Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

January 27, 2024

“There is nothing more musical than a sunset,” French composer Claude Debussy once said. It’s hard to argue. John Bulmer

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Where’s the justice?

When the Oscar nominations were announced this week, most observers expected Greta Gerwig to be nominated for Best Director. She wasn’t. Life goes on, right?

You know better than that.

As with every other time humans are involved in a subjective selection process with a finite number of slots, those left out are said to have been “snubbed,” as if their exclusion is a deliberate insult perpetrated by senseless curs. So no, the “Barbie” director was not snubbed when she wasn’t among the five people nominated for a “Best Director” Oscar, nor is the box office and cultural success of the “Barbie” movie diminished in any way. It goes without saying: excellence does not guarantee success nor require awards for validation. Greatness is its own reward. Just ask the cast of “Better Call Saul,” nominated 53 times for an Emmy without a victory, a record.

THE CULP EDGE: Last year, he led General Electric to a 96 percent gain in its stock price, outperforming Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The notoriously irascible active investor Nelson Peltz calls him the “No. 1 industrial CEO on the planet.” You may not immediately summon his name to mind and that’s just the way Larry Culp likes it. He’s turned modesty into a competitive strength while dismantling, with great success, what was once the world’s most renowned conglomerate.

UNDER A MICROSCOPE: It seems Harvard has another academic dishonesty scandal brewing. Weeks after President Claudine Gay resigned under pressure, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute moved to retract six studies and correct 31 others following allegations of data manipulation. The prestigious Harvard Medical School affiliate is continuing its internal review, including of papers authored by its CEO. “We are committed to a culture of accountability and integrity. Therefore, every inquiry is examined fully to ensure the soundness of the scientific literature,” Barrett Rollins, Dana-Farber’s research integrity officer and chief science officer emeritus, said.

COSTLY COASTING: Money can’t buy happiness, the cliché goes, but the cost of unhappiness can be measured, and it’s a staggering sum. Research from Gallup estimated that disgruntled employees cost U.S. companies an estimated $1.9 trillion in lost productivity in 2023, according to Bloomberg: “The research paints a bleak picture of America’s workforce. Only one-third of respondents said they are engaged at their jobs, while half are giving minimum effort — what has been dubbed ‘quiet quitting.’” Citing a growing hopelessness among young people and employees, a commentary in Fortune argues that hope is an outlook any organization or workplace must work hard to instill. “Hope helps people envision a concrete path to a better situation, empowering them to set goals and make plans to reach these positive outcomes,” the authors write. “It drives action, propelled by the will to follow through. … Hope builds resilience in the face of uncertainty – a key driver of workforce disengagement and attrition. Hope is an antidote to learned helplessness and makes people feel like they have the ability to address big, overwhelming problems.”

CONSCIOUS COASTING: Two weeks back, we had news that more than half of working people in the world said they would take a 20% pay cut for improved work/life balance. This week, a similar survey by KeyBank found a greater share of people than before saying they value work/life balance, matched by a decline in the percentage of people who say they value a high salary. Cleveland.com reported, “According to the survey, 72% of respondents would rather define success based on what’s called a soft-life culture, which focuses on happiness, contentment and fulfillment. While 54% of people say a hustle culture that defines success based on wealth, status and achievement can lead to burnout.”

HOUSING ALARM: We need more housing, almost everywhere. More evidence arrived this week in a Harvard study that found half of U.S. renters — a record — are cost-burdened by paying more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities. Of that group, nearly half were paying more than 50% of their income for those costs. “We simply don't have enough homes that people can afford,” Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, told NPR. “And when you combine rapidly rising rent — that it just costs more per month for people to get into a place and keep a place — you get this vicious game of musical chairs.”

Sledding brings out the kid in everyone, this time at the Long Lake Winter Carnival in Long Lake, N.Y. Nancie Battaglia

TRUCK TRAFFIC: Emily Gogolak, a writer in Texas, wondered what was going on with trucking. Why, she thought, was she constantly seeing come-ons for people to follow the road to independence by learning to drive a truck at the same time she was reading news about truckers quitting the industry as fast as new employers will hire them? Rather than ask around, she decided to find out for herself everything she could about driving a truck, enrolling in a driving school that taught her a lot more than she expected to learn about the knowledge and skills required to drive a truck, the eclectic people drawn to the trade and her own perseverance. Her account brings readers as close to trucking school as most are likely to come.

DRUG PROBLEM: Oregon voters in 2020 passed a ballot measure to decriminalize possession of heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, oxycodone and other hard drugs, the first state in the nation to take such a step. The leader of a group supporting the measure called it “arguably the biggest blow to the war on drugs to date.” Maybe not. This week, lawmakers previewed a measure to reinstitute criminal penalties for possession, an acknowledgement that public sentiment has turned in the wake of a deadly fentanyl crisis in the state. It also would allow police to address what has become widespread public drug use and make it easier to prosecute dealers.

IN-N-OUT IS OUT: In-N-Out, the enormously popular West Coast burger chain, is closing what it described as a “busy and profitable” restaurant near the Oakland airport, the first permanent closure in the 75-year history of the company. The reason: Crime. In a statement, CNN reports, In-N-Out said, “despite taking repeated steps to create safer conditions, our customers and associates are regularly victimized by car break-ins, property damage, theft, and armed robberies.” “We feel the frequency and severity of the crimes being encountered by our customers and associates leave us no alternative,” Chief Operating Officer Denny Warnick said.

