London in New York

Wrapped in the Confederate Flag

The devil [came up] from Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to make a deal.

“Hey, you, Bin Laden and Trump all had three wives !”

The

The anticipation has been building over 13 years since this pillar of hyprocrisy resigned from Congress in a cloud of ethics violations.  The “Indispensable Republican”, the GOP’s so called “man of ideas” a truly polarizing figure who makes Hugo Chavez seem like the Pillsbury Doughboy, who has launched a multitude of for profit and advocacy groups and raised more money than all the other Republican candidates to date combined, as part of what the Wall Street Journal has referred to as “Newt, Inc.” – ‘a 24/7 festival of self promotion’, came to New York City to be interviewed by Fox News’ Anchor Sean Hannity on The Hannity Show to explain the raison d’etre — his presidential candidacy which he announced earlier that same day on Twitter.

 The GOP’s great white hope was given a platform to pontificate on what truly ails America, without looking in the mirror,  and presented himself as the man with those solutions, live from the Hannity Show in the heart of Manhattan.  The Grinch or Ging-Grinch like character did not disappoint the faithful.  He’s a mean one, Mr. Ging-Grinch.  He dropped bombs, the type of disingenuous bombs that Chris Matthews of MSNBC believes are doing bad things to this country.  According to Mediaite:

 After video played of Newt suggesting there is a reason for the “collapse of Detroit and the rise of Texas,” Matthews asked his panel “tell me you don’t know what he’s saying?” At first not all were convinced that it was Newt hinting at race, rather than simply praising the benefits of conservatism over liberalism. Yet Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memo agreed with Matthews and argued Detroit is a “very black city” and Newt regularly uses race-related language.

Matthews concluded:

“I think that’s a racist charge. I don’t know what Newt’s heart says, I know he’s willing to play this game. . . . Anybody who plays racial politics is doing bad things for this country.”

Esquire Magazine chimed in to expose the bullsh*t behind the ‘Snake Charmer’s’ sunny appearance on the Hannity Show.  I have to agree with Chris Matthews. For  Newt to suggest that Obama a black man whose policies have only barely been in place for less than 2 years are responsible for the decline of what many consider a more racially ethnic, non-white industrial city in the heart of the rust belt, one that is facing unique challenges in a global economy and contrast it with the rise of Texas, generally considered or perceived to be by a white Republican strong hold, is in my estimation absolutely playing a race game. There is nothing new but totally “Newt” about this kind of southern strategy.

Arrogrance of the Newt Ging-Grinch

The Ging-Grinch went on to explain the reasons for why he now offers America his service as our President: “Well, my dad served 27 years in the infantry and really believed in duty, honor, country.”

In answer to Newt I would say:  Newt, you have divorced two women while they were stricken with potentially  terminal or at least life altering diseases, including one on Mother’s Day while you were cavorting with a house staffer, Callista Bisek, nearly half your age and wagging a finger at Bill Clinton in a debate about the “values” and “character­” of our nation’s leaders. You used campaign funds like they were your personal piggy bank and resigned from Congress and your leadership post  in a cloud of ethics violations­. Now you want a promotion to the highest office in the land? Are you kidding me? Seriously, are you f_king kidding me?  Character, honor, integrity? You quote your father’s, not your own lack of, service and belief in “duty, honor, country” like you are Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” but you dear sir cannot handle the truth, that, you are a dirty, corrupt, morally and ethically bankrupt scoundrel of human being who has no place in the highest office in the land, your conversion to Catholicism not withstanding.

This is not a simple case where there are merely some outstandin­g or lingering questions about a man’s character or integrity but rather about one who evidences a total lack of both and has routinely operated with a blatant disregard for basic human dignity. We do not promote to CEO of the United States of America, those who are expelled from the lower chambers of our nation’s government­.

