Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

November 9, 2024

The gorgeous weather made for a postcard setting for the 2024 Saratoga Fall Festival in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

In the end, after a rabid political season, it was a P’Nut that suddenly accomplished what all the high-minded human philosophizing could not. He united us, albeit in outrage.

P’Nut, of course, was the adorable squirrel with legions of fans on social media who was taken, along with Fred the raccoon, from his Upstate New York home and euthanized by employees of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The events gained international media attention and unleashed a firehose of fury that seemed to point to something larger than mere outrage at a single inexplicable government act.

P’Nut and Fred lived with Mark and Daniela Longo on a 350-acre Chemung County farm with alpacas, horses and bunnies where they operate a nonprofit animal-rescue operation. Mr. Longo had cared for the squirrel since its mother was hit and killed by a car seven years ago in New York City.

On October 30, as Mark Longo tells it, several armed DEC agents arrived at his home, searched and ransacked the place, and left with P’Nut and Fred. “They treated me like I was a terrorist. They treated this raid as if I was a drug dealer. They ransacked my house for five hours,” he told the New York Post. “They asked my wife, who is of German descent, what her immigration status was. They asked if I had cameras in my house. They wouldn’t allow me to go to the bathroom without a police escort, who then checked the back of the toilet to see if I was hiding anything there.”

In the process, the state says, P’Nut bit a state employee. Both P’Nut and Fred were euthanized to be tested for rabies. The whole event was reminiscent of another state seizure in March of a pet alligator who had lived with his caretaker for 30 years — not because it was necessary to protect public health or the animals, but because possession of a wild animal as a pet generally violates state law.

The outrage that erupted on social and mainstream media inevitably led to bomb threats, at least 10 in two days, and DEC let employees work from home.

An Albany newspaper columnist (who opined twice on the topic) called the situation “an abuse of power and a disgraceful mess,” which summarizes well the general sense of revulsion and visceral anger that’s being aimed at the state.

The Longos are planning a funeral and a lawsuit. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: There will be endless analyses of the political season that just concluded; we’re neither experts nor inclined to snap judgments — time is almost always clarifying — but it feels like David Brooks of The New York Times is on to something when he writes, “As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His Queens-born resentment of the Manhattan elites dovetailed magically with the class animosity being felt by rural people across the country. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot. … The Biden administration tried to woo the working class with subsidies and stimulus, but there is no economic solution to what is primarily a crisis of respect.”

The Southern Adirondacks form the backdrop for a fall fishing excursion on Lake George. John Bulmer

PREPARING FOR THE END: Jonathan Clements spent years as a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal, dispensing advice on investments and annuities, tax shelters and smart deferrals. A terminal cancer diagnosis immediately snapped his attention to preparing his family financially for his passing, and the steps he needed to take to ease their burdens. He graciously shared the details of his journey, and the reasoning behind each move, because he is what he always was: a journalist with a heart for helping people think through serious financial considerations, wherever they are in life.

DELAYED PURCHASING: First-time homebuyers in the U.S. are older and have higher incomes that any point in history, continuing a recent trend. CNN, citing a survey from the National Association of Realtors, reported the median first-time homebuyer was 38 years old and had a household income $97,000, both records. That’s a decade older than the typical first-time homebuyer a generation ago. Some other alarming numbers: less than a quarter of all homebuyers were first-timers, a record low, and 7% of first-time buyers relied on inheritance to afford their down payment, a record high.

TRICKLE DOWN: College athletics, you may have heard, is no longer for amateurs. Athletes at every level of intercollegiate athletics and in practically every sport are cutting deals to get paid, technically for the use of their names, images and likenesses. Boosters carried the load the first few years, but as universities and athletic programs are preparing to take on more of the liability, fans are beginning to see surcharges on tickets and at the concession stands. “To win big, schools will have to pay big, and simply fielding a competitive team is no longer a given,” The Associated Press reports. “The question hanging over college sports is where the money will come from.”

GORE IS MORE: Gore Mountain Ski Center in North Creek, N.Y., is the “most affordable ski resort in the United States,” according to HometoGo, the vacation rental website. Jay Peak in Vermont was ranked eighth. Gore, with a vertical drop of 2,537 feet and 115 trails, “never disappoints,” one fan said.

