Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

October 7, 2023

A hiker pauses to enjoy the view looking southwest from Mt. Van Hoevenberg, near Lake Placid, N.Y., on a pristine fall day. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

What a whirlwind week in our little corner of Upstate New York, where the stuff of nightmares played out over a harrowing 48 hours, ending when police swarmed a home where they rescued a 9-year-old who had vanished from a popular state park and arrested the man who allegedly kidnapped her.

It’s impossible to quantify the cold fear that shot through people across the region, or the euphoric relief — almost disbelief — that the ordeal had ended so swiftly and with the child apparently physically unharmed. Here’s how the news the country waited for, and feared might never come, arrived shortly after 6:30 p.m.

“God is good,” the little girl’s family proclaimed.

On the ground, credit goes to the New York State Police, who acted immediately and carefully, amassed awesome resources, and ultimately captured the alleged kidnapper and child alive.

The response was a reminder that we are surrounded by good people who live quietly among us until a crisis strikes. They’re the merchants who donate food and coffee to search teams, the people who volunteer to help look, the union that takes charge of producing and distributing flyers, the generous souls who give to the family, and the countless who offer earnest prayers.

Finally, there was something we all could agree on: The child was safe, and for a brief moment in a small slice of America, that’s all that mattered.

KING BEE: We’ll start by saying if this story doesn’t leave you feeling joyful and uplifted, we’re sorry you’re having such a bad day. If nothing else, it’s not every day that you see someone posing with a 10-megawatt smile and bees crawling on his tongue. Jason Bey, a 44-year-old from Flint, Mich., hurt his back as an autoworker but has found his sweet spot as a beekeeper, with a million bees producing 100 to 200 gallons a season. “This right here is the real thing. The flavors are phenomenal. Your stomach and your mouth smiles when you taste,” one of his customers told the publication MLive. “When I first tasted the honey my bees and I produced, it was heaven,” Bey said. “It was surprising. I was ecstatic and at a loss for words. If I could have backflipped, I would have with how much joy I had. That’s just how good it was. I couldn’t believe something like that could come from around here in Flint. All I could say, after every taste, is ‘Wow, that’s my honey!’”

HOUSE AFIRE: The middle school drama club known as the U.S. House of Representatives had perhaps its biggest tantrum yet this week with the firing of Speaker Kevin McCarty after nine months on the job. The unserious may find this amusing; the serious are horrified. Taken together with a host of other headlines involving figures across the domestic political spectrum, polling shows the folks at home are deeply dissatisfied at this picture of America that is distressing to our allies and delightful to enemies. Meanwhile, the administration relented on its opposition to construction of a wall at the Mexican border, a tacit acknowledgement that further aid to Ukraine may cease without it.

MAKE YOUR CASE: Author, essayist and literary critic William Deresiewicz is fine with people who take different positions on an issue. What he deplores is taking sides, a distinction he describes this way: “‘Side’ carries with it an entire worldview; it tells us how to think and feel,” he writes for Persuasion. “As soon as you say ‘side,’ you're saying there are only two: the right one and the wrong one, us versus them, good versus evil. Which means that anyone who isn't on your side must be on the other, the hated other, and therefore must be demonized and suppressed. … ‘side’ pushes people to extremes, to single principles and simple emotions.” Taking “positions,” he writes, encourages respectful give and take. “On any given issue, there are almost always more than two (positions). But adopting a position is very different than choosing a side. It takes thought; it takes investigation; it takes a willingness to consider alternatives. Sides are intellectually easy and emotionally satisfying. Positions are intellectually challenging and emotionally complex.”

“Learn character from trees, values from roots and change from leaves” — Tasneern Harneed, author and poet. John Bulmer

LIGHTING UP THE NEIGHBORHOOD: A house in Glens Falls, N.Y., is so realistically decorated for Halloween that the local fire department was summoned last weekend to a “confirmed structure fire.” Turns out it’s just, as the New York Post described it, “faux flames lighting up and seemingly engulfing the interior through the windows.” The department called it “an amazing Halloween decoration,” and informed the public the display would be up Friday and Saturday nights through the end of the month.

