The Week: What Caught Our Eye

February 11, 2023

It’s not just you; the days do in fact get much longer in February, especially in the northern U.S., which adds more than an hour of daylight from the beginning of the month to the end. (Graphic by John Bulmer.)

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

This morning we celebrate the speed of light. Specifically, the speed at which our days lengthen in February here up north, which only seems fair, given the cold, hard darkness of January. In the words of the great horticulturalist Gertrude Jekyll, “There is always in February some one day, at least, when one smells the yet distant, but surely coming, summer.” We can see it, too.

ONE SMART PUP: Bailey somehow got loose in the area between Mesa and Sunland Park, Texas, and her owners were worried. They were afraid they’d never see their newly rescued dog again. But Bailey has good instincts. She found her way back to the animal rescue shelter and, at 1:15 a.m., rang the doorbell for help.

BOLD PREDICTION: The medical director of the NFL Players Association, in an appearance this week on SiriusXM radio, was clear in what he expects for Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who suffered cardiac arrest on national television and required CPR on the field to save him: “I guarantee you that Damar Hamlin will play professional football again.” Dr. Thom Mayer made the statement without hesitation in response to a caller who asked if Hamlin would ever play again. It’s the first anyone in authority had publicly discussed the possibility of a return to action for Hamlin.

GAMBLING PROBLEMS: A few weeks back we reported that University of Dayton men’s basketball coach Anthony Grant called out gamblers for threatening and harassing his players after outcomes the gamblers didn’t like. He’s not alone. This week, it was Siena College men’s coach Carmen Maciariello using his media availability to tell the jerks to get a life. A Siena employee who monitors the team’s social media accounts told the Albany Times Union the program’s Instagram account gets flooded with profane and racist comments that sometimes tag individual players, which the school quickly (and properly) scrubs.

LIFTING UP, LETTING DOWN: A couple of high school wrestling-related stories made news this week in Upstate New York, one a celebration of the human spirit, the other an opaque but decisive response to something gone terribly wrong. Tabriz Khetab and two siblings arrived in Albany from Afghanistan 17 months ago as refugees, their parents and other siblings remaining behind. He spoke no English but showed the Albany High wrestling coach the tattoo of two wrestlers on his wrist. The connection was made, and though Khetab was completely unfamiliar with the American style of amateur wrestling, he was among the best in the state by the end of his first season, success he has carried into his senior season, with the potential to continue in college. “Some high school athletes take for granted the opportunities they have as far as competing in sports and the different resources they have,” his coach, Paul Florio, told the Albany Times Union. “Tabriz wakes up every day happy to be here and happy to be alive, be safe and be able to do something he loves to do. It is great to be a part of that.” In the Buffalo area, meanwhile, a team that had recently won a state championship and was scheduled to host a regional tournament this weekend had its season abruptly canceled for what the superintendent called “serious allegations of inappropriate behavior by one or more” members of the team, and suggesting that law enforcement was involved.

HELPING HANDS: The death toll continues to rise in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria this week, with more than 21,000 confirmed dead. Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish-born founder of Chobani yogurt, based in Upstate New York, has pledged $2 million toward relief efforts. Local and national fundraisers are underway. Do your research before giving. One reputable option is UNICEF, which supplies emergency relief to children and families. The New York Times published a list of national and international organizations that are providing assistance. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, facing a tough reelection campaign, acknowledged “shortcomings” in Turkey’s response to the disaster, but added, “It is not possible to be prepared for such a disaster.”

SPREADING THE WORD: You know right away that this isn’t a commercial trying to sell you a product. The images of struggle and despair suggest a solicitation is forthcoming, but in the end, viewers are left with the quiet reassurance that “He Gets Us.” The commercials are part of a multi-million-dollar, multimedia campaign to frame Christianity in broader, more inclusive terms by highlighting Jesus Christ’s status as a refugee whose family fled persecution and connecting his experience to those of today’s marginalized people. The marketing campaign, a reported $1 billion investment over three years, features an ad that will air during Sunday’s telecast of Super Bowl LVII.

