The Week: What Caught Our Eye

June 17, 2023

The Fort William Henry Hotel in Lake George, N.Y., celebrated the grand opening of its preserved 19^th-century Carriage House on Thursday. Skip Dickstein

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

The first Fort William Henry Hotel on Lake George, N.Y., opened its doors to guests 168 summers ago, in 1855. The following year the owners added a carriage house for guests’ horses. When the horses left, the Fort used the building to house rental cars for those adventurous enough to explore the primitive roads of the Adirondacks. Over the years the building has been many things, including a theater and a dance hall. Now, with the Summer of 2023 dawning, it’s found its long-sought purpose. After a $3 million renovation, it’s the resort’s largest venue for weddings, conventions, and other gatherings. The Carriage House has capacity for 400 in a table setting, an on-site kitchen, indoor and outdoor fireplaces, a large deck and a spectacular view of the lake that makes it all happen.

FATHER TIME: It’s Dads’ weekend, so we are pleased to introduce Dadfluencers. You’ve heard of Dadbods. Dad Jokes. Now, Dad Content. It’s a growing social media trend, The New York Times says, as dads take on more domestic responsibilities and chronicle their daily routines on TikTok. They’re making other dads feel seen in a way that wasn’t happening before. And while we’re looking at dads, Eater, a digital media brand dedicated to all things food and dining, wants to know: Why does every Father’s Day press release assume all dads are alcoholic taskmasters whose only desires are to eat steak and build fire?

FALLEN EMPIRE: No matter what you think of arena football as a sport, we can all agree that the fans of Albany, N.Y., who supported various indoor football teams that have come and gone over the years deserved better than this, and so did every player and support staff member whose lives are suddenly upside down. “Amid various financial fiascos,” as the announcer delivering a sports news update to a national radio audience put it, the National Arena League kicked out the Albany Empire effective immediately, citing owner Antonio Brown’s failure to pay mandatory franchise fees or a fine he was assessed for criticizing the league. The slide from comical to pathetic was steep and rapid. MVP Arena in Albany, where the Empire played, said all ticket holders will be refunded for the remaining three scheduled home games.

BELMONT TO SARATOGA? Upstate New York was abuzz this week with news that the 2025 version of the Belmont Stakes may move to Saratoga Race Course because of scheduled renovations at Belmont Park. “Should the construction of a new Belmont Park require the race to be run at a different venue, then NYRA's preference would absolutely be to hold the event at Saratoga,” NYRA's Director of Communications, Patrick McKenna, said in a text message to the Thoroughbred Daily News. Those renovations at Belmont? They don’t sit well with Albany Times Union columnist Chris Churchill, who opposes the expenditure of public funds to support what a headline called “a dubious activity,” given the number of horses that die as a result. “The question here is about public support,” Churchill writes. “Horse racing would hardly exist without taxpayer backing that in New York alone totaled $2.9 billion since 2008, according to a Times Union analysis. Why are we propping it up? Is it a wise investment?” It’s a question the thousands of New Yorkers employed in horse racing can already answer.

A NAMING RIGHT: There it was, right in the dateline of The Associated Press report: “FORT JOHNSON, La.” Previously named for Confederate commander Leonidas Polk, a U.S. Army base in western Louisiana this week was renamed Fort Johnson, in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a Black hero of World War I from Albany, N.Y., who received the Medal of Honor nearly a century after his service. Johnson was wounded 21 times while repelling German soldiers on the front lines of World War I, where Johnson and other Black soldiers fought alongside the French, who honored him as one of the first Americans to be awarded the French Croix de Guerre avec Palme, France's highest award for valor. The stripping of Confederate names from nine Army posts wouldn’t seem to be all that controversial, considering which side won and what the South was fighting for, but in pandering politics, nothing is beyond the pale, including campaigning to change the name of Fort Liberty in North Carolina back to Fort Bragg.

