Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"If there was any state that announced that something very big had happened in American politics with Barack Obama’s election in 2008, it was the state he will visit on Tuesday. Virginia had not voted for a Democratic president since 1964 when it went for Obama. And if there was any state to warn Obama that the independent voters who gave him his historic victory were deeply disaffected, it was again Virginia.Just a year later, in 2009, Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell, running against Obama’s record in the White House, won independents by a 2 to 1 majority in a victory that served as a prelude to the massive GOP gains of 2010. Obama’s return visit to the state Tuesday as part of a three day bus tour that started Monday in North Carolina shines a vivid light on the continuing importance of Virginia in his electoral calculus as well as an enduring mystery of his presidency: Why has this president had so much trouble crafting an effective strategy for keeping independents by his side? ... But compared to other states, Viriginia’s economy is in relatively good shape - its 6.3 percent unemployment rate is well below the 9.1 percent national average. So pollsters see a larger issue than simply the bad economic times working against Obama - not just in Virginia, but in other states as well. 'His inability to get things done in Congress since the midterms, makes him look like a weak leader to independents,' said Peter Brown of Quinnipiac. 'In 2008 everybody was angry and he offered hope. In 2011, everyone’s still angry and they are giving up hope in him.'" (Politico)

"With market confidence in Greece and Italy further eroding, Germany's cash reserves are now the last best hope for the euro. Without a bold, continentwide rescue effort led by Germany, the single currency is likely to disintegrate. Yet it now seems clear, as indeed it should have for the last three years, that Angela Merkel's government would rather risk the euro's collapse than act decisively. Germany has profited mightily from the adoption of a common currency. Blessed with a dynamic export economy that does most of its trade within the eurozone, it has gained more than anyone else from the greater ease of doing business with its neighbors. What's more, even Germans who remain nostalgic for the Deutsche mark should realize how catastrophic a collapse of the euro would be. The world economy would fall back into recession. German exports would shrink precipitously. German banks, which have large holdings of Greek and Italian assets, would require vast sums from taxpayers to survive. Unemployment and the national deficit would skyrocket. Germans, in other words, ought to be falling over themselves to protect their currency from meltdown. And yet, at each and every turn, they have done as little as they possibly could. When pushed to the brink, Merkel has been willing to make available modest funds to avoid immediate financial meltdown; under intense international pressure, she has recently persuaded the Bundestag to increase Germany's contribution to the European Financial Stability Facility, a bailout fund for the euro. But despite periodic promises, she has not even tried to look for a large-scale political or financial plan capable of ending the crisis. In fact, she continues to oppose any proposal -- like a truly harmonized fiscal policy or the introduction of Eurobonds -- that might help European economies regain the confidence of the markets. Why?" (ForeignPolicy)

"Maybe a day after then-married socialite Mercedes Bass threw a dinner roll across a crowded ballroom at then-married billionaire oil heir Sid Bass in June 1986, the two began conducting the kind of affair that very rich people conduct: Sid and Mercedes holed up in a suite at the Carlyle, while his financial advisers waited in the lobby, in vain, for him to make meetings concerning his vast portfolio. Sid and Mercedes taking a private jet to Paris, cocooning themselves at the Plaza Athénée. When they finally venture outside, they strolled through the streets hand-in-hand, sure that no one they knew would see them. Until, of course, someone they knew saw them.  And so nine weeks after Mercedes, then 41, lobbed that fateful piece of bread, she called her husband, Ambassador Francis Kellogg, from her five-star Parisian hotel suite. 'Goodbye, darling,' she said. 'I’m marrying Sid.'  On Dec. 10, 1988 -- after Sid divorced his first wife, society queen Anne, settling with her for somewhere between $200 million and $500 million -- the couple married in a $500,000 gala at New York’s Plaza hotel.'They were the top,' says David Patrick Columbia, founder and editor of NewYorkSocialDiary.com ... So what happened? Why would one of the richest men in the world -- Forbes has valued Sid’s net worth at $2.1 billion -- go through another astoundingly expensive, high-profile divorce at the age of 69? Why not stay together but live separate lives -- quite easy to do when you own three properties in three states -- and avoid all the unpleasantness? Is there someone else? If so, who’s cheating? Friends and observers say there are very few clues." (NYPost)

"Members of the deficit-reduction supercommittee have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from special-interest groups, including a significant chunk from healthcare interests that want the panel to fail. Healthcare political action committees gave more to the deficit panel members than political action committees (PACs) representing energy, defense and agriculture interests, which could also be under the knife, according to fundraising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking member of the House Democratic leadership, does not sit on any regular committees with jurisdiction over the health industry, but has raised more than $57,000 from healthcare-related PACs since his appointment to the debt supercommittee. Some of his contributions come from interests that want to minimize cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, such as the American Hospital Association, HealthSouth Corp., DaVita Inc. — which provides kidney dialysis treatment — and HCR Manor Care, which specializes in assisted-living care. Other supercommittee members on both sides of the aisle have won contributions from healthcare interests since being named to the panel. Hospitals, medical-device manufacturers and home-care experts in general would prefer that the supercommittee fail to reach a deal, say lobbyists familiar with the health industry’s strategy toward the panel." (TheHill)

"At noontime JH and I went over to the Mandarin Oriental where the Board of Directors of the Women’s Committee of the Central Park Conservancy hosted its annual Fall Luncheon. Marcia Mishaan was Chairman and Suzanne Johnson and Cynthia Lufkin were Co-Chairs. Guest Speaker was Bette Midler. I’m a Bette Midler fan. I’ve always been a Bette Midler fan since her first album came out way back when. I think it was called The Divine Miss M with beautiful cover portrait by the late great illustrator and graphic designer Richard Amsel that is now a classic. She came on the scene in the late 1960s, first famous in an “underground” (or below the first floor) way giving performances at a gay club in the Ansonia Hotel on Broadway and 73rd Street where she was nothing short of a sensation. Her accompanist was even more unknown, a guy named Barry Manilow. Stardom soon followed and then a movie career and the rest is history. Bette Midler yesterday at the podium of the Mandarin Oriental, is now not only a star of movies, TV and Las Vegas, but a major philanthropic force in New York City with her New York Restoration Project." (NYSocialDiary)

