Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

November 2, 2024

A composite of six images over six nights magnifies the Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, visible in the western sky just after sunset. Once it’s gone, it’ll not be visible from Earth again for 80,000 years. John Bulmer

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

So, who are you voting for?

Sorry. We withdraw the question.

Exhausting and relentlessly negative political campaigns will come to an end soon. The real question is, will the hostilities that characterize our divided times?

Given that more of us are actively seeking to live in communities of like-minded people, the prospects of greater unity and meaningful compromise, at least in the short term, appear slim. But mutual contempt cannot be, must not be sustainable. As a wise person once said, win with humility, lose with grace, and do both with dignity.

ALBANY’S OPPORTUNITIES: There was a time several decades ago when skeptics gleefully scoffed at the notion of the Capital Region becoming Tech Valley. Albany could never compete with Silicon Valley or Boston, they sniffed. This week came the pleasant October surprise: The Capital Region will become home to a national semiconductor research center, a major part of the federal government’s effort to boost the semiconductor industry in the United States. Albany’s center will focus on using ultraviolet light to etch tiny patterns on chips. It will rely on state-of-the-art equipment available almost nowhere else in the world and will be housed in NanoFab Reflection – the new $495 million clean room facility that’s currently under construction at Albany Nanotech Complex. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who wrote the CHIPS act that makes this possible, told the Times Union, “This is an amazing day. It is a major, major turning point for America, New York and the Capital Region.” And as the future unfolds on the western edge of Albany, the past seems to be coming back on the eastern side --  the city’s Hudson River waterfront, where there is increasing momentum for projects that reimagine a disruptive highway system, clean up old eyesores and add parks and pedestrian and bike access.

TOP COLLEGE: SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, N.Y., is the top community college in New York State, according to the consumer-focused financial website Smart Asset, which ranked two-year colleges on a range of metrics including retention rates and student-to-faculty ratio. Known as Adirondack Community College when it opened in 1961, SUNY Adirondack, with campuses in Queensbury and Wilton and its Culinary Arts Center in downtown Glens Falls, today offers more than 40 degree and certificate programs, an Early College Career Academy, direct transfer agreements with top colleges and universities and opportunities to pursue advanced degrees through its Regional Higher Education Center.

THE CLARK’S MOMENT: The Clark Art Museum in Williamstown, Mass., this week received a transformational gift of more than 331 works of art and $45 million for a new wing to exhibit them. The gift came from a longtime friend of the museum’s, the late Aso Tavitian, who immigrated to the United States in 1961 and made a fortune in software. He lived in New York City and Stockbridge, Mass., and served on the Clark’s board of trustees. The donation, said to be the largest since that of the museum’s founders Sterling and Francine Clark, includes works by Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens and Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, among others.

EYE IN THE SKY: When a break-in occurred at 4 a.m. at a mansion on the Bard College campus last weekend, police dispatched not patrol cars, but a drone equipped with high-tech thermal imaging equipment that quickly spotted a possible suspect hiding in woods nearby. Ground patrols apprehended him shortly thereafter. A Bard College senior is charged with trying to steal two small oil paintings that were apparently smuggled out of Europe to avoid confiscation by the Nazis.

BIRD BRAINS: Don’t annoy a crow. Alfred Hitchcock knew whereof he spoke. Crows are renowned for their intelligence. They can mimic human speech. They know how to hold a grudge. And they can identify and remember faces, even among large crowds. When a murder of crows singles out a person as dangerous, its wrath can be alarming, and it can be passed along beyond an individual crow’s life span of up to a dozen or so years, creating multigenerational grudges. But crows, it turns out, also can be bribed.  

NUCLEAR REACTIONS: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, once the symbol of nuclear fears after a partial meltdown in 1979, once again stands as a symbol for something larger in the nuclear sphere — the potential for reactors to fulfill enormous energy needs while the nation is busy retiring baseload plants and still figuring out how best to integrate new, intermittent renewables to the grid, all at a time of tremendous growth in energy demand. And in a well-timed report, NPR tells the story of secretive team of nuclear first responders whose job is to keep watch over major events and help when called. The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, founded in the 1970s, is active on an almost weekly basis for one reason or another that is intentionally kept vague by one of the scientists who fly the helicopter missions. “When I found out as a scientist I get to fly in a helicopter and do real national security missions, I was like, 'sign me up right away!'” said Jacqueline Brandon, whose job is to sit in the back of the helicopter scanning for signs of radioactivity as the it flies low to the ground.