JOBS APLENTY: Immigrants who have been arriving in Upstate New York counties on buses sent by New York City are quickly finding jobs, though they are not legally eligible to work. Jobs are plentiful and the immigrants want to support themselves and their families, so they are taking matters into their own hands. Their decision to work may impede their future efforts to gain permanent status, but it highlights the disconnect between U.S. immigration policy, the influx of asylum seekers, and the crying need of many local employers to fill jobs now.

SKIN DEEP: The Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling that allowed athletes to begin profiting off their name, image and likeness (NIL) has changed the college sports landscape practically overnight, with players skipping from school to school in search of the best NIL deals and in some cases passing on opportunities to turn professional. But when it comes to men’s and women’s collegiate athletes, it’s become obvious quickly that on-field performance doesn’t matter as much for the women as how they look. Similarly, a Mexican diver is trading on his good looks to raise money for Olympic training, launching an OnlyFans page for which he charges $15 a month or $40.50 quarterly. “It occurred to me to open it because you are always looking for a way to make income. I support my house and my mother, and I have bills to pay, and you can upload whatever you want in there, it’s a valid content,” the athlete, Diego Balleza, said in an interview with The AP. “I am happy that the people who are in my page have been very good and respectful, I hope they continue like this.”

SURVIVAL SKILLS: Late last week, authorities in Colombia announced that all four children missing in the jungle for 40 days after a plane crash had been found alive, attributing their survival to their familiarity with the thick jungle and ability to forage for food. The children, members of the indigenous Huitoto people, ranged in age from 1 to 13. Their mother was killed in the crash. Astrid Cáceres, head of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, told the BBC the timing of their ordeal meant “the jungle was in harvest” and they could eat fruit that was in bloom. Their familiarity with the fruits allowed them to find and eat the most nourishing and avoid poisonous plants. Then there was the matter of avoiding snakes, jaguars and insects.

VIRTUAL BEATLES: Author Keith Badman reported nearly 30 years ago that Yoko Ono, the widow of John Lennon, had given his former bandmate Paul McCartney several home demo recordings that Lennon made. McCartney isn’t saying, but it’s possible those tapes are the source material for a song the Beatles have just produced using AI assistance and plan to release later this year. McCartney told a British program that it will be “the last Beatles record.” “We were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI, so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do,” McCartney said. 

WE’LL DRINK TO THAT: The headline on The Hill item was sobering: Americans are drinking as much alcohol now as in Civil War days. A loaded headline, if you ask us, given the political turmoil these days, but the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that the average American adult in 2021 drank 2.51 gallons of straight alcohol (that doesn’t include water or other mixers), comparable to 1860 but still less than 1980, when we were slamming back 2.8 gallons on average. Consumption of wine and hard liquors soared in recent years, more than making up for a decline in beer consumption.

Makaia Carpenter, a native of Glens Falls, N.Y., gallops 2023 Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo during a morning workout at the Oklahoma Training Track in Saratoga Springs in 2022. Jessica Palmer

LIVING HISTORY: Arcangelo, trained by Jena Antonucci, last week became the first winner of a Triple Crown race trained by a woman (they’ve been running the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes since the middle of the 19^th century). Makaia Carpenter, a licensed exercise rider from Glens Falls, N.Y., experienced some of the young thoroughbred’s power up close last summer, galloping him as a 2-year-old in training at the Oklahoma Training Track in Saratoga Springs. Carpenter also gallops horses for trainer Kerry Metivier, like her a Glens Falls native. 

BREAKING (FROM) NEWS: A study by the Reuters Institute found a sharp decline in the number of people worldwide who said they were very or extremely interested in the news — down from 63% in 2017 to 48% today. More than a third of people say they sometimes or often actively avoid the news. The authors of the study said the findings suggest consumers “continue to selectively avoid important stories such as the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis as they cut back on depressing news and look to protect their mental health.” Social media news sources are seeing waning interest, as well.