SILVER LINING: A 9-year-old who was racially profiled while hunting for invasive spotted lanternflies in her New Jersey neighborhood was recognized by Yale as a “donor scientist” as it entered her collection into the Peabody Museum of Natural History database. It’s among the many ways the scientific community has rallied around Bobbi Wilson since her neighbor, a member of the local borough council, called police to report “a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees.” She was in fact doing her part to answer the state’s call to help eradicate the insect. “The whole community, the science community, got together and said, ‘She's one of us and we're not going to let her lose her steam for STEM,’ ” her mother, Monique Joseph, said in a statement from Yale. “‘We're going to support the family, we're going to support this girl.’”

RENSSELAER RISING: Historic Rensselaer, across the Hudson from Albany, and once one of the most important railroad centers in the Northeast, for years has been an easy target of Capital Region snobbery. The insults are called Ren slurs. Snicker at your own expense. “The real estate market in the city in the last few years has really taken off,” said John Mooney, a Rensselaer native and real estate agent.  “There are multiple offers, increased prices, and a shortage of inventory because everyone is buying.” Major residential and commercial projects on the Rensselaer riverfront are taking advantage of the unmatched nighttime view of Downtown Albany. BBL, one of the Capital Region’s largest commercial builders, is partnering with property owners to rescue and renovate one longstanding eyesore and convert it into apartments and retail space.

The Ice Palace is a major attraction at the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, an annual event in Saranac Lake, N.Y., that started in 1897. This year’s Winter Carnival wraps up tomorrow. And in Lake George, it’s the second weekend of Winter Carnival, the second full month of Winterfest, and another magnificent season of Ice Castles. (Photo: Nancie Battaglia).

PAIN OF DEATH: If you have pets, take a few minutes for this essay by Dr. Andrew Bullis, a young veterinarian just starting his career at a small-town clinic in Pennsylvania. It is a heartfelt, and heart-breaking, look at the stresses veterinarians and their staffs deal with every day, from belligerent pet owners who expect the miraculous to sick and injured animals whose fates rest in their often-exhausted hands. They work each day shadowed by the constant, soul-grinding specter of death, and the imperative to deliver care flawlessly.    

HERO’S WELCOME: Jimmy Thomas lowered himself into his kayak in the Mohawk River on September 24 with an ambitious journey in mind. He would paddle all the way to Key West, Fla., then pedal a bicycle back to Glenville, N.Y., a 4,000-mile round trip, to raise money (more than $50,000) and awareness for military veterans to receive trained service dogs. As if finishing a 4,000-mile journey in under 20 weeks weren’t exhausting enough, the 61-year-old Army veteran covered the final stretch last weekend in a sub-zero windchill. He dedicated the journey to his own service dog, Boots, who died six weeks before it started. “This was an inspiring project that brought to the country’s attention the wounds of war, those visible and invisible,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, who spoke at an event welcoming Thomas home and had a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of Thomas and his project, which he called Doggie Paddle for Veterans.

THAT’S NUTS: The owner of an Airbnb near San Francisco was concerned that a dead animal might be trapped behind a wall, having seen what was assumed to be maggots coming out of it. Turns out those were mealworms, and they were feasting on the 700 pounds of acorns that a pair of hungry woodpeckers had stashed, only to have them fall out of reach. The nuts filled eight 40-gallon garbage bags and took hours to clean up.

RUSHDIE’S RECOVERY: Author Salman Rushdie, in his first interview since being attacked by a man with a knife last August as he was about to give a speech in Chautauqua, N.Y., said he’s grateful to be alive but still struggling with the aftereffects of the assault, which blinded his right eye and caused damage to his hands that makes writing difficult. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” said he still bears mental scars from the attack, as well. “I’m not out of that forest yet, really,” he said in an interview with The New Yorker.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES: David Sinclair, a genetics professor and director of the Harvard Medical School’s Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research, has speculated that the first person to reach 150 is living today, and that further advances in medicine will allow doctors to “reset” the age of certain living things, which could have major implications for how diseases are treated. “The same treatment for heart disease could also cure Alzheimer’s and diabetes, and make you look younger as well,” Sinclair told the Harvard Gazette. “This is an exciting time.”

