Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

January 6, 2024

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul addresses a crowd at Fort William Henry in Lake George, N.Y., where she announced the town had received a $10 million state revitalization grantNew York Gov. Kathy Hochul addresses a crowd at Fort William Henry in Lake George, N.Y., where she announced the town had received a $10 million state revitalization grant. Skip Dickstein

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Happy New Year and welcome to the first issue of Facing Out of 2024.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul arrived at Fort William Henry’s historic Carriage House two days after Christmas with a big gift for Lake George: $10 million for downtown revitalization. The event was attended by approximately 250 people, including residents of Hoosick Falls and Schuylerville, nearby communities that each received $4.5 million.

Hochul said she was disappointed her favorite local pancake place wasn’t open for her visit but said making the announcement was one of the highlights of her job. It feels good to let hardworking, dedicated people know they’re going to have serious money to make a big impact on the future of their communities, the governor said. 

Lake George was the Capital Region winner of the seventh round of the state’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative and was one of 10 economic development regions across the state to receive $10 million. The funds are intended to improve the quality of life and sense of place along the town’s thoroughfare and adjacent waterfront.

Hochul emphasized the need to create new housing for full-time residents and seasonal employees, and this week came news that the village is working to purchase a local motel and convert it to housing. Lack of housing is a statewide problem and is widely cited as an impediment to economic development. A new report from a national housing policy group argues that New York State needs 240,000 more homes to meet demand. The issue is high on the governor’s agenda, but with the state hemorrhaging residents, you have to wonder if the solution will arrive on its own before we know it.

AT LONG LAST, NATURE MAY DELIVER another burst of good news for the Lake George region and others in the Northeast that court winter tourism — forecasters are expecting the season’s first major snowstorm of the season to arrive this weekend. Snow or no, Lake George is already seeing the benefits of new winter attractions that are open no matter the weather. The immersive Winter’s Dream experience, which opened in December, already has drawn more than 15,000 people, including more than 1,000 on its single biggest day.

WISE ADVICE: Mohnbir Sawhney, an associate dean at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, published an article on LinkedIn that he titled, “Advice on Taking Advice.” He has six tips for getting better at taking advice, beginning with a threshold question: Are you willing to change direction based on the advice you might get? If not, don’t ask. “We all need advice at various times and situations in our lives,” he writes. “We may need advice on career paths, personal development, financial decisions, relationships, health, life transitions, and dealing with crises in life. Good advice is rare, and it is a gift. But you must know how to receive the gift of advice.”

YOUNG SENSATIONS: A pair of teenagers were all over the news this week — one a darts prodigy, the other the first to beat Tetris, a classic video game that’s been around nearly four decades. Luke Littler, a 16-year-old from Great Britain with 300,000 Instagram followers, nearly became the youngest world champion in the history of darts, falling in the final of the PDC World Darts Championship in London. Littler, who threw his first dart at a magnetic board when he was 18 months old and beat the five-time world champion, has eight years left to become the youngest-ever titlist. In Oklahoma, 13-year-old Willis Gibson took 38 minutes to become the first person ever to reach level 157 of Tetris, a video game in which players manipulate and fit together falling blocks of varying shapes to create solid rows. As the level goes up, the blocks fall faster. “I’m going to pass out, I can’t feel my fingers,” he said after his feat caused the game to crash in a video posted to YouTube.

LET’S TRY AGAIN: Americans disagree about a lot these days, but one thing we hope can agree on is that people who admit committing ballot fraud — especially when that person is a former elections commissioner — should not be rewarded with a political patronage job. That little bit of common sense seems to have eluded the majority on the city council in Troy, N.Y., which offered an assistant city clerk job to the felon, evidently unconcerned about his very recent past. He backed out when the media got wind of it.

THAT HELPLESS FEELING: Adam Grant, a renowned author and organizational psychologist at Penn’s Wharton School, is a keen observer of the human condition and has a knack for explaining what people are feeling but can’t quite put into words. Since the October attack on Israel, he’s noticing more people avoiding news about the war, seemingly tuned out and indifferent. What they’re expressing, he writes, is basically the opposite of indifference — it’s a sign of empathic distress, and stems from a feeling of hopelessness in the face of human suffering. “I felt it intensely this fall, as violence escalated abroad and anger echoed across the United States,” he writes in The New York Times. “Helpless as a teacher, unsure of how to protect my students from hostility and hate. Useless as a psychologist and writer, finding words too empty to offer any hope. Powerless as a parent, searching for ways to reassure my kids that the world is a safe place and most people are good. Soon I found myself avoiding the news altogether and changing the subject when war came up. Understanding how empathy can immobilize us like that is a critical step for helping others — and ourselves. … In times of sustained anguish, empathy is a recipe for more distress, and in some cases even depression. What we need instead is compassion.”