"'It’s the kind of school, if you told people you wanted to end up at Goldman Sachs, they would probably chase you out of the dorm,' said John Borthwick, class of ’87, a double major in developmental economics and art history and co-founder of the Chelsea-based betaworks. “Radical transparency, open access to information, disrupting traditional media, these were the secret handshakes at Wesleyan.' The term Wesleyan Mafia has long been used to describe a cadre of graduates in Hollywood: successful directors, studio heads and writers. In music, too, graduates of the small liberal arts college in Middletown, Conn.—about two hours from New York—have had unusual critical success that stirred talk of a Connecticut Cosa Nostra. But it’s less surprising to hear that Michael Bay and MGMT attended Wesleyan, since the school is well known for its film and music departments. While computer science has never been among Wesleyan’s specialties, alumni seem to have found an especially prominent place of late among Silicon Alley’s elite." (BetaBeat)

"No one in Israel is calling the agreement signed for Gilad Shalit’s freedom a good deal. On many levels it is terrible. Israel is releasing more than 1000 prisoners, several hundred of them hardened terrorists, for one soldier. For the first time, the Jewish state essentially acquiesced as a terrorist organization dictated the list of prisoners to be released, including several responsible for mass deaths of Israeli citizens, a notion that would once have been unthinkable. Israel may well have given its enemies incentive to kidnap more soldiers. And the terrorists now being released are likely to attack and kill Israelis in the future. Despite these facts, the deal for Shalit passed a cabinet vote by an overwhelming margin (26 in favor and only three opposed), and the vast majority of Israeli citizens support it. In agreeing to this prisoner swap, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli public chose to return to their roots, to revive a central tenet of old-time Israeli ideology: we do not leave our sons in the field. The tenet is as old as the country itself. It stems from the fact that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is a citizens’ army, in which conscription is universal and every family knows that it could face the same tragedy as the Shalits. And in the army itself, the “stretcher march,” in which soldiers in training are ordered to carry one of their heaviest comrades on a stretcher up hills and down valleys for miles, is a formative ritual meant to instill one message: there is never a case in which soldiers cannot bring their wounded home. This ethic is taught in other armies, too, but it resonates differently in Israel. From the moment of his capture, Gilad Shalit has been a household name. Compare this to the silence in the United States regarding Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier held hostage by the Taliban since June 2009. Ever since Shalit’s kidnapping, Israeli society has been wracked by a sense that it failed in its obligation to him." (ForeignAffairs)

"Don’t have your people call my people. That’s the message President Obama’s inner circle sent Bill Clinton’s camp after the ex-president’s posse tried to give advice on how to win re-election. The pols’ aides didn’t see eye-to-eye when Obama’s chief of staff Bill Daley, who was Clinton’s secretary of commerce, called in former Clinton advisers including Steve Ricchetti, Doug Sosnik, Joel Johnson and Joe Lockhart for a powwow with White House aides. 'It was like water and oil,' a source said. 'They didn’t seem to appreciate the advice.' There was also 'Obama-bashing' at a Clinton reunion in Little Rock, Ark., on Oct. 3." (PageSix)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Nearly 14 percent of college graduates from the classes of 2006 through 2010 can’t find full-time work, and overall just 55.3 percent of people ages 16 to 29 have jobs. That’s the lowest percentage since World War II, as you might have heard an Occupy Wall Street protester point out. (Not coincidentally, one in five young adults now lives below the poverty line.) Almost a quarter more people ages 25 to 34—in other words, people who should be a few years into their independent lives—are living with their parents than at the beginning of the recession. Being young is supposed to mean you have the luxury of time. But in hard times, a few fallow years can become a lifetime drag on what you earn, sort of the opposite of compound interest. Because the average person grabs 70 percent of their total pay bumps during their first ten years in the workforce, according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, having stagnant or nonexistent ­wages during that period means you hit that springboard at a crawl. Economist Lisa Kahn explained to The Atlantic in 2010 that those who graduate into a recession are still earning an average of 10 percent less nearly two decades into their careers. In hard, paycheck-shrinking numbers, the salary lost over that stretch totals around $100,000. That works out to $490 or so less a month, money that could go, say, toward repaying student loans, which for the class of 2009 average $24,000. Those student loans (the responsible borrowing option!) have reportedly passed credit cards as the nation’s largest source of debt. This is not just a rotten moment to be young. It’s a putrid, stinking, several-months-old-stringy-goat-meat moment to be young." (NYMag)

"At nine o’clock on the morning of September 6th, Jill Abramson was riding the subway uptown from her Tribeca loft. It was her first day as executive editor of the New York Times, and also the first time in the paper’s hundred and sixty years that a woman’s name would appear at the top of the masthead. Abramson described herself as 'excited,' because of the history she was about to make, and 'a little nervous,' because she knew that many in the newsroom feared her. Abramson, who is fifty-seven, wore a white dress and a black cardigan with white flowers and red trim. Her usually pale complexion glowed from summer sun, but there were deep, dark lines under her eyes. As she entered the Times Building, she waved to the security officers and greeted colleagues in the elevator, something that she had usually been too preoccupied to do. The vast newsroom was quiet—the place does not really come alive until about ten-thirty—but there was a hint of apprehension. The few reporters at their pods silently watched their new boss as she walked by ... Once, it was preposterous to think that a woman could become the editor of the Times. When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. 'All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,' she told him. 'That’s good,' Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, 'because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.” (Ken Auletta)

