The Week: What Caught Our Eye

April 22, 2023

A warmup brings paddlers to the surface of Adirondack lakes, even if they had to dodge the occasional ice floe. Nancie Battaglia

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Our nation turned its bewildered eyes toward Upstate New York this week, and then to Missouri, and to North Carolina, and to Alabama, and to Texas.

In rural Upstate New York, a young woman and her friends realized too late they had turned into the wrong driveway while looking for a friend’s house. A homeowner opened fire from his porch as the young people were leaving, killing Kaylin A. Gillis. In North Carolina, a six-year-old girl and her parents were wounded by a neighbor as they went to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into his yard. In Alabama, four people were killed, 32 others wounded at a Sweet 16 birthday party. In Missouri, an 84-year-old white man who walks with a cane was charged with shooting a 16-year-old Black boy who had come to his door mistakenly believing it was the address where his younger siblings were waiting to be picked up.  And in Texas, two teenage cheerleaders were shot just after midnight after apparently trying to get into the wrong car in a supermarket parking lot.

FATHER MURPHY: Who knows what Murphy was thinking? Day after day, the bachelor bald eagle waited patiently for his one egg to hatch. He sat atop it. He gently rotated it. He charged at other birds that ventured too near. But there was no eaglet. Murphy was laying on a small rock. Then fate intervened at the sanctuary in Missouri: An orphaned eaglet, a week or two old, was brought in, having survived a fall from a tree during a storm. Who better than Murphy to assume the role as “foster parent?” He began responding to the chick’s peeps and protecting it. When two plates were placed in front of the birds — one containing food cut into pieces that the chick could eat by itself, and another with a whole fish that only Murphy could handle — Murphy tore up the fish and fed it to the eaglet.

Upstate New York’s loss is Florida’s gain when it comes to the talented eye of Bob Joy.

THE LIGHT OF JOY: Architect Bob Joy was well known for his visionary architectural leadership in Glens Falls, N.Y. He was and is a champion of historic preservation and downtown renewal who led popular history walking tours and delighted people with his photography. In retirement, he has taken his creative sensibilities and eye for beauty to Florida. In a cover story extolling his photography in Vero Beach Magazine, Joy says, “I have often thought that if I ever do a book of my photography, I will call it Waiting for the Light. I captured some of my favorite images by patiently waiting for the sun to break through the clouds. Wildlife photography requires patience, too. Waiting until the split second a bird dives for a fish or takes flight can produce a photo that is a verb instead of a noun.”

THE THINGS THAT PUT A BEAR AT EASE: What do you do with two orphaned bear cubs stranded and cowering in the bushes near railroad tracks? If you’re Officer Daniel Franz of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, you gently entice them out of the bushes and wrap them in a hoody until they can be brought to safety. 

SIT A SPELL: The world needs a little more time to sit and think, and Forbes says the best place to do it is in a classic Adirondack chair. “While these sturdy, durable chairs have long been appreciated, they’ve experienced renewed popularity in the last few years— and it’s easy to understand why. For starters, they’re the perfect size and shape to accommodate all manner of guests, making outdoor events that much more enjoyable (they’re far more comfortable than your average single-person lawn chair — and in our opinion, they’re also the ideal reading chair). What’s more, thanks to their solid construction and weather-resistant finishes, these really are high-quality products that you won’t find yourself needing to replace year after year.’’

LET’S TALK: U.S. Senator John Fetterman has been through a lot in the past year. He suffered a stroke just before the Democratic primary but stayed in the race and won before defeating celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz in the 2022 general election. Once in Washington, he struggled to adapt to the demands of the Senate while still in recovery from his stroke, all the while being trolled as a “vegetable” by people who fancy themselves provocateurs. Underlying all of it was a long history of undiagnosed and untreated depression, which Fetterman for years shrugged off as an occasional bout of the blues. He received 44 days of in-patient care at Walter Reed Medical Center, and recently he and his wife, Gisele, sat down with People magazine for their first extensive interview since his treatment. “I don't care if you're a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, we all can be depressed — and we all can get made healthier,” he said. “Go to the doctor or whoever you're able to. Address your depression. I was skeptical it would make anything better, but it did. It works. And I'm so grateful.”

Each year about 1,000 people take part in the Kelly’s Angels Mother-Lovin’ run/walk.