You may want to consider that Newt’s Presidential candidacy is sort of like you or me getting drunk and molesting a secretary on the first week of an entry level job, putting in fraudulent business expenses for reimbursement, stealing your boss’ golf clubs,  being forced to tender your resignation, submitting to alcohol rehab, serving time in a federal penitentiary and then a few weeks or months later upon gaining release, waging a campaign to remove your boss for unfair treatment and discrimination. Then once successful in your pursuit of defaming him you submit your resume for the open CEO spot of that same company vowing to install more fair working conditions. When asked why, you shrug your shoulders and say you were going through a phase but that while you were in the joint you read a few passages in the bible and gained some devine insight;  and besides which upon your release you married  and made an honest woman of the young girl you molested. 

If you think there is nothing wrong with that scenario then you likely find nothing wrong with this man’s candidacy for President. I simply do not know how America can ever ‘win the future’ with a tired, old relic from the past.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Ging-Grinch,
You really are a heel,
You’re as cuddly as a cactus,
You’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Ging-Grinch.
You’re a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You’re a monster, Mr. Ging-Grinch,
Your heart’s an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders,
You’ve got garlic in your soul, Mr. Ging-Grinch.
I wouldn’t touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

You’re a foul one, Mr. Ging-Grinch,
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile, Mr. Ging-Grinch.
Given the choice between the two of you
I’d take the seasick crocodile!

You’re a foul one, Mr. Ging-Grinch,
You’re a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks,
Your soul is full of gunk, Mr. Ging-Grinch.
The three words that best describe you are as follows, and I quote,
“Stink, stank, stunk!”

 Goodnight Mr. Ging-Grinch.

Epilogue
-Think Progress, “George Will: Newt Gingrich Is Just Not A Serious Candidate For President”
-Mediaite, George Will: Gingrich ‘Not A Serious Candidate’ So It’s Down To Either Pawlenty or Daniels
-Huffington Post (Michael B. Keegan):  ”The Unwelcome Return of the Newt”
-National Review editor, Rich Lowry on Newt the Unreliable: “He can’t help himself. Gingrich prefers extravagant lambasting when a mere distancing would do, and the over-arching theoretical construct to a mundane pander. He is drawn irresistibly to operatic overstatement – sometimes brilliant, always interesting and occasionally downright absurd … It’s Newt’s misfortune to want a high-pressure executive job with monarchical trappings where steadfastness and dignity matter.”
-Washington Times, “You’re a smart guy, Newt, so just answer the question.”

An American Pillar of Hyprocrisy To Launch Presidential Bid

There was a time when I was concerned that the moral judgments we as citizens would impose on our candidates for President would hamper or discourage from running many would be decent candidates who happened to have made a few mistakes a long the way in life. In many cases or at least it seemed most often their mistakes were those of a personal nature bringing harm or shame only on themselves rather than others.

Then there is the curious case of Newt Gingrich, a polarizing figure who has long been threatening America with the possibility of his own Presidential candidacy. Gingrich is scheduled to announce a formal bid for President on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. I am seriously disturbed by even the remote possibility of this man as my President. While candidate Barack Obama had to deal with speculation and rumors about unknown aspects of his life, what is far more unsettling is what is in the public domain about Newt Gingrich.

The Gingrich that Stole Everything

Unlike many of my fellow citizens, I never took the threat of his candidacy seriously. It seemed incredulous to me that a man with his record would put himself in line for a promotion by the American people, given that he behaved so irresponsibly  in his former, lower level post and was forced to resign in an“ethics cloud.”  As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the American Family Values Association, which is not backing his candidacy has stated “he isn’t what we need in the oval office.”  Surprising that despite the fact that in the minds of most reasonable people his resignation from the Speakership of the House of Representatives as well his  congressional seat back in 1998 has essentially disqualified this man from higher office, yet it has not served to sufficiently shame this man from pursuit of his greater ambition.   This is a man who used campaign funds as his personal piggy bank, extorted divorce from his first wife while she was hospitalized with uterine cancer and terminated his second marriage while his second wife was stricken with Multiple Sclerosis over Mother’s Day weekend while  he was cavorting with a house staffer known as Callista Bisek, a woman half his age, who later became his third wife.  He engaged in other affairs yet that did not preclude him from waving his finger in Bill Clinton’s face during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and has spoken out strongly in favor of traditional marriage. Notice a trend here?

