Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

October 26, 2024

Across woods and frosty fields, Adirondack mornings dawn clear with anticipation for a season of good things to come. (Nancie Battaglia)

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

The Pigs in a Blanket have been rolled out in readiness. The lights are strung across Oxford Street, and holiday merriment fills the air waves. You have to admire the British, those stiff upper-lippers: Forget Halloween, forget Thanksgiving. They are already celebrating Christmas. And what’s wrong with extending the cheer to the whole bloody year? Yet the usual humbuggers must have their say: Alison Pearson, a newspaper columnist for  The Telegraph, wrote a column titled: “Starting Christmas early is a sign of national moral decline—I can’t help feeling appalled.” 

We say: Carry on!

APPLE OPPORTUNITIES: Who picks the apples you enjoy this time of year? It may well be seasonal workers, Jamaicans who return year after year to the Peru area of Upstate New York. Agricultural opportunities in Jamaica are poorly paid. But in Peru, after an 1,800-mile journey, workers earn as much as $17.80 per hour. Leroy McCarthy left a sugarcane farm in Florida two decades ago and came to Rulf’s Orchard, where he returns every year. He said the experience goes beyond the paycheck: “I enjoy it, working with these people here, and they’re nice to me.”

WELCOME HOME: Did the COVID 10 migration of talented, highly paid executives to the Adirondacks result in more permanent residents? It seems to have done so, and many of the new remote workers appear to love the life they’ve found.  The change in population is not huge, nor recorded yet. But there’s this: More than 12,000 people worked remotely in the Adirondacks, averaged over 2018-2023. Hamilton and Essex Counties seem to have been the greatest beneficiaries of the COVID migration. Some newcomers came to get a jump on retirement, others are young couples looking to put down roots. Some are fully remote, while some split the week between the Adirondacks and other locales. The Adirondack Explorer introduces us to some of the region’s new remote work force.

This is Heart Lake in the Adirondacks, where in 1877 a genius electrical engineer from Troy, Henry Van Hoevenberg, met Josephine Schofield while camping with friends. The two became engaged, and during a trip to the top of Mt. Marcy, Van Hoevenberg spotted a lake in the distance in the shape of a heart. On that day, he named it Heart Lake and decided that he wanted to build a lodge at its base – the Adirondack Loj. (Nancie Battaglia).

LONG NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: What has gone wrong at the New York State Museum in Albany? It is the oldest and largest state museum in the country, the repository of national treasures including George Washington’s flintlock pistol, sword and surveying equipment, and a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, in Abraham Lincoln’s own hand.  Its most compelling holdings may be a mangled beam recovered from ground zero after 9/11, parts of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the charred but well-preserved fire truck from Engine 6, one of the first to arrive on the scene that fateful day. In his time, Gov. George Pataki took a special interest in the museum, hosting dinners for donors at the Executive Mansion. The state Legislature has appropriated $75 million to upgrade the museum, but very little has happened. Why has the New York State Museum been so neglected? 

THE LOCAL CRUNCH: All over the country, local governments are struggling financially. Many are servicing heavy debt. Health care and retiree pension costs are in a steady upward march. Public employees can easily earn more in pay and benefits elsewhere, but residents want and expect top-notch services, so local governments do what they must to retain essential workers. Even the most prosperous community in California finds itself in this jam. Unlike many other locales, bucolic Portola Valley has some unusual assets: It’s home to the founders of LinkedIn and Sun Microsystems, among other heavy hitters.

GIVING BACK TO THE SEA: In parts of England, the sea seems to be reclaiming what is its own. In September, a month’s rain fell in a single day in some areas. The last 18 months were England’s wettest in recorded history. Flooding has submerged fields, ruined homes, and at times, cut off whole villages. As sea levels rise and extreme weather becomes more common, experts say that the traditional defenses — sea walls, tidal barriers and sandbanks — will be insufficient to meet the threat. So, scientists and environmentalist are pursuing a different approach: Allowing farmland to be reclaimed as salt marsh, an ancient ecosystem that soaks up water as the tide comes in and releases it as the sea retreats.

