Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

March 30, 2024

Thousands of visitors are expected to flock to upstate New York and other areas of the country that will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. May this be a season of joy and renewal for all. In the words of Hal Borland, “No winter lasts forever. No spring skips its turn.”

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This eclipse had better be good. It’s eclipsed almost everything else. Schools and some grocery stores are closing. Employers are giving workers time off. Buffalo expects to go dark for almost four minutes at 3:18 on the afternoon of April 8, and a million people are coming to visit. In the Adirondacks, authorities are warning of crowds, gas shortages, and traffic jams. In the Bronx, a Yankees game is set to start just before the sky turns dark.

Our ancestors were frightened by this sort of celestial spectacle. And animals are frightened. Spiders are said to dismantle their webs, bats to take flight in mid-afternoon. Us? We’re celebrating: The Capital Region is hosting barbecues and viewing parties, as are other locations across upstate. It’s the first total solar eclipse viewable in New York in 99 years, and it will be another 20 or so before another total solar eclipse of this magnitude returns to the contiguous United States.

A total eclipse happens when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and completely blocks all but the sun’s outermost atmosphere. On average, total solar eclipses are visible somewhere on Earth once every few years. But from any one location on Earth, it can be roughly 375 years between total solar eclipses. So, grab your protective glasses and head outside for the cosmic shade.

LIVING TO SERVE: Three times a week, a team of volunteers organized by a nonprofit serves breakfast to 150 unhoused adults in Albany, N.Y., part of a network that feeds thousands of local adults a month, a number that has spiked in just a year. And each Wednesday morning, in the basement of a Presbyterian church, Stephen Herrick pulls on his blue apron and gets to work, serving breakfast to some of the same people who once stood before him as Judge Herrick, the man who for years would determine punishments to fit crimes. He’s a public defender now, a job he reports to after his volunteer shift. “It’s cool to have the judge serving us,” one breakfast attendee told the Albany Times Union. “I wish more judges would follow his lead.”

BALL GAMES: Baseball is back, and with it a bizarre controversy involving the game’s most visible star. Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese superstar who excels both as a pitcher and as a hitter, was the centerpiece of an offseason talent-acquisition frenzy by the already-excellent Los Angeles Dodgers. But just as the season was about to start, news broke that $4.5 million in Ohtani’s funds had been used to cover a gambling debt to a California bookie. Ohtani’s blaming it all on his former interpreter. The federal government and Major League Baseball are investigating. 

HOOP DREAMS: Albany, N.Y., is the center of the women’s college basketball universe this weekend, with arguably the greatest collection of collegiate talent ever assembled in one venue. If you have a ticket, congratulations. If you don’t, it’s sure to be compelling viewing. Speaking of compelling viewing: Capital Region basketball fans will have a rooting interest in the 2024 Olympic 3-on-3 competition in Paris — the U.S. team will be led by Jimmer Fredette, a Glens Falls native who played in the NBA after a stellar collegiate career. (Another Glens Falls basketball star, Joseph Girard III, and his Clemson teammates play this evening for a chance to advance to the men’s Final Four).

FAREWELL, FREIHOFER’S: For natives of New York’s Capital Region, the very mention of the name Freihofer’s brings sweet memories. The red door-to-door delivery trucks bringing warm bread for breakfast, the irresistible chocolate chip cookies, TV’s Freddy Freihofer, and, during Lent, warm hot cross buns. The Freihofer family sold the business almost 40 years ago. What remained was an iconic road race, but even that’s gone now, renamed. Now, the Freihofer’s brand is fading further, with the company that owns the brand announcing the abrupt closure of outlet stores in Albany and other communities.

HELLO/GOODBYE: NBC News ignited a firestorm within its own organization with the announcement that it had hired former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to provide political commentary. Reporters and anchors openly questioned the move on the air, stressing that they objected not to having a conversative viewpoint but to the presence of someone who regularly attacked the news media and amplified baseless claims about election integrity. NBC cut ties within a few days. McDaniel made it clear she expects to be paid the full amount of her contract. Expect the backlash to continue.

The First United Presbyterian Church stands out among the architectural gems of Troy, N.Y., capturing the day’s last light beneath gathering storm clouds. John Bulmer

ORGANIZING THE ARTS: Workers at MASS MoCa, a contemporary art museum in Western Massachusetts, ended a three-week strike, voting to ratify a new contract negotiated on their behalf by the United Auto Workers. That’s not a typo — the UAW is representing art museum employees, and nonprofit art museum employees are organizing, a new development for the region.

VOLUNTEER TO HELP YOURSELF: Workplace wellness, particularly the mental health of employees, is a major concern for employers. Businesses are trying stress relief approaches, hours and workplace flexibility, workload training, healthy sleep coaching, and financial wellbeing classes. But a study in Industrial Relations Journal reports that most of the initiatives don’t help much. Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Survey asked roughly 46,000 U.K.-based respondents about their participation in 90 different types of employee well-being programs. Of all the well-being initiatives, only those who volunteered for charitable causes reported, on average, improved well-being. It’s not clear if volunteering led to better well-being or if those who had a greater sense of wellbeing were more likely to volunteer. What’s clear, however, is that volunteering leads to greater engagement with other people, feelings of empowerment, and personal satisfaction.