How appropriate the day after Mothers Day weekend has passed, a weekend notably that Callista Gingrich survived without a visit to her doctor as far as we know it or being served with papers, the American people have been notified that we will be stricken with his candidacy for President. I do not see how any woman in America will vote for a man who celebrates “motherf$%!ers day” instead of Mother’s Day.

From “Newt’s a Beaut” by Mickey Porter published in the July 25, 2000 edition of the Akron Beacon Journal:

“Gingrich’s most recent ex-wife says he ditched her eight months after finding out she had multiple sclerosis. Marianne Gingrich, 48, shopping a book proposal “both personal and political” about how women are treated in D.C., says the ex-speaker of the House told her on Mother’s Day 1999 that he wanted a divorce, after learning she had a neurological condition that could lead to MS. In 1981, the former congressman told his other ex-wife, Jackie Battley, that he was dumping her, after she had been hospitalized with cancer. Newt, 57, will wed ex-congressional aide Callista Bisek, 34 — with whom he had an affair while still married to Marianne — on Aug. 18. “

This is not a case where a candidate has made a few personal mistakes along the way early in his life, mistakes which should not otherwise preclude a judgment as to a man’s essential character or nature. This is instead a case of one who has time and again illustrated that he operates in a vacuum with a complete, total and blatant disregard for human dignity while voicing in a rather out spoken fashion his condemnation of those who are guilty of lesser indiscretions. Simply put, Newt Gingrich is a man whose character is not a question mark but rather a huge black mark. Gingrich is hypocrite who’s relevance should have jumped the shark a long time long ago.

Regardless of his political bent it is beyond disturbing to me that a party which promotes itself as the party of family values would even consider embracing a man whose character is so clearly and obviously lacking, by anyone’s standards. The extent and depth of Gingrich’s hypocrisy and the never ending questions about his character and integrity or lack thereof should have disqualified him from serious consideration for any high office in America a long time ago. This is not a case where there are merely some outstanding  or lingering questions about a man’s character or integrity but rather about one who evidences a total lack of both.    This is true no matter how many for profit and advocacy groups (see American Solutions) he has or will launch as part of what the Wall Street Journal has referred to as Newt, Inc.   A veritable Dr. Seuss character like the Grinch who launched the Contract on America and has been feeding at the trough ever since, perhaps Newt Gingrich might at least try to figure out how to be a less vile or repugnant member of the human race before pontificating how we can become a better society.  

The Republican Party can do better. America can do better.  Most of us know that. It is time for Gingrich to figure that out or at least that he best serves this country by remaining on the sidelines of public life.

Newt Gingrich Links

-Real Change, Gingrich, The Dark Side
-Salon, Newt Gingrich, Hypocrite in Chief
-Politics Daily, Newt Gingrich Skeleton, His Past Wives
-National Post, David Frum: Family Values & the Newt Gingrich Question
-Lone Star Blog, Gingrich Family Values
-Queerty, Newt Gingrich Forced To Answer For His Anti-Gay, Pro-Divorce Brand of ‘Family Values’
-NPR, New Republic: The Long Shot -Why Newt Could Win
-Newt Gingrich (wikipedia)

Note: This blog was first published on Cape Cod Today

Ken Langone & Friends Set $9.7 Million Dollar Fundraising Record in NYC

View of the Chrysler Building & Grand Central Station from Cipriani 42nd Street Photo Credit: Chris London's Blackberry Bold

Looks like the stars were aligned just right tonight in the heart of New York City at Cipriani 42nd Street for the NYU Langone Medical Center’s Violet Ball where $9.7 million was raised by the city’s leading philanthropists for one of the most critically important institutions in this town, still “a helluva town” indeed.  NYU Langone is a special a place that many of my friends and family have turned to in a time of crisis and received truly “world class” medical care. So seeing this institution on sure footing is one that comforts a great many New Yorkers.