SURREAL STEAKHOUSE: Talk about an “only in New York” story. Last year, a bunch of friends with time to kill decided it would be fun to set up a fake steakhouse, complete with a website, a phone number and lots of rave reviews. They were clever enough to say that the restaurant, in Manhattan, was fully booked for months, which only added to the intrigue and the waiting list. Last week, after a bit of research and some planning, they decided to make Mehran’s Steak House a reality for one night, serving a four-course menu in a converted event space. One diner figured it out, telling the New York Times, “We are experiencing the punch line of some online joke between a bunch of friends.”

STRIKE SEASON: Kaiser Permanente health care workers are now on strike – the largest health care strike in U.S. history. They follow the UAW, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild. Not long ago, the nation was talking about the great resignation, when workers suddenly discovered their agency and announced they did not have to take it anymore. Now, workers are staying put longer and labor is feeling empowered to make demands that just a few years ago would have been dismissed as absurd. Employers watch all of this closely, seeking ways to make employees more satisfied and secure while meeting customer demand to keep prices in line and stockholder expectations of some semblance of a profit margin.

THE BANALITY OF CABLE NEWS: Derek Hunter, a podcast host and former congressional aide, beholds the landscape of cable news and finds it’s no wonder the country is deeply divided into ideological trenches. The days when cable networks tried to appeal to viewers of other networks in the hopes of gaining audience share, he writes, are long gone. “Now they want their audience, their choir, and to hell with everyone else,” he writes in The Hill. “I get it, it’s a ratings game. But it’s also supposed to be news. The audience is not supposed to come away from these segments dumber and less informed than when they started. Most of the conversations on network news, if they were happening at a table next to you in a restaurant, you’d ask to be moved. So why have we come to accept it? … Calling someone an idiot isn’t an argument — it’s an applause line. When everyone agrees with you, you’re doing something wrong. You’ve either lost everyone else, which means you’ve stagnated, or you’re pandering to an audience and live in fear of offending them through disagreement. Either way, you’re not interesting.”

It’s always the right time of year to visit Roaring Brook Falls in Keene Valley, N.Y. Tina Suhocki.

SWIFT LEARNERS: Taylor Swift has attended not one but two Kansas City Chiefs games, which to her legion of fans means things must be getting serious with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, so they’d better bone up on football. Aftermarket ticket prices for the Chiefs-Jets game soared with the news that Swift planned to attend and network cameras cut away frequently to Swift watching from a private box, as they had the previous week when she watched the Chiefs crush the Chicago Bears. Kelce, for his part, said he thought the networks were “overdoing it a little bit for sure.”

TUPAC MURDER ARREST: Authorities in Las Vegas arrested the man they say ordered the 1996 shooting that killed superstar rapper Tupac Shakur, the first arrest in a sensational case that at the time dominated the national news. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, an associate of a rival rapper, was described by authorities as a ringleader in the killing of Shakur and had been identified as a suspect early in the investigation. Davis, who was indicted by a grand jury and charged with murder, has admitted in interviews and a 2019 memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that he provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting.

BARBIE BLOWBACK: Like many organizations, the Michigan State Police over the summer hopped on the Barbie bandwagon, hoping to share some glow from the spotlight and use it as a recruiting pitch. It posted memes of Barbie dressed as a state trooper, but deleted them after many top agency officials, especially women, reacted negatively. The Detroit Free Press, using records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reported that concerns included that Barbie’s long hair was out of compliance with a State Police rule that hair stop above the shirt collar, that she carried no gun in her holster, and that “use of the meme inaccurately portrayed the work of officers, both female and male, as ‘sunshine and rainbows and make believe,’ not the dangerous and difficult vocation it is.” “This is ridiculous. Demeaning. Humiliating,” one senior officer texted to a group of peers. 

GOD, NO: Kate Cohen, a Washington Post contributing columnist who’s based in Upstate New York, has something to say about atheists — namely, that society needs more of them, and for them to speak out. “We need Americans who demand — as atheists do — that truth claims be tethered to fact,” she writes. Atheists do not chalk up tragedy or human suffering to the whims of God. “Atheists believe people organized the world as it is now, and only people can make it better. … You don’t have to be an atheist to conduct yourself as if people are responsible for the world they live in — you just have to act like an atheist, by taking matters into your own hands.” Though there was a lot of praying going on in Upstate New York this week, the share of Americans who call themselves nonreligious continues to rise.

