Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > Law category
Law
January 25, 2012
Ronald Reagan Dinner for Travis County Republican Party at AT&T Center
Social columnists love politicians. Especially shy social columnists, like me. Politicians can turn a conversation on a dime. And they like questions. Even from the press. They can’t help it.
John and Ruby Alaniz
The Ronald Reagan Dinner for the Travis County Republican Party took place at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. Smaller than the Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for the Travis County Democratic Party at the Four Seasons Hotel the previous week, it blended a range of ages, dress and customs.
Andy Barclay, Megan Hamilton and Will Hamilton
The honoree was Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, but, as with the Democratic event, I didn’t stick around for the speeches. My part is the people. And the lobby of center’s banquet hall was full of fascinating folks who talked about travel, art, jobs, policy and legal mediation, but mostly politics.
Greg Ackerman and Mike Dominguez
Several candidates for office approached me, not just with open handshakes and big smiles, but ready to talk on just about any subject. A few were shaken by the uncertainty about redistricting — back in the hands of a San Antonio panel of judges — but none were shaken enough to express anything but confidence in their eventual electoral triumphs. That’s another thing to like about politicians: They breathe optimism.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Law
January 23, 2012
Profile: Gigi Edwards Bryant
Austin businesswoman Gigi Edwards Bryant visited her brother, Charles Henry Rector, every day the week before he was executed in 1999.
“He told me more and more about his life,” Bryant remembers. “He believed society had no place for him, and he encouraged me to never give up.”
Austin native Bryant never did.
“I hope and pray that ‘our’ children — and they are our children — have a system built around them that measures their possibilities of success, rather than being defined by their failures,” says Bryant, who serves as chairwoman of the Texas Department of Family Protective Services Advisory Council, appointed successively to such positions by Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry. “It could be the difference in giving up, like my brother, or digging in and not letting go, like I had to do.”
On Feb. 11, Bryant, 54, will be honored at the Hyatt Regency Austin during CASAblanca, the annual gala for Court Appointed Special Advocates, which provides advocacy services for thousands of vulnerable children.
Bryant, head of GMSA Management Services, a consulting firm, and her husband, Sam Bryant, who founded Bryant Wealth Investment Group, are known for sharing their time and treasure generously, but selectively.
“I narrowed it down to education, foster youth and drug and alcohol rehabilitation,” Bryant says. “Those are things that affected my life and affect our society from birth to the ends of life.”
Bryant’s mother, the late Lola Mae Fowler, was locked up in the Austin State Hospital after she killed an intruder. There, she underwent shock treatments and suffered from mental illness for the rest of her life. Bryant and her three siblings were shuttled directly into “the system.”
“People treat kids differently when they find out you don’t have your parents,” she says. “It is as if you did something to make this happen, no matter your age. First they are sad, then they ask: ‘What did you do?’ I spent time explaining why I had no parents, until I decided it did not need explanation.”
After growing up, her older sister and younger sister wrote second life chapters in California and West Texas. Despite attempts by Bryant to keep in touch, they chose to part completely with their pasts. Given the inherent disjuncture of foster-care system, it’s no wonder.
“I’d find my stuff at the door and I knew we were going somewhere else,” Bryant says. “Once, I was on the track team and we had a track meet that weekend, and I remember begging and pleading with the lady to take me back so that I could run. I remember crying all night telling the new house that they needed me. I never knew what happened at the meet, but I can guess. All I could think about is how much they must have hated me that Saturday. I know no one explained that it was not my choice.”
Her brother ran away from the Waco State Home — subject of Sherry Matthews’ compelling book, “We Were Not Orphans” — into a life of petty crime. He was first accused of murder at age 17, imprisoned, then released. In 1982, he was convicted of capital murder and was executed in 1999. Bryant visited Rector in prison every Christmas and sometimes in the summer.
So how did Bryant escape her brother’s fate?
“My faith from my Big Mama, my grandmother’s mother,” she says. “And I knew love from my mother before entering the system. When we were younger, we used to go stay with Big Mama, mostly after school. She would hug us. She would kiss us. She would cook, pray with us, sing to us. She was the one who told me: ‘God loves you. Don’t ever be afraid to tell him what’s wrong.’
She also avoided one potential trap faced by so many foster children: No doctor ever prescribed Bryant behavorial medications.
“I just believe that God protected me,” she says. “He still does.”
Despite the teen pregnancy, Bryant studied computer science and then business at Austin Community College and St. Edward’s University. While in college, she worked full-time at the offices at the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the Texas Legislative Council. Meanwhile, she raised a family and volunteered at schools and in the community.
“I guess I never got enough,” jokes Bryant, who earned an MBA in global leadership at University of Texas-Dallas. She met Sam Bryant in 1993 while he was working for Applied Materials and she was organizing charity events and fundraisers.
“He was known as ‘Mr. Applied’ and was very nice,” she says. Their blended family includes her three adult children and his two adult offspring. All are thriving in college or careers.
Her most famous son is Marcus Wilkins, recruited for the Longhorns by Mack Brown and a veteran of the NFL. Gigi Bryant is blessed with five grandchildren.
Yet she constantly asks the question: Why not me? How did I get through the system and come out with this life? Bryant passes on this conclusion to anyone touched by foster care: “How you define yourself — through actions — has to be more important to you, so you can move past what should have been.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Business, Charity, Law
January 16, 2012
Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for Ben Barnes at Four Seasons Hotel
Imagine meeting U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, the rehabilitating Arizona Congresswoman, and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi during one short Austin weekend. Both interacted with your correspondent in a warm, relaxed and personable manner.
Nancy Pelosi and Donna Howard
Pelosi served as keynote speaker at the Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for the Travis County Democratic Party at the Four Seasons Hotel on Sunday. The benefit was meticulously organized and rigidly hierarchical. Big donors squeezed into the VVIP lounge upstairs; mid-level types crowded into the larger reception room downstairs; while others were left to wander the lobbies leading to the banquet room. (At least one judge was turned, gently, away from the middle room.)
Osita and Rae Nwosu
The dinner lionized former Texas Lieutenant Gov. Ben Barnes, now an enormously influential consultant. Barnes doesn’t lend his name to just any group — Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area is a rare exception — but he bore his laurels with dignity on Sunday. He introduced me to Madame Speaker as if sparking up a casual acquaintance on the street.
Ben Barnes and Ben Sargent
Of course, the place was packed with Dems. I spoke at length with Dr. Jay Stein, formerly of Baylor College of Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Naturally, he spoke in calculated cadences about the campaign to bring a medical school to town, so I encouraged him to write up some of his thoughts for our Insight section.
For a brief time, I regretted making a previous engagement to share gumbo and bread pudding with our friends Christine Perrault Moline and Terrence Moline, recently returned from Belize and Guatemala, at the same time as the Dem dinner. Yet as soon as Kip and I arrived at their home near McCallum High School, we entered conversational and gustatory paradise.
Non, je ne regrette rien.
December 11, 2011
People's Community Clinic, Four Seasons Residences, Drink Local, Second Bar & Kitchen, Womack brothers, Longhorns basketball, Pink Panther Party, Zilker cottage
Back to three dots …
The penthouses at the W Austin are just what one might suspect: As swank as the lower condos, but with considerably more space and head room. My first visit to one came thanks to the People’s Community Clinic’s young leadership group, which mixed there merrily. Various leaders made short, impassioned speeches about the Austin charity that provides health care to the needy. Casey Chapman Ross seems particularly promising among the leaders …
Adam Longley and Ana Perkins
Another furnished model opened in the Four Seasons Residences. Super-classy designer Fern Santini introduced the concept to me, among the guests speaking several languages (such is the cosmo club in the clouds). Complementing the Italian mod furniture were heady works of art by Central Texans, including the fascinating Karen Hawkins, about whom I plan to learn more …
Melissa Martinez, Ociel Trevino and Bianca Flores
In just a few short years, Edibile Austin has thoroughly colonized Austin. Thanks Marla Camp, the publication — one of more than 60 nationally — has given succor to the locovore movement. During its popular Eat Drink Local Week, an event that could not have happened just a few years ago, Drink Local matches local distilleries with mixologists competing to make the most potable cocktail with local ingredients. It attracted a crowd, average age 30, to the AT&T Center that seemed as interested in the hot food as the cool drinks …
Tara Hurley and De Olagundoye
Lunched with prosecutor Rick Cofer at Second Bar & Kitchen, which is becoming something of a see-and-be-seen spot there at Congress Avenue and Second Street. Our conversation was off the record, but we both love politics, history and Austin, so you can very well guess. Spied among the luncheoneers Samantha Davidson, Dave Shaw, Elaine Garza, Kathy Blackwell and others …
Fern Santini and Barrett Morgan
The Womack brothers — Brad, Chad and Wes — along with business partner Jason Carrier opened up their West Sixth Street clubs to a long conversation about Austin nightlife. We talked about the ebb and flow of revelers among the city’s entertainment districts and the planned opening of an outpost for their Southern urbane Dogwood club concept in midtown Houston. Expect a longer report on our ramblings soon. …
Michael Wilson and Patrizio Chiarparini
Absolutely riveting was a panel discussion of the park-keeper’s cottage in Zilker Park at the Austin History Center. Three past inhabitants of the cottage recounted their days in the park since the early 1930s! Thanks to Kim McNight for assembling the research on floods, farms and phantom fires and for bringing together the park families. (The cottage will now serve as park rangers’ headquarters.) Again, expect a much longer report soon. …
Chris Pellegrino and Karen Hawkins
Jack and Carla McDonald’s Pink Panther Party brought out the top socials to their West Austin digs. If you are ever invited to this thematic holiday party — the theme changes each year — go, go, go. You’ll make friends you never knew existed. The food, drink and entertainment are impossible to beat. I relaxed and enjoyed. No further report. …
Kerri Poe and Lauren Bennett
Facebook and Twitter followers know I’ve been trying to convince somebody to accompany me to Longhorn games. I love sports and want to report more regularly on the social scenes at games.
David Cotshott and Dasha Yegorova
Though no huge sports fan, tech whiz Ian Carrico accompanied me to a Longhorns basketball game. We arrived around halftime and then watched the men demolish UT-Arlington. The play was wild, sloppy, weird and fun. I suspect the team will tighten up. The crowd rarely got into the action and started leaving way too early for my tastes. Ah well, a million more games to go.
Crystal and Justin Esquivel
Permalink | | Categories: Business, Charity, City, Food, Law, Music, Nightlife, Sports, Style
October 21, 2011
Heroes for Health for Marathon Kids at Four Seasons Hotel
Away from cameras and the chance to posture for niche voters, statewide office-holders act differently.
On repeated occasions, I’ve found State Attorney General Greg Abbott, for instance, more informal, less forced. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is transparently compassionate, reflective. U.S. Senator John Cornyn comes across as balanced, equitable.
Gov. Rick Perry is as energetic is he appears on TV, but, in my experience, less gracious. (He’s the only politician to turn his back on me deliberately during a casual, social conversation.)
Susan Combs and Dianne Delisi
These are but fleeting impressions. I don’t claim they offer insight. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs, however, is infinitely more interesting in person than when making an official announcement on camera. She has a nimble wit and a conversational style that’s as animated as it is engaging. She’s comfortable in her skin, which is so rare among politicians.
Andrea McWilliams and U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith
Marathon Kids honored Combs this week at the Four Seasons Hotel for her work on behalf of Texans’ health and fitness. The more I read, the more I discover what a pioneer she was fighting the junk food and soft drink dealers that held the state’s schools in a stranglehold through preferential contracts that often cost the schools more, while providing less nutrition for students.
Joe Ross and Christina Pesek
Combs was not the only wielder of power at the dinner. Dianne Delisi, former state representative and now senior policy advisor at Delisi Communications — also a top Perry advisor — helped introduce Combs, while Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, vice president and chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and previous Texas Commissioner of Health, recounted how he and Combs teamed up during those figurative food fights.
The ongoing hero of these events, however, is Kay Morris, the former dancer who figured out she could motivate students to move by spreading out the equivalent of a marathon race over months, and by creating a simple, color-coded process for recording and rewarding the addition of fruits and vegetables to their diets. Hundreds of thousands of kids have benefited from the Morris’ Austin-based program.
At our table, we tried to eat healthy.
Permalink | | Categories: Charity, Law, Sports
October 17, 2011
Black & White Gala for Texas Advocacy Project at Four Seasons Hotel
Everybody looks so striking at the Black & White Gala.
Susie Reiter and Stephanie McKenzie
The benefit for the Texas Advocacy Project employs a simple color scheme. That gives direction to the decor and the couture, but it also liberates guests to elaborate on classic black and white with more subtle accents, hints at prints, etc.
Eric Chen and Estella Baytan
Because the Project provides free legal services to Texas victims of domestic violence and sexual assaults, the annual event at the Four Seasons attracts lawyers, judges, government workers and visitors from San Antonio, Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth. And every year, they appear to genuinely enjoy dressing up for the occasion. None of that “Oh, I’ve got to drag out the monkey suit” stuff.
Adriana and Damon Moore
This week’s gala attracted at least 400 guests to the Four Seasons and organizers raised $207,000 for the Project, partly because an African safari went for $11,000. The party also featured friends of the organization: Supreme Court of Texas Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and Roger Wade, Public Information Officer for the Travis County Sheriff’s office.
You know, next year, if I’m still working the social circuit, I should stick around for the full program and just forget all the other parties that conflicted with it.
October 16, 2011
Harry Middleton's Birthday Celebrations
The birthday bashes have already begun for Harry Middleton, the former journalist, assistant to President Lyndon Baines Johnson and longtime director of the LBJ Library and Museum.
He turns 90 on Oct. 24.
A public salute took place this week at the Tarrytown home of distinguished scholar Roger Louis, director of British Studies at the University of Texas, and his strong-minded wife Dagmar Louis. Senior professors, junior professors and fellowship students — along with archivists and family members — made this a lively gathering.
Dagmar and Roger Louis
From the guests, I learned more about the Ransom Center, Travis Heights, Santa Fe and other evergreen Austin subjects.
Middleton, a member of the select British Studies Seminar, left before the close-knit party broke up. Yet other celebrations ensue. On Oct. 24, the LBJ Library and Museum will serve free birthday cake to all visitors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The center has also created a birthday tribute page. Can’t think of a better candidate for such honors.
Permalink | | Categories: Education, Law
October 15, 2011
Suzanne and Eugene Go to Washington
Austin philanthropist Suzanne Deal Booth and social connector Eugene Sepulveda were among the guests at a rain-soaked state dinner at the White House on Thursday.
The dinner was thrown for Korean President Lee Myung-Bak and his wife, Kim Yoon-ok. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were served on the first floor of the White House, which was decorated in an autumnal theme. The American-accented menu included butternut squash bisque, green salad, Texas wagyu beef and chocolate cake.
After dinner, guests crossed the grand foyer into the State Dining Room for the evening’s entertainment that began with the Ahn Trio performing classical music, followed by Kansas City-based performer Janelle Moane.
CORRECTION: David Booth did not attend the White House state dinner.
October 7, 2011
Comptroller Susan Combs on Marathon Kids, fitness, philanthropy & socializing
“Energy in. Energy out.”
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs applies this simple formula, not only to her daily fitness regimen, but also to her long, public campaign against childhood obesity.
The formula also infiltrates her nimble thoughts about philanthropy, socializing and even the Circuit of the Americas, the planned Formula 1 racetrack which she champions.
“I am concerned that the population continues to be ill,” says Combs, neatly folded into a chair at her pristine office in the Lyndon Baines Johnson State Office Building.
At first, her efforts followed traditional fitness tracks. In 2003, she worked with Paul Carroza, RunTex director and member of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition to produce the Marathon to Marathon, which runs from Alpine to the town of Marathon, which her ancestors helped found 130 years ago.
Then Carrozza introduced Combs to Kay Morris’ Marathon Kids, which provides a breakthrough framework for students to exercise and eat healthy.
“I thought it was wonderful that this was a community effort that just spread and spread and spread,” she says. In the program, children run the equivalent of a marathon over the course of days, weeks or months — often around the track or the schoolyard. The Austin program has gone national, reaching many tens of thousands of youngsters. “It’s got to be fun for kids, not painful,” Combs says.
Long-limbed, imposing and laser-focused, Combs climbed from assistant district attorney in Dallas to state representative from suburban Austin to the statewide offices of agriculture commissioner and comptroller in part by making complex governmental concepts simple, transparent.
Her keen intellect — she was educated at St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio before graduating from Vassar College — tends to intimidate. While she’s no finger-thrusting bully, like the namesake for her office building, Combs gives new meaning to the old saying: “she makes coffee nervous.”
“I like her candor, her willingness to say things as they are,” says Marathon Kids founder Morris. “(She) knocked it out of the park with her articulation of a real nutritional challenge in our schools. A national conversation caught fire. She gave us the ‘words to say it’ about the state of vending and cafeteria offerings in the schools.”
Morris refers to Combs work as Ag Commissioner, publishing studies on the origins and costs of obesity to the private sector and finding ways to incentivize PE in public middle schools with high rates of poverty.
She’s a great believer in partnering with businesses to solve problems without direct government intervention. She praises the Texas Restaurant Association, for instance, for hiring a lab to provide third-party numbers on the content of the dishes their members serve.
“They really are working hard to get calorie counts for every single recipe,” Combs says. “I thought that was pretty terrific. If I am going to engage in free choice about my food, let me at least know how many calories it costs.”
Combs, who runs a cow-calf operation on her Brewster County ranch, was forced to quit running herself when diagnosed with spondylolisthesis.
“That means my vertebrae are not connected,” she says. “They float. Which is not good. You get nerve damage if you run. So I have a treadmill. A wonderful treadmill. And I’ve got these fabulous earphones. I note the ‘energy in’ part, too. I watch my food.”
One of her concerns is being fit enough to walk back to her ranch house if her vehicle breaks down, which it has, twice, when barbed wire wrapped around her axle.
This is the competitive woman who, years ago, walked a 5K charity in stocking, heels and skirt — and won. She played basketball for St. Mary’s Hall. At Vassar, she took fencing lessons for six weeks.
“I was thinking how wonderful I was because the instructor said: ‘Why Susan, you could be a champion.’ ‘You noticed how good I’ve become?’ ‘No, no, no no. It’s your reach.’ I had no talent. Just arm length,” she recounts with a hearty laugh and a her always-ready cast of accented voices.
Nonprofit groups like Marathon Kids also appeal to Combs because they are close to the ground.
“It’s bottom up rather than top down,” she says. “Government is top down: Thou shalt do this. Philanthropy is bottom up. You get everybody there who says we, as a community of interested persons, whether you are in San Antonio, Dallas or Austin, we think this is wonderful, we’ll give you this money.”
The noncoercive aspect of charitable work also fits into Combs’ world view. “It’s very personal: We earned this money,” she says.
“You didn’t extract it from me by coercion or the IRS code. What you get when people invest themselves and of their assets, they really have a strong connection to it.”
The launcher of the Where the Money Goes online tool for tracking state spending thinks that, despite some bad apples in the charity world, nonprofits tend to be more efficient and transparent than governments when delivering social services.
“If you are a taxpayer, you really don’t know where the money is going,” she says. “When we get the kind of donations that we are seeing come in (to nonprofits), those are from people who are saying: It’s important, maybe to my business longterm, because I care about Texans, or it’s something that I think is important for our citizens. Also because they are right there, if you are the charitable entity, they are watching you. That’s good.”
Combs personally donates to churches, schools and kids’ causes. She’s also an outspoken supporter of Marfa Public Radio — her husband, computer scientist Joe Duran, has served on its board.
“They were able to warn people about the wildfires (in West Texas),” she says. “That was a very scary deal.”
For a politician, socializing at charity events is often practical. Yet Combs also sees the wider importance of social giving, when patrons of a cause gather in common understanding rather than just writing checks in private.
“People come together and feed off each other,” she observes. “There’s a nice symbiotic thing: ‘Oh, you like this, too? That’s fanstastic!’”
Though she texts from her smart phone now as often as she calls anybody, Combs mourns the loss of face-to-face socializing.
“I do think some of the technology gives people an artificial sense of closeness,” she says. “But the old deal of sitting out on the porch and chewing the fat is gone. TV and air-conditioning are two of the worst things to happen to old-fashioned socializing.”
Despite the pummeling the Circuit of Americas has received for its promised $250 million in tax breaks, Combs is a unrepentant cheerleader for the attraction.
“I think there’s going to be the biggest influx of delightful strangers you’ve ever seen,” she says. “Delightful strangers who bring cash. I think it’s going to give a whole luster to Austin and what we do. It should take us slightly out of ourselves. It’s good not to be insular.”
She’s also excited about the way that F1 might energize engineering and science programs at the University of Texas, Texas A&M University, Texas State University and Austin Community College. Ever aware of the fitness angles, she predicts a lot of biking, running and walking at the Circuit of the Americas, too. Marathon Kids has already looked into the racetrack as a possible event site.
One last word on the fitness charity: “If we care about children — and we say we do — this is a very concrete, real efficient mechanism.”
CLARIFICATIONS: Comptroller Combs clarified some of her statements on obesity, running and wildfires from her July interview.
Permalink | | Categories: Charity, Law, Sports
September 29, 2011
It's here! 2011 Out & About 500: Law
The 2011 Out & About 500 will be rolled out today through Friday, one category at a time. Buy Sunday’s American-Statesman for the complete list of Austin’s most social citizens.
