Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

June 8, 2024

Racing fans and people who like to be where the action is are creating a summer-like buzz in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., which is beginning a two-year run as host of the Belmont Stakes. Sierra Leone (right), whose trainer, Chad Brown, grew up just down the road in Mechanicville, N.Y., is the early favorite. Skip Dickstein

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

The scene on Broadway in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., this weekend calls to mind the great Yogi Berra, who, were he with us today, might take one look at what’s happening and muse, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Crowds of revelers buzzed about busy streets as early as Wednesday night, the eve of a four-day mini-meet made possible by renovations at Belmont Park and featuring, today, the 156^th running of the Belmont Stakes.

Cooperative weather added to the summer-like vibe of the week, and Saratoga, which both loves horse racing and knows how to welcome a crowd, was ready.

Here’s hoping the weekend is remembered as a celebration of racing and community camaraderie and that all who are visiting return home safely.

NO MEANS NO: New York State’s insistence on applying a chemical herbicide in Lake George continues to generate vigorous opposition from environmental leaders, elected officials, property owners and other stakeholders who are just as determined to keep the chemical, called ProcellaCOR, out of its legendarily clean waters. The use of ProcellaCor is a state-sponsored experiment, in a major public drinking water supply, no less. No chemical has ever been intentionally applied to Lake George to control weeds or anything else. As one correspondent noted in the Adirondack Explorer, “More than 5,000 people have signed a petition opposing ProcellaCOR in Lake George,” and, “The Lake George Association (LGA) has offered to pay for hand-harvesting in the two bays where the treatment is planned. The state’s Lake George Park Commission ignored the offer. Why?” Good question.

LEADERSHIP LESSENED: George Washington didn’t mince words when, in his farewell address as president, he wrote, “Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” Neither did the second president, John Adams, who wrote, “The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue” and “public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” To be virtuous in public service meant the willingness and ability to act justly and in the common good, notions that far too many of our political leaders today find quaint and weak, argues the Manhattan Institute’s Andy Smarick. “America desperately needs virtuous public leaders, those who are honest and honorable, selfless and non-tribal, and committed to service and the public good,” he writes, with a warning: “As we break into political or ideological teams and see those who disagree not as fellow citizens but as permanent opponents or enemies, concepts like accommodation, prudence, curiosity, forbearance, and integrity appear counterproductive. If the goal is to dominate, if there is no expectation of future cooperation across differences, then we will prize loyalty to the tribe and look to win by any means necessary.”

THEIR SERVICE ENDURES: Leaders of the U.S. and our European allies gathered this week on the 80^th anniversary of D-Day, the bloody invasion at Normandy that were the first grinding steps in the liberation of France and the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were joined by 48 American servicemen who stormed the beaches that day, and as Roger Cohen ruefully noted in The New York Times, “When the 90th anniversary of D-Day comes around in 2034, there may be no more vets.” One 98-year-old British veteran of D-Day still travels the country, speaking to school children about his experience and the cruelties he witnessed, and urging them to seek peaceful solutions to conflict. Asked by one boy how to end war, he replied: “Love. If you love yourself, if you love your family, if you love your friends, if you love the people you met yesterday, and the people you meet today and the people you're going to meet tomorrow. If we could all do that, there would be no wars.”

FOUL PLAY: Anyone who knows anything about professional sports can tell you that athletes don’t get to that level by being soft and easy to push around. Professional athletes are accustomed to being alphas. Combine that with competitive fire (you’re not getting to the pros without it) and more than a pinch of envy and you have the situation confronting the WNBA and its rookie supernova, Caitlin Clark. Clark’s presence has driven record attendance and TV ratings both in college and in the WNBA, which has only magnified the rough treatment she’s gotten from fellow players, most notoriously a blindside chuck from Chicago’s Chennedy Carter that sent Clark tumbling to the floor and raised hackles from coast-to-coast. (Carter was confronted by an idiot “fan” Thursday in Washington). The WNBA, reticent to appear as if it is coddling Clark, had better recognize what’s happening and punish it before someone is seriously injured, Sally Jenkins warns in The Washington Post. “The NBA league office knows what happens if you don’t penalize that kind of flagrancy: escalation, an injury or a bench clearing. And the WNBA may have to face that kind of ugly spiral because of its laxity in this case. It has made targeting Clark permissible. … Leagues police flagrant, targeting fouls not to protect star scorers but because they’re dangerous and lead to retaliatory escalation and uncontrollable situations that give everyone black eyes.”

Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a town that knows how to throw a good party, kicked off  the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival with a party in the streets Wednesday night and thousands came.

THE GIFT OF SIMONE BILES: With the Paris Olympics approaching, we have Simone Biles to thank and admire for a lot more than her extraordinary gymnastics prowess. The most decorated gymnast in history, she may also be the best, high-profile advocate for mental wellness at a time when mental distress is at an epidemic level. During the 2021 Olympics, she stepped away from competition, announcing that she was taking time off to get help with her mental health. She endured the inevitable criticism, including being labeled a quitter, but fellow gymnasts rallied to her defense and relayed their own stories of struggle. Biles' decision to prioritize her mental health started a wider conversation about the role of mental health in sports and in life.