"KELLY CUTRONE GETS ABOUT 625 EMAILS A DAY, she told Betabeat last week. The fashion publicist, book author and reality show star spends her frequent flights to L.A. slashing through notifications from Twitter and party promoters, missives from clients and employees of her P.R. agency People’s Revolution, and communiqués related to her various television gigs. 'I also have two BlackBerrys and two email addresses and they all forward shit everywhere, so sometimes I get the same email four times,' she said. 'I sometimes contemplate how much time I spend deleting junk emails, and how I’ll be thinking that when I’m on my deathbed, like how many hours or days that will eventually add up to, and it’ll sort of just make me want to kill myself while I’m dying. 'I really am haunted,' she added. 'Like this is like a really big part of my life' ... Those who work in media are especially saturated." (Betabeat)

"My friend, curator and art historian Charlie Scheips went over to the the Acquavella Gallery on East 79th Street on Saturday to see the Braque retrospective – the first in decades for the artist in New York. Charlie raved about it, saying it was stupendous and New York was very lucky to have it. On the current calendar, last Thursday night the Gerald Peters Gallery at 24 East 78th Street held a reception for artist Doris Downes and her show of more than 30 works entittled 'The Death of Medea by Belladonna While Dreaming of Orchids.' The show runs through November 11th. Ms. Downes is also the wife of the eminent art historian Robert Hughes whose new book 'Rome' will be in the stores in November. Also last Thursday night down at Denise Bibro Fine Art on 529 West 20th Street, there was a reception for artist Audrey Ushenko and her show: Fete Champetre: Recent Paintings. Ms. Ushenko’s solo exhibition, compositions of still life and social gatherings runs through November 12th." (NYSocialDiary)

"I'm reading an oral history of MTV. I find these off-putting, good for bathroom reading but disappointing as books, but maybe the hit and run nature of 'I Want My MTV' works because that's just like the station, it lacked depth, it was in your face, it was the opposite of classic rock. MTV changed music. I'm not talking about the music business, but the music itself. Suddenly how you looked was important. And you had to fit the genre the station was promoting. Which went from Brit art school to flash to rap in a decade. Suddenly, music was all about the heavily-promoted, the heavily-marketed, it was made by beautiful people for everyone, and the people who weren't beautiful, who'd lived a life of rejection, who considered music their own private playground, tuned out. It's like you discovered baseball when everybody was playing cricket, only your friends and you hit the diamond, then it went on TV and everybody was playing the game and no new sport could get traction. Either you were on MTV or you were history. Either you were monstrous or you were irrelevant. The Web is gonna change the kind of music we listen to. As a matter of fact, it already has. Lady Gaga is the first Web star. She wasn't broken by radio, but by videos online, she established that paradigm." (Bob lefsetz)

"Silicon Valley luminaries, politicians and celebrities were among the several hundred people at a private memorial service for late Apple Inc co-founder and tech visionary Steve Jobs on Sunday.
Guests arrived in dozens of black limousines and walked up a path lighted by hundreds of large white candles to Memorial Church in the heart of Stanford University's campus. The event was heavily patrolled by police and security and walled off to the public. Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took the helm of the world's largest technology corporation in August when the industry icon declared he could no longer lead Apple, walked up to the chapel with a man dressed in the garb of a Buddhist monk.Maria Shriver, estranged wife of former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and U2 frontman Bono stopped to exchange words with others in the courtyard before heading in. Apple software chief Scott Forstall, former President Bill Clinton and News Corp Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller were also among those in attendance." (Reuters via Huffington Post)

"'We have the money,' Chrystia Freeland tells me one recent afternoon on the nineteenth-floor newsroom of Reuters’ gleaming Times Square tower. The spunky, Canadian-born editor of Reuters’ rapidly expanding website is sitting in her spartan office giving a sales pitch, pretending to try to hire me. 'What I want us to be, and I hope we’re becoming, is a great home for journalists. In this current belt-tightening environment, you often don’t feel a lot of love.' It’s a spiel Freeland has been using a lot these days. A few days before we meet, Freeland announced her latest recruits: Bethany McLean, of Vanity Fair, and veteran Times reporter Geraldine Fabrikant. The pair join a growing roster of marquee columnists and editors that includes Pulitzer Prize–winning Times reporters David Rohde and David Cay Johnston, former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, media critic Jack Shafer, former Times Sunday business editor Jim Impoco, and former Big Money editor James Ledbetter. Freeland’s inside-baseball hope is that high-profile hires will attract media attention and, with it, finally, actual readers. Freeland was herself a high-profile acquisition for Reuters. In 2010, she left the Financial Times after running the paper’s U.S. edition. 'I love the FT,' she says of her former employer. But that doesn’t mean she’s not enjoying scooping her alma mater. 'At the FT, the constant refrain was ‘Put up ­Reuters’ story while we do our version.’ [At Reuters] we are the original version!'" (NYMag)

Be back Monday


Out sick for the past few days. Will be back monday,

R

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"Even in less navel-gazing moments, foreign policy is a marginal topic for most presidential contenders. We talk about their 'views,' but many barely have views. Few candidates, and especially the former governors who have occupied the White House for 28 of the past 50 years, have had to think in very specific terms about America's place in the world. So candidates ask themselves, in effect, 'What kind of foreign policy would a person like me have?' This is not necessarily a useful guide to their later behavior. Bill Clinton thought he was a human rights-driven idealist until he found out how hard it is to do the right thing; Bush thought he was a hardheaded realist until the 9/11 attacks turned him into a true-believing democracy promoter. Who they are probably matters more than what they think, or what they think they think. As Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative ex-aide to Bush and Ronald Reagan, says, 'What really matters in the end is character.' Some of the 2012 candidates mimic McCain's muscular idealism, but their hearts don't seem to be in it. Pawlenty was a McCain acolyte who traveled abroad with him and absorbed much of his worldview; he warned the Council on Foreign Relations about the 'isolationist sentiments' newly ascendant in the GOP. But the rise of the Tea Party in recent years has reshaped Republican politics entirely, not only on domestic policy but also on foreign policy. The Tea Party is the faction of Less -- less spending, less government, and, generally, less engagement abroad. And all the Republicans aspiring to win the 2012 nomination have responded to this powerful new voice in one way or another. None of the candidates save Paul can genuinely be called isolationist -- and perhaps not even he. But Rep. Michele Bachmann shares the Tea Party's suspicion of foreign interventions and foreign countries more generally; former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has called for 'nation-building at home' rather than 'nation-building in Afghanistan' or elsewhere; and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has warned vaguely of 'military adventurism.' Rick Santorum, a fringe candidate like Paul, anchors the opposite end of the foreign-policy spectrum, the pole of bristling aggression and furious denunciation (both of Obama and of Paul). And Mitt Romney falls somewhere in the middle, which seems to be where he falls whenever he is dropped." (James Traub)