OGG-MENTING THE STORY: After our tribute to golf pro Willie Ogg last week, a regular Facing Out reader reminded us not to overlook Lake Placid native Craig Wood, winner of 21 PGA Tour titles including two major championships and a member of three Ryder Cup teams. Wood turned professional in 1920 at age 18. Despite his two major championships, he is more widely remembered as the victim of golfing great (and Siena benefactor) Gene Sarazen’s famous double eagle in the 1935 Augusta National Invitational (now known as the Masters). The shot left the two players tied at the end of regulation. Sarazen went on to victory in a 36-hole playoff. Wood would win the 8^th Masters in 1941 by three shots over the legendary Byron Nelson, and two months later became the first golfer to win the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year. In 1954, the Lake Placid Golf and Country Club changed its name to the “Craig Wood Golf Course” in honor of its native son. 

TAKING FLIGHT: Boeing’s top leadership is leaving after a series of major mishaps that included a door plug blowing out of a Boeing commercial jet in midflight. Boeing once was the pinnacle of American engineering, but news stories now reveal a culture of rushed production over safety. CEO Dave Calhoun will leave at the end of the year, its board chair will not stand for reelection, and the president of its commercial airplanes division retired.

SAVE UP: Wellesley College and Boston University are the first colleges in the area to cross the $90,000-a-year barrier for tuition, fees, room and board.

A FACE IN THE CROWD: Billy Joel has played Madison Square Garden more than anyone, selling out the world’s most famous arena dozens of times. He used to travel back and forth to his performances by helicopter, but he wasn’t a fan of flying, so in recent years, he’s gotten to and from the arena the way a lot of his fans do — on the Long Island Railroad. And no one makes a fuss. “People will sometimes look at me on the railroad and think, ‘Look at this guy, trying to look like Billy Joel. He’s not kidding anybody,’” the singer told Newsday.

McDECADENT: McDonald’s announced this week this it would begin selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts at all its 13,500-plus restaurants by the end of 2026. Krispy Kreme will ramp up production dramatically to fulfill its obligations.

JOSEPH LIEBERMAN was a centrist United States Senator from Connecticut who was Al Gore’s vice presidential running mate in 2000, becoming the first Jewish American on a major party ticket. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president four years later and, in 2006, having lost the Democratic primary for his Senate seat, won reelection as an independent. His break from the party was complete in 2008, when he supported Republican John McCain’s presidential bid. In recent years, he served as a founding chairman of “No Labels,” a centrist group that is considering a presidential bid in 2024. He died from complications of a fall at 82.

DANIEL KAHNEMAN, a non-economist, made groundbreaking contributions to the field of behavioral economics, helping to debunk long-held notions that people were, above-all, rational actors. Kahneman, a psychologist who joined the Princeton faculty in 1993, demonstrated that people’s actions were often based on instinct. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for modeling, along with the late Amos Tversky, how intuitive reasoning is flawed in predictable ways. He’s best-known for his best-selling book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” a deep but approachable look at the complexities of how people make decisions. He was 90.

SHANI MOTT lived and worked in elite academic circles, but always insisted that her work be grounded in the community good. She looked at how race and power are experienced in America and pushed her employer, Johns Hopkins University, to engage more with its impoverished neighbors and the campus’ own Black staff workers. In 2021, hoping to refinance the mortgage on their home in a historic, predominantly white neighborhood, she and her husband, also a professor at Johns Hopkins, received an appraisal far lower than expected and their application was denied. Suspecting race played a role, they applied again several months later, this time asking a white friend to greet the appraiser and concealing evidence that a Black family lived there. The appraisal came back 60% higher. Lawsuits followed. She died of adrenal cancer at 47.

LAURENT de BRUNHOFF was the beneficiary, caretaker and faithful companion to an icon of the culture that originated in the fertile mind of a creative and talented young mother trying to settle two restless boys. They couldn’t wait to tell their father, the artist Jean de Brunhoff, about the bold little elephant their mother had described. Thus were the origins of Babar, a cartoon elephant whose escapades are depicted in beautifully illustrated picture books, first by Jean de Brunhoff and later by his son, who also trained to be a painter and decided at 21 to carry on what his father had started. Laurent de Brunhoff would go on to publish more than 45 Babar books and count Charles de Gaulle among his fans. He died of complications of a stroke at 98.

“Happening right now. Three busses (sic) just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?”
— Michigan State Rep. Matt Maddock, in a post on X. What he witnessed was, in fact, the traveling party for the Gonzaga University men’s basketball team, in Detroit for the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional. The lawmaker’s casual racism hit social media a few days after members of the University of Utah women’s basketball team were the target of racial harassment while in Idaho, also for NCAA Tournament play.

HEDGEHOG HEAVEN: A passer-by in England, concerned that a “baby hedgehog” at the side of the road “hadn’t moved or pooped all night,” scooped up the stricken critter, gave it some cat food and took it to an animal hospital, where she learned that the object of her care was a pop-pom from a beanie hat.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Kristy Miller, Tara Hutchins, Claire P. Tuttle, John Bulmer, 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