Send updates and nominations for 2012 to mbarnes@statesman.com
LAW
Tanya and Art Acevedo. City of Austin, American Heart Association, Special Olympics Texas, Child Protection Center, Humane Society, American Youthworks
Denise Brady and Chris Riley. Austin City Council, The Rusk Law Firm, Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Julie Byers and Lee Leffingwell. Mayor of Austin, Water Conservation Task Force, Seton Healthcare Family
Perla Cavazos. City of Austin Commission on Women, Latinas Unidas Por El Arte, Teatro Vivo, Mexican American Cultural Center
Rick Cofer. Travis County, Capital City Young Democrats, Bag the Bags Coalition, Austin Multiple Scelorsis
Sheryl and Kevin Cole. Austin City Council, Cole and Powell, Leadership Austin, Austin Area Urban League, Communities in Schools
Susan Combs and Joe Duran. Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Marathon Kids, Marfa Public Radio
Crystal Cotti and Mark Strama. Texas House of Representatives, Sylvan Learning Centers, Greater Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce, Council of Neighborhood Associations
Libby and Lloyd Doggett. U.S. Congress, Pre-K Now
Dawnna Dukes. Texas House of Representatives, DM Dukes and Associates Inc., Links, Inc.
Sarah Eckhardt and Kurt Sauer. Travis County Commissioners Court, Texas Folklife Resources, Daffer McDaniel LLP
Donna Howard. Texas House of Representatives, Expanding Horizons Foundation, Texas Education Crisis Coalition, Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, Common Cause
Ramey Ko. Be the Change Austin, City of Austin, Capital Area Asian American Democrats
Revlynn Lawson. Texas House of Representatives, Links
Rosemary Lehmberg. Travis County District Attorney, Center for Child Protection, CASA
Nelson Linder. Austin NAACP, African American Quality of Life Implementation Plan
Susan Longley. Longley Group, Molly National Journalism Prize, Texas Democracy Foundation, Atticus Circle, Zach Theatre
Patsy Woods Martin and Jack Martin. Public Strategies, Blue Texas, Long Center, Livestrong, Austin Children’s Museum, I Live Here I Give Here
Linda and Michael McCaul. U.S. Congress, March of Dimes, St. David’s Community Health Foundation, Communities in Schools, CureSearch
Mark McKinnon. Public Strategies, Livestrong, University of Texas
Laura and Phil Morrison. Austin City Council, University of Texas, Austin Neighborboods Council Bettie Naylor and Libby Sykora. OutYouth, Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas
Rosalba Ojeda. Consul General of Mexico, MexNet Alliance
Pam and Pike Powers. The Seton Fund, Fulbright and Jaworski, Envision Central Texas, Texas Technology Initiative
Robin Rather. Liveable City, Hill Country Conservancy, Envision Central Texas
Eddie Rodriguez. Texas House of Representatives, Hispanic Institute for Technology Advancement, Sierra Club
Geronimo Rodriguez Jr. Seton Healthcare Family, LBJ School of Public Affairs, KLRU, Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, St. Edward’s University
Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza. Travis County, Austin Lyric Opera
Karen and William Sage. Travis County, Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force, University of Texas, Any Baby Can, Caritas of Austin
Paul Saldaña. Brisa Communications, Eastside High School
Randi Shade and Kayla Shell. Austin City Council (former), Dell Inc., Days of Service
Niyanta and Bill Spelman. Austin City Council, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Rainforest Partnership
Sarah Strother and Andy Brown. Travis County Democratic Party Brown & Snell, Scott & White, 21st Century Democrats, Capital Area AIDS Legal Project
Kathie Tovo and Tom Hurt. Austin City Council, Austin Neighborhoods Council, Liveable City, Hurt Partners Architects
Liz McDaniel Watson and Kirk Watson. Texas Senate, Livestrong, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
Alexa and Blaine Wesner. Austin Ventures, Blue Texas, Austin Film Society, Lifeworks, Downtown Austin Alliance, Artworks, Austin Museum of Art
Lara Wendler and Mike Martinez. Texas Senate, Community Shares of Texas, Center for Child Protection, Austin City Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas
Permalink | | Categories: Law, The 500
July 5, 2011
Atticus Circle Party at Whole Foods Headquarters
Entering the most recent Texas legislative session, backers of the Atticus Circle kept expectations low. After all, this doughty troop of straight citizens who advocate for equal rights faced overwhelming Republican majorities in both houses. And the Tea Party wing of the Republican party revealed almost immediately that it is driven as much by social conservatism as by fiscal conservatism.
Mike O’Kent and Ruth Gardner-Loew
Yet, thanks in part to lobbying by Austin-based Atticus and allies like Equality Texas, few if any anti-gay bills were passed, while two pieces of anti-bullying legislation made it into law. Nobody expected a New York-style marriage equality miracle, but not bad for our beloved, sometimes gay-unfriendly state.
Courtney Spence and Greg Marshall
One reason for the legal success, Atticus founder Anne S. Wynn reported during a celebratory party at the Whole Foods Headquarters, was a statewide poll taken before the session. Questioned on 12 civil rights issues that concern the gay community, majorities supported 10. And the margin of disagreement on two gay-marriage questions had narrowed since previous polls.
Emma Alpert and Andrew Schnack
The upbeat Austinites who filled the building’s lobby had good reason to congratulate each other and plan for future barnstorming.
May 23, 2011
Harvey Milk Day Conference Meet-Up at Lipstick 24
“Have you legally changed your middle name to Equality yet?” I asked the quietly energetic Michael Diviesti. “Not yet,” he replied.
Kellye Flanagan and Gretchen Birdwell
Many people employ social media to make a statement. A reliable percentage post or tweet about gay rights. Yet Diviesti’s messages stood out for many months before I finally met him and his partner at a Project Transitions gala.
Jeremy von Stilb and Michael McCrary
When Diviesti informed me that several rights groups were collaborating on a conference at Austin Community College timed to the Harvey Milk Day celebrations, I figured: Time to meet his tribe.
Angelia Welch and Myrah Ontiveroz
Several dozen people braved the heat, humidity and, later, rain, to assemble at Lipstick 24, a primarily lesbian establishment on East Seventh Street. While folk music strummed in the background, I got to know guests from other cities and some patrons who came just for the singers.
The discussions, joined by dear friend Sean Massey, visiting from Upstate New York, touched on many subjects, but one idea seemed to stick: Teal rings, a simple statement that draws the curious into discussions about marriage equality. Inexpensive, attractive and just a little provocative, in a good way. (The idea for the rings, we find, come from a group called Unite. Check them out.)
Correction: The photo of Angelia Welch and Myrah Ontiveroz was incorrectly identified in a previous version of this post.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
May 22, 2011
LBJ Library and Museum turns 40 with plans for overhaul of exhibits
Like New Yorkers who never visit the Statue of Liberty, many Austinites never set foot in the LBJ Library and Museum. That’s a shame, because it is a trove of historical memory and a place where the great minds of our time assemble to share their wisdom.
My story about the center’s 40th anniversary and plans for more up-to-date exhibitions appears in the Statesman’s Life & Arts section today. Be sure to peruse the photo gallery that goes with it. The library and museum will hold an open house this afternoon from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Permalink | | Categories: Education, Law
May 5, 2011
A New Lone Star: Holland Taylor as Ann Richards
Texas has launched a new Lone Star: Holland Taylor as Ann Richards.
As soon as the stage, film and television star steps out into the Paramount Theatre lights in a snow-white suit to match her snow-white puff of hair, Taylor holds the audience in her firm hands like so many salty peanuts.
Then they grow quiet when Taylor — who created and wrote “Ann: An Affectionate Portrait of Ann Richards” — turns to the dark side, recalling the functional alcoholism, divorce and political losses in the legend’s life.
For, you see, Taylor has written a play. Not a stand-up impersonation or a series of quotable Richards quotes. The show rests on a solid structure and moves almost in dialogue form with the audience, or with unseen characters whose voices waft across the stage.
The set-up is plain: Richards, late in life, addresses the graduating class of fictional Texas college. This allows Taylor — who has carefully studied Richards’ awkward-transitioning-into-graceful stance, gestures and stride, as well as the rise, fall and pitch of her voice — to glorify the governor’s oratorical gifts. (She is only a tad off the mark on Richards’ tart twang.)
The action moves briefly to Richards’ New York office, during the time when she operated as a public affairs consultant, then to the governor’s office, where we witness a “day in the life” of this complicated character.
What may surprise the uninitiated is the portrayal of Richards as bullying boss, who brings her deeply loyal staff to tears, then hands out weak praise or group gifts. She also uses her formidable powers of persuasion, over the phone, with her family, although showing more of the velvet glove than the iron fist inside.
Needless to say, the Austin audience responded as if it were a football game and the Longhorns were winning the national championship. They laughed at virtually every joke and gasped in recognition at the name-checking of local celebrities (State Rep. Mark Strama, actor-playwright Jaston Williams, who was in the opening night audience, late power baron Bob Bullock, to name a few.)
Will these references play in Chicago, where the show heads next, or the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., where it will land before a possible New York engagement? Not in the same way, of course. But the charisma of actor and subject, along with an enduring American fascination with Texas culture could very well carry the show to Broadway.
No stage director is credited in the printed program. This makes it less likely that Taylor will trim the necessary 10 to 15 minutes that would make “Ann” even more effective. At least 5 minutes could be dropped from the final scene of the first act and another five from the final scene of the second.
But who are we kidding? That would mean less Richards and less Taylor, who spookily inhabits the role of a lifetime. Heck, you could run Taylor’s Richards for governor next election. She might win. She certainly would entertain.
Some tickets may be available for the technically sold out run of “Ann,” which runs through Sunday at the Paramount.
Photo by Ave Bonar
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Arts, Law
April 23, 2011
Earth Day for Hill Country Conservancy at ACL Live
The Hill Country Conservancy showed a fresh face Friday night. Sure, the group that fights for open space and water protection in Texas had staged benefits before, including its felicitous Earth Day concerts at Stubb’s.
Beth and Dave Gereau
This Earth Day, however, tickets to a sit-down dinner at ACL Live cost $500 apiece, full tables $5,000. Developers, politicians and environmentalists sat down together around square tables on the Moody Theatre’s first level. Meanwhile, various media and others mingled over barbecue sliders on the mezzanine level.
Marcus Whitfield and Megan Settoon
Dave and Beth Gereau said they had read about the event in the newspaper and were looking forward to the speech by Robert Kennedy Jr. They didn’t know name of the band — Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers — that would follow the formalities. I’m sure they remembered after the set.
Activist Robin Rather chatted with me about the singular nature of the event. It was laid-back Austin, for sure, but far from the sometimes scruffy gatherings that marked Earth Days over the past 41 years ago. (I’m not declaring a preference, just remarking, as always, on the changes in our culture.)
John Arrow and Courtney Jeffries
I met MutualMobile CEO John Arrow and his companion Courtney Jeffries. Arrow talked about his company’s rapid growth, but he and Jeffries also bruited the young leaders club for the Conservancy.
In a sign of the times, our conversation actually started when Jeffries said she followed me on Gowalla. Later that evening, during my third party, my iPhone informed me that Arrow had invited me to follow him via this Austin location-based social network.
Media, food, music, nature, business, socializing — they all go together in Austin.
March 28, 2011
Comedy for CARY at Esther's Follies
The Council for At-Risk Youth is too quiet. The nonprofit’s job is too important to ignore. And most Austinites know nothing about it. Currently, it serves 600 youths, helping to keep them out of touble with the law — or worse.
Jenille and Jay Springer
This is no a laughing matter. However, the energetically inventive folks behind this group came up with a novel benefit: Comedy for CARY. It’s essentially a shorter, family-friendly version of Esther’s Follies, performed at a time when the sketch troupe would normally be idle.
Jonathan Barons and Andrea Gomez
Area restaurants contributed food. And by 4:40 p.m. Sunday, a crowd of several hundred had assembled to laugh — and contribute to a vital cause. Tanya and Art Acevedo were there, as were a sprinkling of judges and politicians.
Katie Lust, LaToya Henderson and Judge Lora Livingston
It’s been too long since I’d seen Esther’s Follies. Still, a social columnist is kind of like a shark — he must move to stay alive. And I’d promised stops at two other events on Sunday.
David and Joan Hilgers
Still, I’m a believer. And I will continue to toot CARY’s horn. Look ‘em up.
February 13, 2011
Human Rights Campaign Gala at the Four Seasons
To borrow a cliche from sports commentary: The Human Rights Campaign conducted a tutorial on how to stage an advocacy gala on Saturday. It started with the flow of guests — many of them public officials, always a wise bet — through the lobbies of the Four Seasons Hotel. The mild weather helped by drawing overflow traffic onto the hotel’s stately terraces. Cash bar stations kept lines short and the silent auction zone open for inspection.
Libby Sykora and Bettie Naylor
The large Four Seasons ballroom was full, but it didn’t feel crowded. I was seated with nine fascinating folks, including honorees Stephen Mills and Brent Hasty (winners of the local visibility awards), who nimbly switched places at their two tables during the course of the evening. (I can’t overemphasize the importance of healthy conversation during these galas, including surrounding tables. Nearby, for instance, was Texas Tribune sharpie Mark Miller, a Newsweek vet.)
JoAnn McKenzie and David Grey
Chairpersons Lynn Yeldell and Billy Wilkinson packed the next four hours with videos, speakers, singers and other pointed distractions. Bryan Batt, best known for playing the closeted art director on “Mad Men,” was, predictably witty as the keynote speaker and winner of the national visibility award. He and Yeldell actually dated during their New Orleans youths.
Stephen Mills, Brent Hasty, Deepa Donde and Vanay Bhagat
The Anti-Defamation League was recognized, especially for its No Place for Hate campaign in area schools. One civil rights group honoring another is too rare. JoAnn McKenzie accepted the Bettie Naylor Award from the civil rights pioneer herself. McKenzie has battled injustice all her life, but this nod probably was motivated by her work among straight allies in the Atticus Circle.
Jake Gonzales and Rodney Gonzales
The Mike Burns band played a song composed in response to California’s Prop 8 vote. A foursome of Broadway-style performers, including charismatic Andrew Cannata, performed pop tunes with a bit of a bisexual staging. Yeldell and Wilkinson told personal stories — as did others — about coming out. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo made an outstanding auctioneer, despite the ambient chatter.
Peter and Joanna Linden
At the close, Yeldell revealed that the group’s sustaining Federal Club had raised more money that evening than did the parallel New York City event this year. Maybe it was the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, or other significant civil rights victories this year, but the mood at this HRC gala was through the roof.
Even after four hours, people hung around. And hung around. Made me miss the Rodeo Gala. Ah well, stayed for the whole rodeo event last year. Will do so next year I’m sure. The HRC gala was just a rodeo of a different color.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misidentified Rodney Gonzales.
February 4, 2011
Lunar New Year's Celebration at AFL-CIO Headquarters
Activist Rick Cofer said it most plainly: Although Asian Americans represent a growing percentage of Austin’s population, not one of our 70 or so elected officials, including judges, is Asian American.
Judges Ramey Ko and Cliff Brown
Cofer delivered his message to a supremely diverse audience at the AFL-CIO Headquarters during the Lunar New Year’s Celebration, sponsored by Capital Area Asian American Democrats. Though not of Asian extraction himself, Cofer serves as treasurer for the group headed by his buddy (appointed) Municipal Judge Ramey Ko, who emceed the cultural parts of the program and the awards ceremony.
Barbara Rush and Sonia Kotecha
Helping to usher in the Year of the Rabbit were dancer Regina Jesus and singer Ira Perez. Also present were a many activists, half dozen judges, about as many prosecutors, two Austin city council members and representatives of various high officials.
Austin City Council Members Laura Morrison and Chris Riley
Winner of the group’s honors set aside for legislators was State Rep. Rafael Anchía of Dallas, who helped this group fight anti-immigrant legislation. The activist of the year award went to Sonia Kotecha, who works with Court Appointed Special Advocates of Texas and has helped reignite the Network of Indian Professionals.
Laura Hernandez and Tanis de Luna
Lifetime achievement laurels were conferred on former Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who, we were reminded, was an even younger municipal judge decades ago than the youthful Ko is now. And back then, he was tasked with declaring people dead, too. Earle earned a standing ovation from this decidedly partisan gathering, but Ko quickly reminded folks he prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans through his Public Integrity office.
January 28, 2011
Atticus Circle Luncheon at Renaissance Austin Hotel
So far, my admiration for Anne Wynne knows no bounds. The president and founder of the Atticus Circle — a group for straight allies of the gay community — is a mistress of soft power.
I’ve watched her face-to-face, in small groups and, now, in front of a large crowd. She never flinches. Her common-sense dedication to equality addressing what she calls “the great civil rights issue of our times” astonishes.
Tim McCabe and Larry Warshaw
More than 300 guests witnessed her quiet, determined leadership style at the Circle’s first fundraising luncheon, Thursday at the Renaissance Austin Hotel. She dealt quickly and convincingly with registration snafus that delayed the start of the lunch by a few minutes. Wynne then encouraged tablemates to share their coming out experiences (you hear these often from gay people, but not from straight).
Steve Adler, Cookie Ruiz and Eugene Sepulveda
She saluted Dell, Inc. for its admirable even-handedness with gay employees and for its help funding the Circle - Kate Bishop and Lisa Mink picked up the award. She thanked Lowell Kane and Karla Gonzales for their work spreading “Gay: Fine by Me” T-Shirts around the Texas A&M campus. (I understand 130,000 have been distributed around the country by the Austin-based group.)
Proud luncheon co-chairwomen Mary Herman and Susan Longley
Wynne saved the best for last: A public conversation with country star Chely Wright. I understood in advance of the event that Wright had come out as a lesbian in the traditionally intolerant country music industry. But I didn’t know the full story of her upbringing, her struggle to stay true to both sides of her personality (gay and country), her near-suicide and ultimate redemption.
Quite a story. And especially moving when she thanked the straight-oriented Circle for its dedication to equality for gay Americans.
Not your everyday luncheon.
Hill Country Conservancy Mixer at House and Earth
Many Austin nonprofits throw short mixers, receptions or happy hours. These small social events bond the true believers to the cause and sometimes attract the curious. They also facilitate conversation.
Mike Blizzard and Rick Cofer
You see, speeches, films or performances - required at larger galas - are not planned for these more intimate events. At the Hill Country Conservancy mixer Wednesday at House and Earth on West Sixth Street, substantive chats proliferated over substantial snacks positioned around the deep room, former home to the upscale Spazio furniture store.
Theresa Gebhardt, Stephanie Ignacio and Harper scott
KGSR’s Andy Langer talked about how longtime ACL fans would adapt to the Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater and how they eventually accepted apparently necessary changes at his radio station - and at KUT, which recently jumped to No. 1 in the ratings.
David Stuart and Sandy Castoro
We speculated on the role of nostalgia in Austin and how it can be harnessed for good, as it has in the environmental movement. Also how it commonly blinds Austinites to change that can improve the city, like development of a vibrant downtown.
Politically alert Mike Blizzard conversed on the topic of Austin’s new downtown towers. He agreed that when done right, they add energy, excitement and sustainability to the city. And, perhaps most important in the long run, they fight sprawl, traffic and pollution, when designed for pedestrian convenience.
Sam Hellman-Mass and Francisco Albornoz
Promised Travis County prosecutor Rick Cofer - no political tenderfoot himself - that we’d get together for coffee soon. Thanked crack Conservancy communications director Harper Scott for including me at such a relaxed mixer that nonetheless produced plenty of material for future columns.
Permalink | | Categories: City, Law
January 27, 2011
Friends of Molly Ivins gather at Zach Theatre
Four years after her death, Molly Ivins is still making friends. They showed up to a party and preview performance of “Red Hot Patriot,” a solo show about her life at Zach Theatre on Wednesday. Everybody came with a Molly story, usually to do with her brash personality, piercing wit and lifelong pursuit of justice.
Del Garcia and Ellen Sweets
This particular event benefited the Molly National Journalism Prize, which friends endowed to reward the best in investigative journalism around the country. Some pretty amazing reporters have won the award. And some pretty amazing people packed Zach’s Nowlin Rehearsal Studio — one couldn’t swing an appetizer without hitting a FOM.
Saralee Tiede and David Ochsner
I couldn’t stay for the subsequent performance, but I’ll return to Zach soon. Wouldn’t miss dear friend Barbara Chisholm as Molly: Among Austin’s most beloved actresses playing among Austin’s most beloved writers. (Unless you happened to have been on the receiving end of her pointed pen, which could be pretty poisonous, if almost always funny.)
Julia Cuba and Mike Nellis
Strikes me that two contemporaneous Austin women — Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards — attracted solo-show stage treatments. Holland Taylor’s take on Richards is set to reach the Paramount Theatre in May.
Texas leaders just tend to be theatrical.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Arts, Law, Media
January 19, 2011
Texas Inauguration Night Celebration at the Palmer Events Center
The evening’s festivities stuck to the 2011 austerity theme.
Dennis Martinez and Anna Hundley of the Autism Treatment Center
Guests at the Palmer Events Center were attired in cocktail wear or dressy business suits, although a few women opted for full-length gowns and wraps, some in patriotic themes.
Sarah Beck and Ashton Morgan
Palmer was opened to full, airplane-hangar capacity, with stations for bite-sized desserts and cash bars, scenes for old-fashioned political backslapping.