"Mercedes and Sid Bass were granted a divorce last Thursday in Fort Worth. The official announcement came on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in a report filed by Chris Vaughn in the Friday edition of the newspaper. The couple released a joint statement that they would 'continue to love each other and remain good friends.' This was the probably one of the most civilized divorces any of us will ever hear about anybody. There were rumors of the marriage being in trouble which I reported here last November or December. Many of their friends were very annoyed at me for writing it although many were passing the rumors around amongst themselves at the time. I wrote a measured retraction a few days later, having been assured by close friends of the couple that the rumors were not true. Did I believe it? Not really ... However, the rumors about the Basses persisted through the new year but with nothing new in terms of their behavior to confirm the stories. Only two weeks ago at the opening of the new season at the Met (where Mercedes Bass sits on the board), they were in attendance. Not only were they in attendance but as you can see from the photos Jill Krementz took for the NYSD (9.28.11), that they were together.  Furthermore Jill told me that they were more than happy – he even made an effort – to be photographed together. Looking at it in retrospect, Sid Bass was already sending a message about the kind of divorce they would have ... The night of the divorce, for example, the (ex-)couple hosted a dinner party at the house in Fort Worth for all their friends. Think about it. None of that 'embarrassment' that friends have in terms of how to relate to either party; whom to talk to, whom to avoid. The Basses dissolved the whispers and the rumors and the taking sides. That is a relief for everyone especially if you like both parties and prefer to remain friends with everyone." (NYSocialDiary)

"So, Rosie O'Donnell must've packed 'em in for the rollout of her new, Oprah Winfrey-approved talk show, right? Well, er, no. Monday's 7 p.m. premiere of 'The Rosie Show' on OWN, with first guest Russell Brand, drew a very modest 497,000 total viewers, according to Nielsen. It's O'Donnell's first talk show since she left ABC's 'The View' in 2007. At 8 p.m., 'Oprah's Lifeclass' -- with OWN boss Winfrey discussing insights learned over her years as a talk host -- opened even worse, with just 333,000 viewers. Not surprisingly, OWN is looking for rays of hope amid the ratings, saying that 'The Rosie Show' improved on what Discovery Health was doing a year ago in the time slot by more than 200%. But it's important to remember that Discovery Health was always considered an underachiever -- that's why it's not around anymore. It's also important to remember that you don't hire an expensive talent like O'Donnell in hopes of failing to draw even half a million people for her premiere." (LATimes)

"So I’m listening to William Shatner on Howard Stern. And he says he owes his career to saying yes, if anybody asks, that’s what he says. He’s open to any idea, because you never know the end result. That didn’t sound right to me. Because if it’s not right, I don’t want to play. It’s my name on the line. One false move…And the very next day Howard decried choices Conan O’Brien had made. The nature of radio is I didn’t hear exactly what he was talking about, I got in the car thereafter. But when Howard was done ranting, saying Conan should have said no, Robin asked him about William Shatner…And Howard chortled. Said that’s why people laugh at Shatner. That Bill should have said no more often. Now if you’re an actor, you’re playing a role. It’s not you. But if you’re a musician, and you’re doing it right, it’s solely about you. If you compromise your values, if you do what you don’t want to, you’re gonna pay the price. I know, you want to make it so bad, you don’t want to be difficult. But I’ll let you in on a secret, the most successful artists are impossible. Case in point, Van Morrison. And so many of the other stars with a nice image, they employ someone to say no, so they don’t look like an asshole. But when you’re starting out, it’s hard to hire a spokesman, hard to have someone on your team. It’s just you. But you must still say no." (Bob Lefsetz)

"Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld are Web stars. The twentysomethings draw an audience of 500,000 people, twice a week, for their three-minute 'Jake and Amir' shows on CollegeHumor.com. But those fans watch Hurwitz and Blumenfeld’s buddy/frenemy comedy clips for free. What would happen if they had to pay? We’ll find out this afternoon, when the duo rolls out 'Jake and Amir: Fired,' a 30-minute special. CollegeHumor will sell streams of the show on its site and via Facebook for $2.99 a pop, and DVDs for $13 apiece. It’s the first time IAC’s comedy site — which has carved out a nice niche for itself in the low-budget Web originals business — has tried selling anything beyond T-shirts to its audience. And it’s very much a test. CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen isn’t convinced that it will turn a profit, but he’s okay with that. 'If this is a loss leader for us, but we learn a lot about paid content, how it works, then it’s worthwhile,' he says." (Peter Kafka)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region. The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans -- the Pacific and the Indian -- that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world's population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia. At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential." (Hillary Clinton)

"A Harvard law professor, one of the nation’s leading bankruptcy experts and consumer advocates, the 62-year-old (Elizabeth) Warren had come up with the idea for the agency in 2007. She had advised the Obama administration on its creation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse and helped to push it through Congress. Warren had also spent the last 10 months working tirelessly to build the agency from scratch—hiring its staff of 500, including Richard Cordray, organizing its management structure, and getting the C.F.P.B. up and running for its opening on July 21. As she crisscrossed the country, spreading the word about the C.F.P.B., Warren became a familiar face to many, especially to those who had seen her on television—on CNBC, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She had gained millions of supporters. With her passionate defense of America’s beleaguered middle class, under assault today from seemingly every direction, she had become like a modern-day Mr. Smith, giving voice to regular citizens astonished at the failure of Washington to protect Main Street—and what increasingly appeared to be its abandonment of middle-class America" (Vanity Fair)