THE POWER OF LOVE: Kelly’s Angels Inc. was founded 13 years ago as a charity to help children and families who have lost a loved one to cancer or who are battling cancer or another life-threatening illness. It has helped hundreds of families in the Capital Region of New York State. Its Fun Grants provide a welcome distraction to kids: Trips to the Great Escape, major league baseball games, shopping in New York City, or fishing. Early on, Kelly’s Angels added Angel Aid to help families financially during times of illness and Angel Hugs to remember spouses who had lost the love of their life. A few years ago, it began providing college scholarships to local high school students who had overcome adversity in their young lives. Most recently, it launched “Hugs for Ukraine,” a program of special grants to children who’ve fled to the Capital Region to escape the war. The charity, founded by NewsChannel 13 anchor/reporter Mark Mulholland, continues to spread love and generosity and to convey a message of perseverance through a weekly podcast called The Up Beat. All of this is made possible through charitable donations of every denomination. Kelly’s Angels’ overhead is very low; it is an all-volunteer outfit. On Sunday, May 14, Kelly’s Angels will hold its largest annual fundraiser, the Mother-Lovin’ Run/Walk at Saratoga Spa State Park, a celebration of caring that has become a Capital Region tradition. Come join the fun. Registrations are now being accepted.

MARK MULHOLLAND and his adult children Connor and McKenna are the founders and inspiration for Kelly’s Angels, named for the wife and mom they lost at 37. But there’s a lot to running an active, growing charity, and many tasks are necessarily handled by a dedicated and engaged board. Among the board members is Vice President Jenny Sparano of Saratoga Springs, a public relations executive and mom who thrives on managing the details of a million projects at once. To recognize her work in the community, Jenny was chosen as the 2023 Capital Region recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Award for extraordinary achievement in public service. Jenny will be honored at a banquet and awards ceremony in New York City later this year.

END OF AN ERA: Netflix, which started as a DVD-by-mail-business before becoming a streaming behemoth, announced this week that it was getting out of the DVD business at the end of September. “Those iconic red envelopes changed the way people watched shows and movies at home — and they paved the way for the shift to streaming,” Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in a blog post announcing the DVD service had entered its “final season.”

SUMMER’S BEST SCIENCE: In 2018, a doctoral student named Andres Ardisson Korat was led to a strange conclusion while completing his dissertation. For those with diabetes, eating a cup of ice cream a day appeared to be associated with a lower risk of heart problems. Healthy ice cream was not a claim Harvard was particularly prepared to advance. So, his adviser urged Ardisson Korat to go back through the data to see whether it was a chance finding, an artifact of hidden bias or a computational error. Ardisson Korat could not find a flaw. In fact, there was even earlier evidence ice cream might be healthier than is widely imagined. During the 1980s, Harvard researchers began collecting “food-frequency questionnaires” and medical data from thousands of health care workers. The university’s first observational study of Type 2 diabetes and dairy came out in 2005 —based on data collected between 1986 and 1998. Those researchers also claimed that higher consumption of low-fat dairy was associated with a lower risk of diabetes. Alas, the nutritional mystery remains unsolved. But next time you raid the ice box, remember you’re doing it in the name of science.

SILVER MEDAL: We told you a few weeks ago about Saranac Lake, N.Y.’s, bid to be named America’s Strongest Town. Alas, The Capital of the Adirondacks fell short to Brattleboro, Vt., in a squeaker in the annual contest recognizing communities that are making themselves more livable, more sustainable, more prosperous, and more fun. Strong Towns reported: “In the final round … it was a tight contest between two incredible challengers! At the end, Brattleboro pulled through with 50.45% of the votes, versus 49.55% for Saranac Lake. This was one of the closer calls we’ve had in Strongest Town Contest history, and our hats are off to both of our finalists.”

LIGHTS, ACTION: Viewers of the Northern lights in Alaska got an unexpected thrill this week when a baby blue spiral resembling a galaxy briefly blended with the green lights dancing in the sky. But what appeared to be a portal to new world was instead the work of something rather mundane — excess fuel from a SpaceX rocket that had launched about three hours earlier.

COASTAL WARNING: Scientists are tracking activity on the ocean floor 50 miles off the coast of Oregon, concerned that liquid spewing from a hole discovered eight years ago on a fault line between Canada and California could lead to an earthquake that could devastate much of the West Coast. A University of Washington oceanography professor compared the process to an air hockey table: “If the fluid pressure is high, it's like the air is turned on, meaning there's less friction and the two plates can slip. If the fluid pressure is lower, the two plates will lock — that's when stress can build up.”

CHILD’S PLAY: The White House complex was locked down briefly this week when an intruder breached the 13-foot perimeter fence, triggering an automatic alarm the uniformed Secret Service officers responded to immediately. The miscreant was a toddler who had squeezed through the fence. The officers reunited the family and briefly questioned the parents before sending them off with a story they’ll be telling for decades.

