Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

July 27, 2024

It was just a matter of time before the morning sun got cooking and burned off the fog in Charlton, N.Y. John Bulmer

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Nope. Not going there. Sorry. We’re choosing not to let politics, to borrow a phrase coined by columnist and author Bonnie Kristian, become “an invasive species in our mental habitat.”

WEARING THE COLORS: Jimmer Fredette thought he was done with basketball. Basketball, it turns out, wasn’t done with him. A superstar at Glens Falls (N.Y.) High School who rocketed to fame as the national collegiate player of the year at Brigham Young, Fredette made a great living playing the sport, first in the NBA, then for several years overseas. Word got out that he was taking time off, and a former college coach and TV analyst called with an offer: How would you like a chance to play 3x3 for USA Basketball, with a shot at going to the Paris Olympics? “As soon as I heard, ‘Olympics,’ I said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Fredette told the Albany Times Union. The Olympic 3x3 competition is July 30-Aug. 5. The team’s coach, Joe Lewandowski, said Fredette, now 35, is “absolutely the best (3x3) player in the world. I don’t think that — I know that.” Let’s hope the spectators at 3x3 comport themselves with far more dignity than the Moroccan soccer fans who stormed the pitch in anger, causing a two-hour delay in the first match of the Olympics.

HAULING BASS: This year, for the second time in three years, a river whose freighters are felt in the soles of shoreline feet is the best smallmouth bass fishery in America, according to the experts at Bassmaster. A 50-mile stretch of the St. Lawrence River that threads the Thousand Islands plus eastern Lake Ontario is, in the words of Bassmaster, an “unrivaled smallmouth fishery.” In a two-day tournament last August, each of the top four finishers landed more than 100 pounds of fish, and fish larger than four pounds were netted with stunning regularity. “We aren’t seeing that sort of production out of many largemouth lakes across the country right now, much less smallmouth fisheries,” Bassmaster marveled. They’ll get another chance when the national Bassmaster Elite series returns to Waddington, N.Y., on the St. Lawrence, August 15-18.

SLEEP ON IT: Let’s face it, all the messaging we’ve received since childhood extols the virtues of the early riser, those industrious go-getters who can’t wait to seize the day and make it their own. Time to rethink that. A study of more than 26,000 people in the United Kingdom found that those who stay up late while still managing to squeeze in 7 to 9 hours of sleep had “superior cognitive function” to morning larks, The Guardian reports. Going to bed late is strongly associated with creative types.

ODE TO THE ERIE CANAL: In the early years of the new republic, an astonishing feat of innovation and industry connected the East Coast to the Great Lakes, opening broad new lands for settlement and pioneering the mass movement of goods, ideas and people. The Erie Canal, which celebrates its 200^th anniversary next year, today ushers pleasure craft between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. It’s also become a paddlers’ paradise, a 363-mile waterway that touches history at every turn and earned glowing reviews from the BBC’s Robin Catalano, who noted landscapes that vary from historic city centers to generations-old family farms and tranquil open fields and credited the state for its investments and promotion of the canal as a cultural and recreational resource. 

SPENDING PRIORITIES: Low-income people who were given $1,000 a month for three years, no strings attached, spent much of it on day-to-day costs like housing, food and transportation, and many used it to be more deliberate in choosing where to live or work, according to the authors of a basic income study championed and partially funded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Recipients initially reported a decrease in their financial stress, the study found, but that faded over time. Researchers said they found no “direct evidence of improved access to healthcare or improvements to physical and mental health” among those who received $1,000 payments, Business Insider reported.

LIVING HISTORY:  Adrienne Karis moved to the Scotia, N.Y., area in 1947, a year after the Green Corners One-Room Schoolhouse in the Glenville Hills closed after 125 years in service. In 1972, she joined the effort to preserve the building and turn it into a museum, and ever since, she’s been its advocate and led the effort for two renovation projects. Now 101 years old, Karis was present when Glenville historian Emily Spinner reopened the schoolhouse museum following a closure forced by the Covid pandemic. Spinner presented Karis with a certificate of appreciation for all her work. “She is amazing,” Spinner told The Daily Gazette of Schenectady. “It was her intervention that saved the place. It’s unbelievable what she accomplished, at times pretty much all on her own. She’s the reason we still have it.”

EYE ON THE SKY: Astronomers are worried that a one-of-a-kind X-ray telescope that’s currently being used in tandem with the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope to make important discoveries could go dark. The device, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, has been in space for 25 years, but NASA has announced plans to cut its funding. One astronomer told NPR, “Its ability to detect distant objects is unmatched by any other X-ray telescope that’s ever been built or will be built and operating — for at least another decade, likely two decades. Turning off this great observatory for a relatively small cost savings would severely damage the U.S.’s leadership in this entire field.”

The Northville Placid Trail, which stretches 138 miles through the Adirondacks, has been welcoming hikers for 100 years. Nancie Battaglia

JOBS REPORT: A job market that for years had a breeze at its back, resulting in higher wages and millions of new opportunities for workers, is showing signs of slowing, The Wall Street Journal reports, though one economist it quoted called this “a good labor market.” That dynamic is colliding with a retirement surge in the U.S., where more than 4 million people will turn 65 each year through 2027. In several industries, a quarter or more of workers today are 55 or older, including manufacturing, financial services and public administration. If you’re looking to retire, Bankrate suggests you consider Delaware, No. 1 in its annual Best and Worst States to Retire Study. New York: Worse than every state but Alaska. And if you’re just looking for that ideal place to live, Fortune Well recommends Silver Spring, Md.

