The Week: What Caught Our Eye

June 10, 2023

The numbers on the wrist of Gail White, sister of photographer Nancie Battaglia, reflect the deterioration of air quality this week near Rochester, N.Y.

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Binghamton, N.Y., a National Weather Service meteorologist quipped this week, “looks like Mars and smells like cigars.”

Much of the Northeast was enveloped in a rusty orange haze that made the air hazardous and caused the postponement of sporting events across the region, including major league games in New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

The culprit is a series of wildfires in the Canadian wilderness in Québec and Ontario that caused New York City’s air, for a time, to be the worst in the world, and put 100 million Americans under air-quality alerts.

Canada has had the worst start to its fire season on record, with more than nine million acres burned so far this year—about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined.

The air quality was improving late in the week, but the fire risk is still elevated across much of the U.S. and into Canada, which means those leftover masks from covid might still come in handy. Here are some ways to protect yourself from the next smoky incursion.

IN THE ROUGH: Here’s a pro tip for all who would climb onto the high horse cloaked in the moralistic mantle — the climb down may be perilous. Case in point: The merger that shook the golf world this week, a deal that was so shocking because PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan had just a year ago rallied his players to reject nine-figure payouts to join the rival Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, in part by arguing that doing so would be an insult to the families who lost loved ones in the terror attacks of 9/11. Those families, as you can imagine, are furious, as are players like Rory McIroy, whose loyalty to the PGA Tour now makes them look foolish. For all the controversy, the agreement is a realistic recognition that the PGA would never have the resources the Saudis bring to the game. It also resolves pending litigation and creates a larger, far better funded international golf enterprise. At the center of the action was Glens Falls, N.Y., native Ed Herlihy, New York City’s leading mergers and acquisitions lawyer who represented the PGA and hails from a remarkable family of physicians, lawyers, judges, investment bankers and community leaders — including many master golfers.

SOCCER SHAKEUP: Another seismic shift in the sports landscape occurred this week in professional soccer when Lionel Messi, on the short list of best players in the history of the sport, announced he will join Inter Miami CF of MLS as a free agent. Messi, who led Argentina to the World Cup six months ago and seven times has been named international player of the year, is by far the biggest name to join MLS since David Beckham signed with the LA Galaxy in 2007. The Messi news caused ticket prices for his expected MLS debut to skyrocket more than 1,000 percent.

MEDIA MATTERS: CNN this week parted ways with its chief executive, Chris Licht, after just over a year on the job and less than a week after a long magazine profile highlighted how his programming and personnel decisions had failed to reverse the network’s fortunes and included criticism of CNN before his tenure that did not sit well with its journalists. The Associated press reported CNN’s prime-time viewership of 494,000 in May was down 16% from April and was less than half of its closest news rival, MSNBC. It was down 25% from the average of 660,000 in May 2022. Over at NBC, someone who lasted a lot more than 13 months in his job as host of “Meet the Press” announced he’s stepping aside. Chuck Todd, who started moderating in 2014, said at the end of Sunday’s show that he would relinquish the seat after the summer to Chief White House correspondent Kristen Welker. “Meet the Press” is the longest running show on television and used to dominate its Sunday morning news rivals, but not anymore.

CHANGE FOR HEARTS: New research led by a team at Duke Health found that harvesting hearts from patients after circulatory death — as opposed to only after brain death, the current practice — could increase the availability of donor hearts by 30%. When a patient is brain dead, the body is left on a ventilator that keeps the heart beating and organs oxygenated until they can be removed and put on ice. Circulatory death occurs when someone with an unsurvivable brain injury is taken off life support and the heart stops, causing the organs to go without  oxygen until they can be removed. Doctors in those cases left the heart behind out of concern that it would be damaged, but the study, involving 180 transplant recipients, found that survival rates after six months were actually a little better for the recipients of hearts donated after circulatory death. Last year, The Associated Press reports, 4,111 heart transplants were performed in the U.S., a record number but not nearly enough to meet the need. “This really should be standard of care,” said transplant surgeon Dr. Jacob Schroder of Duke University School of Medicine, who led the research.