CUPS OF JOY: We’ll admit, the headline had us a bit confused: Why are Target and Starbucks selling replicas of the Stanley Cup, and why are people going wild for them? Then we read the story and discovered that Stanley, the company that makes stainless steel insulated cups, bottles and mugs, had produced a limited number of “Cosmo Pink” and “Target Red” cups and that people were lining up at 3 a.m. to buy them. The Detroit Free Press called them the “hottest Valentine’s gift of the year,” and reported that the items were sold out across Michigan. Gotta love the American consumer. If you’re in the market for one of these cups and lucky enough to get one, you’ll be able to use it now for drive-thru or mobile orders at Starbucks; the chain announced this week that it would allow customers to use their own mugs for most items, an effort to reduce waste.

The crisp night sky illuminates a solitary barn in Johnsonville, N.Y., Rensselaer County. The crisp night sky illuminates a solitary barn in Johnsonville, N.Y., Rensselaer County. John Bulmer

YET ANOTHER BATTLE: Chick-fil-As are famously closed on Sundays everywhere they do business, in keeping with the religious convictions of the founder and the contract of every franchise operator. It should go without saying that it is the right of a private business to establish its own hours of operation without government interference. But Chick-fil-A now finds itself in the middle of another kerfuffle in New York State, which is in the midst of a half-billion-dollar remake of the 27 rest stops that line the New York State Thruway. Several of the rest areas, which are privately operated, added Chick-fil-As, which, to no one’s surprise, are not open on one of the busiest travel days of the week. Democratic lawmakers in the state have introduced a bill to require service area restaurants along the Thruway to be open seven days, though the rest area’s operator notes that “alternative hot and cold food options are always available seven days a week, 24 hours a day to ensure that our customers’ needs are fully met.” Chick-fil-As seem to be popular everywhere they do business and don’t seem inclined to turn away from their values. 

INCREDIBLE ESCAPE: Aviation safety experts are crediting the professionalism of the crew and the obedience of passengers for the miraculous evacuation this week of a crowded commercial jet after it collided with a military plane while landing in Tokyo. All 367 passengers and 12 crew members safely escaped the Japan Airlines Airbus A350 before it was engulfed by flames, with only a few seeking medical attention. The orderly evacuation avoided a near-catastrophe, but the amount of time that lapsed before the plane was consumed is indicative of improved aircraft design and “the crash-worthiness of modern jetliners today,” the former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board told CBS News.

PARK PROTECTOR: For as long as he can remember, Tim Albright has had a deep interest in the history and unique geology of the area where he grew up, at the foot of the Helderberg Mountains, an escarpment a few miles west of Albany, N.Y. When he was 13, he won a contest by the local historical society to design a seal for the town, still in use today. He had always loved the nearby John Boyd Thacher State Park, so much so that he started a quest more than 30 years ago to have the National Park Service designate Thacher Park a National Natural Landmark. He learned recently that his efforts had succeeded.

TACKLING EXTREMISM: We’ve said it before: New York’s North Country Public Radio consistently punches above its weight when it comes to reporting compelling pieces from enterprising journalists who probe for a deeper understanding of the communities they cover. So when NCPR announces a podcast examining extremist and militia movements in northern New York, why they’re drawing support and the threats they present, it’s probably worth a listen.

A DARK CHAPTER: The sad tale of the Rockwell Falls Public Library finally found its way to The New York Times this week. If you’ve managed so far to overlook this unfortunate chapter in the long story of national polarization, here’s a quick recap: The three-member staff of the taxpayer-funded public library in Lake Luzerne, N.Y., decided to hold a Drag Queen Story Hour. They planned the event with help from a group in Vermont and announced it with three days’ notice to the community. Predictably, some people erupted in anger. Lake Luzerne is a beautiful Adirondack place, cherished by many longtime residents with traditional values and others who moved there hoping to spare their families exposure to the culture wars raging elsewhere. Angry accusations were exchanged, and actual fist fights ensued. The story hour never happened, but the fights continued and the damage was done. Eventually, the local institution that had performed so many useful services, providing books to adults and kids, hosting a food pantry, and offering internet access for those who did not have it, closed down. New York State has had to step in and appoint trustees to oversee things, but for now the library remains dark.

THE BLOOM IS OFF THE ROSE: Flowers are having less sex, and we should take note. With fewer bees to pollinate them, the flowers are having to do it themselves. They call it selfing. Selfing may be the next best thing to bees, but with selfing a flower uses only its own genes to produce new seeds. When bees pollinate the flowers, the DNAs mix, creating new combinations that may make them better prepared for diseases, droughts and other challenges that future generations may face.