"Elizabeth Warren's $3.1 million haul over a swift six week period immediately cements her as one of the top fundraisers of the cycle -- and a financial force to be reckoned with. It's also a shot across the bow to Republican Sen. Scott Brown that she'll be able to harness the resources for a protracted, expensive fight for Massachusetts' Senate seat. Warren's campaign account tweeted Monday afternoon that the consumer advocate had raised $3.15 million during the third quarter. But for her, that only began in mid-August, when she formally filed her exploratory committee. She also relayed that 96 percent of her donations came in increments of $100 or less, including 11,000 from Bay Staters. A campaign aide said the bulk of her donations came in following the formal announcement on Sept. 14. Republicans will likely jump on the number of out of state contributors to try to deflate her financial largess and portray her as a candidate of liberal interests and Washington insiders. Warren's closest rival on the Democratic side, Alan Khazei, put up just $365,000 during the last three months, leaving him with $750,000 on hand to spend. No other Senate candidate in the country this cycle has reached the $3 million mark so fast." (Politico)

"New York City Ballet star dancer Charles Askegard was feted with a series of after-parties following a 15-minute ovation for his final performance Sunday. Friends gathered to toast him at a party at Landmarc hosted by his wife, Candace Bushnell. Guests wishing him well on his next leap into the not-quite unknown, which will see him forming his own company Ballet Next, included Mary Boone, David Kuhn, Will Cotton, Wendy Whelan, Norman Pearlstine, Patricia Duff and Nicole Miller. Longtime friend Jay McInerney said at the party, 'The fierceness of his dedication to his art is something that has impressed me over and over again. The other thing that impressed me tonight was that curtain call.' Friends then moved onto an after-after-party at Askegard and Bushnell’s apartment, where they were joined by Chris Noth." (PageSix)

"Last night’s Season 4 finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad drew 1.9 million viewers in its original airing. That was up 19% from the series’ third-season finale last year. For the night, including encores, Breaking Bad averaged 2.9 million viewers, 1.8 million of them in 18-49. This was Breaking Bad‘s highest-rated season ever in 18-49, up 24% from Season 3." (Deadline)

"President Obama’s attempt to strike a balance between firing up his liberal base and reaching out to business is leaving him in an awkward place. Both efforts are designed to help Obama win a second term as president. The problem is that as Obama makes an appeal to one group, he risks losing the other, something that will be highlighted this week in a series of congressional votes. Obama needs fired-up liberals to rally to his defense in 2012, but he also needs money from Wall Street and businesses to fund his campaign. Obama also needs to win a large share of independent voters, who were critical to his 2008 victory but shifted to Republicans in the 2010 midterms. The outreach to business is thought to appeal to these voters. White House officials have repeatedly rebutted the popular notion that Obama is at odds with big business." (TheHill)

"I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t cherish Rosamond Bernier. That would include me. Olivier Bernier hosted a party to celebrate his stepmother’s 95th birthday, which coincided with the publication of her magical memoir, Some of My Lives. One might assume that the birthday girl was the oldest one in the room, but she wasn’t. Composer Elliot Carter beat her by seven years.Rosamond Bernier’s childhood was filled with riding lessons on a pony named Teddy and schoolwork with a French governess, who was imported to teach her at home until Rosamond was ten years old. She was then shipped off, to her dismay, to an English boarding school, the Shelborne School for Girls. Then it was off to Sarah Lawrence, where Professor Jacques Barzun was her don. Bernier was brought up 'in a bath of music.'  She studied the harp for several years, graduating to study with the number-one harp teacher in America, a Frenchman from the Basque Country, Carlos Salzedo—a compatriot of Ravel’s. Her friends would later include Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, and Ned Rorem. We’re not even getting started!" (NYSocialDiary)

"Friday night, End of Century hosted the opening of 'Wind & Still-Life,' an exhibition of paintings by artist Lauren Luloff. Band Open Ocean performed and guests included designer Samantha Pleet, designer duo Upstate, hat designer Heidi Lee and fashion photographer David Schulze. The concept space closed its doors in August and store owners Chantal Chadwick and Lara Hodulick (a former Paper intern!) re-opened the space with this bash." (Papermag)

"What's it like being Marilyn Monroe? For one thing, according to Michelle Williams, 'You get a lot of attention.' But Williams, who plays the superstar in My Week With Marilyn, knows as well as anyone that there's more to the American icon than meets the eye. 'The breathy quality that she had in her voice was a device that she used to cover up a stutter,' the actress explained last night at the Hudson Hotel's Private Park, at a Dior-sponsored party preceding a screening of the movie at the New York Film Festival." (Style)