STRIKING OUT: If you had a choice between attending a dance that you’ll forget in a week or taking a shot at achieving a goal that you’ll remember forever, especially if you’re part of a team, we’d like to think the decision is obvious. Not for seven seniors on the softball team at Shenendehowa High in Clifton Park, N.Y., who chose this week to forego a chance to play for a state championship because they were worried they might miss the prom. Kudos to the Shenendehowa administration, which rejected their request to play in the state semifinal on Friday unless they also committed to play in the final. “How are we going to allow them to play on Friday, and if we win, abandon their teammates on Saturday in the state championship game,” Shenendehowa athletic director Chris Culnan told The (Schenectady) Daily Gazette. Culnan called the seniors “good, nice girls,” but added, “I’ve never experienced this in 16 years. We’ve had teams that have changed in the parking lot to get to prom.”

THE AWAKENING: April Burrell graduated first in her high school class and was a thriving, straight-A college student when she suffered a traumatic event at 21 and suddenly developed psychosis. She was lost in constant visual and auditory hallucinations and severe schizophrenia. One doctor called her the sickest patient he ever saw. She was catatonic for 20 years. Then, miraculously, she woke up. Her case may revolutionize psychiatry.

VW BUZZ: The Volkswagen Bus, an iconic vehicle that became associated with Hippies in the 1960s, is back, sort of. The new version of the VW Bus is called the ID. Buzz, and it’s electric. The ID. Buzz, expected to be available late next year, is faster and has 10 times the horsepower of the original. VW also is about to relaunch its defunct Scout brand as an off-road EV tailored to the U.S. market.

TRACK STAR: When your name is mentioned in the same sentence as Jesse Owens, you’ve done something. Juliette Laracuente-Huebner, a senior at Highland High School in Ohio, won four individual state championships in a brutally hot 30-hour stretch last weekend — the high jump, long jump (her third straight state title in that event), 100-meter hurdles and the 200-meter sprint. She would’ve won the team state championship by herself, if not for the fact her school didn’t compete in the meet’s final event. Owens, a legend for his four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was dominant as a high school athlete in Ohio, twice winning championships in the 100-yard dash, the 200-yard dash, the broad jump and the 880-yard relay and setting state records in all four.

A tug guides a cargo ship into dock at the Port of Albany on the Hudson River. John Bulmer

ONE OF A KIND: Those who were alive and old enough will never forget the way a huge and gorgeous chestnut thoroughbred named Secretariat became the story in the spring of 1973, gracing the cover of Time magazine as he left competitors in his wake on the way to becoming the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years. Horse racing has lost a lot of its luster in the 50 years since, but not Secretariat, whose 31-length win against a short field in the Belmont Stakes remains an iconic moment in American sports. Reflecting on Secretariat’s Belmont performance, Leonard Lusky, the president of Secretariat.com, said, “I don’t think there’s any other horse who’s ever run a race would have beaten him at that moment, at that day, on that track. He was at the very top of his game in a signature moment when everybody was watching.”

TOLL TROUBLES: The New York State Thruway Authority wants to raise tolls by 5% on state drivers who use E-ZPass in 2024 and another 5% in 2027, with out-of-state drivers subjected to larger increases. One problem: An audit by the state Comptroller found more than $276 million in unpaid tolls, including $119 million charged to out-of-state drivers. Folks who showed up at a public hearing on the increase suggested — quite wisely, in our view — that the Thruway Authority focus on collecting the money it is owed before demanding more from law-abiding drivers.

