Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

April 13, 2024

Photo of a crowd gathered atop Mt. Van Hoevenberg in the Adirondacks to admire the total eclipse.A crowd gathered atop Mt. Van Hoevenberg in the Adirondacks to admire the total eclipse, which also briefly revealed Venus, at 5 o’clock in relation to the sun. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

In the end, perhaps the greatest enduring contribution of the eclipse and the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament was that they brought people together in joy, wonder and celebration (and pizza; lots of pizza). It’s been a long time since so many of us gathered like that, pausing in awe and admiration, to study the sky and admire extraordinary athletic talent.

Caitlyn Clark, Tessa Johnson, Kamilla Cardoso and their teammates inspired millions of kids to play basketball or another sport. They demonstrated what personal determination and teamwork can accomplish. And, for the first time ever, the women’s national championship game, won by undefeated South Carolina, drew more viewers than the men’s, won by Connecticut, and it wasn’t close (maybe the NCAA will reconsider starting the men’s final before most people on the East Coast have gone to bed).

Organized school sports keep kids socially engaged. They learn how to make friends, work together, have fun and deal in a healthy way with life’s ups and downs. They could also be an answer to the hopelessness and social isolation so many kids experience. Hands-on science experiments do the same. We’d like to think the eclipse inspired kids to look up, not down, explore the universe and consider the greater powers that shape life here on Earth.

LEGEND STEPS DOWN: Speaking of women’s basketball, congratulations to Tara VanDerveer, a Schenectady, N.Y., native who announced her retirement as head coach at Stanford this week, capping a 38-year career in which she won more games than any other college basketball coach, men or women, in history — 1,216, with three national championships. VanDerveer also coached at Idaho and Ohio State, and led the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s team to the gold medal in Atlanta. She will remain at Stanford in an advisory role.

BIG (LAKE GEORGE) BLUE: A few days ago, the ground shook (no, not the earthquake) when RPI in Troy, N.Y., became the first and only college campus anywhere with a quantum computer, with the extraordinary computational capacity to solve problems that even today’s astonishingly powerful classic computers cannot. “(RPI) stands on the forefront of computational innovation,” one industry journal declared. Two principals behind this are RPI’s President, Martin A. Schmidt, and former IBM leader John E. Kelly, chair of RPI’s Board of Trustees — the same two who, with Jim Siplon of Warren County EDC and others, are leading an effort to establish at Lake George a technology-driven national hub of research, engineering and innovation to advance the protection of protection of fresh water resources nationwide. “The knowledge of freshwater protection that has been amassed (at Lake George) should be shared with the world,” Siplon told the Lake George Mirror. “The future of our region and our identity is tied to our ability to build economic development channels that have never existed before.”

FEWER DEGREES OF SEPARATION: SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury is moving to bring higher education ever closer to home for students.  SUNY Adirondack and SUNY Plattsburgh now have a dual admission agreement that makes it easier for students to earn an associate degree from SUNY Adirondack, then transfer seamlessly to SUNY Plattsburgh at Queensbury to complete a bachelor’s degree. SUNY Adirondack and SUNY Cobleskill have a similar agreement to allow students to seamlessly transfer from SUNY Adirondack’s business degree programs to earn a bachelor's degree in business from SUNY Cobleskill at SUNY Adirondack’s Saratoga campus. And though it’s been offering college programs in Saratoga County for 46 years, SUNY Adirondack’s campus in Wilton now has now been officially recognized as a campus where four complete degree programs can be offered with no requirement that students also take classes in Queensbury.

SCHOOL DAZE: SUNY Adirondack’s efforts occur against a concerning backdrop. The enrollment declines troubling many small colleges across the Northeast are being felt in the North Country as well, where there are about 10,000 fewer students enrolled than there were just a decade ago, and two of the region’s anchor universities, SUNY Potsdam and St. Lawrence, are grappling with multi-million dollar deficits. “We are, within the economic development community, well aware of the importance of the colleges and universities and the challenges they face,” the CEO of the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Authority told North Country Public Radio. The region’s public schools also are facing declining enrollment — one county in the Adirondacks has lost a third of its student population in a decade — and aging facilities that must be maintained by a shrinking tax base. “If a teacher loses 25% of their class,” one superintendent told the Adirondack Explorer, “they don’t get 25% less pay.” 