This was truly a historic evening. I feel honored to have been afforded a window to document a good part of it. The 2011 Violet Ball honored Trustee Fiona Druckenmiller and her husband Stanley Druckenmiller for their exemplary commitment and devotion to NYU Langone Medical Center and celebrated the Medical Center’s longstanding tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. The Druckenmiller leadership gift to the Neuroscience Institute and their commitment to clinical and research excellence in this field form the blueprint for a truly remarkable future in neuroscience (ok, some of that was from the press release but I verified it and its all true).

The 2011 Violet Ball was the highest single dinner fundraiser that I have covered for any institution in New York City since I started documenting philanthropy in NYC shortly after 9/11. I do not believe there has ever been a night of this level of fundraising for a single institution, medical or otherwise in the history of New York City. Aside obviously from the Robin Hood Foundation which targets poverty in New York City by finding and funding the best and most effective programs and partnering with them to maximize results, making them in effect a venture capital enterprise or feeder fund for the treatment of the things that ail or plague our perfectly imperfect society.

This is noteworthy because at a time where many may be inclined to level critique on the gilded classes I have over the last few years watched one man, an Italian-American I can proudly say, working in a rather resilient fashion, change the face of how charity works in this town. And as a Spanish/Italian American that makes me especially proud to be perfectly honest. Generations of New Yorkers will have Ken Langone to thank, to thank that he spent his golden years as a prolific fundraiser rather than relaxing or chilling on a lounge chair on a secluded Island drinking Mai Tai’s. The man with the heart of a lion is virtually unstoppable and I can only hope that for our sake he keeps going like the Philanthropic energy bunny that he is. As a former close female friend and confidante stated to me when she read my text message of this blog: “ I love Ken Langone, the man has big cajones and is truly a class act.”

Speaking of health, I am writing this blog on my blackberry from in front of my locker at Equinox where I am about to do some “preventative care.”

All the professional photos (or at least the ones I took with my Nikon) will be on Manhattan Society.com tomorrow but the best photo may have been taken with my blackberry outside Cipriani 42nd Street.  Yes, for it truly was a Violet Night thanks to Philanthropists Ken Langone and Stanley & Fiona Druckenmiller, even if the sky looked more periwinkle, close enough I say, close enough.

God bless them and New York City! Still a helluva town indeed.

Credit this report as from the heart and the photo as well as the rather quick prose to my Blackberry Bold. The things you have to do when you are a publisher, writer, photographer who has to work a day job to do the thing he loves to do at night –Life, Liberty & The Pursuit of Philanthropy. C’est la vie.

**A Special Thanks to Eileen Sullivan at Rubenstein Associates, Inc. for helping me expand my understanding of the world of philanthropy in New York City.

DATELINE: New York City, Monday, May 1, 2011, The Metropolitan Museum of “ART”

The ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ Crowd Gathers in New York City on Fifth Avenue

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s  Costume’s Institute Ball was held on Monday night in New York City. The scene was reminiscent of a time shortly after Caligula accepted the powers of the Principate conferred upon him by the Roman Senate after Tiberius’ death and the commencement of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Or maybe like the elites who dined in quite solitude in the last moments of the Weimar Republic as the Third Reich rose up quietly around them. Or better still in your memory banks and mine, maybe it was more like a scene out of the Godfather as the Cuban elites dined with Batista in the last hours of his regime while Castro’s revolutionaries stormed the gate — the “Let Them Eat Cake” crowd gathered in New York City on Monday night as the people were starving in the streets amidst high unemployment.

