica, Mastodon, Tool, Slayer, Gojira and a slew of heavy metal acts.

In a new episode of “Ozzy Speaks” on Ozzy’s Boneyard SiriusXM channel, the metal great talked about how he’s getting ready for his final gig. “I have got this trainer guy who helps people get back to normal,” he said. “It’s hard going, but he’s convinced that he can pull it off for me. I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”

He added that getting ready for his final show takes “endurance” and that “the first thing that goes when you’re laid up is your stamina.”

Then, Osbourne actually said he’s been having his blood pressure taken 15 times a day to see “how my heart rate is.”

He also gave an emotional update about his mental leading up to the final show.

“My head’s crazy. ADHD – I have that badly,” he said. “I will have done the show and died a death before I even started my exercises. So I try and put it on the back burner. I’m not going up there saying, ‘It’s going to be great. I’m really confident.’ … But all I can say is I’m giving 120 percent. If my God wants me to do the show, I’ll do it.”

Related: The Beatles Have a Surprising Fan

Last week, Southwest Airlines officially began charging for checked bags, ending its longstanding “bags fly free” policy in an attempt to bring in more profits. But it sounds like there’s a chance the move could backfire.

Roger Dooley of Forbes is a speaker and author who covers science-based business strategies. In a recent article, he warned that by instituting a $35 charge for checked baggage, Southwest Airlines is making a rather costly mistake in consumer psychology in a number of ways.

As Dooley explains, Southwest customers will feel the loss of the free bags more than the actual cost because it felt like the free bags were something they already “owned.”

“Behavioral economists know that people feel losses about two to three times more intensely than equivalent gains. Southwest customers aren’t only seeing a $35 change in the cost of flying from point A to point B,” Dooley wrote for Forbes.

“Rather, they’re experiencing the loss of something they already ‘owned’ in their mental accounting. The well-established endowment effect says that people value something they currently own more than the same exact thing when it’s not theirs.”

Another point, as Dooley warns, is that since Southwest established free bags as a key and integral part of its brand, getting rid of that could erode consumer trust and damage the brand.

“Southwest literally trademarked ‘bags fly free’ and built entire advertising campaigns around being different from other airlines. This major reversal is inconsistent with its long-established brand image. The change creates cognitive dissonance that damages trust far beyond the fee itself,” Dooley wrote.

“When customers chose Southwest, they were choosing to avoid exactly this kind of nickel-and-diming. Now, they’re questioning what other promises might be broken next.”

One final point that Dooley makes is that Southwest customers are “anchored” to Southwest’s promise of $0 for checked baggage, meaning customers will compare the new $35 charge against the previous $0 charge, not the similar charge currently in place by other airlines. This makes the new bag fees feel disproportionately expensive.

“Even though Delta, United, and American charge similar amounts, Southwest’s fee will feel worse because of the broken expectation,” Dooley wrote.

This is a lot to overcome for Southwest, and the numbers don’t seem to be on their side, either.

We’ll have to see how the airline fares in the coming years after making such a major change.