A FRIEND INDEED: The company that owns The Glens Falls Post-Star and more than 70 other newspapers has an investor who appears to be a friend to those who care about local news organizations. Florida billionaire David Hoffman has purchased more than 5 percent of Lee Enterprises, one of America’s largest newspaper companies, and wants a controlling stake.

NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME: The San Francisco environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy chose to be his running mate is accused of trying to bribe a Washington Post reporter working on a story about her personal life, including her marriage to Google founder Sergey Brinn.

UGLY IN PINK: The latest cheap club drug on the U.S. party scene is a powder mixed by underground “chemists” called Pink Cocaine, which contains a variety of drugs in various amounts, including ketamine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, opioids and even psychoactive substances such as bath salts. Rarely does it actually contain cocaine, the Drug Enforcement Administration says. The pink is from food coloring.

HAVE YOUR CAKE: The Hudson Valley estate of the late soft ice cream magnate Thomas Carvel is on the market. The 1,900-acre property’s current owners, the Durst Organization, have listed the land in Pine Plains and Milan for $36 million. Carvel, considered a father of soft ice cream and ice cream cakes, came up with the slogan "Thinny thin ice cream for your fatty fat friends.”

LEBRON AND BRONNY: When LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, his eldest son, Bronny, was sitting courtside along the baseline. On Tuesday night, in the Los Angeles Lakers' season opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves, LeBron and Bronny became the first father-son duo in NBA history to appear in a game together when they checked in with 4:00 left in the second quarter.

IF YOU’RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT:  Are you the happy warrior in your office?   While your colleagues may have fallen prey to negativity and burnout, the relentless optimists are determined to outwork everyone else and smile while doing it. And bosses like it.

JOHN KINSEL SR. was a Navajo code talker who used his knowledge of the Navajo language to create a secret code that the Japanese could not break, giving the United States and the Allies an important advantage in the Pacific during World War II. Kinsel enlisted in the Marines and was among 400 Navajos whose courage and dedication helped save countless lives and contributed significantly to the military’s efforts during one of history’s darkest periods. He earned the Purple Heart and the Congressional Service Medal. Among the last three surviving code talkers, he was 107.

FERNANDO VALENZUELA, the youngest of 12 children, was born in a small farming village in Sonora, Mexico, on Nov. 1, 1960. He grew up to be, by many accounts, the greatest ballplayer ever to come out of Mexico. His parents and six brothers and five sisters lived in a whitewashed adobe house with five rooms and no running water in a community of just 140 people. In addition to tending the family’s crops, Valenzuela and his brothers played baseball. Even at a young age, his talent stood out. In 1977, he was signed by a local team, the Navojoa Mayos. When he arrived in LA in 1980, he became an overnight star with the Dodgers. Suddenly, the Latino community, which had been grappling with the displacement caused when the Dodgers built a new stadium, was bursting with pride to be Dodgers fans. Valenzuela was the only pitcher in baseball history to win the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards in the same season, 1981. LA Mayor Karen Bass said Valenzuela “was an icon that transcended the limits of hope and dreams … a world champion — through and through.” He was 63.

“A Boston media member or somebody expecting me to win, they don’t have a weapon. They’re not gonna come after me if we don’t win. They’re saying words. So, like, they don’t mean anything… They’re just words. So (pressure is) just a made-up word. We don’t have pressure. So, I don’t allow words to take my personal power. That’s just important. Words don’t have power. They only have power if you allow them to.”
— The very quotable Boston Celtics Head Coach Joe Mazzulla on the high expectations facing the NBA’s reigning champions just before they opened the new season by trouncing the New York Knicks, 132-109.

DROPPED CALL: Matilda Campbell was hiking and taking photos in Australia’s Hunter Valley when she dropper her phone. Reaching to recover it, she somehow slipped into a 10-foot crevice and became stuck between boulders – hanging upside down for seven hours. Rescuers told her to hang in there, and she did, remaining calm and collected until she could be pulled out. Alas, the phone has not been recovered.

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Contributors: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Bill Callen, Kristy Miller, John Brodt, Claire P. Tuttle, and Nancie Battaglia.

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