ALL GROWN UP: For a time, everyone knew the name Elián González. He was 5 years old when he was plucked from the Florida straits by a fisherman in 1999, the sole survivor of an attempt by his mother and others to flee Cuba. He was taken to relatives in Florida, sparking an international custody fight that ended with the child being forcibly removed from a relative’s home in Miami by federal agents and returned to his father in Cuba. González has maintained a relatively high profile at home and, at 29, he has been nominated to serve in the country’s National Assembly. “Sometimes we young people think that if we stop being a socialist country, and give way to capitalism, we will become a developed country like the United States, France, Italy,” he told a Cuban newspaper. “But it must be understood that if Cuba stops being socialist, it won't be like the U.S., it would be a colony, it would be Haiti, a poor country, a lot poorer than it is now, and everything that has been achieved would be lost.”

BLOOM IS OFF ZOOM: Zoom, the company whose video meeting service became ubiquitous in the early stages of the pandemic, used by family and friend groups to stay in touch and businesses to replace in-person meetings, announced this week that it would cut about 15% of its staff and that its executives would take significant pay cuts. Zoom is among big tech companies retrenching from pandemic-fueled growth now that more people are returning to pre-pandemic patterns.

SHEDDING LIGHT: Jessica Pegula is one of the top women’s tennis players in the world. She’s also the daughter of Kim Pegula, the president and owner of both the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres, whose health challenges in recent months were kept mostly private until this week, when her daughter published a long essay describing the toll on herself and her family in the eight months since Kim Pegula suffered cardiac arrest at home and was saved by CPR from another daughter, Kelly. “Today, my mom is still in recovery,” she writes. “She is dealing with significant expressive aphasia and significant memory issues. She can read, write, and understand pretty well, but she has trouble finding the words to respond. It is hard to deal with and it takes a lot of patience to communicate with her, but I thank God every day that we can still communicate with her at all.”

GOOD TASTE: Researchers discovered charred remnants of shells and claws in a seaside cave near Lisbon, evidence that Neanderthals were cooking and eating crab 90,000 years ago. The discovery, coming a few years after remnants of birds and tortoises also were found in the cave, suggests Neanderthals were much more refined than had been previously assumed.

BEFORE THE GAME: Before the Big Dogs play in Sunday’s Super Bowl, tune into Animal Planet, Discovery or TBS at 2 p.m. to watch Puppy Bowl XIX, where Team Ruff takes on Team Fluff. For the third year, the action was filmed at the Cool Insuring Arena in Glens Falls, N.Y.

ONE SWEET SPOT: New York Upstate, the travel and adventure guide, names Barkeater Chocolates in North Creek to its list of choicest chocolatiers in New York. Barkeater offers not only gourmet bars, barks, truffles, and caramels but opportunities for visitors to get their Willy Wonka on and have their own chocolate-making experience.

LIVES

BURT BACHARACH was a legendary composer and songwriter whose AM radio singalong hits included “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again.” He wrote top 10 hits from the 1950s to the 21^st century, usually in tandem with his lyricist Hal David, for stars such as Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and his personal favorite, Dionne Warwick. He won eight Grammys, three Oscars and a Tony in a career few can match for longevity, range and popularity. He was 94.

ALMOST FINAL WORDS

“It's been like one of the great rides at Cedar Point, in the sense that your stomach drops at times, you're excited, you're yelling, sometimes you can't breathe. But you always want to do it again.”
—  LeBron James, reflecting on his career after passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time scoring leader.

THE SIGNOFF

THE COST OF HEARTACHE:  Something to think about this Valentine’s Day: A man in Singapore is suing a woman for more than $3 million for spurning his romantic overtures, saying she caused him trauma and damaged his “stellar reputation.”

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THANK YOU to our contributors: Bill Callen, Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Leigh Hornbeck, Lisa Fenwick, Troy Burns, John Bulmer, Nancie Battaglia, Claire P. Tuttle and Tara Hutchins. 

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