BEYOND HELP: Jo Franklin once was a journalist and documentary filmmaker who specialized in the Middle East. Her profile was such that her alma mater, the University of Florida, gratefully accepted a $2 million gift to fund the “Josephine A. Franklin Chair in Islam and Politics.” A gala was planned, a letter from the school president framed, but the check bounced, and the excuses mounted, and soon, Jo Franklin had vanished from public view, retreating to a secretive and fabulist life that unraveled one frayed shoe, one cup of hot water and one arrest at a time, with nothing her family could do to stop the spiral.

THINKING BIG: A developer has visions of building the tallest skyscraper in the U.S., and the sixth tallest in the world, in Oklahoma City. Matteson Capital is envisioning a four-tower complex, the centerpiece of which would top out at 1,907 feet, a nod to the year Oklahoma became a state. It would exceed the height of One World Trade Center in New York City, which rises to 1,776 feet. The complex would include a mix of residential units and hotels.

CHART-TOPPER: Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer this week passed retired Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski atop the all-time list for college basketball coaching victories when the Cardinal defeated Oregon State for her 1,203^rd win. VanDerveer, a native of Schenectady, N.Y., is in her 38th season at Stanford and 45th overall.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY: Given the choice between obeying speed limits or being nabbed by speed cameras, a lot of New York City drivers are choosing a third option — fake or obscured license plates, which, according to a city audit, cost the city an estimated $108 million in lost fines, an astonishing figure by any measure. The same methods allow them to evade tolls, red light cameras and other automated traffic devices. Port Authority police arrested one such miscreant trying to cross the George Washington Bridge. He had nearly 300 unpaid violations and racked up $20,000 in unpaid tolls and fees.

LIFE SAVER: A woman delivering her local newspaper in the darkness of a frozen morning in eastern Indiana quite likely saved the life of a 94-year-old man who had fallen outside his garage. Heidi Lipscomb, filling in for a driver whose car wouldn’t start, wanted to be sure the papers arrived on time, so she was making her deliveries at 2 a.m. when she found Bill Denny, bleeding, immobile and unable to speak. He’ll make a full recovery.

SO LONG, JACK’S: Jack’s Oyster House, a landmark restaurant in downtown Albany, N.Y., known for its fine-dining elegance and political power lunches, is officially closed and on the market, the Albany Times Union reports. Opened in 1913, it abruptly closed for what was announced as a renovation in August 2022 and never reopened.

CHARLES OSGOOD took over as host of “CBS News Sunday Morning” in 1994, stepping into the enormous shoes of the beloved Charles Kuralt and continuing the show’s success for more than two decades with his own unhurried approach and gift for storytelling, a skill he honed over decades in radio. The Associated Press called him “an erudite, warm broadcaster with a flair for music who could write essays and light verse as well as report hard news. He worked radio and television with equal facility.” A member of the radio division of the National Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame, he was awarded the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award in 2008 and won five Emmy Awards, one for lifetime achievement. He had dementia and died at 91.

NORMAN JEWISON was a film director of uncommon range, his Hollywood productions including Doris Day comedies and the Oscar-winning social drama “In the Heat of the Night.” A Canadian, Jewison hitchhiked through the American South during the Jim Crow era, leaning on the experience to make movies that tackled racism and injustice. “Every time a film deals with racism, many Americans feel uncomfortable,” he wrote in his autobiography, words that continue to ring true today. “Yet it has to be confronted. We have to deal with prejudice and injustice or we will never understand what is good and evil, right and wrong; we need to feel how ‘the other’ feels.” He also directed “Moonstruck,” the romantic comedy for which Cher won an Academy Award, and “Fiddler on the Roof,” the classic musical about a Jewish village in Russia that Jewison has said was offered to him under the mistaken belief he was Jewish. He was 97.

BILL IFFRIG was a retired brick mason quietly enjoying life in Washington state when he suddenly became a symbol of resilience to a stunned nation. He was 60 feet from finishing the 2013 Boston Marathon when the first of two homemade pressure-cooker bombs exploded, knocking him to the ground, the moment captured by a Boston Globe photographer and soon seen around the world. He got up and finished, with President Obama mentioning him by name in televised remarks to the nation. “I’m going to get up and finish this thing,” he recalled thinking in a 2015 interview with MSNBC. “I’d been out there four hours. I didn’t want to quit.” He died in a memory care facility at 89.

“Remember the old advertising line 'A little dab'll do ya'? For Mr. Naga Hot Pepper Pickle, it's more like a little dab'll do ya in.”
— Senior writer Steve Barnes, recounting his encounter with an extra-spicy condiment, in the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union

TO JAIL, IF YOU PLEASE: A Chicago man was arrested moments after handing a bank teller a hand-written note that read, “Please Give me the money I’ll pay it back soon” and walking out with nearly $600. Why not, it worked before — a federal jury had acquitted him of a bank robbery charge three days earlier, accepting defense claims that his note (“Give me the money Please Thank You”), absent any threat, did not meet the legal standard for bank robbery.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Troy Burns, Kristy Miller, Leigh Hornbeck, Claire P. Tuttle, Nancie Battaglia and John Bulmer.

FACING OUT is what we do. We help companies, organizations and individuals work effectively with their most important external audiences – their customers, their shareholders, their communities, the government and the news media.  www.behancommunications.com

Facing Out features news and other nuggets that caught our eye, and that we thought might be of value to you, our friends and business associates. Some items are good news about our clients and friends, others are stories that we hope will leave you a bit more informed or entertained than you were five minutes ago. As always, we welcome your ideas and feedback. 

Let’s make it a conversation: mark.behan@behancom.com