Donna Williams, Hannah Bell and Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams
Bands, including hard-working country artist Bonnie Bishop, played the north stage, too loudly for some patrons, who retired to Palmer’s south end.
Drs. Dawn and Edward Buckingham
High officials, legislators, judges and other dignitaries roamed the vast floor, exchanging casual forms of gallantry. Brigadier General Red Brown — his chest a shield of medals — said it was an evening for special pride.
Jane Brown and Brigadier General Red Brown
Others spoke of the legislature’s honeymoon period, with ceremonial activities not yet overshadowed by the state budgetary challenges.
Paul and Kim Harle
First lady Anita Perry’s spokeswoman Sarah Beck summed up the evening: “It’s all smiles.”
Ann Butler and former Texas Secretary of State Geoff Connor
Inauguration Barbecue on the State Capitol Grounds
As soon as barbecue hit the plates, the sun came out.
Before that, the first party on Texas Inauguration Day looked pretty bleak. Blankets and caps sold briskly at the official merchandise tent.
David and Joanne Farrell
“It has become progressively colder,” said vendor Matt Turner of San Marcos. “We were wearing the blankets ourselves.”
All 10,000 free tickets were distributed for the lunch spread following the swearing in of Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurt. Yet the crowd seemed thinner than that to veteran party supplier Damon Holditch of Marquee Events, who provided tents, linens and other prerequisites for the outdoor bash.
Denise Guerra and David Rodriguez
Holditch’s crew had been working the State Capitol grounds since Thursday, tempted by Eddie Deen & Co. Catering’s meats and sausages smoking round the clock in 18-wheeler trailers parked along Colorado Street.
In a true people’s picnic, bearded, tooth-challenged men gobbled brisket next to fastidious diners in coats and ties.
Joe and Jennifer Santana
“A lady in the office gave us the tickets for a penny,” said construction worker Jonathan Gilbert of Austin. “The barbecue is good but the sauce is really, really good,” he said of the especially bottled chipotle hot sauce, sampled under tents decorated with gingham and bunting.
Rodney Sheridan and Deborah Barta
“Thank Red McCombs for us,” shouted Don Wickham from a long table, referring to the San Antonio businessman who picked up the lunch tab. “This is very generous.”
Folks gathered from near and far. “It’s an historic third term,” said Joanne Farrell of Harker Heights. “And we’ve been impressed so far. It’s well organized.”
Horace Gore and Vera Galvan
“I’ve never experienced an inauguration,” said state worker Denise Guerra. “I wanted to welcome the governor back and join the festivities.”
“This is my first time,” said Randy Sheridan of Katy. “I follow politics in Texas closely, so I had to see it.”
Silver Vasquez, Lindsey Heintz and Greg Macksood
Folks were lining up for the free meal before Gov. Perry took the stage. As soon as the ceremony ended, a mariachi band from Crockett High School welcomed the guests, who quickly streamed through the self-service tables.
Watching the crowds from a bench nearby, Horace Gore, 77, of Gonzales talked about hunting along the Clear Fork of the Brazos River with a young Gov. Perry.
“I didn’t think he was worth a (expletive),” Gore laughed. “Now he’s governor. He’s as straight as a string. His mommy and daddy raised him right.”
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
January 18, 2011
Odes to Inaugurations Past
Usually, inaugurations make grand — and rare — excuses for public extravagance in Austin. For pomp and circumstance. Ceremony and symbolism. Feasting off the fat of the land and dancing in the streets.
Not today. Yes, there will be speeches. In politics, there are always speeches.
Yet because of the state’s economic condition — $27 billion state budget shortfall and widespread unemployment — organizers of this year’s inaugurations for Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst kept it discreetly simple: a church service in the morning, followed by the swearing-in ceremony and free barbecue for up to 10,000 pre-registered guests on the Capitol lawn, paid for by San Antonio businessman Billy Joe “Red” McCombs.
In the evening, instead of thematic balls at multiple locations, backers have scheduled a plainly titled “Evening Celebration” at the comparatively humble Palmer Events Center. Folks in business or cocktail attire will listen to a few speeches, of course, dance to musical acts, nibble on dessert or possibly belly up to the cash bar. The “Austerity Inauguration” could make history. We’ll use this excuse to recall some highlights from inaugurations past.
Sources: ‘The Handbook of Texas’ and American-Statesman archives.
1841
Sam Houston, twice president of the Republic of Texas, then later governor, was not pleased that his immediate predecessor and rival, expansionist Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar, moved the capital from Houston’s namesake city to Austin, located on the hilly fringe of the frontier. A Comanche attack was not out of the question during the swearing-in ceremonies for Houston’s second presidency. So the Travis Guards, organized in 1840 as Indian fighters, escorted Houston into the city for his inauguration.
Texas inaugural festivities did not always take place in Austin. Columbia was the first to hold the honors in 1836 for Houston. In 1838, Lamar was sworn in at Houston. In 1844, President Anson Jones avoided the dueling capitols by taking the oath of office in Washington-on-the-Brazos, where Texas’ Declaration of Independence was signed. Today, it’s mostly a well-tended state historical park not far from Brenham, while East Columbia is a hamlet near newer West Columbia on the Brazos River.
1847
According to a 1991 article in this newspaper: “When Gov. George T. Wood was sworn in as governor of Texas, he refused to wear socks. His successor, Gov. Peter Hansborough Bell, wouldn’t trim his shoulder-length hair before taking the oath of office. Yet there were few if any snide remarks — perhaps because of the Bowie knife and two pistols stuck prominently in Bell’s belt.” No source was given for these amusing anecdotes.
The Civil War — Travis County had voted against secession — and the subsequent Reconstruction generated lasting tensions in Austin. Lt. Albert Roberts of the Texas National Guard was assigned to lead the Austin Company of the Travis Rifles to confront carpetbaggers at the inauguration of Gov. Richard Coke, a conservative Democrat. The race, pitting Coke against his predecessor, Gov. Edmund J. Davis, was highly disputed, and force was used to back the Democrat’s inauguration (pictured).
1886
The Driskill Hotel opens at East Sixth and Brazos streets. For almost 100 years, the ornate structure hosted numerous inaugural balls. The hallways rang with politics anyway as unofficial headquarters for legislators and other officeholders, including President Lyndon Baines Johnson. While the newer rooms in the hotel’s north extension are comparatively plain, the lobbies, bar and banquet rooms in the original building are palatial enough for any political ego.
1931
Texas inaugurations entered the broadcast age in 1931, when pioneering Dallas radio station WFAA aired the swearing-in of Gov. Ross Sterling, founder of Humble Oil and Refining Co., now known as Exxon. Only eight years later, the power of radio was reinforced when one of its accidental stars was elected governor.
Gov. Wilbert Lee ‘Pappy’ O’Daniel was a country musician and a flour salesman who blanketed Texas airwaves during the Depression, thanks to a far-reaching radio signal broadcast from the other side of the Mexico border. Although historians don’t give O’Daniel much respect as a statesman, he was hugely popular, and his inauguration took place in Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas. “The Handbook of Texas” cites two crowd estimates: 45,000 and 100,000. In either case, a good deal more than the 10,000 expected today.
1991
The last Democratic governor knew a little something about political theater. On inauguration day, Gov. Ann Richards led her followers and several high school bands across the Congress Avenue Bridge toward the Capitol, as she had promised in campaign speeches, “to reclaim the state government for the people of Texas.” Daylong, televised celebrations continued at Palmer Auditorium, now the Long Center for the Performing Arts, and the Erwin Center, where prominent entertainers performed. Richards died in 2006, and Austin’s City Council rechristened the bridge in her honor.
The “Ice Inauguration” is probably best remembered for what didn’t happen. A planned 11-block-long parade was canceled and the swearing-in ceremonies for Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst were moved inside the Capitol’s House chamber because of a fierce ice storm (fierce for Austin). Despite the transportation obstacles, copious crowds still showed up at the Austin Convention Center for one of the inaugural balls. Also memorable: machine-gun toting rocker Ted Nugent appearing onstage in a cut-off Confederate flag T-shirt, making disparaging remarks about illegal aliens.
January 17, 2011
Inauguration overseer: Patty Huffines
One never hears “Rick” or “Anita.” For Patty Huffines, it is always “the governor” and “the first lady,” or sometimes “Mrs. Perry.”
Although the co-chairwoman of the 2011 Texas Inaugural Committee has known Gov. Rick Perry and first lady Anita Perry for years, Huffines does indeed stand on ceremony.
James would be James Huffines, president and chief operating officer of PlainsCapital Corp. , twice chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents and a Perry adviser.
The affable banker twice co-chaired Perry swearing-in celebrations — including the 2007 “Ice Inauguration” — and passed along plenty of hints to his wife, a professional fundraiser.
“I’ve never done anything like this before, on this scale,” said the insistently modest co-overseer of the inauguration’s morning church service, subsequent swearing-in and barbecue lunch, plus the less-formal-than-usual evening celebration. “So many things you have to be aware of. It’s an historical event, and you want to stay true to that.”
Not that Patty Huffines is unfamiliar with organizing social events. For years, she worked in development for Zach Theatre, St. Edward’s University and Public Strategies, a business advisory firm. She’s headed numerous gala committees, including last year’s memorable all-purple anniversary party for the Long Center for the Performing Arts, dreamed up with gala co-chairwoman Bobbi Topfer and event planner Victoria Hentrich .
“Bobbi taught me how to put on a production,” Huffines said. “And that’s really, truly what it was. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.”
All that organizing and fundraising have been noticed far and wide. “Hard to have enough good adjectives for Patty,” said Pam Willeford, an Austinite and a former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. “Smart, gracious, efficient, humble, fun, generous, creative, intuitive, hardworking. She understands problems and constituencies and what needs to be done to help others or to make something work.”
Born in Marshall of John B. Hayes, an ice businessman, and Maxie Hayes, a housewife and volunteer, middle child Patty was something of a spitfire, roaming the East Texas town.
“With Mother, you had to be outside,” Patty Huffines remembers. “Growing up in a small town, that’s what you did: Go outside and play with your friends.”
By the time Patty was in the seventh grade, the young family had moved to the ranch houses of the middle-class Briargrove neighborhood in Houston. She made good grades at Lee High School and moved to Austin to major in education at UT. She graduated with honors and a concentration in math.
Like so many UT graduates, she never really left Austin. After working for a bank, she taught at Pecan Springs and Doss elementary schools. She raised two children from a first marriage: Ashland Shepherd, now 28, and Cameron Shepherd, 21. She picked up one stepdaughter: Victoria Huffines, now 22 and a senior at UT, majoring in public relations . Her first grandchild, Cameron Elizabeth, or “Cammy,” was born to Ashland and his wife, Heather, last year.
“They were my best friends,” she said. “Steve and James were in a fraternity together. We had a lot of mutual friends but had not really met.” The couple’s Pemberton house was built for entertainment and nonprofit events.
“The frustrating thing is that I don’t have just one cause,” she said. “It’s whatever piques my interest. However I can help. I like to be able to make a difference in some way.”
Among her signal charities are the Ronald McDonald House, Hospice Austin, Caritas, the Long Center, the Women’s Symphony League and the Austin Community Foundation. Her state appointments include the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, the Governor’s Commission for Women and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
“There is an old saying: ‘Leading by example isn’t the main thing in influencing others; it’s the only thing,’ ” said Randa Safady, vice chancellor for external relations for the UT System. “To me, that defines how Patty Huffines impacts the Austin community. She’s very smart, considerate, determined and progressive.”
“My mom taught me about volunteerism,” Huffines said. “She was busy with three kids, but she has always found time to do.”
Huffines is not all high goals and seriousness. At times, a mischievous smile sneaks across her serene features. She danced the tango for Dancing with the Stars Austin and kicks up her heels at various galas.
“Don’t let the sweet, gentle, modest side of Patty fool you,” Safady said. “She’s got a wickedly funny, irreverent side. I never try to sit across from her in a meeting because I know that one of us is going to crack, and when that happens, all we can do is adjourn early.”
Like several other Austin social stars, she received leadership training through the modernized, more businesslike Junior League, formerly scorned as a group for “ladies who lunch.” Since the 1970s, she’s watched the city’s philanthropy grow by leaps and bounds, starting to match its deeply rooted volunteerism.
“We are blessed and cursed,” she said. “We have so many nonprofits — What is it? More than 3,000 — but that’s also a curse. I’ve always been a proponent for combining agencies. I worry about the giving spreading too thin and a lot of agencies doing the same thing.”
Like other philanthropic leaders, she wonders when the next generation of givers will come forth, but she’s confident they are following the increasingly higher profile of charity work in town.
“I think there are people watching what’s going on,” she said. “When the economy settles down, they will come out and participate more. We need their help and expertise. They bring fresh ideas.”
Patty Huffines got to know the governor and first lady through husband James. She’s an admirer of Anita Perry’s accessibility and inclusiveness.
“Mrs. Perry is who she is. What you see is what you get,” Huffines said. “She’s very personable. Very approachable. … It’s got to be hard for her. Everybody wants to talk to her. But she’s always accommodating.”
Huffines is far from alone working on the 2011 inauguration, estimated to cost $2 million from private donations. Ida Louise “Weisie” Steen of San Antonio is top chairwoman; Lana Andrews of Dallas is co-chairwoman with Huffines. Other Austinites include Willeford, Stockton-Hicks and Teresa Long.
Heading the staff of dozens is Chief Inaugural Officer Teresa Spears, now rounding up her fourth such fandango. Additionally, Leah Zaccagnino, who was the ambassador’s assistant in Switzerland, has come on as director of events.
The lack of a parade or multiple black-tie events this year is intentional, meant to reflect the austere economic times. In 2007, however, the parade was canceled because of inclement weather, and the swearing-in moved to the House chamber of the Capitol. Huffines credits Houston social veteran Mica Mosbacher with handling that potential disaster nimbly.
“Everything had to be changed at the last minute,” Huffines said. “You think on your feet, have a Plan B.”
Most of the business of inaugural planning is done by phone or e-mail. Yet a series of meetings brought together the statewide committee in Austin. The first was a late November swearing-in for the committee leaders at the old Texas Supreme Court chamber. Most of the decisions were made before the holidays; much of the fundraising — culminating in Red McCombs picking up the tab for the barbecue — took place over the holidays.
McCombs’ gift appeals to Huffines’ impulse toward inclusion.
“Someone can come to Austin, see the swearing in, take the whole family, stay for lunch on the lawn,” she said, although the free tickets had to be reserved online by last week . “It is an historical event in so many ways, but this is especially, since it will be the first time a governor has served three terms.”
By mid-January, almost all decisions were finalized on ceremony details and ticket information.
Despite all the preparations, do ice storms give her nightmares?
“It’s going to beautiful,” she said during Austin’s recent cold snap. “We’re having all the bad weather this week.”
December 28, 2010
Injustice foe JoAnn McKenzie
By the first grade, JoAnn McKenzie had denied St. Nick.
“There is no Santa Claus,” McKenzie, an Austin financial planner, told her aunt while living briefly in Lock Haven, Penn. “The kids who live in a house with a dirt floor got nothing for Christmas!”
McKenzie experienced social disjuncture at a very early age. Her mother died four days after her birth in San Antonio. McKenzie was raised by an aunt, Lorena McKenzie, nicknamed “Bootie” for the cowboy boots she wore in youth. A single parent, the elder McKenzie had served in the Women’s Army Corps and worked for Speaker of the House and Vice President John Nance Garner before joining her brother’s pipeline construction company and, ultimately, the Lower Colorado River Authority.
“I grew up different from everybody around me,” McKenzie says. “There were no single-parent households where I lived.”
That place was the LCRA company town of Buchanan Dam, named after the concrete embankment of the uppermost Highland Lake. Her father’s sister and her husband, Virginia and Carl McDonald, ran a gas station and general store there. (It’s now operated by their daughter, Jeannette McDonald Babin, as Hesitation Station, selling Texana.)
The McDonalds raised horses and hogs on Lake Buchanan, so McKenzie — who now wears crisp, subdued outfits — grew up playing with the dogs or goats, riding horses or shooting rats in the barn. Summer friends, many from rice-growing country downstream, took her skiing on their boats when they were not swimming. She was allowed to attend Camp Longhorn, founded by Julian “Tex” Robertson near Inks Lake, because her uncle provided the horses.
“I spent dawn to dusk outdoors,” she says of life in the rural tourist magnet.
On cool nights, she’d sit on a curb listening to George Jones, Bob Wills, Willie Nelson or Ernest Tubb playing at the Lakeview Inn.
Observing life in tiny Buchanan Dam, especially what transpired in her relatives’ store, further exposed her to economic inequality. “It was the water I swam in,” she says. “I knew who had extra, who needed something. There was not a lot of money in the area, but a lot of community and civic engagement. It was always about helping everybody, meeting everyone’s needs as a community.”
She witnessed racial divisions in Burnet, where she attended school, but also saw how those divisions could be bridged.
“I don’t recall any community upset when the black high school was closed and the other integrated,” she says.
More scarring was the drama of a woman run out of town because people suspected she was lesbian.
“But people didn’t talk openly about sexuality back then,” she says.
Like others her age, McKenzie has discovered that today’s youngest generation is unaware how recently racial and sexual inequality were all-encompassing facts of life. Not long ago, a grandson needed to talk to someone who had suffered a social injustice for a school project. She contacted Cloteal Haynes, a pioneer among black female students in the University of Texas music program.
Haynes shared stories of growing up in an all-black neighborhood, attending all-black schools, knowing where she couldn’t go and what she couldn’t do safely because of being black.
“He was so appalled and totally dismayed when he heard stories of prejudice,” McKenzie says. “He was aware of the history of prejudice because he was studying it, but his shock and horror were obvious when Cloteal shared her personal stories.”
Married to Jerry Prichard, McKenzie, who lives in Northwest Hills, has three children from a previous marriage: a son, 44, married with three boys; another son, 32, married two years; and a daughter, 33. Discussions about inequality continue in the extended family.
When she learned of the Human Rights Campaign award, McKenzie was upset that another recipient would be the Anti-Defamation League, which, nationally, had honored Rupert Murdoch.
“My thinking is that Fox News is the biggest hatemonger on the planet,” she says.
Yet local ADL leaders explained that Murdoch has, personally and persuasively, taken a stand against the anti-Semitism now raging in Europe.
McKenzie’s Equality Award recognizes her work with the Atticus Circle, a ground-breaking Austin group founded by Anne S. Wynn, which lobbies the Legislature and educates straight communities about how the legal system works against their gay neighbors. (Its awards luncheon is Jan. 27 at the Renaissance Austin Hotel.)
“For fair-minded straights, many of us don’t know about the insidious inequality and the horrible impact it has on the families of LGBT partners,” she says. “When we find out, it is, as Anne would say, a ‘duh’ moment.”
Permalink | | Categories: City, Law, Movies
December 19, 2010
Holiday Party at Law Office of Becky Beaver
Many Austin offices host holiday parties. Few of them are adorned with so many recognizable guests. Dignitaries from the lands of law, arts, business, charity, fashion, media, food and education showed up at the Law Office of Becky Beaver on Friday. Some 700 of them.
Stephen Moser and Becky Beaver
This made threading one’s way through the chatty crowd an Olympic sport. How could one not stop and trade stories with all these fascinating folks along the way? Or avoid the tempting snacks and drinks, located at handy stations?
Terrence Ortiz and MD Trotter
And what to say about Becky Beaver, the person? Quite aside from her reputation as a fearless family lawyer — I’m sure other adjectives are used by her opponents — Beaver is among the Top 10 most active socializers in Austin, especially on the charity circuit. She’s also an inveterate collector of local art.
Joyce Christian and Ruth Gardner Lowe
She looked dazzling in gold (pictured here with La Moser), receiving guests and bidding them farewell by the office Christmas tree. I may have talked to three dozen people and bid a “happy holiday” to scores of others, but I would have traded all that to hear Beaver’s asides as she greeted each newcomer.
Her wit turns pretty tart, you know, though hardly ever mean.
December 14, 2010
Shhh! Ross Smith may have been spying on you, politicians
Like so many Austinites, Ross Smith has sported many hats: musician, historian, researcher, nuclear strategist, fish monger, political spy.
Wait, spy, did you say?
Before he was outed by the Dallas Morning News in 1994, Smith says he produced opposition research for presidential candidate Walter Mondale, the Democratic National Committee, Ann Richards and state Attorney General Dan Morales.
“The vast majority of the time, people in public life are who they say they are,” Smith says. “They paid their taxes on time (or if not it was an honest mistake), have no shady sources of income, never had any trouble with the law, served in the military when they claimed to, are decent to their wife and kids and dog, etc. When something fishy does turn up, most often it’s found in the course of checking all the usual sources in a standard background check.”
Dressed in Jack Abramoff-style fedora and scarf — without the convicted former lobbyist’s stern, G-man stare — Smith talks with delicate care about his past.
He was born on the Texas side of the state line in Texarkana (“My Mom made sure of that”). His father was a rising music professor, his mother a librarian and social worker; both passed away in 2004.
During his youth, Smith, whose boyish features glint beneath red hair going white, moved to Indiana, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He attended choral mecca St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., with notions of following his father into music.
Although he still sings with the St. David’s Episcopal Church choir and arranges choral music, he veered into American and European historical studies, specializing in international relations and foreign policy. He earned his master’s degree from American University in Washington.