LOYALTY PAYS: Stewart’s Shops is a convenience store chain that happily dominates its niche in Upstate New York and western Vermont, where the coffee is hot, the ice cream delicious and the employees nearly always engaging and polite. The latter is no accident; Gary Dake, CEO of the family-owned chain, once told us that when he’s in another store and encounters a clerk who smiles and looks him in the eye, he tries to hire that person. It seems a lot of them are happy they signed on with Stewart’s — the company announced last week that 175 of its employees own more than $1 million worth of company stock, boosted by a $19 million contribution from the company that was the equivalent of 16 percent of each participant’s 2022 wages.

REMARKABLE RECOVERY: Damar Hamlin, the 25-year-old Buffalo Bills defensive back whose heart stopped in a harrowing scene at Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium in January, was cleared this week to resume football activities, the team announced. “This was a life-changing event, but it’s not the end of my story,” Hamlin told reporters in his first extensive public comments since his cardiac arrest. “I plan on making a comeback to the NFL.” Hamlin said specialists he consulted agreed his heart stopped as a result of commotio cordis, which is a direct blow at a specific point in a heartbeat that causes cardiac arrest.

CHANGING TIME: The New York Board of Regents, responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within the state, voted unanimously this week to ban all school mascots and team names related to Indigenous people. The state Education Department proposed the ban last fall. Not everyone is happy, and Education Department officials are expecting court challenges. The state education commissioner in 2001 told schools to drop the Indigenous mascots ASAP,  a directive that appears to have been widely ignored.

DROPPING DIMES: Someone using a bolt cutter broke into a tractor-trailer that was parked overnight at a Philadelphia shopping mall and stole about 2 million freshly minted dimes that were on their way to Florida. The cleanup of dimes scattered in the mall parking lot took hours. A Philadelphia police spokesman said that area of the city and another had been targeted for cargo thefts in recent months, with thieves taking items such as “lamb, chicken, TVs, refrigerators, etc. … alcohol.”

LIVES

 OTIS REDDING III was the son and namesake of the man who made “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” famous. He was just 3 years old when his father died, along with members of his band, in a 1967 plane crash. Otis Redding III and his brother, Dexter, along with a cousin, Mark Lockett, went on to form the funk band the Reddings, which recorded six albums in the 1980s. Otis III did not sing his dad’s songs for many years because he thought he did not have the voice. He was 59.

J. BUCKLEY BRYAN was a Navy search and rescue helicopter pilot who served at Guantanamo Bay during the Bay of Pigs invasion. He later flew commercial jets for 30 years. As he was nearing retirement, he reinvented himself. He earned an associate’s degree in business, a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in leadership and administration. He became an adjunct professor at SUNY Adirondack and served on the board of the SUNY Adirondack Foundation. Thanks to his generosity, Bryan Hall at SUNY Adirondack today offers local students access to bachelor's and master's degrees via accredited partner institutions. He was 86.

LEON LEVINE, son of a department store owner, grew up to start his own line of stores, which he sometimes found locations for by checking highways for oil stains left by the older cars of people who could not afford new ones. He brought low-price clothing, food, toys and the smallest packages of toothpaste or hand cream to low-income neighborhoods and small towns. His Family Dollar chain grew to 8,000 locations coast to coast. He was 85.

YANG BING-yi sold peanut oil in bottles in Taiwan until vegetable oils in tin containers swept the customers away in the early 1970s. To stay in business, he and his wife began selling an Asian specialty they did not invent but perfected. He introduced the world to succulent steamed dumplings filled with soup and a mix of meat and vegetables and closed with the trademark 18 folds. He was 96.

ALMOST FINAL WORDS

“Respect is like air. As long as it's present, nobody thinks about it. But if you take it away, it's all that people can think about. The instant people perceive disrespect in a conversation, the interaction is no longer about the original purpose — it is now about defending dignity.”
― Ron McMillan, writing in Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

THE SIGNOFF

UNDER A ROCK: You’ve heard the cliché countless times, typically in the form of a puzzled question aimed at someone who isn’t well-versed in current affairs. Well, Beatriz Flamini had no clue that Russia had invaded Ukraine or that Queen Elizabeth II had died because she was, literally, living under a rock. Flamini, a Spanish athlete, spent 500 days in a cave (with a short break when a technical problem forced her to live in a tent) with no communication with anyone except short messages from her support team. It was all in the name of science.

Principal Author: Bill Callen.

Sincere thanks to our contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Lisa Fenwick, Leigh Hornbeck, Lee Leibowitz, Troy Burns, Mike Cybulski, Lou Graiff, Bob Joy 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