DISTORTED REALITY: Anti-vaccine activists and some on the far right trying to launch a parallel economy for like-minded people. Anonymous provocateurs posting absurd conspiracy theories that are then amplified by people with genuine clout. A constant drumbeat telling us Red and Blue America are two completely different places, populated by people who have little in common with each other politically or socially. Journalists Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen challenge the notion of a nation divided, arguing that the fringes at either end of the spectrum receive outsized attention. “What has changed is political activism invading everything, from football to beer to Target,” they write for Axios. “Here, too, most normal people just drink, watch football, and shop — without giving a damn about the politics of it all. … This fringe nonsense plays out in the social media bubble before oozing into our lives.”

A photo of the sky as seen from Lake George, N.Y.The eclipse wasn’t alone in producing splendor in the sky, as seen from Lake George, N.Y. John Bulmer

OFF LIMITS: Parents in an upstate New York school district were peeved to discover that 9th graders were asked to sign a petition opposing a local government action without parental permission. The school said it didn’t know about it, either. A company called Saratoga Biochar Solutions wants to build a plant that would convert sewage sludge to fertilizer, a proposal that is highly controversial in the community, which placed a moratorium on new permits in town industrial and manufacturing zones. A local Biochar advocate who hatched the scheme dismissed the concerns of one angry parent, smugly telling the Albany Times Union, “Children got signatures from other children. If that is a crime, have that parent contact me.”

POMPEII LIVES: The eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago carried the power of thousands of nuclear explosions and lasted for more than 24 hours. Pompeii, a beautiful Italian seaside resort favored by wealthy Romans, was buried. This week, archeologists announced the discovery of stunning archeological riches from a never-before excavated area of Pompeii:  Frescoes on a banquet room wall depicting Apollo and Helen of Troy that, in a shimmering light, might appear to move. The frescoes are the finest and most important archeological finds in Pompeii in years.

A WARNING TO NPR: A senior editor at National Public Radio got people buzzing this week when he wrote in a broad critique that its emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation in its reporting and storytelling has fed “the absence of viewpoint diversity.” “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America,” Uri Berliner, a business editor at NPR, wrote in a bracing essay for The Free Press under the headline, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” NPR’s chief news executive, Edith Chapin, rejected the criticism. “We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories,” she wrote, as reported by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. “We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world.”

TOP TALKER: Paul Vandenburgh, a talk radio institution in New York’s Capital Region for three decades, bucked the commercial radio trend. When many small stations were abandoning local fare and resorting to automated programming, or going off the air all together, he bought a radio station and made it a destination for local talk. Now he’s been named one of the top 100 radio hosts in the country by Talkers.com, a trade publication serving the talk media industry. Vandenburgh was 88th on a list topped by Sean Hannity. Joe Pagliarulo, a former anchor for TV station WRGB in Schenectady, was No. 8.

STOP, THIEFS: New York City Mayor Eric Adams, calling package theft a “New York nightmare,” announced this week that the city would provide parcel storage lockers at seven locations throughout the city, an effort to curb an estimated 90,000 package thefts a day. “We want to send a message to the porch pirates that your days are over of sailing away with our packages,” the mayor said, as reported by Gothamist. Or you could set a trap and threaten to beat someone’s brains out with a baseball bat, as one fed-up Queens resident did.

01_Nuggets.jpgSAVE US, BIG BROTHER: A report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which promotes democracy worldwide, found that “democratic institutions are falling short of people’s expectations,” and that in eight of the 19 countries in the study, “more people have favorable views of ‘a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliament or elections,’” the institute said, as reported by The Associated Press. Iraqis, believe it or not, have more faith in access to justice (28% “always” or “often”) than Americans (26%).  