His thesis, “The Strategic Implications of a Space-Based Missile Defense System,” made him an instant expert on President Ronald Reagan’s proposed, laser-based, so-called “Star Wars” program. Ross determined it was “technologically unworkable.”
“Scientists proved that the basic geometry of proposed lasers was faulty,” he says. “The numbers were incredible.”
From an early age, he also nursed an interest in politics, interning for Speaker of the U.S. House Jim Wright.
“Dad was a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Mom was a Franklin Roosevelt Democrat,” he says. He leaned to his mother’s inclinations. “She was quite clear about how power works and who needed the most help.”
According to Smith, some of his most sensational research involved former state Sen. J.E. ‘Buster’ Brown, then a Republican candidate for state attorney general. Brown’s complicated case included debts to a prominent Houston lawyer, a topless bar called Caligula XXI, and conflicts with campaign disclosure laws, all duly reported in the Houston Chronicle and elsewhere.
“It requires a very strict attention to detail and accuracy,” Smith says of political spying. “If you aren’t 110 percent sure about your facts and sources, it can’t be used.”
Smith’s rather nondescript features actually helped him on the job.
“Nobody notices gray little men — John le Carré’s phrase — or the college student in jeans and a T-shirt who seems pretty clueless about the term paper he’s researching,” he says.
“Or the guy in slacks and a golf shirt who looks just like a dozen other real estate agents who drove through the neighborhood in the past few weeks (even when you are actually there checking to see if your opponent is a slumlord). For me, being successful at my job depended on staying completely anonymous and blending in wherever I went.”
Opposition research has changed since Smith quit the field, as social media and confessional theater have changed the way the pubic processes the information.
“Things that I would have turned up as dark secrets are now showing up on Jerry Springer and Oprah every day,” Smith jokes.
Does he have any regrets for his years in the political shadows?
“It gave me a healthy reticence,” he says. “I’m never going to run for office because I know how dirty it can be.”
He is proud of his years of above-ground work for Morales, researching environmental policy, gangs, victim compensation, colonias, administrative law and more.
“I was expected to become an instant expert in everything,” he says.
Managing his parents’ estate and acting as unofficial godfather to his younger relatives, the single Smith also struck out into the business world with San Miguel Seafood, a collaboration with Roberto San Miguel that specializes in providing super-fresh fish to chefs and home cooks.
Long conversations with Smith wear down his sometimes wound-up rhythms of speech.
“A friend once said that my sense of humor was three degrees off from the rest of the world,” he says. “Having a different view of the world helps when you are trying to show people a new way of seeing or when you are trying to find things others are trying to hide.”
November 23, 2010
SafePlace Luncheon at Hyatt Austin
She spoke in the language of Rousseau, Locke, Paine and Jefferson, of universal rights and particular obligations. Olympia Dukakis’ subject? The unassailable right to safety, especially against sexual violence.
Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, Stacy Bruce and Mike O’Krent
Her forum was the SafePlace luncheon on Friday. The Academy Award winner especially liked repeating the words “safe” and “place” as her oration put the Austin shelter and counseling service into a wider philosophical context. She also told stories about her family sheltering women in their home, and the different ways her father and mother responded to a community unhappy with their protection of an abused wife.
City Council Member Sheryl Cole and Robin Bradford
Despite her almost Olympian eloquence (sorry, couldn’t avoid it), Dukakis was somewhat upstaged by the following speaker, Lindsay Martin, a victim of rape who first told a backward-words version of the Cinderella fairy tale, then recounted the details of a sexual assault that, in this case, led to the imprisonment of the rapist. If Dukakis appealed to the intellect, this courageous woman shot directly for the heart.
State Rep. Dawnna Dukes and Sharon Watkins
Many politicians, judges, lawyers and law enforcement leaders were on hand for the SafePlace salute. It was a short lunch, but a crunchy one. Austin City Council Member Sheryl Cole sat to my left, State Rep. Dawnna Dukes to my right, so, as you might guess, political matters were discussed.
A note: Hyatt Austin is upping its catering game. Until recently an afterthought in the charity socializing industry, the atrium hotel by the lake is remaking its reputation. Just ask the 520 people who ate lunch there on Friday, or the folks that raved about the Austin Lyric Opera gala the previous week.
Permalink | | Categories: Charity, Law
November 14, 2010
Revlynn Lawson: Sane Socializing
She holds down a serious legislative job with an ominous-sounding State of Texas title (committee director for the House Committee on County Affairs).
She earned impressive degrees from prestigious institutions (bachelor’s in psychology and sociology, master’s in social work from University of Southern California in Los Angeles; law from Washington University in St. Louis).
She comes from a long line of high achievers (doctors, nurses, lawyers, librarians, teachers, managers).
“It has to benefit something I care about — education, victims of abuse, health issues, children and teens, dogs, arts,” Lawson says “Then it has to be fun. So many events are people just standing around chit-chatting. I want to hear music and see people having fun.”
Lawson, 40, proves that one can make a difference in the world and still party down. Even gown-bedecked galas, which can be awfully starchy, strike her fancy.
“I love a good ball as much as the next person,” she says of formal charity events. “Any opportunity to get dressed up in Austin is welcome. They are not frivolous. There are some people won’t write the check unless the get involved socially.”
Raised in Houston’s Third Ward, she credits strong maternal influence from Janice Lawson, now director of business development and contract compliance with Austin Energy.
“My brother and I were raised as middle-class kids within a very small, but close-knit family that believed in a strong educational foundation, and exposure to the arts and diverse cultures,” she says.
Most of the family has stuck close to the Third Ward, historically home to Houston’s Jewish community, but majority African American since the 1960s.
“They don’t leave Houston,” Lawson says. “Everyone is still there.”
During the summer, she splashed at the McGregor Park pool, eating Frito pies and pickles. She spent whole days at Astroworld amusement park, where her aunt served as head nurse, but she also hung out at the public library, crabbed in Galveston Bay and toured the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
She didn’t mind returning to Herod Elementary School or Fondren Middle School each fall.
“I loved it. Loved to read,” she says. “Math came easy to me. Perhaps because of the finite answers. I liked new formulas, shortcuts and tricks.”\
Raised Episcopalian, Lawson’s school friends were mostly Jewish.
“Houston feels much more like home to me,” she says. “I felt more part of the world. Diverse friends. Food. Cultures. It was a big world. Between the library and Houston, I learned the world.”
How did she end up in Austin?
“My mom ‘kidnapped’ me and my younger brother and moved us to Austin,” she says “It was a forced removal and it was traumatic. I was 13. I had been accepted honors program at Bellaire High School and the High School for Health Professions.”
In fact, the Third Ward was becoming more dangerous. She recalls: “Used to be, for us kids, it was just get on your bike and go.”
Instead, Lawson attended racially mixed Reagan High School in Austin during some of its best years, when spirit was high in part because of a competitive football team.
“On balance I got everything I needed,” she says. “After not speaking to my mother for much of the summer before high school started, I got into the rhythm. Made friends.”
Involved with student council and other social activities, the still-single Lawson didn’t date a lot or have a serious boyfriend in high school.
Still, she kept a backup plan: “I was out of here.” USC offered the allures of Los Angeles: “I was back in a city — big, massive, diverse. I was happy.”
The policy bug had tickled her early. She worked in late U.S. Rep. J.J. “Jake” Pickle’s local office and for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett in Washington.
After graduation, she worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services as a social worker, then supervisor for two years. She was promoted to an internal lobbying job for the county. She stuck her nose into political races.
“I never considered running,” she says. “I like to be the person behind the scenes. I don’t want to be the face of anything.”
Eventually, as the Southern California social and business landscape shifted, she sold her house and returned to Texas.
“I do appreciate the Austin lifestyle and quality of life,” she says. “It’s more laid back and relaxed. Which was what I needed after years of the crazy hustle in LA. And I hadn’t lived near family in almost 20 years. It was time to come home.”
She got into consulting for an executive recruiting firm, then opened a short-lived day spa in Windsor Park.
A tip from family friend Anthony Haley led to a job working with Rep. Garnet Colemen when he was appointed a Texas House committee chair in 2009. Since then she has been making the rounds of the state’s 254 counties, make sure hearings run smoothly and according to House rules, rounding up members for hearings, and summarizing big research projects.
On the social side, she’s deeply involved with the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and LINKS, which she says was “like Junior League at a time when African American women were not allowed in the Junior League.” She belongs to the Town Lake Chapter, the younger of the city’s two LINKS groups, working to help Kids Cafe, an after-school program that feeds kids.
“For some of our kids, it’s the only meal they get during the day,” she says.
The Cafe is the motivational driver for LINKS’ Mardis Gras gala Feb. 26, 2011 at the Sheraton Austin Hotel at the Capitol.
“A little formality is a good thing,” she says. “Do I want to do that every weekend of my life? No. But when done well, people donate more.”
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Charity, Law, Nightlife
October 22, 2010
Plastic Pollution Coalition Reception at a West Austin Home
The image of an albatross feeding its chick household plastics helped change the mind of artist Dianna Cohen. She researched the oceanic gyres of plastic pollution and the additives to plastic bottles that affect human hormones. Now the artist who worked for years with plastics as base materials pushes the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
Jackson Browne and Dianna Cohen
Cohen and partner/musician Jackson Browne joined a powerhouse throng of Austinites and visitors at the house of Jack and Carla McDonald on Thursday. They mingled, listened to speeches and munched on goodies from Fête Accompli catering.
Former Mayor Will Wynn and Carla McDonald
We also heard from Coalition executive director Daniella Dimitrova Russo. The presentations were pretty darn convincing for a crowd that included Suzanne and Marc Winkelman, Kate and Robert Hersch, former Mayor Will Wynn, entrepreneur Clayton Christopher, Turk and Christy Pipkin, Eugene Sepulveda, Joe Ross, Olympian Aaron Peirsol, investor and wine expert John Gorman and Austin Ventures’ John Thornton.
Jack McDonald and Aaron Peirsol
Makes me glad we recycle plastics and avoid any containers laced with bisphenol A. Maybe we should do more.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Law
October 21, 2010
Democratic Reception at Hotel St. Cecilia
It all boiled down to the surprise guest.
David Mendoza and Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza
Democrats assembled at Liz Lambert and Amy Cook’s blissful Hotel St. Cecilia for an election-season reception.
Ginny Woodruff and Tom Vole
Numerous candidates, party faithful and at least one “Lone Star” cast member mingled, chatting not much about the nitty gritty of politics as neighborhood history, Austin social trends and the tartness of the margaritas. A few area legislative seats seem to be in serious play come November, and since Democrats are the incumbents, brows furrowed at the mention.
Divit Tripathi and Becca Cody
The main draw to the oak-shrouded courtyard at dusk was the unannounced celebrity. Surely it would not be the same as the names that decorated a recent, less public $10,000-a-couple reception at a Four Seasons Residence condo.
Beth Broderick and Andy Brown
As the honored guest crossed my line of vision, Travis County Democratic Party chairman Andy Brown whispered: “There goes our future president.”
Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro
The man was San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, indeed charismatic and gracious as he could be. A crucial mid-term election looms, but chatter gravitates toward matters presidential. Politics never takes a breather in Austin.
UPDATE: A previous version of this post published the wrong first name for David Mendoza.
July 3, 2010
Why She Is Here: Carla Jackson
On the first Constitution Debate Day, 150 Austin Community College students showed up. The next year, it was 330. Then 550.
This year’s debate, slated for Sept. 22, is expected to draw 700. Guided by experts, students split into groups of 15 to discuss issues and come to a resolution.
“They come for the extra credit and food,” says Carla L. Jackson, the associate director of ACC’s School of Public Policy and Politics. “But they leave with a deeper knowledge of the constitution and their beliefs. They really think deeply.”
The center, founded in 2007 by political campaign strategist Peck Young, is one of the only — if not the only — such program at an American community college.
Much of the civic sensibility for this Queens, N.Y. native can be traced to her family upbringing. Her mother, Lois, came to New York from Lancaster, S.C., and taught special education. Jackson says: “She spent 40 years getting people to believe in themselves.”
Her father Curtis, originally from New Jersey, managed a social service agency. Her fraternal twin, Carí Jackson Lewis, helped Jackson take control of her life. “When she tells me to do something, I do it. She’s always right.” Jackson says. “It’s very comforting to know there’s somebody you can tell anything to. And that person will at least give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Looking back on this family history, she says: “Of course I am what I am, a person who likes working with people. With a mom and dad like mine, who devoted their life to social service, I had no choice.”
She grew up an artistic child in the “lower-to-middle middle class” district of Laurelton, Queens. She could eat at a neighbor’s, walk home from the bus stop, play in back yards. Impulsive, she once tried to convert the family garage into horse stable with hay and running water.
Raised in open-minded Lutheran church, her real religion became: “Truly being good to your neighbor. There’s no higher honor than to take care of yourself and the person next to you.”
After PS 37 in Queens, she headed to Savannah, Ga. to stay with an aunt, Jackie Byers, a mathematician, during her restless teens. Byers helped dial back her academically-driven intensity and general unhappiness. “She also got me to love symbolic logic,” says Jackson, who graduated from Springfield Gardens High School in Queens.
Diagnosing her early problems in retrospect, she says: “I never believed in doing things until I knew why I needed to do it.” College consumed her all-curious personality She learned every skill in the theater, because, as a would-be producer, she might have to ask someone to do it. Or do it herself. “I like to understand how things work,” she says. “It gives you a greater respect for what people do and teaches you how to give them room to do it.”
While interning at HBO Documentaries in 1998, she met Kelvin Z. Phillips at a Manhattan party. She left early, but they exchanged numbers.
“I called him later and said: ‘You might as well leave the party, because you’re not going to meet anyone better.’” He agreed and left. Friendship turned into courtship. Phillips worked in graphics for financial firms at night, wrote screenplays by day. She moved to Philadelphia to work at the Wilma Theatre, but then Phillips asked her to move into his Brooklyn apartment. “I kept waiting for it to get uncomfortable since we hadn’t dated that long before I moved in,” Jackson says. “It never did.”
Phillips has two sons she is now helping to raise: Kelvin Jr., 19, a dreamer, “comic genius,” and a writer, attending ACC, but applying for the US. Air Force; and Justice, 13, a student at Fulmore Magnet School Program, a charismatic, generous spirit. Stage name: Freedom.
The family was living in Tarzana, Cal. while Phillips pursued his screenwriting dream when his primary employer, Dimensional Fund Advisors, moved him to Austin.
Once here, while Jackson tried to produce her own shows — she’d like to get back to that full-time — she helped out groups like Catalyst 8, Church of the Friendly Ghost, Lights, Camera, Help and LeapAustin.
At ACC, her aim is to “get students to understand that policy and politics affect your life, so why not learn how to affect it back,” she says. “If there’s something you wake up looking forward to, you have a responsibility to fight for it.”
She sums up her devotion to public service: “If you haven’t done something to make lives easier, entertained or enlightened, I don’t know why you are here.”
Those interests converge on arts and public policy. Jackson is sometimes mystified by the DYI Austin ways.
“You can raise 1,000 people to clean a park, but not $1,000,” she says. “What does it say about a city that you are the Live Music Capital of the World, but musicians can’t eat?” she says. “We can and have to fix that. Austin can do anything.”
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Arts, Law
June 27, 2010
2010 Out & About 500: Law
2010 OUT & ABOUT 500: LAW
Law Stars: Lara Wendler and Mike Martinez
Talk about a power couple. Wendler is the chief of staff for state Sen. John Whitmire and helps Community Shares of Texas, First Night Austin and Center for Child Protection. Martinez serves on the Austin City Council and aids Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas, Austin Firefighters Relief Fund and Austin Partners in Education. As a team, they push Austin Pets Alive, Casa Marianella, Planned Parenthood, Green Doors and Leadership Austin.
Past Law Stars: Tanya and Art Acevedo (2009); Crystal Cotti and Mark Strama (2008); Robin Rather (2007); Gonzalo Barrientos (2005)
Tanya and Art Acevedo. City of Austin, American Heart Association, Special Olympics Texas, Center for Child Protection, Austin Humane Society, American Youthworks
Valinda Bolton and Anthony Hathcock. Texas House of Representatives, Woman Inc., Texas Council on Family Violence
Denise Brady and Chris Riley. Austin City Council, The Rusk Law Firm, Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, Susan G. Komen for the Cure
Andy Brown. Travis County Democratic Party, Munsch Hardt Kopf and Harr, 21st Century Democrats
Julie Byers and Lee Leffingwell. Mayor of Austin, Water Conservation Task Force, Seton Hospital Northwest
Perla Cavazos. City of Austin Commission on Women, Latinas Unidas Por El Arte, Teatro Vivo, Mexican American Cultural Center
Rick Cofer. Travis County, Capital City Young Democrats, Bag the Bags Coalition, Austin Multiple Scelorsis, Democratic National Committee
Sheryl and Kevin Cole. Austin City Council, Cole and Powell, Leadership Austin, Austin Area Urban League, Communities in Schools
Libby and Lloyd Doggett. U.S. Congress, Pre-K Now, ‘One Peace at a Time’
Dawnna Dukes. Texas House of Representatives, DM Dukes and Associates Inc., Links, Inc.-Austin Chapter
Sarah Eckhardt and Kurt Sauer. Travis County Commissioners Court, Texas Folklife Resources, Daffer McDaniel LLP
Toya Haley. Texas Health and Human Services, Long Center, Austin Bar Association
Clarke Heidrick. Graves Dougherty Hearon and Moody, Austin Area Research Organization, Shivers Cancer Foundation, Foundation for Religious Studies in Texas
Donna Howard. Texas House of Representatives, Expanding Horizons Foundation, Texas Education Crisis Coalition, Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, Common Cause
Brian Jammer. Austin Black Lawyers Association, University of Texas System, National Bar Association
Rosemary Lehmberg. Travis County District Attorney, Center for Child Protection, CASA
Nelson Linder. Austin NAACP, African American Quality of Life Implementation Plan
Susan Longley. The Longley Group, Molly National Journalism Prize, Texas Democracy Foundation, Atticus Circle, Zach Theatre
Diana Maldonado. Texas House of Representatives, Executive Women in State Government, Hispanic Women’s Network of Texas
Patsy Woods Martin and Jack Martin. Public Strategies, Blue Texas, Long Center, Livestrong, Austin Children’s Museum, I Live Here I Give Here
Linda and Michael McCaul. U.S. Congress, March of Dimes, St. David’s Community Health Foundation, Communities in Schools, CureSearch
Mark McKinnon. Public Strategies, Livestrong, University of Texas
Laura and Phil Morrison. Austin City Council, University of Texas, Austin Neighborboods Council
Elliott Naishtat. Texas House of Representatives, St. Edward’s University
Pam and Pike Powers. The Seton Fund, Fulbright and Jaworski, Envision Central Texas, Texas Technology Initiative
Robin Rather. Liveable City, Hill Country Conservancy, Envision Central Texas
Geronimo Rodriguez Jr. Seton Family of Hospitals, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Leonard Frost Levin Van Court and Marsh
Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza. Travis County, Austin Lyric Opera
Karen and William Sage. Travis County, Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force, University of Texas, Any Baby Can, Caritas of Austin
Randi Shade and Kayla Shell. Austin City Council, Dell Inc., Days of Service
Niyanta and Bill Spelman. Austin City Council, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Rainforest Partnership
Alexa and Blaine Wesner. Austin Ventures, Blue Texas, Austin Film Society, Lifeworks, Downtown Austin Alliance, Artworks, Austin Museum of Art
Tomi and Pete Winstead. Winstead PC, Long Center for the Performing Arts, Economic Development Corp., Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council
Will Wynn. willwynn.com, LPB Energy Management, Worldwide Maniac
UPDATES
ADDITIONAL READER NOMINATIONS FOR 2011 OUT & ABOUT LAW
Revlynn Lawson. Texas House of Representatives, Links, Alpha Kappa Alpha
Permalink | | Categories: Law, The 500
June 12, 2010
Atticus Circle Happy Hour at Shagri-La
The other day, a newspaper reader, self-labeled as “liberal,” called my editor. Said the social columnist — that’s me — has a “gay agenda.” Yeah, I have a gay agenda. I’m gay. Get over it. That’s the extent of my agenda.
Anne Wynne and Ruth Gardner-Loew
A group that already embraces this attitude held a happy hour at Shangri-La on Thursday. The Atticus Circle was started by Austinite Anne Wynne and her husband in response to the round of state referendums that enshrined marriage inequality into constitutions. Instead of just steaming, she started a civil rights group composed of straight people pushing for complete equality.
Hillary Molinar and Kanishka Bhaghia
It has already spread to 70 college campuses around the country. Student Karla Gonzalez recently raised $5,000 in three weeks at Texas A&M selling equality-themed T-shirts. At the Austin happy hour, Austin businessman Tim McCabe pledged $2,500 if the attending University of Texas students could match that.
Michelle Gardner, Karla Gonzalez and Lowell Kane
Atticus Circle executive director Ruth Gardner-Loew also spoke at the party, as did UT students whose names I did not catch. Pretty uplifting stuff.
(Have I mentioned I’m pleased UT is going west, into the future, with the Pac-10, rather than east with the SEC? Do I have to enumerate the many reasons why? It would be nice if our good friends at Texas A&M took a step forward rather than back as well.)