DISH DISHING: The former longtime head chef at the Executive Mansion in Albany, who fed governors from Eliot Spitzer to the incumbent, Kathy Hochul, over two decades, shared some of the details of the gig in a discussion with the New York Post. Hochul, he said, is fond of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for her helicopter rides. Andrew Cuomo watched what he ate. David Paterson liked soup for breakfast. Thankfully, no details of Spitzer’s tastes.

A TREE TO SEE: A towering Norway spruce from the Southern Berkshires in Massachusetts will soon be cut down and on its way to Manhattan, where it will stand in well-robed splendor as the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, the first from the Bay State since 1959.

REGION IN DEMAND: It was more profitable to sell a home in the last quarter in the Capital Region of New York than in any other metropolitan area in the U.S. Syracuse and Rochester also cracked the top 10 for growth in home sale profits.

PIZZA TO PRISON: The owner of two Boston pizza shops was sentenced to 8½ years in prison for using physical violence and threats of deportation to coerce compliance with excessive workplace demands. A lawyer for Stavros Papantoniadis said he would appeal.

BEAR TO BOSS: Variety reports that production has started on a Bruce Springsteen biopic with Jeremy Allen White, star of “The Bear,” in the role of Springsteen circa 1982. The film, titled “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” is about the making of Springsteen’s seminal 1982 album “Nebraska.”

Village Park in Hudson Falls in all its glory as captured by Kendall McKernon.

KENDALL McKERNON saw the underlying beauty in his native Hudson Falls, N.Y., when only a few others did, and used photography and enthusiasm to convey his vision of the village’s potential as a destination for local arts, music, dining and culture. After a distinguished career as an interior designer for major projects throughout the Adirondacks and Vermont, he turned his artist’s eye to Hudson Falls and, with Bill Nikas, Jonathan Newell and others, became a leading advocate for the community. He led the opening of the Hudson Falls Farmers Market, established the McKernon Gallery for photography, arts, and home décor, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Sandy Hill Arts Center. He was perhaps best known for stunning on-line photography that captured both the history and potential of Hudson Falls and led others to take another look at the community he loved.

TERI GARR was the daughter of a well-known vaudeville comic and one of the original Radio City Rockettes, so it’s no surprise she would have a talent for — and comfort with —performing. A background dancer in several movies, she would emerge as a comedy star with her role as a German lab assistant in “Young Frankenstein,” following that with acclaimed performances in “Oh, God!” “Mr. Mom” and “Tootsie.” “I would like to play ‘Norma Rae’ and ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ but I never got the chance,” she once said, adding she had become typecast as a comic actor. David Letterman has said her frequent appearances in the early years of “Late Night With David Letterman” helped the show succeed. She died of multiple sclerosis at 79.

“Freddie doesn't complain about really anything. He was getting over four hours of treatment a day, even on days that they weren't playing, just to be able to hope to play in the postseason. So going into the World Series, we had no expectations. We just were hoping he'd be able to play.”
— Chelsea Freeman, wife of Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who shook off a sprained ankle and sore rib to light up the New York Yankees in the World Series, driving in 12 runs and earning MVP honors as the Dodgers won it in five games.

“Why Albany? Why is it not Silicon Valley? Well, first, nowhere in the country like this is a place where public and private come together to make discoveries for the common good, collaborative and open source. That's the beauty of this. We're not saying only one company or only one university or only one group will get the benefits here. The open-source part of this helped us win. There were several other companies that wanted to do it all themselves, but we knew that they would be the only ones to benefit.”
— Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, on news this week that Albany was selected as America’s first national semiconductor technology center.

FALL BACK: Remember to set your clocks back an hour when you go to bed tonight and you’ll be rewarded with an extra hour to watch political ads.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

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