COSTLY DECEPTION: Gothamist reports a settlement of up to $1.25 million of a matter involving a disinformation campaign ahead of the 2020 election. New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement that Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman had “orchestrated a depraved and disinformation-ridden campaign to intimidate Black voters in an attempt to sway the election in favor of their preferred candidate,” including threats that Black voters would be tracked down for mandatory vaccinations, warrants and outstanding debts if they voted by mail.

GOING WITHOUT: A report by the residential real estate brokerage Redfin found that half of homeowners and renters in the U.S. struggle to make their housing payments, and that many sacrifice meals or medical care or work extra hours to make ends meet. Of those who are struggling, a third skipped vacations. Others sold belongings, dipped into retirement savings or borrowed from friends of family.

GOOD RIDDANCE: Wilmer Puello-Mota, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served on the City Council in Holyoke, Mass., was expected to plead guilty in Rhode Island to a charge that he possessed sexually explicit images of a child. Instead, he fled to Russia and enlisted in its army. “I’m sure he joined the Russian army because he didn’t want to register as a sex offender,” his lawyer told the Boston Globe.

HIGH AND MIGHTY: The Catamount Mountain Resort in Upstate New York is about to open what it is calling the longest zip line in the U.S. — 5,523 feet across the treetops, 270 feet off the ground. The “Cata-monster” is the capstone of a three-leg journey that rewards thrill-seekers with a 55 mph descent with views of New York’s Capital Region, southern Vermont and The Berkshires of Massachusetts. It opens in May and costs $99 to ride on a weekday.

02_Lives.jpgO.J. SIMPSON seemed to have it all — uncommon athletic grace, speed and fluidity that made him a Heisman Trophy winner and one of the greatest running backs in NFL history; movie star looks that landed him parts in several movies, as well as national advertising and TV commentary gigs; a home among the Hollywood elite. It all ended abruptly in 1994, with the brutal killings of Simpson’s ex-wife and a companion, crimes for which a jury acquitted Simpson, though he later lost a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the families of the victims. The “slow-speed chase” of a white Ford Bronco that he was riding in after failing to turn himself in to police riveted the nation. Simpson, who later went to prison for armed robbery, once vowed to find “the real killers,” but no one else was ever charged. He posted a video two months ago assuring supporters he was in good health. He died, at 76, of prostate cancer.

PETER HIGGS was a 35-year-old assistant professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland when, in 1964, he suggested the existence of a previously undetected particle that would explain how other particles acquire mass. As The New York Times reports, “The Higgs boson, also known as ‘the God particle,’ would become the keystone of a suite of theories known as the Standard Model, which encapsulated all human knowledge so far about elementary particles and the forces by which they shaped nature and the universe … A half-century later, on July 4, 2012, he received a standing ovation as he walked into a lecture hall at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva and heard that his particle had finally been found.” A year later, Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, shared with Belgian physicist Francois Englert. Higgs died of a blood disorder at 94.

03_Almost Final Words.jpg“Does the city of Dayton really want to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws? This city claims to be a human rights city but will arrest you for feeding a stranger for free — what a joke.”
— Lee Cook, who was among those expressing outrage that police in Dayton, Ohio, arrested a man for providing food to homeless people without a permit. The mayor defended the arrest, saying, “We have rules that we all have to follow.” 

04_signoff.jpgBAMBI BREAKS BAD: The loss of copyright protections has put many of Disney’s main characters in the public domain for reimagination, and it seems everyone wants to turn them into bloodthirsty psychopaths, including Bambi, now a fierce buck bent on revenge.

05_Bottom.jpgSome of the linked material in Facing Out requires a subscription to read.

Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, Leigh Hornbeck, John Brodt, Kristy Miller, John Behan, 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 conversationmark.behan@behancom.com

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