UPDATE: A previous version of this post did not credit Karla Gonzalez with raising the $5,000 at A&M.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
June 6, 2010
Austin Pride at the Long Center
Austin Gay and Lesbian Pride is bigger than ever. Or maybe the new nonprofit charged with its destiny has figured out what works for that particular festival and parade. From Saturday morning till well into the evening, countless expressions of pride flocked around the Long Center, then lower downtown Austin.
Adam Clements and Lara Aulie
The center’s plaza was buzzing when I arrived at 11 a.m. My aim: “Connections,” four themed playlets by Allan Baker revived on the Rollins Studio stage. Three of the pieces were riveting, emotionally, aesthetically, on every level. The fourth, a conversation between two men in bed, needs more air to grow. But all four reminded me of Tennessee Williams during his experimental stage in the 1960s. (Baker establishes a sense of place through gay characters who grew up in West Texas.)
Pete Murchison and Deandra Harris
After that, I wandered through the pride fair on the plaza and down the center’s lawn. Hundreds of people thronged to dozens of booths, some for nonprofits, others offering pride paraphernalia, and, course, food. Despite the heat, the mood was light, even frisky, as folks took photos, held hands and caught up with old friends. I talked at some length with former mayoral aide Rich Bailey about our usual topic: The need for a gay community center in Austin, a gathering place and nexus for small nonprofits.
Nadine Hughes and Rachel Mykels
I strolled home for nap, then returned in time for Mario Cantone’s set at 6 p.m.. The comic, best known to some his returning role in the “Sex and the City” franchise, does brilliant, eccentric stand-up with his buzz-saw voice and nimble body. This time, he and a small band threw in numerous musical numbers, some of new making, and one unforgettable duet between mocked-up Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland. Cantone’s vocal range is pretty amazing too.
Robby Hausman and Layne Box
Greeting familiar faces all the way — including a spiffed-up Heath Riddles from KOOP Radio and retired Statesman stars Ben Sargent and Diane Holloway — I inspected the parade floats hugging the southern base of the Drake Bridge. Then I crossed the river just in time to hear a welcome invitation for salty snacks and a beverage at III Forks. It was American-Statesman publisher Michael Vivio and his wife Beth, along with two of their friends. They had stumbled on the most pleasant place in the shade along the restaurant’s terrace to watch the pride parade.
Jessica Champion and Kathleen Houlihan from the thoroughly creative Austin Public Library Bibliofiles
As usual, along with solidarity and hilarity, there seemed to be no scarcity of leather, drag, shirtlessness or inventive costuming. As the parade faded away, I bid my civilized companions goodbye to check out the block party on West Fourth Street. Suddenly, the heat of the day hit me. People looked like they had been through the ringer, sweat pouring from every available pore. (The L Style G Style crew had already showered at least twice that day.) Organizers planted a party within a street party in the parking lot at West Fourth and Colorado streets. It looked likely to dance into the wee hours.
Walking home, I ran into Rob Faubion. He informed me that Joe Reynold’s revised Saba is now a gay lounge named M2 after the Los Angeles spot that Joe had helped create before returning to Austin. Huh. Joe had told me his plans to change the name of the West Fourth Street looker, but I didn’t know it would be gay-themed. Makes sense at that spot. The community could sure use a classy lounge.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: City, Law
June 5, 2010
Queer Bomb at 501 Studios
A carnival mood attended the Queer Bomb assembly at 501 Studios on Friday. An hour before the alternative procession began, folks in costume gathered inside and nearby the versatile facility at Brushy and East Fifth streets. Familiar themes — modified uniforms, theatrical drag, all sorts of gender bending — proliferated. Freshest to me were women tufted with fur who formed “Clan of the Cave Queer.”
Caitlin Lowell, Tom Cat and R. Hyena
By 9 p.m., at least 200 revelers were psyched for the pride procession. Everyone I spoke to — gay, straight and otherwise — shared a feeling of playfulness and warmth. It made one, well, proud, of Austin, that so many tribes would engage in such public joy. City Council Member Randi Shade honorably read a proclamation from Mayor Lee Leffingwell dubbing June 4, 2010 Queer Bomb Day (only in Austin!).
Not sure if my notes are accurate on these IDs. Best not to guess.
Pride shows many faces, and some of the speech-making exhibited its less admirable facets. Speakers drifted into contradiction (We are all about love, except when we are constantly dinging the people we hate in our own community and what they do.); or ahistorical conclusions (contrary to the narrowed definitions shouted from the platform, fairly ordinary-looking doctors, lawyers, teachers and the like also contributed mightily to the early gay movement and marched in the earliest protests. I know. I was there. I was one of those teachers. The documentary “Before Stonewall” deserves a look-see.)
Erin Gentry and Erica Nix
Time changes one’s perspective, too. Back then, we faced squadrons of regimented riot police who blocked our paths. Last night, Austin peace officers on bicycles and motorcycles led the gentle way. Decades ago, I could have been lost my teaching candidacy when my picture appeared on the front page of the Houston daily newspaper as part of march coverage. (I didn’t: Then as now, I take a terrible picture.) At least in Central Texas, I hope those kinds of imminent threats to life, love or pursuit of happiness are waning.
Rhetorical quibbles and sharpened memories didn’t distract from the sheer fun of Queer Bomb and the extravagant feeling of good will I experienced personally on Friday. I followed the march as it turned onto East Sixth Street, but didn’t go far. Two fatigued twentysomethings smiled at me conspiratorially when we recognized our mutual bailings: “Marches are for 19-year-olds,” they joked. On such a hot evening, they, and I hope, I can be excused for simply wishing the procession well.
June 1, 2010
Not just one way to salute gay pride
Who owns gay pride? Or, more to the point, who owns the Austin tributes to the Stonewall Riots of June 1969, which ignited the modern gay movement?
“Nobody” seems as safe a dodge as “everybody.” Yet anyone familiar with the dynastic rivalries among advocates of African American civil rights or the micro-divisions within the women’s movement knows that such symbolic events come packed with potential strife.
This week, two Austin groups — Austin Gay and Lesbian Pride Foundation and Queer Bomb — will salute the historic riots in distinct ways.
The last part didn’t sit well with everyone.
“We didn’t want pride to become just another circuit party,” says Chad Peevy, 29, president of the foundation, which is attempting to define the annual festival and parade as family-friendly and tourist-genial. “I didn’t always feel included in the past. I don’t think others did either.”
You see, large, elaborate circuit parties attract gay males (almost exclusively) for music, dance and various forms of intemperance. Among the marathon festivities on the international circuit are Palm Springs’ White Party, Montreal’s Black and Blue Party and Miami’s Winter Party. In Austin, Splash parties — the next one scheduled for Labor Day weekend — radiate from the vicinity of Hippie Hollow.
Fine for that sort of thing, Peevy says, but not a way to unite a larger community. “I have felt isolated in my gay experience,” he says. “In my search for a sense of belonging, I’ve been given an opportunity to create a place, one I hope others could relate to as well. You can go to the same circuit party in Los Angeles, New York or Miami. Instead, we wanted to showcase the best among us and the best within us.”
With that in mind, the foundation chose seven grand marshals — Libby Sykora, Oliver Everette, Patrice Pike, Lisa Scheps, Laura Morrison, Megan Hodge and Gregory J. Vincent — representing law, media, music, business, charity, government, education and other fields. Hodge, a rising star, gained fame as a high school student and co-founder of Texas Gay Straight Alliance Network; she now works closely with Out Youth.
Peevy, who runs a marketing company, and his foundation took over duties that had previously been shouldered by the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, a business group, and Equality Texas, an advocacy group, at various locations.
Not everyone is happy with the Pride regime or its aims. A group called Queer Bomb, which quickly attracted more than 700 friends on Facebook, plans an alternative event on Friday. It will start at 8:30 p.m. at 501 Studios in East Austin, follow a procession downtown, then return to the Studios for a blowout bash.
Queer Bomb spokesman Paul Soileau, who doubles in drag as Rebecca Havemeyer, says that some in the community have felt discouraged by the foundation’s structure. They also suspect that certain elements of gay culture have been shunted aside as Austin Pride was mainstreamed.
Members of Soileau’s group say they felt that Austin Pride was too closely associated with business interests and that it strives too hard to fit in with the straight world. (The presence of children, accompanied by gay or straight parents, seems to heat any such debate.)
The foundation does charge fees ($75-$125) for parade floats, defrays organizing costs through VIP passes priced as high as $179, and encourages behavior that wouldn’t offend sponsors or mainstream audiences.
That’s a sticking point for Queer Bomb, whose members mistrust the Austin Pride leadership based on past experiences.
“We are an array of unique individuals who don’t feel their presence accepted,” Soileau says. “We are being forced to correct behavior in a controlled way. (Austin Pride) is making people feel we are unsafe because of the way we look and act.”
Both groups are seeking greater inclusion, which has led, almost inevitably, to some feeling left out. It’s a disagreement as old as the gay movement. While feelings on both sides have been bruised, neither is discouraging attendance at the other’s events.
“We are asking people to take part in everything,” Soileau says. “Do as many things as you can, since this is the one weekend we really have.”
UPDATE: The starting point for the Queer Bomb procession, 501 Studios, was not announced until after the article in the June 1 American-Statesman was printed.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: City, Law
May 13, 2010
Mexican media: Garza, Aramburuzabala divorced
According to Quién magazine, Tony Garza, former United States Ambassador to Mexico, and María Asunción Aramburuzabala, the Mexican heiress and businesswoman, have divorced.
A lawyer and former judge, Garza, 50, is originally from Brownsville and graduated from the University of Texas. He served as chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, becoming the first Hispanic elected to statewide office. While governor, George W. Bush appointed him Texas Secretary of State.
Aramburuzabala, 47, is president of Tresalia Capital and sits on various corporate boards. She also controls Mexican brewing giant Grupo Modelo. Forbes estimates her fortune at more than $1 billion. She has two sons and lives in Mexico City.
According to Quién, she showed up for a regular vacation in Vail in December without Garza, surprising her circle of friends.
UPDATE: Garza has confirmed the divorce to friends, several Austin sources say. Garza has not responded to an e-mail message seeking comment. His former wife’s full name is María Asunción Aramburuzabala.
UPDATE (4:20 p.m.): Garza’s spokeswoman Jennifer Harris said in response to questions: “As you might expect, Tony would prefer to keep a private matter, just that, private.”
UPDATE: (12:10 p.m. Thursday) Raul Gonzalez was the first Hispanic elected to statewide office, sitting on the Texas Supreme Court in the 1980s. Dan Morales was elected attorney general in 1990. He was a former county judge.
March 24, 2010
Human Rights Campaign Dinner at Hyatt Regency Austin
As a gay man, who came out almost exactly three years after the 1969 Stonewall Riots; who remembers — like it was last weekend — when, doing so, threatened one’s career and family; when “gay panic” was a free pass in many courtrooms for assault or murder; when daily newspapers ran the names and mugshots of patrons snared in raids of gay bars, thereby putting their reputations in jeopardy; to someone of my age and memories, the Human Rights Campaign is something akin to a miracle.
Rick Payton, Linda Payton and Bishop Gene Robinson
(For those readers who think there’s already too much gay material in a column entitled “Out & About,” please page to another austin360.com blog today.)
Nevertheless, the national civil rights group — and correlated organizations such as Lambda Legal — have come under increased fire for their mainstream, incremental political approach, as they work closely with straight allies to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” promote marriage equality and other such still-divisive issues.
It reminds me of periodic criticism aimed at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a group explicitly compared to the Human Rights Campaign during a gala dinner at the Hyatt Regency Austin on Saturday.
Lara Deen, Samantha Barnes and Robyn Mabry
The ties among generations of civil rights activists was emphasized during a speech by national Campaign president Joe Solomonese, who informed the full house that, earlier in the day, Tea Party backers had slung racial and gay slurs at Congress members during healthcare reform protests in Washington D.C.
Other incisive speeches were given by Bishop Gene Robinson (whose very existence has split the Anglican communion) and soap opera actor Scott Evans (who plays a breakthrough gay character on “One Life to Live”), before jazz singer Kellye Gray scatted into the night.
(Partners Jill Wilcox and Karen Langsley, along with their children Zach and Kim, earned Bettie Naylor Lifetime Achievement Awards.)
Nathan Michaud and Justin Stephens
Despite the good will emanating from the dais, the Campaign dinner was not without glitches. The following tips apply, not just to this particular dignified and uplifting event, but, in ways, to dozens of other Austin galas this season. (So don’t take it personally, guys and gals.)
Don’t schedule during South by Southwest.
Post more than three volunteers at the sign-in table, otherwise a line stretches to the hotel door.
Don’t position two slow, poorly manned, expensive drink stations so close to the live-auction maze that social mingling is blocked.
And once that mingling comes to a virtual halt, don’t keep guests out on an atrium terrace while guarding the doors to the banquet hall.
Serving salad before the speeches is a good idea — hunger causes crankiness — but why deliver the main course while half the house is out on the terrace socializing, bidding on auction items or — again — waiting in an endless drink line?
This applies to virtually every gala in Austin: In the advice of fictional E! executive Jack, played by Alan Tudyk in the comedy “Knocked Up” — “Tighten … tighten.” I know this is a big moment, but longer than four hours. Really?
Repeat: Don’t schedule during South by Southwest.
March 22, 2010
Austin contingent to see Molly Ivins play
The Austin connection was crystal clear, so when Hollywood star Kathleen Turner planned to open her show, “Red-Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins,” about the late columnist at the Philadelphia Theatre Company, more than one local contingent scheduled a theater trip.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Inquirer are slated to join them at a reception hosted by the ACLU of Pennsylvania. Turner will be an honored guest at that party.
The Texas Observer is putting together another group to see the play in April.
Photo by Barbara Johnston for the Washington Post.
Permalink | | Categories: Arts, Law
March 20, 2010
Liz Carpenter dies at age 89
Please leave your thoughts and memories below.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
January 30, 2010
ADL Torch of Liberty Awards at the Four Seasons
After the Anti-Defamation League Torch of Liberty awards dinner Thursday at the Four Seasons, I wondered, if only for moment, why it went so well, why the introductions and acceptance speeches, the videos and testimonials, even the lighting combined for a profound emotional and intellectual impact.
Kirk and Amy Rudy
Once again, Steven Tomlinson, playwright, performer and business coach was ready with the answer. “Because the speakers hold the audience to account,” he said. “It’s the only gala where that happens. There’s a confessional element, then they make sure the listeners understand they are personally responsible for fighting bigotry.”
Kirk and Alicia Golinghorst
Larry Connelly and James Armstrong, who won the Raymond and Audrey Maislin Humanitarian Award, spoke modestly about their philanthropic efforts in the community. Yet everyone choked up when Connelly thanked Austin for accepting the pair’s life partnership for the past 26 years.
Shawna and Eric Hills
Amy and Kirk Rudy, the Torch of Liberty honorees, were more loquacious. Amy talked with utmost sincerity and humor about growing up a sensitive child, “a crier,” having that quality squeezed out of her, then finding, later in life, that sensitivity aligned her with compassion. Rudy, almost Latinate in his oratory, cited examples from his own life, but also form the larger sphere, of attitude changes, if only people stand up to intolerance.
Alisa Weldon, Aliza Orent and Austin City Council Member Randi Shade
So many leaders attended — starting with Luci Johnson and extending across the city’s social spectrum — it was hard not to chat with everyone who passed by. My immediate tablemates, Carolyn Seriff and Jane Stetson, were special delights. To my left, Seriff talked about life in Horseshoe Bay, which she won’t give up even as she establishes a pied-Ã -terre at the Austonian.
Tom Spencer and Simone Talma Flowers
To my right, Stetson, the National Finance Chairwoman for the Democratic Party, was curious about everybody and everything Austin. She’s a rising star in her own right, if only behind the scenes.
What an eye-opening, and, I understand, also a record-setting event, thanks in part to organizers Eugene Sepulveda and Shelley Zausmer.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
January 18, 2010
Merry, Merry Martini Mixer at Mercury Hall
The Merry, Merry Martini Mixer is as guileless as a University of Texas freshman peeking into Oilcan Harry’s for the first time.
Becca Powell and Tim Haney
It’s got martinis. Those boys lubricate social mixing. Nothing more complicated than that.
Michael Thad Carter (working on a photographic project about Lady Ga Ga fans), Michael Gomez and Tim McCabe (leaving for Thailand)
The annual event — now in its fifth year — raises money for Equality Texas, the anti-discrimination advocacy group. I’m guessing it raises a lot of dough, because this baby was sold out way before Saturday, when it returned to the magical Mercury Hall, an easy stroll from our home.
Bobby Levinski, Josh Lodolo and Andrew Knox
I arrived a bit late to find the interior of the converted church already massed with merry-makers. The volume of the music drove me and other slightly older gay men and lesbians (and their allies, as always) out to the white tent stationed nearby.
Adam Ayres (leaving for Odessa) and Jan Patterson (running for Court of Appeals)
After an ugly Friday, weather-wise, this night matched the good feelings shared inside the tent. Conversations overlapped conversations. Martinis were greeted with martinis. It wasn’t formal and it wasn’t entirely casual.
Adam Garner (Trigger Studios) and Danielle Thomas (Big Green House)
Yet it was consummately social. At one point, looking around, I wondered why someone hadn’t opened a downtown lounge for this particular crowd. Clearly, they love the lounge vibe. The side bars at Rain and OCH — even Charlie’s — sometimes feel like this.
Regina Miles and Heather Aidala
Two of my conversation mates told of leaving town. One was a tale of hope: Real estate wizard Tim McCabe (W Hotel and Residence) is off to Thailand to teach orphans English and soccer. Dear, dear Adam Ayres, however, has been banished by the economy to (gulp) Odessa.
Danny Ramon and Kane Hosmer (great name!)
I’m hearing that more and more: People who would really rather stay here, but can’t afford it. The jobs just aren’t here, and those that are, don’t pay well enough to keep up with our area’s cost of living. Drat!
Liz Lurie and Laramie Gorbet
If this situation holds, we are going to lose some of that creative class we’ve nurtured all these years. I have no solutions. One can only downsize so far. All I know is that Odessa is almost never the answer. (Even loving West Texas as much as I do.)
Jason Scheffel and Brandon May
Back to the party: Equality Texas leaders say the Merry, Merry event has outgrown Mercury Hall. Next year, it’s moving to the Sheraton Austin. Well, that will be a different event, but I’m sure just as popular.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
January 5, 2010
Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner at the Four Seasons
Just try silencing 600 or so Democrats. Valiant Andy Brown, Travis County Democratic Party Chairman, tried. That almost insuperable task took the quiet gravitas of Ora Houston, inaugurating the first-ever Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner with a prayer at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Carol Alvarado and Charles Villaseñor
I learned at the end of the evening that this get-together was formerly known as the “Filing Day Dinner” and took place at the even more rambunctious Austin Music Hall. So named for the last date politicians filed for a primary run, it has always brought together the county’s Democratic brigades for a little pre-campaign camaraderie.
Scott McCown, Mary Margaret Farabee and Ellen Richards
Only this year, under Brown’s leadership, the dinner raised $180,000 for coordinated campaign efforts. Just about every face in the crowd looked familiar. And, in case you were wondering, I’d happily report on any similar Republican social convocation, surely more organized than this, as Will Rogers would quip.
Rebecca Bell-Metereau, Yvonne Reynolds and Yolanda Velasquez
State Senator Kirk Watson and. U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett gave bookend speeches, although they might have been reversed, since Watson’s was a rousing, hopeful call to arms, while Doggett’s, which followed, repeated the challenges ahead. He emphasized the energy of the Tea Party wing of the opposition, something he’s witnessed first hand. (Visit YouTube for dramatizations.)
Ramey Ko and Katherine Haenschen
Touching tributes were offered for lost leaders, including Emma Barrientos, late wife of former State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos and a huge friend of the arts. (Name the MACC for her?) Yet the climax of the evening came with a short, funny, classy speech from B.A. Bentsen, widow of late U.S. Senator and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen.
Lynn Meredith and Robbie Ausley
She told a story about how, as soon as her husband was elected county judge in his 20s, a couple was waiting in their car outside their house, knocked on the door and asked to be married. He rolled out every ritual he could remember, including the Pledge of Allegiance, to make the ceremony work.
Maurice Culley and Catherine Robb
Before the dozens of Democratic candidates were introduced, awards went to three exceedingly fit public citizens — Catherine Robb, Lan Bentsen and Ellen Richards — who happen to have descended from the dinner’s titular leaders.
Skyler Bentsen Stewart and B.A. Bentsen
Some progressives at the event whispered that their hero, late U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, should have joined the Gang of Three on the letterhead. Actually, the the chosen ones represent a balance between idealism and pragmatism that almost anyone can appreciate.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
October 22, 2009
Alpha Rev at Antone's
Music and politics make regular bedfellows in Austin …
Travis County Democratic Party ED Laura Hernandez and Austin Adams
Susan Antone hand-picked some buzzy bands to play for a Jack McDonald fundraiser on Wednesday …
Cathy Ziller and Ashley Ziller
McDonald’s campaign remains in the “exploratory phase” prior to a bid for the U.S. Congress against incumbent Michael McCaul …
Julia Genin and Matt Buford
I don’t generally cover political fundraisers for Out & About, — and I already run into McDonald at countless charity events — but this one at Antone’s on Wednesday featured Alpha Rev …
Jack McDonald and Anne Olson
I know, I know, I’ve lost my head over the Rev, but so did a lot of other people that night. They sound better than ever.