DRINK UP: It evidently wouldn’t be football without proper lubrication. Gov. Kathy Hochul, noted Buffalo Bills fan, directed the State Liquor Authority to make it easier for restaurants and bars to serve booze hours earlier than usual tomorrow. That’s because the Bills are playing in London, with a kickoff time of 9:30 a.m. in New York. The directive allowing alcohol service to begin at 8 a.m. is for this week only. ESPN’s Pat McAfee and his crew loved the decision, and showered Hochul with praise.

SEE HER SOAR: A 104-year-old Chicago woman is likely headed for a Guinness World Record as oldest person to skydive, completing a flawless tandem descent from 13,500 feet and landing softly in a grassy field. The dive lasted seven minutes.

SHACK SWEET SHACK: A 95-year-old who has painted from his Cape Cod dune shack since he was 18 won the right this week to remain in the shack with his family for another five years, settling a dispute with federal officials who were considering putting a lease on the shack, and others in the remote reaches of Cape Cod National Seashore, up for bid. The National Park Service tried unsuccessfully to evict Salvatore Del Deo and his family last summer.

ELECTRIC LUXURY: The CEO of Rolls-Royce said last week that the luxury carmaker would phase out gas- and diesel-powered vehicles and switch to an all-electric fleet by 2030, even as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced he is delaying a nationwide ban on the sale of new carbon-burning vehicles to 2035.  

 TIM WAKEFIELD won 186 games as a knuckleballing pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, where he was a member of the 2004 and 2007 World Series champions and beloved for his work in the community. He won Major League Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award for sportsmanship and community involvement in 2010, one of the eight times he was nominated. A power-hitting collegiate first baseman when he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Wakefield learned to throw the knuckleball in the minor leagues and would go on to win 200 major league games, the last as a 45-year-old in 2011. “We lost a brother, a teammate, a family member,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters. “One of the best teammates I ever had. ... Of all the guys I played with, nobody wore his jersey with more pride than Tim Wakefield.” Wakefield died of brain cancer at 57.

DICK BUTKUS was a fearsome legend considered among the greatest defensive players in NFL history. Limited to nine seasons because of a bad knee, Butkus was selected to eight Pro Bowls and was a five-time All-Pro middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears, his hometown team, where he played his entire career. A first-ballot Hall of Famer who intimidated the opposition with crushing hits, Butkus was a successful broadcaster, actor and pitchman after his retirement as a player, trading off his tough guy image. He was 80.

RUSS FRANCIS played in three straight Pro Bowls as a tight end for the New England Patriots in the 1970s and was a member of a Super Bowl champion in San Francisco, a skillful pass catcher who amassed 393 receptions and 40 touchdowns in his career. A pilot for nearly 50 years, Francis was president of Lake Placid Airways, which runs charter and scenic flights over the Adirondacks from a small airport in Lake Placid, N.Y. He and a companion, Richard McSpadden, 63, the senior vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), had just departed the airport in a single-engine Cessna 177 when the aircraft apparently lost power and crashed into an embankment, killing both. Francis was 70.

“What happened with right-wing religious nationalism is that Jewish identity has been growing around anti-Christianity. Even if the government doesn’t encourage it, they hint that there will be no sanctions.”
—    Yisca Harani, a Christianity expert and founder of an Israeli hotline for anti-Christian assaults, after video that shows ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground beside a procession of foreign Christian worshipers carrying a wooden cross in the holy city of Jerusalem ignited intense outrage.

WEDGIE ISSUE: A Florida couple is suing Disney World for $50,000, claiming a plunge down the park’s 214-foot water slide, Humunga Kowabunga, caused the wife to have a severe wedgie that, according to the lawsuit, resulted in “severe and permanent bodily injury” and “damage to her internal organs.”

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Leigh Hornbeck, Troy Burns, Tina Suhocki, Kristy Miller, Audrey McCarthy, 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