"Of course, Morgan is now the host of Piers Morgan Tonight, the nightly hourlong show that replaced Larry King Live on CNN in January, and in some ways is further from Murdoch’s reach than he’s ever been. Though a notorious tabloid editor in England for more than a decade—first at NotW, then at the Daily Mirror—until recently Morgan was a relative unknown on these shores. He was familiar chiefly to reality-TV aficionados, as the chain-mail-wearing, ­Omarosa-thrashing winner of Celebrity Apprentice and as a panelist on America’s Got Talent, where for all six seasons he has been the buzzer-happy hanging judge at ease crushing the dreams of angel-faced 6-year-olds. To those who knew him only as a pantomime villain, or not at all, it seemed inexplicable when he was handed Larry King’s nine-o’clock hour on CNN, one of the fattest plums in cable news. It was as if 60 Minutes had hired Gordon Ramsay as its newest correspondent. Morgan might have an unconventional résumé for “The Worldwide Leader in News,” but then again, maybe it was inevitable, given the populist drift of media, that a Fleet Street commoner would eventually ascend to King’s cable-news throne. And the appointment has turned out to be a smart move by CNN. Piers Morgan Tonight is doing better than many had expected, and its host has proved a more rigorous interviewer than his predecessor." (NYMag)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"The public milestones of #occupywallstreet are well known. A July 13 call to arms by activist magazine Adbusters. An August 31 YouTube video by hacktivist collective Anonymous. A few hundred protesters on September 17. Arrests the 24th. Taking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1. Massive media attention and a national movement afterwards.... But most accounts fail to grasp the real disruption going on here. Something was different about this initially chaotic-seeming assembly from the beginning. And if it was so chaotic, how has it grown from a toothless web post to an action threatening to go nationwide? By working differently than protests in recent American history--using everything from social media shadow puppetry to a radical consensus process and a lack of official leaders. I’ve been following the movement and attending events and meetings from day one, and for much of the time, it seemed destined to flop. Yet it took off. In retrospect, there were moments where it became obvious something new was going on here. Here are some of those moments." (Sean Captain/FastCompany)

"On April 10, 2010, the Liu family was living the Chinese dream. The couple had moved to the city, rented an apartment, and were blessed with two beautiful children. They weren't rich, but they were getting by. Like many Chinese people, they felt their lives were getting better. The next morning, strange men came to their house, grabbed their son Liu Jingjun, dragged him into a white van, and drove off. Since then, the Lius have been looking for him. They haven't found him, but they have discovered that there are an awful lot of people just like themselves. Since at least the 1980s, kidnapping and human trafficking have become a problem in China, and most often, the victims are children. Estimates vary on just how bad things have gotten. The Chinese government reports that fewer than 10,000 children are kidnapped each year, but the U.S. State Department says it's closer to 20,000. Some independent estimates put the number as high as 70,000 (compared with 100 to 200 children kidnapped per year in the United States, for example). The vast majority of kidnapped children will never see their families again. In China, kids are abducted not for ransom but for sale. Often, they come from poor and rural families -- the families least likely to be capable of tracking their kids down or fighting back. Some children are then sold to new 'adoptive' families looking for children. Others are sold into slave labor, prostitution, or a life on the streets. In some cases, healthy children are brutally crippled by handlers on the theory that a child with broken legs or horrific boils looks sadder and can earn more money begging on the street." (ForeignPolicy)

"I met him several years ago here in New York. We lunch four years ago when he was in town promoting a book on Irish Georgian furniture, about which he was an expert. I saw him again less than a year ago when Susan and John Gutfreund gave a cocktail reception for him and his latest book, “The Irish Country House.” He was a soft-spoken man with an unassuming bearing.He was in poor health at the time but you wouldn’t have known: he had a job and that was to promote his book and his passion for Irish Georgian furniture, the houses for which they were made and a legacy that extended back twenty-nine generations, all of which is noted in this report from the Telegraph: 'Desmond FitzGerald, the 29th and last Knight of Glin who died on September 14 aged 74, was a connoisseur of the decorative arts who worked for the Victoria and Albert Museum and the fine art auctioneers Christie’s and, as a campaigning president of the Irish Georgian Society, helped to save many architectural treasures over the Irish Sea from dereliction or insensitive development. The greater part of his energies, however, he devoted to restoring and preserving his family’s ancestral seat of Glin Castle, on the Shannon estuary in Co Limerick.The Knight of Glin, also called the Black Knight, is one of three ancient Irish hereditary titles dating from the 13th and 14th centuries and recognised by Irish Republican governments. (FitzGerald’s kinsman, Adrian FitzGerald, the 24th Knight of Kerry, is known as the Green Knight; Maurice FitzGibbon, who died in 1611, was the 12th and last White Knight.)'" (NYSocialDiary)

"There has been much speculation on the West Coast about which 'work in progress from a master filmmaker scheduled to be released this year' is going to be the subject of New York Film Festival’s mystery screening Monday night at Avery Fisher Hall for only the second time in the fest’s 49-year history. It’s certainly a good ploy for Oscar attention. A lot of the guessing centers on Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar or Steven Spielberg’s War Horse or The Adventures Of Tintin — but all of those films are finished, not works in progress at this point. Another popular guess is Stephen Daldry’s post-9/11 New York-set Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. But as fine a director as this three-time Oscar nominee is, I don’t think the word 'master' yet applies, so scratch that. It could be the latest from Wong Kar Wai or Zhang Yimou, but neither of their films are set for this year yet — at least in America. Some think it may be David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but I know for a fact no one at Sony is aware if it is, and apparently it would violate his deal if he were doing this on his own. So very doubtful. That leaves a genuine 'master,' Martin Scorsese, with his work, the 3D Hugo from Paramount, which is still 'in progress' toward its November 23rd holiday release." (Deadline)

"I am moving again, this time from one side of Key West t’other. The rental I have occupied since spring has been rented, to others, and I must move, immediately. For the millionth time in my life I fill my car with my gear. A friend will take me in for a few nights. But I waste no time and with the help of online listings I am on the case finding new digs. This being a tiny island, I swiftly visited a pile up of unlivable quarters, unless, of course, one was routinely inebriated, blind and insensate. Early this morning I saw a fresh post on the electronic billboard, it read, ‘hidden gem’. Anywhere else I would have had my heckles up, and brimmed with suspicions. But here, where people say ‘good-day’ when they pass by in the street, I knew that ‘hidden gem’ was going to be the real thing. I made an appointment to visit. In this town rentals go fast, the nice and the not nice. One day you may see a red and white ‘for rent’ sign hanging off a white picket fence, and the next day you will see a moving van and a person, grinning, carrying in their possessions. Who knows if down the line some unforeseen horror will rear, and ruin my life. I’ve been fooled many times before, and that includes two ex-husbands (another story altogether). But I fell in love with the ‘hidden gem’, before entering it. It was a carnal lust that wrapped me up, and I signed a year lease before my future landlord had time to run my references. I employed my most convincing English accent (acquired after years of otherwise useless education), I thrust my books on the man, by way of introduction." (Christina Oxenberg)