Jeff Rogers and Lana Coy
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Music
October 12, 2009
Through the Night & Beyond with Ray Farabee, Part 3
For more of ‘Through the Night & Beyond with Ray Farabee,’ scroll down to previous posts, or go here for Part 1 and Part 2.
“I’m the product of the Depression,” he says. “Also a product of working in a way that teenagers don’t have these days - throwing papers, working in grocery stories, loading box cars.”
If working hard left him with life-long empathy for his fellow humans, his rock-ribbed Baptist background somewhat confounded him, especially as his world view widened.
“Will Rogers, then the most famous man in the world, gave a speech at Baylor University,” he recalls. “The college leaders sat on the front row. Rogers said: ‘Members of the board of trustees are here. I want to compliment them because, the more you educate young people, the fewer Baptists you’re going to get.’”
Although self-identified as a conservative Democrat in the state senate, back when that faction was dominant in Texas government, Farabee believes civil rights and the fight against racial bigotry were among the signal advances of his times.
“I am an optimist,” he once said. “If I ever quit being an optimist, I’ll become a Republican.”
Farabee elaborated on this bit of humor later in life: “Despite my closer proximity to the Grim Reaper and widespread cynicism about government and politics, I remain an optimist - and a Democrat. After all, I made it through the night of Nov. 22, 1932 and beyond. I have had a life of wonderful opportunities, meaningful work, and am blessed with a fine family. Life has been, and is, good.”
Through the Night & Beyond with Ray Farabee, Part 2
For Part 1 of ‘Through the Night & Beyond with Ray Farabee,’ scroll down to the previous post, or link here.
Farabee not only survived, he thrived. And he’s still making speeches — just last week to a judicial conference in Corpus Christi — supporting causes and traveling the world at age 76.
His book, by the way, is intended for three distinct audiences. The first are his relatives, whose detailed history comprises the first chapters and was written specifically for a family reunion. Additionally, historians of Texas law and law-making will thank Farabee for his analysis of those senate and counsel years.
The rest of his memories are open to the general reader who can marvel at his Tom Sawyer boyhood along the Wichita River; his meteoric rise through student government and the National Student Association; his legal successes (and some missteps) and unexpected election to the Texas Senate; also his endearing romances with Helen and Mary Margaret.
In person at his ranch-style home in Barton Hills, or on the pages of his memoir, Farabee overflows with anecdotes - not political gossip - about Texas political stars Ralph Yarborough, Bill Hobby, Kent Hance, Ben Barnes and Mary Arnold, among others. He reaches back into history to reveal a morphine-addicted great-grandmother who spent the last years of the Civil War trying to spring her son out of a Yankee prison. She became involved with a Yankee colonel, then slipped and fell into the Mississippi River. Her body was never recovered. (Farabee would like to make a movie of that one.)
Although criticized by some friends for avoiding emotions in the memoir, Farabee treats the murder of his brother and the death of his first wife with heartbreaking sensitivity. Later, warm humor attends his courtship of Mary Margaret Farabee. (He almost brought a date to the dinner meant to set him up with his future wife.)
More to come …
Through the Night & Beyond with Ray Farabee, Part 1
I prepared just one hardball question for former State Senator Ray Farabee.
“Are you really such an Eagle Scout?” I demanded.
“I never made Eagle,” Farabee corrected me. “I only made Star.”
One might expect more ego and bluster from a man who worked his way up from lye-soap poverty and family tragedy in Wichita Falls; won debates, speaking contests and academic scholarships; took local, state and national student leadership roles; built a commercial legal practice in his home town; served multiple terms as senator in Austin; was named repeatedly to Texas Monthly’s “Best Legislators” list; rose to become the University of Texas System’s chief counsel; raised a family, including a future state representative, and married, in sequence, two leading Texas women, the late Helen Farabee, champion of the state’s mental health programs, and Mary Margaret Farabee, currently among Austin’s most admired fundraisers and activists.
Lanky, jug-eared, grinning and, by all accounts, squeaky clean, Farabee comes off like a North Texas version of Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama. (He’d cringe at these comparisons, but this is my column, not his.) Back in the 1970s, a certain crusading magazine was totally smitten with his good-government, centrist lawgiving.
“Texas Monthly was always extremely kind to me,” Farabee says. “I’m not sure anybody was as good as they said I was. Still, you don’t mind hearing people say nice things. And it’s vastly better than being on the ‘Worst’ list.”
More to come …
September 25, 2009
CARY 10th Anniversary Party at the Hilton Austin
As they would say where I grew up, “CARY does the Lord’s work …”
Andrea Guengerich and Elizabeth Stephens
The Council on At-Risk Youth deals with the toughest cases among young people prone to violence, drug abuse and delinquency …
Tammie and Cliff Brown
As such, they are potent allies to law enforcers and educators… and both fields were prominently represented at CARY’s 10th anniversary party at the Hilton Austin on Thursday …
Julie Levy and Nadia Bererra
Of course, APD Chief Art Acevedo was there — he’s the most socially active person city employee much of the year — but so were many other upstanding citizens …
Shana Fox and Chris Hanson
It broke my heart to see empty tables with place settings on the ready. Wish I could have stayed to hear the inspirational speech by Gregory J. Boyle, S.J., who has battled the seemingly intractable gang problem in Los Angeles. Maybe some more Austinites could back this group that helps tens of thousands of troubled youths …
September 21, 2009
Holland Taylor on Ann Richards, Part 3
For Parts 1 & 2 of Holland Taylor on Ann Richards, scroll down to previous posts, or link here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.
“I came into the room where I mostly work, which was the guest room; now it’s Ann’s room,” she says. “All of her (stuff) is in there. Stacks and stacks and stacks of DVDs, papers, files, notes, reprints, references, books. I came in one night and I had just sent off a big chunk of the play out to my agent. Tears started to well in my eyes, and I became so sad. I realized: All the things I know. I know so many wonderful details. And God is in the details. I can’t put them in the play! I can’t get them in! It’s 100 minutes.
“Then I calmed down because I realized: ‘You had to get all those things in you. So you know her, so that what you do put in, is true.’ It’s not only true, it’s well chosen, in that I’m putting in things that don’t need some outside standard. It’s not a narrative or
history. It’s a play. She’s there. The things that I have her talk about are often homely details, the things that really interested me. If this is really interesting to me, the audience will be interested.”
A 100-minute play about Richards is not a comprehensive biography, which, after all, journalist Jan Reid is already writing.
“If I had to write a biography of her I’d be in the home by now,” Holland quips. “The scope is just too great. What amuses me, is in the play. What interests me, is in the play. And what adds up to a coherent impression.”
Taylor believes she has tapped into something bedrock about the late politician.
“I think of her so often,” she says. “I don’t have a profound belief in the spirit world or our connections after life. I think I’m sort of like Ann in that way. She was generally practical and so am I. But every so often, I’ve felt her presence. She has really altered my
life, lifted me up to a more meaningful plane.”
Holland Taylor on Ann Richards, Part 2
For Part 1 of Holland Taylor on Ann Richards, scroll down to previous post, or link here.
just loved her so much.”
Taylor believes Richards could depend on personal loyalty in part because of her essential decency.
“She drove everyone, but they all knew she was working harder,” Taylor says. “They also knew that her core values were so central, her core sense of fair play. Her lifelong dream was of a fair and just society. When she was a young woman, she and her husband were
just impassioned about civil rights. It was the cause of their life. To right the great wrong.”
More to come …
Holland Taylor on Ann Richards, Part 1
Emmy Award-winning actress Holland Taylor has been soaking up Ann Richards for more than a year now.
Visiting Austin last week for an Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders fundraiser, Taylor took time out for a soft drink and unhurried ruminations about Richards inside the Hotel St. Cecilia courtyard.
“I started writing with a vengeance last March,” Holland says of the stage script. “It wasn’t that I felt ready. I’d been fitting the research into a fairly busy life already, and a job, and I’m not a kid. I could have gone on and on with the research, but I thought, with my years left, I better get this done. I’m going to be too old to remember anything.”
A classy, lively 66, Holland jokes about old age and end-of-life legacies. It’s hard to believe she’s serious. After all, she’s taking on an artistic challenge that would daunt the most eager, earnest greenhorn.
“It demands absolutely everything I’ve got,” she says. “Early on, I had an idea for the mis en scene (stage setting). I told it to a few people with real acumen. ‘That’s good,’ they said, ‘but don’t tell anybody.’ I kept it pretty close to my vest. Told a few of the Ann Richards bigwig people, who love the idea. I’m confident in it.”
A workshop production without full scenery or projections will be announced before Christmas, when the script is expected to be completed. If all goes well, a commercial production would follow. After all that study and writing, she’ll take weeks to memorize virtually every line (there are some offstage voices).
“It’s very exciting,” she says, “but then at moments I think: ‘What in the world have I done?’”
September 11, 2009
2009 Fortunate 500: Law
2009 FORTUNATE 500
LAW
Randi Shade and Kayla Shell. Austin City Council, Dell Inc., Days of Service
Niyanta and Bill Spelman. Austin City Council, LBJ School of Public Affairs
Lara Wendler and Mike Martinez. Austin City Council, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas, National Coalition Building Institute, Texas Senate
Evelyn and Wyeth Wiedeman. Ben Barnes Group, Democratic Party, EntreCorp
Tomi and Pete Winstead. Winstead, Long Center for the Performing Arts, Economic Development Corp., Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council
For images of the 2009 Fortunate 500 Law listees, go here.
COMPLETE 2009 FORTUNATE 500 LISTS:
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law, The 500
September 6, 2009
Fortunate 500 Top Picks: Law
The Top Picks for the 2009 Fortunate 500 list of socially active area citizens were published in Glossy on Friday. In Out & About, we’ll mete out those Top Picks over the next few days. Then, beginning Tuesday, we’ll release the full lists and galleries.
Top Picks: Tanya and Art Acevedo
Rarely has a city official made such a social splash, so suddenly. And a peace officer at that! Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo and his wife Tanya have been married for several years and have three children, but in just there first year here, they found time to make major social appearances for the American Heart Association, Special Olympics Texas, Child Protection Center, Humane Society, American Youthworks, Goodwill Industries, Boy Scouts of America, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, United Way, MDA, YMCA, Blood Center for Central Texas, Central Texas Alzheimer’s Association, Junior League of Austin, Marathon Kids, Junior League of Austin, 100 Club, Americorps and Hospice Austin, among others. (This includes dancing the cha-cha for for a Dancing with the Stars Austin gala and playing Ricky Ricardo for the Heart Ball.) Art migrated from Cuba to the United States in 1968 and grew up in California where he began his law enforcement career with the California Highway Patrol. Tanya is a native of California but spent much of her childhood in Michigan and currently works as an information technology project manager. Even social columnists are impressed with this couple’s social energy.
For more 2009 Fortunate 500 updates, follow the category link below.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
August 25, 2009
On texting, driving, biking and walking
City Council Member Mike Martinez can’t resist knotty policy tangles. Remember he took on the eye-busting billboard industry, with only partial success in a strict property-rights state
As a sometime Austin driver, I endorse the effort.
What could be so important that it must be texted while operating a behemoth vehicle in traffic? I’d go even further, ripping cell phones from the hands of drivers, except in cases of emergency. Whenever I witness a driver making a poor or delayed choice — changing lanes, turning at an intersection — I suspect a hand-held. I’m often right.
Equally tough to enforce is the parallel proposal to keep vehicles three feet away from bikers and pedestrians. As an inveterate pedestrian, I’m also for this. Safety first. But it would be far more costly than City Council members can imagine, since Austin’s network of sidewalks is painfully inadequate. And there’s no extra money to fix them.
Urban planners peg the cost of improving all downtown sidewalks at a quarter billion dollars. Nothing would preserve and improve Austin’s nightlife and attractiveness to businesses, residences and tourists more than a pedestrian-friendly downtown. Where to find such money? A lot of federal stimulus rattled around for transportation projects this year, but it went to Ben White Boulevard flyways and such.
When will pedestrians flex their political muscles?
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Law
August 1, 2009
ACLU Reception at Travis Heights home
President George W. Bush was a gift to the ACLU …
David Glassco and Dotty Griffith
What with the Patriot Act, Guantanamo, etc., the civil liberties organization doubled its national membership …
Susan Herman and Terri Burke
Now, according to chat at an ACLU reception in Travis Heights, the leadership must wrestle with a president with whom they sometimes disagree, but who listens to their arguments …
Lisa Graybill and Barbara Forrest
Also, the economy has buffeted the group’s fortunes, though they’ve laid off just 10 percent of their national staff, not 20 or 30 percent, like some nonprofits …
Lee Henderson and Rebecca Bernhardt
And the Texas staff, once a single paid representative, is still at 17, headed by Terri Burke, former managing director for the American-Statesman …
Amanda Tyler, David Chang
The mood was generally upbeat at Web designer David Glassco’s multi-level, minutely landscaped house high up on Travis Heights Boulevard, as the reception helped launch a weekend conference.
June 30, 2009
Stonewall 2 in Fort Worth?
Yet Fort Worth police, along with their pals from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, arrested seven patrons of the Rainbow Lounge early Sunday during a code inspection. Associated Press and other reports say excessive force was used, and one patron was sent to intensive care for head injuries.
Two city council members have called for an investigation, as has the Human Rights Campaign.
“Brutality at the hands of law enforcement is never acceptable and these allegations demonstrate the need for a thorough and impartial investigation,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “We applaud the Fort Worth community for seeking answers to these very serious charges.”
June 23, 2009
Conversation Starter 1: Brackenridge Tract
Social contact can lead to social conflict. Or social confluence. Arm yourself with conversation starters. And keep the discussion civil.
Who opposes the proposals? Who is for for changes on the site, originally donated by George Brackenridge as an alternative to UT’s first 40 Acres?
Against: West-side golfers, who cherish the convenience of the old, chummy MUNY course; UT biologists, who fear the loss of an established field lab; graduate students, who have grown fond of the minimalist married student housing there; recreationalists, who like the riverfront’s current, relatively wild state; neighbors, who prefer not to welcome new neighbors; and good-government theorists, who dislike cronyism in the state leadership and the move to privatize public functions.
For: Smart Growthers who see careful development as alternatives to sprawl, traffic and pollution; skeptics, who note how few people are served by the tract’s current functions (low-cost alternatives to MUNY are readily available in East Austin); UT leaders, who would like to maximize the land’s potential, once rural, now in the middle of a city with 1.6 million residents; other skeptics, who see the only downside to moving the field lab to McKinney Roughs as inconvenience for a few academics.
As UT System board chairman James Huffines says, we’ve got 10 years to discuss. I suspect the results at the Triangle, Mueller and, perhaps, later, Camp Mabry, will help guide our choices.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Law
May 19, 2009
Fantastic stimulus package map
This interactive AP map shows where transportation money from the federal stimulus package is going.
May 3, 2009
A Republican social conundrum
A curious topic of discussion at recent galas: Why do Republican notables lavishly donate their time and treasure at galas for social-service charities, even as they vote down the same services in government?
The obvious answer: They believe in the private sector. Study after study has shown that conservatives are more generous as traditional philanthropists than liberals. Thus their prominence at certain — but certainly not all — fundraising events.
Another explanation, offered by a wise Republican head, suggests that peer pressure keeps political leaders from backing government intrusion in what formerly were considered the realms of church and charities.
“In the small South Texas town where I grew up, you can tell the Baptists from the Catholics because the Catholics drink in front of each other,” he said. “Republicans don’t like to vote for these causes in front of each other.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
April 30, 2009
100 Days of Change at Speakeasy
Presidential press conferences don’t usually generate parties.
Rebecca Bernhardt, Julia Bernhardt
On the other hand, Texas Democrats haven’t enjoyed that many excuses to revel in the past few years, aside from Pres. Barack Obama’s election and inauguration. Oh, and increases in their statewide and nationwide legislative delegation.
Cher Fugate, Kim Berry
So political leaders and backers met at the renovated Speakeasy to watch Obama’s televised press conference and toast “100 Days of Change.” I ran into my former student, Adam Longley, who is now working for the Tom Shieffer campaign.
Adam Longley, Susanne Schieffer, Tom Schieffer
A horn-tastic dance musical act agitated Andy Brown and the Travis County Democratic Party’s guests onto the dance floor for to “shake, shake, shake — shake their booties.” (I quizzed organizers about the band’s name, but their answers didn’t match online records.)
Courtney Watson, Ken Flippin
A few words about Michael Girard’s trifurcated club. The alley-side bar and its balcony look pretty much the same. The rooftop lounge is still there. What’s changed is the new Congress Avenue-side space with much, much improved performance arrangements — no more plastering the band up against a side wall — and its own matching balcony.
Vanessa Vargas, Jackie Rogers, Donovan Nwokeji
It may take Speakeasy regulars a while to negotiate the connections among the three zones, but the expansion vastly improves the club’s capacity to produce entertainment and parties.
April 29, 2009
Social report on VP Joe Biden's Austin visit
Not just any blog, but one that rivals Out & About for social saturation. Actually, it beats Out & About certain days. Like Tuesday.
Anyway, check Community Matters for a report on the visit of Vice-President Joe Biden to the Lake Austin house of Jeanne and Mickey Klein on Tuesday.
Many Out & About hardcore regulars are featured. Bernard and Audre Rapaport, Kirk and Amy Rudy, Andy Brown, John Sharp, Mayor Will Wynn, Rep. Mark Strama, Marc and Suzanne Winkelman, Nav Sooch, Anne Elizabeth Wynn, plus many more.
I guess the VP’s staff carries around that little podium everywhere he goes.
Photo by Eugene Sepulveda.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
March 29, 2009
HRC gala inspires at the Hilton Austin
I really don’t expect to sob at galas.
em>Clifton Walker, Brian Cash
And, as a reporter for a traditional, mainstream publication, I’m not supposed to let the reader know I was shaken with emotion. Especially not when the subject is as much political as it is social — the ostensible subject of this column.
Dale Fiala, Ronnie Garza, Ian Levin
Yet my objectivity flew momentarily out the window during the Human Rights Campaign Awards Dinner at the Hilton Austin on Saturday.
Chrysta Hudson, Joselyn Hamilton
It wasn’t just the inspirational speeches, the adroit videos or the thundering applause. It was the sense of history’s rewards.
David Sorrells, Lindsey Misle
You live long enough, you witness history. In my youth, the words “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual” or the 1960s equivalent of “transgendered” rarely made it into newspaper pages, except as part of stories about shame, crime or tragedy.
Eric Alva, Richard Irizarry, Scott Tyson
My nieces and nephews’ generation can’t even imagine that. They’ve known gay people all their lives because others were brave enough to come out and also to fight for basic human dignity.
Carina Gonzalez, Erica Sherrill
The HRC, criticized recently for its poor showing in the Proposition 8 gay-marriage battle in California, remains an effective promoter of human rights. And one reason the HRC Awards ceremony operates so effectively — raising more than $100,000 in one sitting, including $6,000 for a meet-up with Cher at Harrah’s in Las Vegas — there are only two official prizes.
Janet Waller, Bridget Wilson
Universal role model Bettie Naylor introduced Woodie Jones, who, before he returned to the bench as chief justice, Third Court of Appeals, worked tirelessly, pro bono, to establish equal legal rights in Texas for gay parents. (The evening’s first award went to Jones.)
Michelle Valles, Cliff Redd
Later, Cuc Vu, chief diversity officer for HRC nationally, made an edifying speech that touched on her family’s harrowing journey from Vietnam and the unique opportunities offered the GLBT community during the Obama era.
Cuc Vu, Leslie Jaffe, David Jaffe
Cliff Redd, head of the Long Center for the Performing Arts and practiced public speaker, made the speech of his life when accepting the Person of the Year Award. He made it clear that being out was as much a part of his success as an arts and business leader as any other quality he possesses.
Sissy Spiro, Traci Campbell, Gina Fant-Saez
Michelle Valles , however, proved the hit of the evening with her random, sweet quips that, as she says, will probably land her in the newsroom office explaining herself again. Example: The KEYE anchor formerly worked for KXAN, which, she says, was regularly called “GAYXAN” because so many gay people were employed there. Valles also kept apologizing to District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg for jokes that might suggest the anchor wasn’t altogether upstanding. Despite her sometime troubles, Valles remains an Austin superstar.
February 6, 2009
GOP Spat Menaces Social Scene 2
For Part 1, see earlier post …
The governor’s and senator’s staff members signal trench warfare.
If the strife gets really nasty, imagine dinner-party chat in the silk-stocking districts, not to mention Republican strongholds in Williamson County and elsewhere. How to steer the conversation away from the elephant-goring-in-the-room? And how to plan a larger Republican event while inviting both — or neither — candidate?
Luckily for local accord, many of the social captains who also donate to Republican candidates — Ann and Roy Butler, Patty and Jim Huffines, Pam and Dr. George Willeford, for instance — are the diplomatic kind. Willeford served as an actual ambassador under the Bush administration, albeit to relatively peaceful Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Maybe she should be consulted before every Republican social affair.
GOP Spat Menaces Social Scene 1
Republican social doyens dread the looming gubernatorial hostilities between Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry.
After more than a decade of relative peace during George W. Bush’s governorship and presidency — and, especially, Laura Bush’s shrewd ascendancy — the Hutchison-Perry contest could split the red-precinct social scene the way that Gov. Sarah Palin’s candidacy divided the Republican Party nationally.