The annual gathering of the uber-fashionable  elite, at what has been called ‘The Oscars of the East Coast’, in the media capital of  the world, New York City has turned the once fabled Museum of Art, already labeled a relative ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ into a den of narcissism for the already over glorified and media obsessed charlatans of American “culture.”  We may some day remember this period in American history as the one where the gluttonous, but nevertheless thin, gathered in the media capital of the world to dine then binge and purge on numerous servings of flash bulbs, praise and air kisses as they fawned over each other’s greatness. Yes on Monday night, the “Let them Eat Cake” crowd gathered at the storied Met Museum and the only thing missing was Marie Antoinette blowing air kisses from the top steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, styled in Alexander McQueen or more appropriately Chanel crowing to the fashionably subservient “let them eat cake” before entering to worship at the proverbial Golden Calf.  Oh wait, excuse me, I forgot Anna Wintour was there. Never mind.  In fact, upon being reminded by a local  journalist, one actually granted access to HRH The Royal Vogue of Wintour, that  the people could not dress in Alexander McQueen, the high priestess of fashion couture, who fortunately could not see the people nor the people her from inside the covered tent firmly ensconced on city property right on Fifth Avenue, muttered ”then why not Gucci, Prada or even Versace?”

PRESIDENT OBAMA ADDRESSES THE NATION

Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. [he's] gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!

-Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Unless you are living under a rock or in bed at the present time, you will know that  according to the New York Times, NBC News and as reported also by the BBC and pretty much every other serious media outlet on the planet: Osama bin Laden has been killed, a United States official said Sunday night. President Obama made the announcement in an address to the nation on Sunday night, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Why Are Some Republicans Pissed Off?

The Obama administration has been dismissed as incompetent and incapable, especially on issues of national security and  foreign policy, by the opposing party. Yet I still don’t really want to say it, but didn’t a Democratic President and his administration accomplish in 2 plus years what a Republican one couldn’t in 8 Years?

OK in truth maybe that is not fair,  because reportedly there has been a seamless continuity in our military strategy dealing with terrorism.  Viewed more narrowly, at this juncture, U.S. foreign policy gets tweaked by different Presidents who manage at the margins in the context of the pursuit of longer term plans to advance the interests of America. But still can a few Republicans give this President his due rather than trying to diminish his accomplishments?  Even George W. Bush did.

Consider the statement of Mary Fetchet, Founder of the Voices of September 11, a non-partisan non-profit organization. She struck the perfect tone, in my estimation:

President Obama’s announcement tonight is a symbolic and moral victory for all humanity. As the founder of Voices of September 11th, and the mother of Brad Fetchet who was killed in the World Trade Center in 2001, I want to express my gratitude to the President, the CIA, the military forces and all others who assisted. Tonight, as we think of all our 9/11 families, we also remember the families of all the troops and intelligence officers who gave their lives in pursuit of Al Qaeda and the man known as the architect of 9/11. It renews our faith that good can conquer evil and all people can breathe free.  It is our mission at Voices to keep the stories of those killed and impacted by 9/11/2011 alive. ….Please join us on our Facebook page to stay informed…

America won tonight, but when I go on Facebook what did  see but some of my more partisan Republican friends saying that this President deserves absolutely no credit while they try to make sure that their team gets the credit for what has transpired. Given the historic nature of what transpired here, shouldn’t  they all be joining the rest of the country in a round of “ding, dong the wicked witch is dead” ? Hell forget that, go outside and  you will see that our people are literally “dancing in the streets”. You just may want to join in the ‘Victory for America’ celebrations.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that President Barack Obama, did not hold a “Mission Accomplished” ceremony or disperse Wanted: Dead or Alive posters.  He has quietly and rather stealthy pursued a strategy leading to the elimination of the Al Qaeda leader.  Yet now it remains to be seen whether he will be given credit for it, if not by Republicans, by voters in 2012 when he is up for re-election.  Once and for all can we dispense with the fiction that Republicans are better on issues related to National Security? On violating personal privacy, I will give you the GOP is clearly better. 2012 is right around the corner, maybe it’s time to get your Democratic Stuff.

In a related story, Donald Trump has just announced that he wants to see Osama Bin Laden’s death certificate, an authentic one (kidding).