Facing Out: The Week’s Most Interesting News

August 3, 2024

Young Emma Shaughnessy enjoys a summer day the best way, kicking back on Lake Clear in the Adirondacks. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

There is something special about the Olympics that sets it apart from other athletic events. To start, it’s a feast of entertainment, a mash-up of sports many of us are familiar with — swimming, gymnastics, track and field — alongside sports most of us rarely see: fencing, BMX freestyle park, women’s rugby (go, now, and follow Ilona Maher on Instagram), table tennis and, new this year, breakdancing, called “breaking.”

Add the improbable turn by rap artist Snoop Dogg as Olympic mascot; the artist better known for gin and juice gravely carrying the Olympic flame and taking seriously his role as a “peace messenger,” while Flavor Flav steps up as a sponsor for women’s water polo.

Add the stories of teams and individuals who have worked their entire lives to make it to the Olympics and whose compelling backstories are skillfully filmed and deployed to capture viewers. Sure, LeBron James and Rafael Nadal are at these Olympics, but for the most part the athletes are young and unaccustomed to the spotlight. Their nerves and raw emotions are open for the world to see. It’s easy to fall in love with the honesty in their performances. Don’t get us started on the parents, who’ve been on the ride alongside their athlete, seeing the pain and anguish when no cameras were present. When the camera pans to the stands for a shot of those moms and dads, the whole story is in their faces.

Scratch the surface and the Olympics glosses over ugliness. Of course it does. The Seine is too polluted for swimmers. Thousands of unhoused people were removed from Paris before the Games. More stories surely will emerge. And yet. Even in today’s world, we come together on a world stage peacefully for sport, and those of us at home are lucky to see it.

WELCOME HOME: American journalist Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan, are back in the United States, freed from captivity in Russia as part of a multinational prisoner exchange that is being widely hailed as a diplomatic success for President Biden. Moscow also freed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted of spreading “false information” about the Russian military. There is, of course, no comparison between the actual crimes of Russians who were exchanged for what amounted to victims of kidnappings, which makes any such bargains fraught. Whelan’s brother, David, who had served as a family spokesman during the ordeal, issued a statement thanking the media for its efforts and asking to now be left alone.

CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS: Scott Kotronis loves to fly, and has since his high school days in Saratoga County, N.Y. He paid for flight lessons and became a pilot before an experience that changed the trajectory of his life and arguably thousands of others — he flew a helicopter and was hooked. As a pilot with the New York State Police, Kotronis has flown some of the most challenging search-and-rescue missions in the state, hovering over rugged and treacherous Adirondack Mountain terrain while forest rangers and medics below prepare the injured to be hoisted out. He’s also flown in hunts for fugitives, in firefighting missions and on routine resupply runs, but after three decades aloft, Kotronis is retiring, his skills having helped save hundreds of lives.     

SANDY CISYPHUS: Beach replenishment — replacing coastal sands lost to storms and erosion — has been happening off and on for decades, though, even in the humble context of public works, those projects typically don’t get much attention. Maybe that’s because no one wants to talk about a program that has cost federal taxpayers roughly $3 billion just since 2010, according to E&E News, and has seen the five largest beach projects replenished 57 times since the 1960s. Proponents argue the work is necessary to protect homes, businesses, infrastructure and wildlife habitat, E&E News reports, adding that some say the Army Corps of Engineers, which runs the program, should pump more sand, not less.

BOUND BY HORROR: No, Bill McVeigh was saying, it hadn’t occurred to him to make a connection between his situation and that of the family of the young man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump. In fact, the father of Timothy McVeigh was saying, he tries to forget about the infamous day in 1995 that made his son an international pariah. But when asked, he told former journalist Ken Lovett, who first interviewed him in 2001, that it would be wrong to blame the would-be assassin’s parents for his actions. “You never know what they’re going to do,” McVeigh said of grown children. “You don’t have much control over it. He’s a little younger than Tim was, but still.”