More to come …
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Law
February 1, 2009
Obama Day Memories 11
Austin style-maker Gail Chovan remembers:
On the day of Obama’s Inauguration, I had just seen my oncologist. As I sat in the waiting room, ready for my first chemo treatment, Obama was taking his oath of office.
Everyone in the room stood up. There we were — cancer patients, their families, the nurses, all perched to start on a journey in our lives that no one could have possibly imagined a year or even several months before.
We cheered, we hugged, we cried. I then moved on into the infusion room where, for the next three hours, I received my chemo treatment for breast cancer and watched the festivites from my recliner as the toxic chemicals lulled me to sleep.
Send your Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 30, 2009
Obama Day Memories 10
Twenty-something Austin reader Alex Winkelman remembers:
The Winkelman family sat in front of Bruce Springsteen at the Inauguration — until he and his family got moved to a very, very important person’s area.
James Lehrer, host of PBS’s “The NewsHour,” was among the guests at the Ben Barnes/Bernard Rapoport reception on Sunday night. It was also a great visiting point with many Austinites and Texans, including the Melanie Barnes, the entire Rapoport clan, Merediths, Deborah and Larry Peel, Winkelmans, Sen. Kirk Watson and son Preston, Sen. Rodney Ellis, Alexa and Blaine Wesner, Diane Land and Steve Adler, Wyeth Wiedeman, Amy and Kirk Rudy (dressed very casually, having come from the concert on the mall, but on their way to a black tie event).
At the Huntington Post Pre-inaugural Ball, Jake Winkelman held Ron Howard’s place in line so that Ron and his wife, Cheryl, could visit with Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. On exiting the same event late Monday night, Marc Winkelman ran into and had a brief chat with Robert DeNiro.Send Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 29, 2009
Obama Day Memories 9
Among other activities in DC, I had the fortune of being invited by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to attend the Speaker’s Cabinet Luncheon on Jan. 20 in celebration of the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. The entertainment for the luncheon was Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovett and Jon Bon Jovi, who all played tributes to the new administration. I was able to get my picture snapped with both the Speaker and with Lyle Lovett. It was a big thrill for this Texas girl and fan!
Send Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 28, 2009
Obama Day Memories 8
Austin word-spreader Karen Frost, a former DC resident, remembers:
The energy in our nation’s capital was so light, I think there was a moment at the Lincoln Memorial concert when Bono was singing “In a City of Blinding Lights” that the town actually started to levitate.
Upon exiting our booth and applying the multiple layers of sweaters, scarves and gloves necessary for warmth while walking around our nation’s capital, I chatted with them … and it was the smiles of my new friends that touched my soul to its core. It was the life’s journey behind those smiles that generates this foundation of the hope, change and joy overwhelming a town often draped in skepticism, not just a city, but a nation levitating in blinding lights.
Send your Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 26, 2009
Obama Day Memories 7
Media man Phil West remembers: “Not even the power of Obama’s oratory could overcome traffic on MoPac. I heard much of the speech crawling along at about 10 miles per hour.”
Attorney Paul Ruiz remembers: “I think the neatest thing I saw at the inauguration was a young African American man holding a home-made sign that said simply, ‘I have a Black President.’ That one statement spoke volumes. I wish I had taken a photo of him.”
Motorblader Fritz Blaw remembers: “With my chinstrap beard fully grown, 15 minutes before the first swearing in, I walked into my daughter’s class as Abraham Lincoln — stovepipe hat, vest and bowtie — I read the Gettysburg Address to Mr. Deatley’s fifth-grade class and was tickled when Zach, a friend of my daughter Emma, said ‘Wow, that was heavy.’ ”
Reader Molly McCauley remembers: “My 15-year-old granddaughter, Violet, texting me at the beginning of President Obama’s oath: ‘G’ma, are you crying?’ My reply: ‘Yes.’ ”
Send memories of Obama Day to mbarnes@statesman.com.
Obama Day Memories 6
Our own Matthew Odam remembers on his blog gallery. Here are some snaps from his and companions’ photos in DC:
Yes, that’s Matthew with the beard.
Send Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
Obama Day Memories 5
Reader Beth McDaniel remembers:
Aside from being part of such an awe-inspiring slice of history, it was interesting from a sociological perspective to be a part of an unprecedented crowd.
Any other day, I would have been frightened and anxious about being in a crowd that size. But the amazing thing was the consciousness and energy of the people. They were patient, understanding, generous and helpful. I never heard a complaint or an angry word. Never felt a push or a feeling of intimidation.
It was a testament to humanity, and to a powerful moment for 2 million people with like-minded purpose to gather together. I heard that there was not even one arrest I cant imagine a more calm and organized transition of power in any country.
We ended up walking to Reagan International Airport … I’ve never walked to an airport before, but there were streams of other people doing the same.
Send your Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
Obama Day Memories 4
Reader Kristine Gloria of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide remembers
At 3:30 a.m., we decided to head down to the entrance for the inauguration. Might as well stand in line at 4 a.m. We arrived to find that +2,000 people had the same idea. Apparently, there’s no such thing as an early bird here — just nocturnal ones.
Falling into line (as) the temperatures hovered around freezing. We each had over six layers of clothing on, but the cold kept creeping in. Finally, Andrew made the executive call to find an alternative line entrance. Eureka! He found one at 7th and D. So we line-hopped and found ourselves behind only +100 or so people.
By this point, we were nearing +24 hours without sleeping, and it just kept getting colder. You could feel your body power down to conserve heat and energy. At 5 a.m., the two lines finally merged. It was clear from people’s reaction, the shoving and the sudden push forward that there had to be +100,000 people filling the streets. The line went back 4-5 city street blocks.
Hi, if you’re estimating +2 million people to attend an event, please equip entrances with more than TWO metal detectors.
More on her road triphttp://austin30.org/?p=113"> “Obama or Bust PT I” & http://austin30.org/?p=132">“Obama or Bust PT II”
January 25, 2009
Obama Day Memories 3
Chez Zee owner Sharon Watkins remembers:
I have lots of mundane stories about how cold I was, but the one that is the most amusing is the women commandeering the Men’s bathroom in Union Station. As usual the Women’s line was twice as long and twice as slow. So some smart woman decided that the Men’s could be Unisex. She announced said switch by saying “Obama said we needed Change! We’re going to start right here!”
The unknowing men who didn’t hear the message just went around and looked confused as they entered the newly anointed Unisex bathroom, but the women at the front of the line explained that they could go in but they could not use the stalls.
We peacefully coexisted there and in every other place that entire day.
Send your Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 24, 2009
Obama Day Memories 2
Austin writer Lindsey Lane remembers:
About 70 faculty and students in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, Vermont are huddled around the television in the lounge. Outside the temperature is hovering at -10, inside the excitement is building. Several faculty at VCFA are Canadian. One of them is Tim Wynne-Jones, author of the Rex Zero series. He looks at all of us Americans, sitting there, poised and a little breathless, and says, “Looks like you got yourselves a country.”
At one point during the inauguration, I leaned over to a fellow student and I said, “After all those apocryphal memories we’ve had during our lives: 9/11, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations, isn’t it great we have these luminous national moments to replace them? Now our kids can grow up saying, “Where were you on November 4, 2008” and “Where were you on January 20, 2009?”
Send Obama Day memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
Obama Day Memories 1
Reader Nancy Scanlan remembers:
Lowell Lebermann rounded up a bunch of friends to watch the proceedings while chowing down on breakfast tacos and mimosas followed by barbeque and trimmings. Mary Margaret and Ray Farabee, Cindy Keever, Maline McCalla, Bea Ann Smith and several more plus a legion of his present and former aides … what would seem to be a crowd was eased by the presence of two large, flat-screen TVs plus a movie-sized screen in a private room. What a thrilling moment!
Send your memories to mbarnes@statesman.com.
January 21, 2009
Obama Inauguration Day 15
The last of 10 inauguration parties that I attended on Jan. 20 might have been the best, if festivity is the litmus test. I didn’t stay until the salty end.
City Council Member Bruce McCracken, Austin Adams
The Bush Retirement Party at Antone’s proved the most partisan event of the day, with a shoe-tossing target out on the sidewalk and Democratic officeholders, past and present, thick on the floor. Travis County Democratic Chairman Andy Brown was able to pack the place — and a reportedly more elegant matching gala at the Driskill Hotel on Saturday — partly through social media. He’s learned how to energize the body politic through Facebook, etc. Oh, and he raised $50,000.
Beto Lilly, Veronica Bernal, Haya Alaxan
Democratic regulars Ann Kitchen and Nona Niland expressed wonder at all the unfamiliar faces in the crowd. Would they continue to remain engaged in politics after the bloom is off the Obama rose, they asked. The service aspect of so many of the events over the four-day weekend suggest so.
Nona Niland, Ann Kitchen
Veteran comedian and Bush impersonator Kerry Awn got in some final kicks, well-practiced from his Esther’s Follies years. Yet some partiers expressed sympathy for the ex-prez and even admiration for the way he left office. My social engagement with Inauguration Day ended with the blazing sounds of the Heartless Bastards, whose tone matched the mood of the remaining brood.
Obama Inauguration Day 14
Union Park, like its brethren on West Sixth Street — Molotov, Annie’s West, J. Black’s, Star Bar, Little Woodrow’s, Key Bar, Opal Divine’s, Mother Egan’s — generously opens its social wonders to the street. Walking to my 10th Obama Day party, I recalled that the capacious, two-story Union Park was hosting an inaugural bash with the GeekAustin group.
James Setaro, Jenn Deering Davis
So I dropped in. By this time — 10 p.m. — this collection of people from the tech industry were well into revelry mode. The only sign of geekiness that I witnessed was a screen projected on one of the bar’s back walls with some sort of geeky controls. (I couldn’t get close enough to decipher.) Oh, that and the electronica act playing up front.
Noelle Davis, Nathan Batiste
What ambushed me as I greeted the guys and gals of GeekAustin was that everyone seemed to know who I was. They had friended me on Facebook or were following my micro-blogs on Twitter. Jenn Deering Davis, chief of community experience for Appozite, had even been following my party circuit all that Inauguration Day.
Karen Ngo, Steve Odom, Brian Smith
My conversation partners also demonstrated familiarity with Statesman writers Omar Gallaga and Addie Broyles through their online personae. One expressed mild shock that our Old Media outlet had infiltrated social media so quickly and thoroughly. My only guess: The technology fits our personalities and reporting habits.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 13
Robin Jordan and Jason Williams toasted Obama Day with an extra dash of service. They raised more than $1,000 for diabetes causes by throwing a two-purpose, grassroots party at J. Black’s.
Jason Williams, Robin Jordan
You see, Jordan’s church, Gateway, distributed monetary challenges in the range of $5 to $300. Jordan was told to turn her $20 into service of some kind. Her friend, Williams, suggested a diabetes theme because he had watched Jordan struggle with it.
Cheryl Cohee, Robin Jordan, Nathan Smith, Frank Jordan
So they jumped on FaceBook and did what thousands of other Austinites — and many more Americans — are doing these days: Making a difference one small increment at a time. Their Jan. 20 event was organized around old-fashioned raffle tickets, which more than 100 guests snapped up, especially since the top prize was a signed photo of — who else? — President Barack Obama.
Permalink | |
January 20, 2009
Obama Inauguration Day 12
Made three more inauguration parties tonight — at J. Black’s, Union Park and Antone’s — but I’m really too tired to write reports and upload photos. Proof that I am flesh and blood. Promise: I’ll post all three in the morning.
Obama Inauguration Day 11
The Texans for Obama gala at the Monarch Event Center mirrored the politco-saturated party at the Four Seasons — snappy apparel, soft music, big screens transmitting the big shows in DC. Just without the big names. (And therefore, it is much more relaxed — a collective “awww” went up when the first couple danced.)
“Historic doesn’t begin to describe it,” says Jamie Dickens, sharing drinks in the lobby with Marcus McNac. “I watched the inauguration in a bar with people for everywhere and every single person had tears in their eyes,” McNac says.
Jamie Dickens, Marcus McNac
Jean-Baptiste Oba from the Ivory Coast and Veronique Johnson from Cameroon contributed a special perspective.
Jean-Baptiste Oba, Veronique Johnson
“(Obama) sends a strong message to the world that belong to one family,” Johnson says. “He embodies all races, all cultures, all religions. And as immigrants, we know that, in America, anyone can make it.”
“I feel like we elected a good man,” says Hallie Howie. “I just wanted to celebrate that.”
Anita E. Dabney, Frederick Barksdale
Dancing started pretty early. And I bet it goes pretty late.
Note: I will race to the last four events, then post as much as I can late, late.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 10
Although nonpartisan in name and spirit, the high-profile inaugural gala at the Four Seasons Hotel tilted Democratic, given the former and current elected officials from blue Austin in attendance.
Travis County Commissioner Ron Davis, Annie Davis
“Awesome” was the most commonly heard phrase describing today’s inaugural ceremonies. People in black ties and glowing gowns circulated before the banquet room opened for the live feeds from Washington balls.
Noralinda Laphen, Stephen Laphen, Noralinda Jordan, Roland Jordan
“My great-grandparents were slaves in Eastern Travis County,” said county commissioner Ron Davis. “They didn’t live to see me represent that part of the county. But my parents always said, ‘Keep the faith. And it’s going to be better.’ And they were right. I am elated and the human race is elated. And this is not a partisan thing.”
Bruce Todd, Elizabeth Christian
Organizer Toni Gardner, radiant in a red gown, welcomed the famous and not-so. Jazz singer Pam Ward was slated to sing “God Bless America” and Del Castillo was booked for later in the evening.
Malcolm Gardner, Toni Gardner
“It feels like being a part of history,” says J.L. McNeil, who was up before dawn to watch every second of the televised coverage.
Pedram Salek, Amanda Booth
Former Austin mayor Bruce Todd had just returned from Washington, where he’d never seen the city so excited and positive. Up until today, his most memorable White House experience was singing with his small-town choir for President John F. Kennedy. “This is absolutely historic.”
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 9
The banquet room at Opal Divine’s Penn Field is decked out for a party. Balloons, bunting, big screen. But it’s still early.
So I talked to some customers about their Obama Day experiences. Elizabeth Samatis had to work, but recorded the inaugural ceremonies — plus “Oprah.” “Oprah has kept everyone hyped up all week,” she says. Her friend Jerry Garcia allowed that he watched the pre-inaugural concert, but he’s “not all that political.” Another friend, Nick Barrera was open to any inaugural parties later. Actually, all three were ready to party.
Nick Barrera, Elizabeth Sematis, Jerry Garcia
Rebecca Montgomery teaches American history at Texas State University-San Marcos and felt the day should have turned into a holiday. “Even though we might be jaded about American history,” she says, “We can suspend our cynicism for a day!” Her friend, an IRS employee who asked not to be identified, reported that the service’s cafeteria erupted in applause when Pres. Barack Obama spoke earlier in the day.
Rebecca Montgomery watches the inaugural parade on TV at Opal’s
“I hope he’s true to his word,” says Dion Castillo, who works in IT at the Veterans Administration. “I hope he was elected because of what he can do and not just because of history.” Castillo had tried to watch some of the ceremonies on the Internet, but the VA’s system slowed to a standstill. His friend Lee Eskridge, who works in IT for Freescale, hopes to catch up on the Internet coverage tonight. “It’s been a while since people have been touched in this way,” he says.
Dion Castillo, Lee Eskridge
“I didn’t vote for Obama, but I had goosebumps today,” says Amanda Biel, a graduate student at St. Edward’s University. “I appreciate that he was so humble about the challenges ahead. Even though I’m a Republican, we needed a breath of fresh air.”
Amanda Biel, Laurie Doran
Laurie Doran, terminal manager at Austin-Bergstrom Airport, reported a rash of Facebook updates all afternoon. “People changed their profile shots to match the Obama colors,” she says. “It’s interesting to see people come around, hopping on the Change Train.”
Obama Inauguration Day 8
Gathered in the dark of Jill and Jack Nokes’ Hyde Park-area house were a clutch of friends soaking up the inaugural afterglow.
“I’m on Cloud 9,” says Jill Nokes. “I just getting a contact high from having all my friends around on this day.”
Jill Nokes, Martha Frede
Martha Frede, 82, recalled block-walking for Obama in “the slummiest parts of Philadelphia.” Then, on election night, when Pennsylvania was called for the Democrat, “we took full credit.” She remembered a particular gentleman who practically belched “I’m going to vote for the Irish guy. That black Irish guy — O’Bama.”
The LBJ School’s Gary Chapman announced: “It’s one of the greatest days of my life,” he said. “I’m glad to have lived to see it.”
Emily Haas, Jack Nokes
“I feel like the veil has lifted and the wind’s at our back,” said Jack Nokes, who cherished having three generations of family close at hand for the historic event.
Jill says that everyone remembers where they were when MLK or Kennedy were assassinated. She’s hoping young people remember all their lives this as a “redemption day.”
Obama Inauguration Day 7
Delirium and beer at Scholz Garten. “Happy Obama Day” is the standard greeting.
“I feel like an enormous weight has been lifted from our shoulders,” says Donna Linder. “It’s nothing less than a peaceful revolution.”
“We can be America again,” says Mark Douglas, who feels the energy and excitement has spilled over into the new year.
Jiri Hajek, Elsa Yllescas
“My mom always said we’d have a Latino or black president,” says Elsa Yllescas. “But change takes time.”
Jacque Smith
“It’s an awesome day of hope, love and new beginnings,” says Jacque Smith, a freelance writer.
J.D. Oh
“I almost threw up before he came on,” says graduate student J.D. Oh, who went to Obama’s alma mater, Punahou high school in Honolulu. “I was just so excited and proud.”
Christine Moline, Crystal Thornton
“I was heading to the bus this morning and a neighbor I’d never met said, ‘I’m headed to Scholz Garten. Are you?’” says Christine Moline. “It’s been that kind of positive day.”
Scott Creamer, Lisa Seegers
People don’t want to go. It’s just talking heads now on the big screens, but laughter, chatter, even dancing continues in the pale winter light.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 6
Tears and cheers at Bess, Sandra Bullock’s West Sixth Street restaurant. Silence during the invocation. A lot of political history in the room.
“It’s a coming together of the races,” says Nadine Eckhardt, widow to late, crusading U.S. Rep. Bob Eckhardt. “And it’s about time.”
(Her memoirs are coming out from UT Press next year.)
“There’s really no words to describe it,” says Travis County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt. “Here’s to our country joining the world.”
Sarah Eckhardt, Nadine Eckhardt, Loretta Farb
“It’s the next liberation day,” says Eckhardt aid Loretta Farb. “I am so moved.”
Reporters gather close. Champagne corks pop. Hugs all around.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 5
Traffic into town on South First and Manchaca remains stiff, suggesting that most people are going to work on Inauguration Day.
At Victoria Corcoran’s poster-plastered open house, fruit, cinnamon rolls and artichoke jalapeno dip load the table. Household members are texting friends in DC — but words and pictures are flowing slowly.
Reggie James, Vickie Benitez, Victoria Corcoran, David Wyatt
Kathy McCarrell, interim executive director of SIMS: “I am so impressed with the enthusiasm, not in the country and the world. If McCain had won, it would have been: ‘Is this that inauguration day?’”
HD TV and crane shots only amplify the pomp and spectacle of the event on the Mall in DC. “Look at the people!” everyone sighs. More coffee than mimosas.
Vickie Benitez, a legal aid lawyer: “My husband is in charge of coherent thoughts at 9 a.m.”
Reggie James, Vickie Benitez, Victoria Corcoran, Kathy McCarrell, David Wyatt
Her husband, Reggie James, director of policy outreach for Consumers Union: “It’s not only the quality of the man, I think he’s going to be able to appeal to the best qualities in us. My aspiration is going to a foreign country and being able to admit I’m an American.”
Lots of jokes and laughter. Sneaky feeling of jinxing irreverence.
Don Winslow, editor of Newsphotographer Magazine: “The photography we are going to see coming out of the White House will be truly documentary. What the world needs to see is the complete opposite of what the world has seen coming out of the White House for the past eight years.
“It’s just such a great day.”
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 4
This is how my Jan. 20 is shaping up. Obviously, the course will change during the day — other events may be added — but follow the party here at Out & About, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.
9 a.m. Inauguration Open House at Victoria Corcoran’s
10 a.m. Inauguration Brunch at Robert Nash and Paul Simmons’
Noon Inauguration Day Watch Party at Scholz’ Beer Garten
1 p.m. Inaugural Party at Jill and Jack Nokes’ (totally crashing)
BREAK
5 p.m. Inauguration Party at Opal Divine’s
6 p.m. Texas Presidential Inaugural Celebration at the Four Seasons
7 p.m. A Dream Realized at the Monarch Event Center
8 p.m. Inauguration Party at Kirk Gallery
9 p.m. Bush Retirement Party at Antone’s
10 p.m. All Yall’s Inaugural Ball at Mercury Hall
11 p.m. Inauguration Party at J. Black’s
Permalink | |
January 15, 2009
Obama Inauguration Day 3
Early in the day, it will be brunch at Robert Nash and Paul Simmons’ mid-century modern in West Lake Hills, then Victoria Corcoran’s open house in South Austin. We’ll swing by Travis Country Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt’s viewing party and luncheon at Bess, then the Travis County Democratic Party’s inevitable Inauguration Watch Party at Scholz Garten, one of the many places we’ll surely meet county party chair and inveterate socializer Andy Brown.