THE FEELS: Comedian Jerry Seinfeld mocked a Bronx private school his kids attended for allowing students distressed by the election to skip school and announcing that no tests would be administered on Wednesday. “What kind of lives have these people led that makes them think that this is the right way to handle young people? To encourage them to buckle,” Seinfeld told The New York Times.  

TROLLS UNLEASHED: Authorities in Ohio and elsewhere were investigating late in the week after racist text messages targeting Black Americans were sent as part of what appears to be a widespread spoofing scam. The messages tell the recipient they have been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”

DEEPENING DISGRACE: A 69-year-old former St. Lawrence County judge who went to prison for trading favorable rulings for sex was arrested on Election Day after he responded to being turned away for failing to register by threating to return with a gun and burn the polling place to the ground.

HOT TIMES: A 110-year-old Japanese hospitality company announced plans to open a 40-room hot spring report in Sharon Springs, N.Y., west of Albany, modeled after a traditional Japanese hot spring inn, by 2028.

QUINCY JONES escaped the South Side of Chicago at 13 to learn how to play jazz trumpet and over 50 years became one of the most powerful forces in American music. One generation knew him as the arranger and writer for the big bands of Count Basie and others; another knew him as Ray Charles’ and Frank Sinatra’s guy, and still another as the producer of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the best-selling album of all time. Along the way he wrote television and movie soundtracks and won 28 Grammys, the third highest total for one artist. He was the consummate networker who knew everybody in music and Hollywood and could connect  performers, helping music flow among styles and markets. In 1985, he produced, arranged and conducted a supergroup of more than 40 singers — including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder — under the banner USA for Africa. The “We Are the World” fund-raising single for famine relief raised more than $80 million. He was 91.

ALAN RACHINS studied film production at Empire State College and elsewhere and went on to success in 75 movies and TV shows, including “L.A. Law,” where he played an unlikable, money-obsessed managing partner, and “Dharma & Greg,” where he was a histrionic ex-radical. But he started his career in a much different place, appearing nude on Broadway as one of the original cast members in the risqué musical revue “Oh! Calcutta!” He once told an interviewer: “I can’t tell you how many times I heard the joke, ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’” He died of heart failure at 82.

GEOFF CAPES was, for a long time, England’s most famous athlete, a physical marvel renowned for pulling tractor-trailers up hills and other feats of strength. He twice won the World’s Strongest Man competition, powered by a daily diet that included seven pints of milk, two loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, two steaks, a jar of baked beans, two tins of sardines, a pound of butter and a leg of lamb. He appeared in numerous TV commercials, once flipping a tiny VW to examine its underbelly. A national and European champion as a shot putter, he also was a renowned breeder of budgerigars, a type of parakeet, and competed in budgerigar shows throughout Europe, winning a world championship in 1995. He was 75.

BERNIE MARCUS’ big break came when he got fired from his job as CEO of a major California hardware retailer, Handy Dan. Angered by the way he and his former co-workers had been treated, he set out to build a new retail business to serve the do-it-yourselfer. He would stock the shelves with every conceivable home improvement product, sell at discount prices, hire knowledgeable salespeople who could advise customers, and treat customers and employees with respect. His Home Depot became the world’s largest home improvement retailer. “The key is not to make the sale,” he told Home Depot associates. “The key is to cultivate the customer … Care for them today and they’ll be back tomorrow.” He was 95.

“I know you. You've been helping people all your life. Now it's your turn. Accept it.”
— A stranger’s words to Brian Perkins, who had resisted her offer of help despite using a cane. He said her words “had a ripple effect on my life. … (I’ve) learned that people like to help other people, and that kindness is not something that's forgotten. And for that, I'll be eternally grateful.”

LIFE-SAVING FRIENDSHIP: A 2-year-old cow escaped a beef farm in the Hudson Valley and walked a half-mile to the Safe Haven Farm Sanctuary, where one of the steers leapt a 5-foot fence to be with her and has been her steady companion since the farmer agreed to surrender her. “We opened the gate, and she just came right in, and all the cows were happy to see her,” Safe Haven’s executive director told the Albany Times Union. “They all just accepted her.”

Some of the linked material in Facing Out requires a subscription to read.

Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Contributors: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Kristy Miller, John Brodt, 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