"Behind every great pop music genre, there's a record label that launched its stars. Blue Note pushed Theolonious Monk and Art Blakey into the mainstream. Sun Records brought us Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Motown had its glittering roster of the Supremes, Stevie Wonder and more. For hip-hop music in the early 1980s, that label was Def Jam. A new book attempts to capture that history in photos, interviews and essays. It's called Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label. LL Cool J was just 17 when he became one of the first artists signed to the company. The men who founded the Def Jam label in 1984 weren't much older. There was Rick Rubin, a 21-year-old NYU art school student from Long Island making music in his dorm room; and Russell Simmons, a 27-year-old from Queens, who was already making a name for himself in the downtown scene with his brother's rap group Run DMC. Weekend Edition Sunday host Audie Cornish spoke with both founders separately about the early days of the label." (NPR)

"When Wet Hot American Summer hit theaters a decade ago, the film—a sketch-based comedy set in 1981, on the last day of the fictional Camp Firewood—came and went faster than a hormonal teenage boy. But then something amazing happened: Thanks to the movie's ahead-of-its-time absurdist humor, a cast stocked with relative unknowns who blossomed into marquee names, and the magical word-of-mouth power of DVDs and Netflix, Wet Hot became a cult classic. For this complete-ish oral history in celebration of Wet Hot's 10th anniversary, we asked director and writer David Wain, his cowriter and creative partner, Michael Showalter, and stars including Janeane Garofalo, Paul Rudd, David Hyde Pierce, Elizabeth Banks, and Amy Poehler to reminisce about the shoot, the living conditions, the kids, the notoriously horrendous weather, and the hilarity (and debauchery) that took place off-camera. Throw another log on the soaking-wet campfire—theirs is an epic tale of camaraderie and survival in the heart of Pennsylvania darkness." (Details via Jason Hirschorn)

" I look at Breaking Bad as a show about the American family. It's an interesting investigation of where we're what as a people. Middle-class people are becoming desperate. It can cause a moral man to break bad. It makes you ask yourself the question: What would you do if your chips were down? ... Gus was the manager of chicken restaurant, and possibly something more. What I loved is that he's affable, posing as a manager but owns the whole chain. I chose to make him very low key, to be a really good listener. Then they asked me would I come back for the third season. But I was just unwilling to do guest spot after guest spot -- I wanted to be part of the Breaking Bad family. If I was gonna come back, I wanted to come back as full-fledged character. Then they offered me seven episodes, to which I said no. Then they offered me nine, and I wound up doing eleven. I wanted to create a character who became intrinsic to the show. And their writing inspired me to think, to create someone threatening, poignant, polite. Gus speaks with his eyes. I didn't use the word 'villain' to describe Gus." (Giancarlo Esposito via Jason Hirschorn)

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

"For more than six decades, Republican presidential aspirants have had a very simple but consistent message for explaining how they differ from Democrats on U.S. foreign policy: We're tough; they're not. Friday, Oct. 7's major foreign-policy speech by GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney follows this rather familiar path. According to Romney's speech, he will adopt a very 'different' approach to foreign policy than that of the current occupant of the White House: 'I will not surrender America's role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your president. You have that president today.' How does Romney define American power? He may speak of values and economic strength, but like so many of his predecessors, it's the military. As part of his plan for lifting America from the depths of its current 'weakness,' Romney has pledged to increase the size of the Navy, enhance U.S. efforts to militarily deter Iran, recommit to a more robust missile defense, defend the United States against cyberthreats, review the current plan to withdraw from Afghanistan, and reverse the Obama administration's 'massive defense cuts.' If there's any doubt about what's forefront in Romney's mind when it comes to how to build the American Century, just look at the choice of venue: His most significant foreign-policy speech to date was given at the Citadel military school in South Carolina -- another reminder that the GOP stands with the symbolic elements of American strength. If Romney believes that the soft power of American diplomacy and statecraft have been shortchanged or de-emphasized over the past 10 years, he certainly wasn't making a point of it. On the surface, this muscular foreign policy -- and its attendant costs -- might seem surprising in the context of a growing national debt and a new age of austerity in Washington. Where, after all, is Romney going to find the money for such an expansion of U.S. military power?" (ForeignPolicy)

"It is a tale of wealth and alleged betrayal, of protection money and political intrigues, of attempted assassinations and Chechen gangsters. It features fabulously rich oligarchs, former Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, and members of their innermost courts. The action shifts from Caribbean cruises to Siberian oilfields, from the Kremlin to London hotel suites to Côte d’Azur mansions. This is the $6.5bn case of Boris Abramovich Berezovsky v Roman Arkadievich Abramovich, which began this week – and London’s High Court has seen nothing quite like it. As Dame Elizabeth Gloster, the judge, surveyed the crush of big-name barristers, bodyguards in boxy suits and earpieces, and reporters standing three rows deep, she declared there was 'not a courtroom in the land that could accommodate you all'. Mr Berezovsky is a one-time kingpin of the oligarchs, the entrepreneurs who amassed wealth and political dominance in 1990s Russia. In 1996, he boasted to the Financial Times that he and six other businessmen controlled half his country’s economy. Today he lives in political exile in the UK, an avowed enemy of the Kremlin. Mr Abramovich also spends time in London, as owner of Chelsea Football Club, but is still one of Russia’s richest men, valued by Forbes at $13.4bn. The former business partners are both said to have been instrumental in helping Mr Putin become president in 2000. One refused to submit to Mr Putin’s subsequent edict that the Kremlin, not the oligarchs, would now rule the roost; the other complied." (FT)