A CROOK’S BONANZA: An analysis by The Associated Press found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief spending, and another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the AP reports, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid. Investigators and outside experts said the scale and speed of the relief programs, set up with lax oversight at best, made it easy for crooks to brazenly and fraudulently help themselves to millions of dollars at a pop. The U.S. government has charged more than 2,230 defendants with pandemic-related fraud crimes and is conducting thousands of investigations.

OLYMPIAN DIED IN CHILDBIRTH: Tori Bowie, who won three medals for the U.S. as a sprinter in the 2016 Olympics, died from complications of childbirth, authorities in Florida announced this week. Bowie, who was 32, was found dead last month. The medical examiner’s report said Bowie was about eight months pregnant and showing signs of undergoing labor when she was found on May 2. The tragedy underscores a stark statistic: Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CONFLICT WITH CHINA: Is probably something the U.S. should avoid as long as possible, if the Pentagon’s many war-games exercises prove accurate. U.S. strategists generally aren’t optimistic about the U.S.’ chances in such a war. Losses on both sides would be heavy, far worse if nuclear weapons come into play. To call defense experts alarmed is an understatement; they’re saying the nation’s supply of weapons, and its ability to produce more quickly, is woefully inadequate. “The thing we see across all the wargames is that there are major losses on all sides. And the impact of that on our society is quite devastating,” Becca Wasser, head of the gaming lab at the Center for a New American Security, told Politico. “The most common thread in these exercises is that the United States needs to take steps now in the Indo-Pacific to ensure the conflict doesn’t happen in the future. We are hugely behind the curve. Ukraine is our wakeup call. This is our watershed moment.”

BANNING BANS: Illinois became the first state to prohibit book bans at public libraries, passing a law to pull state funding from any library that bans materials for “partisan or doctrinal” reasons. The law is in response to efforts in many conservative states and localities — there are more than a few of those in downstate Illinois — to remove or restrict access to books with LGBTQ+ themes or written by people of color. To be eligible for state funds, Illinois public libraries must adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, which holds that “materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation,” or subscribe to a similar pledge.

HEAD IN THE GAME: Legendary 84-year-old Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling, known for his signature home run calls and for letting fans know thuh-uh-uh-uh Yankees win, went viral this week when video showed him getting hit square in the forehead by a foul ball off the bat of Boston’s Justin Turner and, after three ows, keep right on going. Afterward, he called it “just a glancing blow.”

THE PRESSURE IS OFF: A university professor and retired U.S. Naval officer emerged this week after 100 days living 30 feet below the surface of a Key Largo lagoon, a quest he said, “was about extending human tolerance for the underwater world and for an isolated, confined, extreme environment.” Dr. Joseph Dituri lived without depressurization inside Jules’ Undersea Lodge, a Florida Keys lodge for scuba divers. His stay broke the previous record for longest underwater stay, at the same lodge, by nearly four weeks. Dituri conducted daily experiments and measurements to measure his body’s response. The project, according to The Associated Press, “aimed to learn more about how the human body and mind respond to extended exposure to extreme pressure and an isolated environment and was designed to benefit ocean researchers and astronauts on future long-term missions.”

LIVES

THOMAS L. HOY grew up a Catskill Mountains town of 576 people called Bovina, from the Latin word meaning cattle. He went to Cornell University and then into the Navy before moving to Glens Falls, N.Y., in the mid-1970s. At the time, Glens Falls had two locally owned national banks, with headquarters facing each other across Glen Street. He interviewed at one bank and thought while he was in town he’d see if there were openings at the other. There were. The “other” bank, Glens Falls National, immediately hired him as a management trainee. Over the next 50 years, he rose steadily through the ranks, ultimately becoming Chairman, President and CEO of Glens Falls National Bank and Trust Co. and Arrow Financial Corp., its parent. He grew the bank’s assets and its footprint from Plattsburgh, N.Y., to the Capital Region. When he joined Glens Falls National, its assets were just over $100 million. Arrow’s assets today approach $4 billion. A beloved and gentle leader, he chaired every major community board, and he and his wife Sally have been major benefactors to Northern New York’s most important cultural, educational, human services and health care institutions. He was 74.