GIFT OF LITERACY: Dolly Parton used her platform as a country music icon to make herself a mogul, with her own entertainment company and ownership of a popular amusement park that bears her name. She practically radiates joy and is universally beloved not just as an entertainment star, but for her extraordinary generosity. In 1995, she launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write. Its aim is to foster a lifelong love of reading by providing books to preschool children and their families. The Imagination Library has gifted over 200 million books across 50 states, and this week the state of California announced that every eligible preschool child in the state would be receiving a book each month when the program is fully implemented, a population that totals more than 2.4 million.

BOOK BANNING: A Utah law banning “pornographic or indecent” books from elementary and middle school classrooms and school libraries has been used to justify removal of such classics as Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. Fed up, a parent in one school district challenged the Bible. A committee assigned by the school district to review the Bible concurred, directing that it be removed from all elementary and middle schools and issuing a statement calling the Bible, “one of the most sex-ridden books around.” The district, at the request of another parent, will also be reviewing the Book of Mormon for inappropriate content.

PLAY HIM OFF: Billy Joel, who started a monthly concert series at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 2014, announced this week that he’ll play the final show of his residency in July 2024, his 150^th performance at the Garden. Joel has continued to play to full houses throughout the residency, despite not having released an album of original music in 30 years. “There’s only one thing that’s more New York than Billy Joel – and that’s a Billy Joel concert at MSG,” New York mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “For more than 50 years, Billy’s music has defined our city and brought us together. On behalf of 8.5 million New Yorkers, congratulations, Billy, on a historic run of sold-out shows at MSG, and thank you for a lifetime of bringing joy to us all.”

LIVES

PAT ROBERTSON for decades was one of the most prominent and influential Christian broadcasters in the country. He founded the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960 and was a regular television presence for more than 50 years, where he was best known for the “700 Club.” In 1988, having built a national coalition of supporters, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican Party nomination for president, but he pioneered the strategy of courting Iowa’s strong evangelical base, resulting in a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. His ideas proved durable when, a year later, he founded the Christian Coalition, credited with helping religion become central to Republican Party politics and identity. He was 93.

ROBERT HANSSEN was an FBI agent who sold secrets and sold out spies to Moscow for nearly 20 years before his arrest in February 2001. His crimes resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of three U.S. intelligence sources and the executions of two others. He was coy, using old-school methods like dead drops and keeping his identity concealed from his handlers, who paid him $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. By the time he was arrested, 300 agents were working the case. He pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He died at 79 in his cell at a maximum-security prison in Colorado.

HOSSEIN KHOSROW ALI VAZIRI was born in Iran in 1942 to a family of farmers who eventually opened a gym that trained some of nation’s foremost wrestlers. He worked as a bodyguard for the family of the Shah before moving to the United States to serve as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team in 1972 and 1976. Then he made the transition to full-time professional wrestling, where he became the Middle Eastern villain known as the Iron Sheik. In the wake of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, he often stomped into the ring waving an Iranian flag emblazoned with the face of Ayatollah Khomeini to take on stereotypically American wrestlers, including Glens Falls native Hacksaw Jim Duggan at what was then known as the Glens Falls Civic Center in 1987. He was 81.

ALMOST FINAL WORDS

“The auction’s success confirmed what I have always known: that television characters are cherished members of our extended family and that their stories and our own are inseparable.”
—    James Comisar, after bidders offered more than $5 million for his collection of TV memorabilia, which included the bar from the TV series “Cheers” ($675,000) and Batman and Robin costumers worn during the 1960s ($615,000).

THE SIGNOFF

DUCKING OUT: This came as a shock to us Puritans, but apparently Apple’s iPhone autocorrect had a habit of substituting “ducking” in sentences such as, Can you ducking believe that just happened?!? This evidently was an annoyance to some people (no one we know!), so Apple is tweaking the algorithm to better anticipate the words people actually intend to use. It’s about ducking time.

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Principal Author: Bill Callen. 

Sincere Thanks to Contributors: Ryan Moore, John Brodt, Lisa Fenwick, Leigh Hornbeck, Troy Burns, 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