Adding a rainbow to the south end of Lake George, N.Y., is gilding the lily, but we’ll happily take it. It appeared during Wednesday’s Heroes of Hospitality event, held before a full house at Fort William Henry and benefitting a hospitality student at SUNY Adirondack. More photos from the event can be viewed on our Instagram page. Lisa Brodt

PROCESSING LOSS: A weekend camp in New York’s Hudson Valley will match children who lost a parent to overdose with one-on-one support and activities tailored to help them process their grief. Camp for Overdose Loss was first held there in 2023, indicative of the toll drug deaths are having in the community. It’s part of the Comfort Zone Camp network of free camps, whose senior regional director told the Albany Times Union, “It’s a more complicated grief,” comparing it to the grief a child experiences when they lose someone to suicide. “They might say, ‘Why did my parent choose drugs over me? Why didn’t they choose to stop?’ There are a lot of complex emotions — there may be a lot of anger, a lot of hate, as opposed to when someone is diagnosed with cancer.”

DEADLY CONSEQUENCES: A forthcoming study of death rates in India found a stunning correlation between a near-total wipeout of vulture populations and steep increases in human deaths. Vultures used to be plentiful in India, picking clean the carcasses of large animals, but an anti-inflammatory drug used in cattle was poisonous to them. Without the carrion, the rotting carcasses polluted waterways and allowed feral dogs to proliferate. It was “a really huge negative sanitation shock,” one of the study’s authors told The New York Times. Added another: “Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning do matter to human beings.” 

KINDLY REPHRASE: Executive leadership coach Lolly Daskal would like to suggest, if she may, that we all be just a bit more thoughtful about common phrases that can rub your listener the wrong way. Preambles like “No offense, but” and “I don’t mean to interrupt, but” can be grating and are easily avoidable with a slight reframing. “Remember,” she writes, “the way we phrase our thoughts can have a significant impact on how others perceive us and how our message is received.”

RELENTLESS RAINS: Vermont was inundated by rainfall again this week, unleashing yet another round of destructive floods three weeks after the remnants of Hurricane Beryl swept through. Some areas were swamped under 8 inches of rain, sending streams over their banks and homes off their foundations. Across the border in New York, income-eligible North Country homeowners who were impacted by recent tornados and flooding got access to $5 million in emergency funding from the state.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Gallaghers, an iconic New York City steakhouse where the walls are decorated with portraits of famous patrons, added a pointed disclaimer to the frame surrounding one of those patrons who was constantly being mistaken for an infamous contemporary. “This is Not Jeffrey Epstein,” the all-caps label above a smiling, gray-haired man reads. Below: “This is Perry Como.”

MR. EEEK: MrBeast is a YouTube megastar known for his wildly creative and generous philanthropy. He is also a real-life person named Jimmy Donaldson, and it’s Jimmy Donaldson who’s now having to account for offensive online comments from his days as a gaming content creator, as well as a handful of other controversies that are bubbling around MrBeast and his $700 million empire. 

VARSITY PICKLEBALL: The public school system in Montgomery County, Md., announced this week that it was launching varsity pickleball for the county’s 25 high schools, becoming the first school system to offer the sport at the varsity level. Pickleball has experienced rapid growth, with an estimated 50 million American adults playing last year.

CAR TROUBLE: A New York City vigilante known for calling out toll evaders was arrested by city police after ripping the license plate covers from U.S. Secret Service vehicles used by the detail protecting Vice President Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter. He was released without bail.

TRIAL IN STYLE: U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez enjoyed a government rate at a luxury Manhattan hotel that was paid for with campaign funds while he was on trial for bribery and conspiracy, and was squired the less than a mile between the hotel and the courthouse by his New Jersey-based driver, the New Jersey Globe reports.

SHARK SPOTTERS: A California company accustomed to using drones to spot sharks off the coast is testing AI technology that is performing “incredibly well” at detecting most sharks a human can, CNN reports. Drones are commonly used to look for sharks, but AI is not yet used widely for shark detection. 