01_Nuggets.jpgSEED MONEY: In rural communities, the old tradition of neighbors helping neighbors has spread naturally to the new neighbors, farm breweries. In Saratoga County, N.Y., the Dancing Grain Farm Brewery got its start with help from some very successful neighbors at Common Roots Brewery. Not only has Common Roots’ investment paid off, but the local brewers now are each expanding in their own fields. Gordon Woodworth reports.

WORDS’ MATTER: Each year, Lake Superior State University, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, performs an invaluable public service, wielding a rhetorical sword against the trite, hackneyed, overused and meaningless words that clutter our senses and must be banished. The exercise is in good fun, but as with all good humor, there is the underlying truth that terms such as “slay,” “rizz,” “hack,” “iconic,” “cringe-worthy” and “wait for it” have wandered aimlessly to the land of cliché. 

ON THE EDGE: If you ever get lost in the wilderness of New York State, you’ll be glad to know New York Forest Rangers are probably on the way. Hiking for miles to injured hikers and carrying them to safety over rugged terrain is part of the job. As with first responders of all types, it can be easy to take their skills and courage for granted, until you read that a pair recently powered for hours through pouring rain and deep snow and across icy rocks in the middle of the night to reach a terrified hiker who had slid hundreds of feet down the face of a mountain and clung to a small spruce near the edge of a cliff, her survival a matter of their mettle.

POOP SCOOP: The 2024 North American Manure Expo — this is an actual event — is headed to the small town of Springport, N.Y., the first time the event will be held in Central New York, Syracuse.com reports. It’ll be co-hosted by the Cornell University College of Agriculture & Life Sciences PRO-DAIRY program and the University of Vermont Extension Northwest Crops and Soils program and draws dairy, livestock and poultry producers; crop consultants and nutrient management specialists; compost managers; agricultural support industry; and professional manure handlers, applicators and brokers.

A NEW NO. 1: Taylor Swift, by all appearances, had a pretty great 2023, right up until the final day. No, we’re not talking about the midnight smooch with Travis Kelce. On December 31, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) topped the Billboard 200 album chart, giving Swift 68 weeks atop the album chart, a record for solo artists. She surpassed Elvis Presley to cap a year her The Eras Tour and a movie about it made her a billionaire.

NO COMMONER SHE: She was born in Tasmania, a T-shirt and shorts girl who played sports, favored flannel shirts and hoped one day to be a veterinarian. Then she met a guy named Fred at an inner-city pub, and her life took an unexpected turn. Meet the new Queen of Denmark.

KEYBOARD SHIFT: The rise of artificial intelligence is the catalyst for the first Windows keyboard addition in three decades — a dedicated key to the right of the spacebar that will launch Copilot, a new service that, CNBC reports, “helps people perform tasks like summarizing documents, recommending music and answering questions you might ask a search engine or AI chatbot.”

02_Lives.jpgFRANK RYAN was quarterback of the Cleveland Browns in 1964, the last time they won an NFL championship. A solid professional who won nearly two-third of the games he started over his 13-year career, Ryan was sensational in the title game, passing for three touchdowns in a 27-0 victory over the Baltimore Colts. But his impact was even greater off the field. He earned a Ph.D. soon after the championship and would, in addition to teaching math at Case Western Reserve, Yale and Rice, be credited with helping create an electronic voting system that modernized the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served 10 years as athletic director at Yale. He was being treated for Alzheimer’s disease and died at 87.

SHECKY GREENE is one of those names everyone over a certain age remembers. A standup comic by trade, he was a fixture on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and even hosted the show on occasion. He was a master of improvisation, his quick wit and comedic tangents masking debilitating stage fright that kept him from performing for years at a time. He was a pioneer of the hotel lounge act, helping transform Las Vegas into an entertainment destination. By 1975, he was making a reported $150,000 a week and often opened for Frank Sinatra. Erratic behavior cost him several gigs, but the audiences loved him, so the hotels kept hiring him. He had resumed performing and was doing stand-up comedy until recently. He was 97.

03_Almost Final Words.jpg“It begs one to question — what are we glorifying, what are we celebrating here? The Confederate flag is emblematic of the desire to own people as property. You can’t separate that from today’s history.”
—    Trudy Gaba, a social justice curator at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, reacting to news that a resident of a town just west of the city was flying a Confederate flag next to a sign welcoming drivers to the town.

04_signoff.jpgBEAUTIFUL MUSIC: Yes, the holidays are over, but it’s never too late to enjoy this impressively choreographed light show by a volunteer fire department in Minnesota, set to the unmistakable sound of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. An instant holiday classic.

05_Bottom.jpgSome of the linked material in Facing Out requires a subscription to read.

Principal authors: Bill Callen and Mark Behan

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Troy Burns, Kristy Miller, Leigh Hornbeck, Claire P. Tuttle, Skip Dickstein 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 conversationmark.behan@behancom.com

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