image via Life via NYSocialDiary

"'Queen of The Metropolitan Opera' Mercedes Bass and billionaire Sid Bass are divorcing after 23 years, with sources telling us, 'This is the biggest high-society divorce -- since their last divorces.'
The Bass romance blossomed when Mercedes was married to Ambassador Francis Kellogg and Sid to Anne Bass. Mercedes famously got Sid’s attention by throwing a bread roll at him at a 1986 lunch in East Hampton. Creating a huge scandal, Sid, the scion of a Texas oil family, divorced Anne with a settlement said to be between $200 million and $500 million. Mercedes and Sid married in 1988 at The Plaza, becoming the toast of New York society and big patrons of the Met Opera, to which she personally donated $25 million. But on Thursday, they released a joint statement that they 'mutually agreed to end their marriage' and they 'continue to love each other and remain good friends.' One source told us Sid, 69, is tired of attending black-tie events and has taken up painting, while Mercedes, 67, continues in society life. The source explained, 'They are leading separate lives. He’s had it with the black-tie and the opera, and wants to retreat and work on his art. She has informed the Met board of her divorce, and insists she will stay active.' Sources say the split wasn’t totally unexpected. The New York Social Diary last year reported the couple would not spend Christmas 2010 together. Mercedes appeared last week at the season opening of 'Anna Bolena' at the Met without Sid but accompanied by Nancy Kissinger. Sid Bass, worth an estimated $2.1 billion, is a son of Perry Richardson Bass, who built an oil fortune with his brother Sid Richardson." (PageSix)

"These are very early estimates. But DreamWorks/Disney’s Real Steel is dominating the North American box office today and looking at a mid-$20sM weekend if not higher. Hollywood will only be impressed if the result is mid-$30sM because this action pic has a family overlay and its budget was $110+M. By contrast, director and star George Clooney’s newcomer The Ides Of March from his Smokehouse Pictures and Sony had only a $12.5M production budget after rebates. But this hard-to-sell R-rated adult political thriller co-starring Ryan Gosling is #2 today. It should be in low double digits for the weekend which is the modest showing that Hollywood expected." (Deadline)

"On a rainy September morning I met Mr.(Richard)  Gere at the Bedford Post, the inn he and his wife, Carey Lowell, opened near their home in Bedford Hills, N.Y., tastefully restoring an 18th-century eyesore and adding a casual restaurant and a yoga studio ... We got to talking about 'Arbitrage,' a movie he made with the director Nicholas Jarecki that will be released next year and includes an unexpected appearance by Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair.  Mr. Gere didn’t want me to reveal Mr. Carter’s role in the film — about a Wall Streeter who crosses the line — but it seemed an inspired bit of casting. 'He’s terrific in it,' Mr. Gere said. 'Well, he’s very real. Movie acting is primarily listening. If you’re really engaged, that’s all a movie audience wants to see is you processing what’s happening in your world. And he was great.'  Although risk-taking and deception serve as a backdrop for 'Arbitrage,' Mr. Gere’s character is not a Madoff type. 'I don’t find him that interesting because he was psychotic,' he said. 'I find it more interesting the people around him who were sucked in.' He added that the story will resonate with the lies people tell themselves, if they could see their behavior on a replayed tape." (NYTimes)

"Planet 24 made (Baron Alli of Norbury) first fortune; along the way he has worked with David Cameron, during the prime minister’s days as PR man for Carlton Communications; invested with Elisabeth Murdoch in Shine, the production company that the News Corp heiress sold to her father’s media empire this year; and, as chairman of the entertainment rights company Chorion since 2003, put characters from Mr Funny to Miss Marple on screens and bookshelves from Stockholm to Sydney. TV also turned someone who started life an outsider into the consummate insider. Born in an unfashionable part of south London to a father from Guyana and a mother from Trinidad, Alli is one of the few gay Muslims in British public life. When his father moved out of the family home, he left school at 16 to support his mother and two brothers. Yet at 33, he was in the House of Lords as its youngest member and the first openly gay peer.Now 46, he is sitting in a booth in the furthest corner of the crowded restaurant, his back to the room. His tie is impeccably knotted, silver cufflinks shine in a crisp white shirt and another glint comes from the diamond stud in one earlobe. The menu advertises buffalo mozzarella, 'softball size', and Alli orders his with aubergine caponata. He toys with the spaghetti carbonara but opts for the 'signature thin crust pizza' with pepperoni, asking for the rocket to be left off." (Lunch with the FT)

"The Whitney is starting to do things on a whole new scale. With a building upgrade (courtesy of Renzo Piano) in the works downtown, the powerhouse museum threw its fall gala off-site for the first time in 20 years, at cavernous Pier 57, and the venue change literally paid off: 600 guests came to the annual fundraising dinner and the total haul, $3.2 million, amounted to the biggest ever. When even Julian Schnabel (who rarely takes off his pj's at home or out of it) dons a tux, you know there's a new game afoot. 'It's Lanvin—I've had it forever,' Schnabel told Style.com. 'I usually have pajamas on underneath.' Not tonight ... The evening's honoree was the prolific art writer Calvin Tomkins, who, in his acceptance speech, candidly explained his calling: 'Artists, really, are more interesting than other people.' As dessert was served and pop-soul act Fitz and the Tantrums performed, the after-party started on the other end of the pier, where mirrors dangled from Japanese and scarlet maples and the likes of Refaeli and Michelle Monaghan danced under three enormous disco balls. 'I have not seen three all together like that,' noted Desirée Rogers, detecting a trend. 'Maybe the new direction is three disco balls, not one.'" (Style)

"Paul Krugman weighed in, twice; MTV picked up the story after rapper Talib Kweli showed up. And now we have Nate Silver with a chart to explain it all. 'In the early days of the protests, which began on Sept. 17, coverage was all but nonexistent in the mainstream news media,' writes Mr. Silver. 'It has increased significantly in recent days, however, and is now beginning to rival that given to Tea Party protests in April and May 2009.' Even The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart picked up on our 'from blackout to circus' meme." (Observer)

Occupy Blackstreet

via Jay Smooth