HOMEY HIDEOUT: The real estate listings in the Hudson Valley feature a unique and enchanting offering that highlights secret exits, panic rooms, a helipad, private security gatehouse, NASA-designed water filtration system, white sand beach and 8,200 square feet of living space. It’s had some high-profile guests, as well. Asking price: $2.69 million.

HARRISON FREER was the second oldest of nine children in a working-class family in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. He starred in high school football and track and earned an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the first in his family to attend college. He graduated in the top third of his class in 1976 and went on to earn a master’s degree in space operations. He flew for the U.S. Air Force in what has become known as Gulf War I, including combat support missions around the Middle East. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he led the Air Force’s Global Positioning System operations unit and commanded a group responsible for European, African, and Middle East strategic airlift support. He then moved to the Pentagon,  where he worked on countering weapons of mass destruction and space issues. After retiring,  Freer and his wife Tricia relocated to her hometown of Queensbury in 2007 to enjoy skiing, hiking, biking and boating. He taught flying and Sunday school, coached youth soccer and immersed himself in a wide variety of civic activities, including the Feeder Canal Alliance and local government. He had served as chair of the Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals and most recently as the Ward 2 representative on the Queensbury Town Board. He died unexpectedly at 70  while bicycling in Bolton Landing.

WILLIAM CALLEY was a 24-year-old Army second lieutenant when he led a platoon into the village on My Lai in South Vietnam on the morning of March 16, 1968. The hours that followed saw the slaughter of as many as 500 villagers and other atrocities, events that were covered up in initial, official reports. Eighteen months later, he was charged with the mass murder of civilians at My Lai, among 25 people charged in connection with the incident. Calley was the only one to be convicted, though through a series of legal maneuverings ended up getting a life sentenced reduced to a little more than three years of house arrest and barracks confinement. He died in April at 80.

PATRICIA BIXBY HOOPES modeled for Vogue and the painter Douglass Crockwell, painted scarves for Sax Fifth Avenue, and designed homes, including the one she loved most at Bolton Landing, N.Y. The granddaughter of the industrialist and philanthropist W.X. Bixby of St. Louis and New York City, she married Samuel Hoopes, grandson of the founder of Finch Paper and major shareholder in the company. Together, they skied, sailed and crewed regattas, and were well known for their philanthropy. She was also a gracious hostess and a decorator with an extraordinary eye for detail, a breeder of standard poodles, and a lover of animals,  including a pet squirrel, a pet cat, and an African Grey Parrot. She was 94.

JAMES SEWARD represented his rural upstate New York district for 33 years in the state Senate and was a public servant before that, serving as town justice in Milford. First diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016, he continued to serve while undergoing treatment and was re-elected his Senate seat. The cancer returned and Seward declined to seek reelection in 2020. His successor, State Sen. Peter Oberacker, said, “Jim’s legacy, respected by both sides of the aisle, will be remembered with great admiration. I will forever cherish the time I spent with Jim, his invaluable counsel, insightful perspectives, and profound wisdom.” He was 72.

“But also this was in the Berkshires, where the median age is probably 75.”
— Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell, in a group discission with other Post opinion writers, recounting that several supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris at a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Mass., said they liked that Harris “appealed to young people.” (For the record, the median age in the Berkshires is closer to 48, according to the 2020 census).

BONEHEADS: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a restaurant and its supplier were not liable for the injuries a man suffered while eating what he thought was a boneless chicken wing that turned out to have bone fragments in it. The court ruled that “boneless” refers to a cooking style, rather than a guarantee. So, if you have allergies to gluten or nuts, you might want to think twice before eating in Ohio.

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AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS: Leigh Hornbeck, Bill Callen, Mark Behan, Ryan Moore, Troy Burns, John Brodt, Lisa Brodt, Kristy Miller, Tara Hutchins, Claire P. Tuttle 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