Early in the evening, I would not under any circumstances skip the star-studded Texas Presidential Inaugural Celebration at the Four Seasons Hotel. KEYE-TV’s Judy Maggio will emcee for a semi-formal event that is expected to include civil rights pioneers Ada Anderson and Willie Mae Kirk, along with State Reps. Mark Strama, Dawnna Dukes, Valinda Bolton, Elliott Naishtat and Eddie Rodriguez, former Senator Gonzalo Barrientos and Emma Barrientos, U.S. senatorial hopeful John Sharp and Charlotte Sharp, former mayor Bruce Todd and PR brain Elizabeth Christian.
Starting a bit later in the evening is the Texans for Obama gala at the Monarch Events Center. Event planner Sharrion Jenkins also promises a private screening of the inauguration and luncheon earlier in the day. Across town, Jeff Kirk is hosting a small party at the Kirk Gallery on Guadalupe Street, which will make a convenient stop among the other downtown festivities.
Then I’ll probably stroll over to Antone’s on West Fifth Street for the sweetly named Bush Retirement Party and Obama Inauguration Celebration. The onstage line-up includes Rep. Jim Dunnam & the Bad Precedents (which includes several musical politicos) with Hayes Carll, Guy Forsyth and the Heartless Bastards. There may be time to swing over to J. Black’s lounge on West Sixth Street for Robin Jordan and Jason Williams’ inaugural party/fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association. Late in the evening, it could be the All Yall’s Inaugural Ball at Mercury Hall on South First Street. At least then I’ll be close to home then.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 2
Among the Austinites expected in DC — along with hordes of politicians — are Out & About repeaters: Kirk and Amy Rudy, Steve Adler and Diane Land, John and Julie Thornton, Alexa and Blaine Wesner, Tom and Lynn Meredith, Mickey and Jeanne Klein, Bev Reeves, Jordan Herman and David Porter, Kevin Tuerff and Kevin Land, Marc and Suzanne Winkelman, plus Alex Winkelman.
Go ahead, check these names against lists of major Democratic Party activists and contributors online. Internet transparency is a good thing.
We hear art consultant Suzanne Deal Booth, who splits her time between Los Angeles and Austin, will be leading a contingent to Ariana Huffington’s party at the Newseum. Austin baritone and arts philanthropist Andrew Heller will sing at Corcoran Gallery for the Link Foundation’s affair, one of the official inaugural balls. Appropriately, he’ll sing “Chicago.”
West Lake High School graduate and University of Texas interior-design student Lauren Ashley Helton will be among the official inaugural scholars meeting lots of important people, including Austin superstar Lance Armstrong, over the course of several days in DC.
I like this touch: Austin’s Gretchen Weicker Bullock will be hanging with college friends from Austin College in Sherman. “We are having our own ‘Kangaroo Ball’ because that aggressive marsupial is the college mascot,” she says of their novel DC event.
Permalink | |
Obama Inauguration Day 1
Neither will I be thronging with other friends to Washington D.C. for the Texas State Society’s Black Tie and Boots Ball and related bashes.
More than 10,000 guests are expected at the big-hair ball, where Austin-entwined artists Cross Canadian Ragweed, Kevin Fowler, Dale Watson, Asleep at the Wheel, Kelly Willis and Rick Trevino are slated to entertain.
Bet the tone has altered significantly from the parallel event eight years ago, when a triumphant Bush dynasty promised a return of Texas culture to the nation’s capital.
Remember when among the biggest stories was the addition of a Watergate location for the Bush-favored restaurant, Jeffrey’s? We sampled the shuttered DC iteration and we’re more than satisfied with the home-grown Clarksville edition.
Much more to come…
January 14, 2009
Last chance inaugural parties
Permalink | |
December 16, 2008
Austin movie celebs helped hire those lobbyists
This lobbying effort would not be possible were it not for the leadership of Austin’s top film talent. Producer Elizabeth Avellan was front and center promoting awareness of the threats to Texas movie-making. Set decorator Jeanette Scott organized the Spaghetti Western event at Star Hill Ranch that raised $70,000 for the effort.
Others lent their shoulders: Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Michael Judge, Terrence Malick and more of the film industry’s Who’s Who. Emerging leaders, such as Spiderwood Studios’ Tommy G. Warren, also contributed, as did Alamo Drafthouse’s Tim and Karrie League. The Austin Film Society also pitched in its help.
When this community gets organized, watch out!
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Movies
December 13, 2008
The Law & Becky Beaver
Why were so many heavy-hitters nibbling spicy frittata at the Law Offices of Becky Beaver for her holiday open house? Cynical observers remarked that the prominent divorce lawyer “scares the heck out of everyone.” The more charitable among the attendees pointed out that Beaver supports dozens of worthy causes, not just with treasure, but with well-considered time. The list of good deeds goes on for pages.
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Becky Beaver, Sally Wittliff
Women’s legal, health and safety issues were well represented, but also agents of high design and art (Juan Miro, Rosa Rivera, Kevin Keim, Eliza Thomas, Julie Speed) and philanthrophy/good life (Karen Landa, Charles Gentry, Quality Quinn, Nancy Scanlan), plus those who, in their domestic arrangements, check off more than one of those boxes (Quincy Adams Erickson, Stephen Nagle, Ken Stein, Ken Lambrecht, Robert Brown, Dennis Karbach). We traded winking blandishments with estimable editorial writer Mary Gordon Spence.
Mary Gordon Spence, Robert Brown, Karen Landa
We heard amazing tales, some of domestic woe, others with happier themes. Example: Entertainment legend Carol Burnett changed her touring itinerary to include the Paramount Theatre Jan. 9-10 when Austin’s Greg Kozmetsky offered his private jet to whisk her down from Fort Worth. Thanks Greg. (Our phone interview with Burnett will appear in the space later this week.)
Eliza Thomas, Kevin Keim
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
December 6, 2008
Eye-opening poll on equality
As someone who can clearly remember the 1960s, when the word “gay” or “homosexual” appeared in newspapers or magazines only in regard to criminality or shame, these public opinion numbers are astonishing. Thanks to Eugene Sepulveda for linking to the Newsweek survey in his essential blog, Community Matters. (There’s much more info in the Newsweek link.)
And on gay marriage:
“Despite the recently approved state measures, public opinion nationally has shifted against a federal ban on same-sex marriage. In 2004, people were evenly divided on the question, with 47 percent favoring a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage and 45 percent opposing one. In the latest poll, however, 52 percent oppose a ban and only 43 percent favor one. When respondents were asked about state measures, the numbers were closer: 45 percent said they’d vote in favor of an amendment outlawing gay marriage in their states, while 49 percent said they’d oppose such a measure.”
December 3, 2008
Proposition 8 musical viral video
Funny viral-video musical about Proposition 8 with Neil Patrick Harris, Jack Black, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, etc. Warning: Theological themes.
November 24, 2008
George Bernard Shaw on marriage timely again
Every 10 to 20 years, George Bernard Shaw comes back into fashion. I don’t mean his plays. The major titles — “Pygmalion,” “Heartbreak House,” “Major Barbara,” “Arms and the Man,” “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” “Candida” — are never far from the theatrical boards.
Marriage is back in the news, thanks to the unexpectedly quick acceptance of gay partnerships and the political backlash against their advances on the social front. So Different Stages, Austin’s most literate community theater, has revived Shaw’s “Getting Married” at The Vortex.
Shaw zeroes in on the difficulty of divorce in the English civil sphere, but also hashes out the age-old entanglements between church and state on the issue. At one point, the unhappily single or married relations attempt to hammer out a “partnership contract” to replace marriage.
Director Norman Blumensaadt’s cast handles the language pretty adroitly — Tyler Jones is unusually adept at turning a conventionally snobbish juvenile into a credible leading man — so I smiled for almost three hours. One entirely un-Shavian scene dramatizes a ecstatic religious vision by one character, played with zest and zeal by Emily Errington.
Almost everything else transpires on an intellectual plane and the marriage debate sounds as timely as this morning’s headlines.
Permalink | | Categories: Arts, Law
November 15, 2008
Social reporting at the Props 6 & 8 protests
A social report on two protests.
In 1977, I witnessed the Houston march and vigil protesting an appearance by anti-gay activist Anita Bryant and her support of initiatives which culminated in California’s Proposition 6, unsuccessfully attempting to ban gay teachers in 1978.
Austin. Nov. 15, 2008
Blackest night. Humid. Candlelight. Clones, cowboys and sweater queens. Angry chants. A phalanx of riot police at City Hall. Rousing speeches. Disappointment over losing votes, but a sense that change was in the air.
It was. Five years later, Kathy Whitmire was elected Houston mayor, backed by a huge turnout in the predominantly gay Montrose neighborhood. It was a generational groundswell as much as anything else.
Austin. Nov. 15, 2008
Thirty-one years later, I witnessed the Austin rally protesting the passage of California’s Proposition 8, successfully — for now — banning gay marriages.
Brightest day. Blustery. Fluttering flags. Kids, dogs and Vespas. Confident chants. No police in sight at City Hall. Rousing speeches. Disappointment over losing votes, but a sense that change was in the air.
Austin. Nov. 15, 2008
It remains to be seen if the social capital engendered by the nationwide protests against the passage of Proposition 8 today will cancel out the bitterness about those who fought against marriage equality. But social observers agree, a generational groundswell will be the deciding factor, as much as anything else.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
November 13, 2008
From Prop 6 to Prop 8 and 'Milk'
By agreement with the movie’s promoters, we won’t say much about the powerful Harvey Milk biopic, “Milk,” starring astonishing chameleon Sean Penn. Look for local and national reviews Nov. 26 and an Austin opening Dec. 5.
Also, a good chunk of the movie is devoted to Milk’s fight against California’s Proposition 6, which would have excluded any gay person — or anyone who supported them — from teaching in the state’s schools. The campaigns, debates and protests strongly resemble the ongoing clash on marriage equality embodied in the recently passed Proposition 8.
For a taste of the movie’s milieu from the 1970s — and how the scene has changed — there’s a Prop 8 protest at City Hall 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Similar gatherings are planned for Houston and Dallas to coincide with a national event.
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Movies
November 5, 2008
Election night: A Boomer's report from Kona Grill & downtown
Former Betty Dunkerley aide and anecdotalist Suzie Harriman, who spends half the year with classical music writer, raconteur and husband Randy Harriman in Mexico, sent in this election-night story about being a Boomer among the youth on Obama night:
“Those young people were all so well behaved, whooping at Obama’s win, of course, but oh so polite and quiet during McCain’s concession speech, even applauding for him afterwards. OK, so I was a bit of an (expletive) when he thanked Palin for all her work, commentinng loudly that she was one of the reasons he lost. I got a “look” from Randy and decided to keep quiet from then on. … I wouldn’t leave Kona until we had seen Obama make his acceptance speech. I really didn’t want to hear it in the car.
“So we left around 11:15 and on the “way” home headed for the East Side, out MLK, over to 11th Sttreet, past the Victory Grill and on to Congress Avenue downtown. All was quiet on the East Side, surprisingly, but downtown was hopping, with clumps of revelers here and there and cars honking. A LOT. Couldn’t figure out exactly what that was about, besides the obvious “win” tonight. We didn’t honk, but felt like we were participating, since we’re still sporting our OBAMANOS bumper sticker.
“That one will stay on the car, while our other, older bumper sticker will be unceremoniously removed tomorrow (“We’re making enemies faster than we can kill them”), marking a new era.”
Photo courtesy of the Huffington Post.
Permalink | |
November 4, 2008
The city will go wild tonight
Update: As you undoubtedly know — and will always remember with precise, concrete details — Barack Obama won tonight. And from my window, from the horns, fireworks and laughter, I’d say the city is going wild.
What a time to be stuck on the couch. At least it’s with Kip and Steven — and six or seven news channels.
That means, while both sides will throw parties, if Barack Obama wins, it will be bigger than the Longhorns winning the national football championship. (And for you sports skeptics out there — that’s the most delirious I’ve seen Austin.) As a social observer, I’ve sensed almost nothing but political buzz over the wires and wireless for the past few days.
Remember that George W. Bush’s delayed election-night celebration was planned for downtown Austin, in front of the Capitol. I recall a few triumphalist Bush backers lord it over their Dem friends the next few weeks. Hope Barack backers are better sports, no matter how gleeful. We all must continue to share the city. (Obviously, should he win. I’m no prognosticator.)
As social columnist, I should be there. But why endanger all the hard work invested in a upgraded heart? No, I just sit here with Kip and Steven.
Send me your election-night party stories. I’ll post the ones that are publishable.
The social and personal impact of Proposition 8
Update: While it appears Prop 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote — not all ballots have been counted — legal challenges have already been filed to defend marriage equality.
This is not a political blog. Out & About usually covers social engagement, not social division.
Yet one social issue cuts to the heart of our household’s well-being: Marriage equality. One can take liberal or conservative exceptions to the theory of gay marriage. But one cannot deny its impact on basic human dignity.
Luckily, St. David’s, like Seton and South Austin hospitals in previous experiences, treated Kip as my next of kin. This, in Texas, where our legal status is virtually nil. Yes, we brought along all our expensively drawn-up documents, such as medical power of attorney. They weren’t necessary. In practice, the Austin medical community gets it.
I can’t imagine what would happen if my partner/husband of 17 years were not afforded this humane treatment, in crisis or in daily life. Which is why California’s Proposition 8 concerns marrieds like ourselves. It affects our friends with children even more.
The loss of recently gained marriage equality would be devastating enough for Californians. It would alter the fates of those of us who tied the knot in other jurisdictions. (Canada in our case.) The argument for legal precedence in any national court would be weakened.
Leaders of the LDS Church have poured millions into the pro-Prop 8 campaign, while ordinary Mormons have held vigils outside the Temple to protest their leaders’ activism on the issue. What really rankles is that money pays for fear ads claiming gay marriage would be force fed to grade schoolers. This lie rank alongside claims Barack Obama introduced legislation forcing sex education on kindergarteners and that the ERA would demand unisex toilets.
Although Out & About counts some regular California readers, we have no say in this matter. We can only hope that, after the headline issues, like the presidency and shape of Congress, are settled, the news from the West Coast endorses human dignity.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Law
October 8, 2008
California Beatitudes, No. 13: Castro Politics
Blessed are the outcasts, for they shall be comforted.
Blue-haloed presidential candidates blinked from every window in the Castro. San Francisco’s historic gay neighborhood, increasingly straight, despite the retro amendments made by Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk biopic, was tuned to the debates. Homey bars and eateries of all variety splashed the war of words on HD screens; people put down their forks or highball glasses, watched and listened.
Proposition 8 — the statewide marriage anti-equality initiative — fixates the Castro. The generational tide may have finally turned. In most polls, the “no” voters look likely to triumph. Here, there’s more disagreement about whether the Folsom Street Festival — an annual leather jamboree — will hurt the cause, coming as it does days before the vote. Yet even this unabashed remnant of 1970s gay culture is turning slowly straight, or rather “shared,” local sources say.
At the Midnight Sun, just off Castro Street, one lone John McCain supporter nodded and grunted vigorously during the Republican’s torts and retorts. Nobody threatened him with harm. Good to know that even in Nancy Pelosi country, a civil clash of opinions is possible.
Our thoughts go to Long Center director Cliff Redd, whom we hear has suffered a heart attack. He is recovering at Seton.
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Travel
October 3, 2008
Gay & Lesbian Chamber takes over Pride Fest
Equality Texas, the group advocating fair treatment for the GLBTQ community, had organized the fest for the past 13 years. They recently turned over responsibility to the Pride Coalition, which, in turn, named the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, longtime organizers of the parade, as parents of the new pride plus.
This “will require a whole new approach in their event planning, promotion, sponsorship solicitations, publicity and volunteer coordination,” says Cindy Tincher, the chamber’s publicity chairwoman. We hope to catch up with AGLCC president Jimmy Flannigan soon to find out what he has in mind for June 6.
September 19, 2008
Brad Pitt slings bucks for marriage equality
Brad Pitt is prominent among the stars campaigning to defeat Proposition 8, personally donating $100,000. Polls show a close contest for the initiative that almost certainly would reverse the state’s gay marriage status, established earlier this year by its Supreme Court.
“Because no one has the right to deny another their life even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” Pitt said in a statement.
In the entertainment industry, David Geffen has donated $50,000 to fight Prop 8; CAA’s Bryan Lourd contributed $5,000. Philanthropist David Bohnett gave $600,000. The Human Rights Campaign has pumped $2 million into the campaign. Major out celebrities, such as Ellen DeGeneres, Elton John and Rosie O’Donnell had not contributed, according to Variety magazine.
Permalink | |
September 13, 2008
Comedy team: Carson Kressley & Anita Perry
Friday morning during the Hospice Austin Beauty of Life charity event at the Renaissance Austin Hotel, the makeover star of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “How to Look Good Naked” remarked on the attractiveness of Gov. Rick Perry.
Playing straight gal to his gay comic, first lady Anita Perry asked, changing the subject, what to take along if stranded on a desert island. Her husband, Kressley cracked, to roars of laughter.
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Style
September 1, 2008
Frederic Bourdin: The Texas Connection
On a completely different subject, we keep hearing rumors that editor Smith is being recruited by a major American newspaper on the East Coast. Of course, we want the best for Smith, who has been a loyal friend to Austin and Texas, but we’d also miss his and Julia’s presence on the local scene, where the pair are invested in so many crucial causes.
Photograph by Francois-Marie Banier for The New Yorker.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Law
August 26, 2008
Fortunates at Dem Convention
Got any tips from Austinites at either convention to send our way? We’re ready to report.
Addendum: In the way of all Out & About, the couple that I pictured, John and Julie, ended up not being able to make it.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Law
August 10, 2008
Voodoo Cowboy at The Belmont
If the Ice Ball at the Monarch Center represented a grassroots fundraising and socializing effort come of age, the Voodoo Cowboy party at The Belmont the same evening had the feel of a top shelf event that just gets more glamorous at each turn. Voodoo Cowboy Entertainment manages musicians, athletes and moviemakers, while its party-giving colleagues at Mueller Law Offices work in a myriad of specialties. Their annual shindig Saturday — overseen by Mark Mueller himself — lured the brightest and the most beautiful from a multitude of Austin professions into the spotlight.
Zach Hadley, Angela Torres
In our first sweep through the party, we encountered filmmaker and activist Turk Pipkin, U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Style Avatar Stephen Moser, SXSW Film’s Janet Pierson, Austin Film Society’s Agnes Varnum, UT Performing Arts Center’s Tim Neece (or was it?), lawyer and Fortunate 500 stand-out Becky Beaver, bountiful benefactor Melanie Barnes, open-hearted publicist Patricia Paredes, and writer and social connector Anne Elizabeth Wynn, among many others.
Amy Hillin, Paul Molanphy, LZ Love
The whole event, blessed by late-night winds, was filmed and, given the bands loosening the guests’ joints and the flowing liquids loosening them even more, there should be some interesting footage out there.
Haylee Faggard, Mark Faggard, Cassandra LeBlanc
We spent the most time with David Sullivan, the new head of First Night and one of the national proponents of art-sated New Years Eves. “He’ll be the Cliff Redd of First Night,” predicted Wynn, referring to the Long Center savior, who swept aside local bickerers to build the city’s first municipal performing arts center.
David Sullivan, Patricia Paredes, David Johnson
August 7, 2008
Betty Dunkerley's soft landing
We wondered how long it would take for our favorite former Mayor Pro Tem, Betty Dunkerley, to land in a position of influence in the private sector. Dunkerley’s skills in public finance and consensus politics are legendary, and the City of Austin staff is probably already regretting her departure as they face a tight budget cycle.
I’m not well acquainted with Hahn, who purchased TateAustinHahn from Tate last year, but Kerry is a sharp and reliable public relations expert who I’d trust with brokering the right projects for Dunkerley (pictured here with a certain social columnist). She’s also shepherded some pretty raw young talent through her firm — the ones who graduate into the bigger business world demonstrate a sense of what the public needs to know, and when.
August 4, 2008
Mountain West No. 14: Politics West
The Mountain West is a key battleground in this year’s presidential election. Alert to their unexpected roles as kingmakers, Westerners are engaging in lively debate. Most observers tend to think that Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada are genuinely up for grabs, while Montana or Idaho are long shots for Democrat Barak Obama. Utah, Wyoming and Arizona belong to John McCain, the conventional wisdom goes.
The rivalry among ruling Republicans out West seems starkest in Idaho, where Republican Rep. Bill Sali faces conservative-to-moderate Democrat challenger Walt Minnick. Sali is such an outspoken cultural warrior, repeatedly linking abortion to breast cancer, for instance, that Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, a Republican, said of Sali: “That idiot is just an absolute idiot.” An opening for Dems?
Permalink | | Categories: Law, Travel
August 1, 2008
2008 Fortunate 500: The Complete List
Remember, this is our annual list of Austin’s most social citizens. It honors those Central Texans who go Out & About for the good of the greater social fabric.
Almost all our picks were originally nominated by readers, then followed by our social spies during the subsequent year. (I chatted with most of them, too, at the 1,000 or so social events I attended in the past 12 months.) So now is a prime time to alert us to people who contribute above and beyond to the social scene, so they can be eligible for the 2009 list.
Permalink | |