SOUTHWEST’S NEW DIRECTION: Southwest Airlines this week announced that it would end its open seating policy after more than half a century, and will instead begin assigning seats like every other major airline. The airline’s CEO told CNBC he didn’t think most customers would mind, and those who do can be lured back. But a couple of flyers interviewed by The Associated Press said open seating was one of their favorite features about Southwest. “The convenience that comes with being able to pick your own seat is what sets Southwest apart and makes them sort of a preferred airline,” one told the AP. “A lot of my friends swear by Southwest, that’s all they will fly, and they are completely irate about this decision.”

ORAL HISTORY: U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia made history this week when she delivered remarks on the House floor using her voice as cloned by artificial intelligence. Wexton, who has a rare neurological disease that rapidly took away her ability to speak clearly, used old recordings of speeches and appearances as a congresswoman to recreate her voice, The Associated Press reports. She rose to commemorate Disability Pride Month, which honors the Americans with Disabilities Act. “I used to be one of those people who hated the sound of my voice,” she remarked from the floor. “When my ads came on TV, I would cringe and change the channel. But you truly don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, because hearing the new AI of my old voice for the first time was music to my ears. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.”

WORD PUZZLED: CNN learned the hard way this week just how painfully detached its on-air stars are from the TikTok zeitgeist. On The Lead with Jake Tapper, the 55-year-old anchor and a 69-year-old special correspondent fumbled to explain the meaning of “brat” in the context of Vice President Kamala Harris, or why she would embrace the term. We’re not pretending we entirely get it, either, but as Mashable notes in a harsh critique, “It’s really easy to brush off CNN’s brief, clownish coverage of America's political youth culture as a silly bit. But the reality is that Gen Z could be kingmakers in this election.” It suggests CNN hire “journalists who understand and respect the constituents they're reporting on. Because while gray-haired pundits on CNN may not understand how to connect with millennial and Gen Z voters, the Harris campaign certainly does. And it may be what wins them the election.”

CHANGING COURSE: Like many colleges, Indiana’s Valparaiso University is suffering an enrollment decline and needs an infusion of cash to build new dorms. It is seeking permission to sell some prized art — paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe, Childe Hassam and Frederic E. Church — to raise money. Predictably, the university is facing strong art community opposition, but it says it has the right to sell the paintings because they should never have been acquired in the first place — they are not “conservative,” as required by the terms of the 1953 gift that was used to purchase them. Jonathan Canning, a former curator of The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, N.Y., who also worked for Valparaiso’s museum, told The New York Times, “I think it was a clever way of trying to pick at the validity of the paintings, and it was done because they thought they wouldn’t have to answer to anyone but the judge.” The high cost of college attendance in the U.S. is having another affect — driving students to pursue their post-secondary educations in Europe, where the costs are far less.

LEGENDS AT SPAC: Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and his bandmate Tim Reynolds headline the return of Farm Aid to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on September 21. The concert and agriculture festival, first held in 1985, benefits family farms and highlights the challenges the industry faces across the U.S. 

FREE AT LAST: A Detroit-area man who has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence in a murder case that sent him to prison 37 years ago was freed after persuading a judge that a crucial piece of evidence had been withheld from him. Prosecutors chose not to pursue a new trial for Paul Clark, whose daughter, DeAngelic, 36, was born after her father went to prison.

HARROWING ATTACK: A young professional surfer in Australia had his leg severed by a great white shark. The leg washed ashore shortly after 23-year-old Kai McKenzie was taken to a local hospital in New South Wales, and doctors were assessing reattachment options.

SPLASHDOWN: A breeching humpback whale landed on a fishing boat off the coast of New Hampshire, sending its stunned occupants overboard. The incident was caught on video by two young fishermen who hurried over to pull the men out of the water. No one was injured.

CHARLES E. “CHUCK” VANDREI was the longtime Historic Preservation Officer for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. His work included archaeological and historical research on military sites, primarily in New York State, including Fort Niagara, Fort Edward, Fort Miller, Crown Point, and the Lake George Battlefield. He also worked for the preservation of shipwrecks in Lake George and Lake Champlain and, most recently, worked to create a visitor center at the Lake George Battlefield Park. He received many honors for his contributions to New York history, heritage and archaeology across more than 35 years, including an Adirondack Architectural Heritage Special Recognition Award, a DEC Commissioner’s Meritorious Service Award, and the New York Archaeological Council’s 2023 Founders Award. He was the point person in the investigation of a Lake George site that yielded the remains of 44 individuals who died from smallpox at the Continental Army's hospital. He died, unexpectedly, at 69.

“It was really a stealth operation. They did a good job keeping it quiet.”
— Wendy Northcross, co-founder and executive director of the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, after Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, daughter of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Kerry Kennedy, married longtime boyfriend Tellef Lundevall last weekend in front of 400 guests at the Kennedy Compound on Cape Cod.

DOG DAZE: An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was involved in a rollover accident this week on a suburban Chicago interstate. There were no injuries. No word whether the driver was hotdogging.

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PRINCIPAL AUTHOR: Bill Callen

CONTRIBUTORS: Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Leigh Hornbeck, Troy Burns, 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