TREAT WILLIAMS was a respected, accomplished and durable actor whose career spanned more than four decades and included more than 120 credits. He became a star in 1979 when he played George Berger in the film version of the Broadway hit “Hair,” earning a Golden Globe nomination. A second Golden Globe nomination came two years later, for “Prince of the City,” and he worked steadily over the ensuing decades as both a lead and supporting actor, with roles in several Hallmark movies and another major award nomination for his role as Dr. Andrew “Andy” Brown on The WB’s “Everwood.” Vermont State Police said an SUV turned into Williams’ path as he drove his motorcycle in Dorset, not far from his home in Manchester Center. He succumbed to his injuries at 71.

TED KACZYNSKI terrorized American campuses for years as the Unabomber, sending explosives in packages to a range of targets that included, in 1993, a California geneticist and a Yale University computer expert who were maimed by bombs within the span of two days. A brilliant mathematician, Kaczynski retreated to solitary life in a dingy Montana cabin, where he waged his campaign of terror on and off for 17 years. In 1995, under threat of additional violence, The New York Times and The Washington Post agreed to publish his 35,000-word manifesto, denouncing modern life and technology. In Schenectady, N.Y., his brother David recognized the work and tipped off the FBI. Authorities arrested him in a plywood and tarpaper cabin that included two completed bombs and other explosive ingredients. Convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Kaczynski committed suicide at 81.

CORMAC McCARTHY expressed himself in vivid, often dark prose that he preferred to let speak for itself. He won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in fiction and his biggest audience for “The Road,” about a father and son who roam a ravaged landscape. In its citation, the Pulitzer committee wrote, “Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.” His other works included “Blood Meridian,” “All the Pretty Horses” and “No Country for Old Men,” adopted into an Oscar-winning movie. “McCarthy was, if not our greatest novelist, certainly our greatest stylist,” a professor of English and writing at Rutgers University told NPR. Little known to the public at age 60, he would become one of the country’s most honored and successful writers despite rarely talking to the press. He was 89.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI was a media mogul who, beginning in 1994, would serve multiple, colorful terms as prime minister of Italy. He owned the country’s largest media empire, expanding to ownership of its largest publishing house and the AC Milan soccer club. Legal troubles shadowed him, but with weak oversight laws, he kept ownership not only of his own TV networks but also, as prime minister, state-run broadcasting. In total, he served about nine years as prime minister, longer than anyone else in Italian history. Despite a conviction for tax evasion, he returned to politics after being elected to a Senate seat in the 2022 Italian general elections and was serving in the parliament when he died at 86.

ALMOST FINAL WORDS

“What I see in my family often hurts me, I never get invited to anything. Nobody sees me. We all grew apart. I felt unappreciated. That’s why I wanted to give them a life lesson and show them that you shouldn’t wait until someone is dead to meet up with them.”
—    David Baerten, a Belgian with 165,000 TikTok followers who faked his own death, only to show up in a helicopter just as the service was about to begin.

THE SIGNOFF

T_ME T_ SAY G_ _DBYE: Pat Sajak, a former California TV weatherman who has hosted the primetime gameshow “Wheel of Fortune” since 1981, announced that the upcoming season would be his last. No word on whether Vanna White, his sidekick throughout, will join him. Suzanne Prete, the executive vice president of game shows for Sony Pictures Television, said in a statement that the company was “incredibly grateful and proud to have had Pat as our host for all these years. We look forward to celebrating his outstanding career throughout the upcoming season.”

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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, Skip Dickstein, Amy Hoffer and Jessica Palmer. 

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. 

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