IN A PIGGLE: Sterling, Conn., used to be the kind of rural community where neighbors could work out differences of opinion through conversations at the annual town meeting. No longer. Pigs and cows now roam freely and not everybody finds that pastorally amusing. An organization called Radical Roots Farming bought land in town in 2021 and began “regenerative farming — without harmful pesticides, GMOs, and unnecessary hormones” and, it turns out, also without fences. The neighbors call it “aporkalypse.”

INVASION OF SPIDERS? First came the killer bees, then the murder hornets. Now, venomous flying spiders are coming to the East Coast and perhaps New York. The colorful critters have a 4-inch leg span and use a technique called ballooning, where they release silk threads that catch the wind, blowing them as high as 3 miles into the air. The good news: The spiders do not pose a danger to humans. Their venom is reserved for the critters that get caught up in their webs, including butterflies, wasps and cockroaches. 

AMAZON COMES TO THE AMAZON: The New York Times lavished praise on Elon Musk last week for his companies, Space X and Starlink, bringing internet service to the Brazilian rain forest, one of the last offline places on Earth. “The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered hundreds of miles along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, take ayahuasca to connect with forest spirits and trap spider monkeys to make soup or keep as pets. They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — some villages can take a week to reach. But since September, the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Musk,” The Times reported. Predictably, the New York Post followed up, highlighting complaints from some Marubo elders that their people are now hooked on social media and pornography. “When it arrived, everyone was happy,” said one elder. “But now, things have gotten worse. Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet, they’re learning the ways of the white people.”

EASY MONEY: Rodney “Rocket” Grubbs picked up on the pickleball craze early, opening a pickleball shop in Indiana, traveling to dozens of tournaments a year to play and sell merchandise and founding Pickleball Rocks, which he called the “world’s most recognized pickle ball brand.” Authorities say he scammed investors out of $47.5 million, including interest. Not to be outdone, the longtime CFO of the Detroit River Conservancy, a major nonprofit, is alleged to have embezzled $40 million over more than a decade to finance a lavish lifestyle.

BIG DAY FOR BOEING: With all the bad news for Boeing lately, this piece of news got scant attention: Boeing's long-delayed Starliner capsule lifted off Wednesday on a cruise to the International Space Station. (Late-night hosts noticed, and couldn’t resist the low-hanging fruit).

The first launch of an Atlas V with astronauts aboard was the first for the Atlas family of rockets since astronaut Gordon Cooper took off on the Mercury program's final flight 61 years ago. If all goes well, the Starliner and its crew will return to Earth on June 14.

REGULATING ALGORITHMS: New York State this week took steps toward a first-in-the-nation law to prohibit tech platforms (think Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X) from using algorithms to shape the feeds of users under 18 and prohibit the sending of notifications during certain hours without parental consent. Supporters of the measure point to studies highlighting the harmful effects of social media on mental health. Opponents raise First Amendment concerns and question whether the measures will be effective.

RACING TOWARD HOUSING: A developer is proposing a $250 million housing and retail project on the site of a historic automotive race track in Saratoga County, N.Y., where generations of drivers have competed wheel-to-wheel around a tight dirt oval. The development, called Camber Ridge in a nod to the property’s racing heritage, would include hundreds of units of housing, senior housing and retail spaces in a fast-growing part of New York’s Capital Region. Of course, if this goes the way of most housing proposals, expect opponents to raise all the usual closed-door arguments about traffic, change, etc.

A MESS OF CASH: James Kane, well known for using a giant magnet to fish all manner of steel detritus out of New York’s murky waters and posting his finds on social media, this week hauled up a slimy safe in which he found bags of waterlogged $100 bills, most of it badly deteriorated. He estimated the safe contained $100,000. He got to keep it and is hoping the Bureau of Engraving and Printing can help salvage some of it.

TRADING IN TEXAS: A new Dallas-based stock exchange is being formed. The Texas stock exchange aims to challenge increasing compliance costs at the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as newer rules that include targets for board diversity at the Nasdaq. The exchange is backed by finance heavy hitters BlackRock and Citadel Securities. 

QUITE A FIRST: Tavaris Williams has a confession to make: He had never before uttered the phrase that made him an instant internet sensation for exactly the wrong reason. Williams was the poor soul who, under pressure, blurted the phrase heard round the world — “Right in the butt” — during a toss-up round on “Wheel of Fortune,” causing the audience to gasp and a shocked fellow contestant to say “Whaaaat?!?!” “It’s pretty humbling,” he told Slate. “Way too many people know my name now.”

DONALD LOWELL SIPLON was born in Muskegon, Mich., and served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years, directing environmental and public health programs in Okinawa, Japan, and Guam, where he was credited with eradicating rabies. As a child, he and his mom sang Shirley Temple songs on the radio (he had to stand on a box to reach the microphone). As a dad, he imbued his children with his own lifelong love of learning. He read John Steinbeck novels to them over dessert and drove them cross-country to debate camp. In retirement, he served as a public health leader, teacher and writer, and still made time to fish and throw fish fries for the whole neighborhood. He was 93.

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”
— W.C. Fields

Any day can be your last. Our best friend lived as if he understood this.  Those he loved thank him for giving us his very best every day, every moment.

You taught us so much, little boy. We love you.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, Leigh Hornbeck, Mark Behan, Troy Burns, John Brodt, Kristy Miller, Tara Hutchins, Claire P. Tuttle and Skip Dickstein.

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