Gotham Gal

Havens Kitchen....and Kirsten Gillibrand

I was invited to a small gathering of women to hear Kirsten Gillibrand speak.  It was held at Havens Kitchen.  Havens Kitchen is a fabulous new store that not only has specialty food products to purchase, they have cooking classes, a sweet event space and a nice big kitchen.  The people behind Havens Kitchen have done a great job and I hope they hit one out of the ball park.  Great concept.

I came to the event because my friend invited me and for her I came.  I lost my interest in getting behind candidates a few years back because of the money, the game, the whole shooting match.  I wrote about my experience awhile ago.  Yet for the first time in awhile I liked what Kirsten said.  She gets the issues that important to women.  Healthcare, childcare, birth control, issues around obesity, education and jobs. You would think all senators would care about those issues and try to reach over the table and work together to get funding and bills that are proactive instead of reactive but unfortunately it is never that easy.  What I like is that she is working with all the women in congress, regardless of their party affiliation to pass bills that are important to all of them and to work together.  That is what I want to hear.  We can agree to disagree with lets get something passed that makes us all happy.  Really enjoyed listening to her and the other women in the room having a free flowing conversation.  Kirsten has really grown into the job over the past three years. 

Back to Havens Kitchen...here are the pics.  This is the check out area.

Here is a small table set up with a few wares.

Classes available.

More product.

Stairwell en route to the event space. 

So do I see myself getting back into the world of raising money for politicians?  Never say never but I will absolutely support Kirsten...and Havens Kitchen going forward.

 

 

my short lived life helping politicians

I have always been a political junkie.  Grew up on it. At dinner, we sit around the table discussing the coming of a nuclear holocaust.  At one point, my brother who was probably eight, decided it wasn’t necessary to go to school since the world was coming to an end soon.  My mother bit the super intense political conversations in the bud.  We continued to read the paper daily and converse often about what was happening in the world just not with an edge towards Armageddon. 

I have made sure our kids keep up on local, state, national and international politics.  They can come to their own opinions of what they believe in but knowledge is essential to make those decisions. It is pretty gratifying to see them keep up on what is happening in the world at large and converse about it. 

There came a point in my life when I actually got to meet the politicians I had read about for years. We had our first political fundraiser in 2000 and I got bit by the bug. That bug has died for so many reasons starting with the frustration of the system that is probably directly linked to the fact that people in office spend roughly 80% of their time there raising money to keep that position.  There is clearly something wrong with that as it is evident from the front pages these days that being in power is more important than making the right decisions for our country to move forward. 

Yet when I started raising money for politicians I did it for several years. We had fundraisers off and on to raise money for a handful of senator hopefuls. Not sure why I am using “we” here because then it was more “me”.  As time went on, the more money I raised, the more frustrated I got.  Why?  Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t acknowledged, Fred was.  The politicians wanted to talk to Fred because they thought he was the man behind the money. 

Did you know that when you give money to a politician, you have to fill out a form stating what your occupation is?  It used to annoy me to no end.  My occupation?  Chief bottle washer?  It was no different than someone asking me at a party what I did.  I was raising all this money for this machine and the Government was concerned with my occupation.  Over time, I came up with the perfect answer to fill in the box, superhero.  Funny enough, to this day nobody has ever called me on it.

I became involved in the whole political scene during the heyday of the Internet craze in the mid-90s. We all thought we were going to change Government like we were changing the world with the Internet…wrong. Senators would come up from DC to “the alley” to talk with our group.  Silicon Alley was the term at that time for New York Internet industry.  Supposedly, the politicians wanted to learn about how they could use the Internet as a tool to interact better with their constituencies. In reality, they figured they would grab on to a new group of leaders in a blossoming industry who were influential and could raise money for them. 

After much conversation, the politicos decided that the Silicon Alley group should all come down and talk on Capitol Hill in some type of hearing.  The Government was trying to figure out how to understand the impact of the Internet.  When they left, we all laughed, because that is the last thing we wanted to do.  We were trying to teach them how to use the Internet for change in Government and they were trying to get us to join the system. Certainly a lot has changed since then. 

Through my political involvement in the alley, Fred and I were invited to a small dinner party to raise money for the DNC (Democratic National Committee).  There were fifteen people from the Internet industry, 15 senators and Bill and Hillary Clinton sitting around a large rectangular table.  Here we were sitting in a room, dining with the top senators and the President of the country having an open forum about the state of the union.  I was totally wowed.  Our conversations ran the gamut but were mostly geared toward how the policies put in place would help or affect our industry.

The majority of the people in the room were men.  I sat next to Hillary. I got to engage her in comments around what we were listening and participating in.  When the conversation was about immigrants, we would briefly speak to each other about the topic while it was being discussed around the table.  I liked seeing her hands, the rings on her fingers and what she drank and ate.  This was the first lady of our country who was making a run for a New York senator position.  I was loving my up close and personal moment.

What was amazing was that every one of us, who were all relatively young, had no problem speaking freely about what they were really thinking. Nobody held back.  You could tell from the tone of the conversations that everyone respected each other.  It was just a bunch of smart people sitting around the table trying to figure out the world.  That is one of the things that I have always enjoyed about the Internet industry.  Lots of synapses flowing.  

At one point, Bill spoke about something that was one of the landmarks of his administration.  I turned to Hillary and whispered in her ear, “and I bet you had nothing to do with it, did you”?  She looked at me and just laughed.

In the end, after 10 years, I stopped being interested in raising the cash for politicos. They would reach out to Fred and I’d be the sucker to show up. Why?  To the Senators and the handlers around them, Fred represented power and cash. You are only as good with the politicos in the terms of what have you done for them lately.  Although I am still a huge fan of Christine Quinn who I continue to support locally and there is something about Chuck Schumer that just keeps me entertained because I like him personally, I scratched the political game from my to do list.

 

 

Claire McCaskill

We met Claire when she was making her first run for Senator in Missouri.  I liked her from day one.  She had chutzpah.  Smart, insightful, witty and more important, she totally gets it.  You can't pull one over on her.  She is smart as a whip and street smart too.

Today, she said that she basically doesn't care if she doesn't get re-elected because she appears to be just as frustrated with the Senate as I am.  Here is her quote.

"I'm very frustrated with some of the habits around here," she said. "What happens around here is that so many people are more focused on getting everybody to love them and getting re-elected than they are on solving the really hard stuff. Because when you solve hard stuff, you make people mad."

She told me, after a few years in her job, in confidence, she was actually blown away by the amount of waste and inefficiency.  I am thrilled to see her come out and say the truth.  I knew I liked her. 

Bravo Claire!

Watching Health Care make its way through the system

I have always been a political junky.  Started at a very young age as we spoke about world politics around the kitchen table growing up.  The downside of that is that my brother, when he was 7, basically decided what was the point of going to school  since WWIII was going to break out any day.  Needless to say, my Mom put a stop to the intensity of the conversations. 

 As I grew older, I got involved on a whole other level.  I was able to meet many of the politicans and soon began to raise money for the ones that I believed in.  I never used any of them for political favors, except once to help get the women who works for us and is truly part of our family, get her daughter out of Brazil.  That was worth all the political capital I had.  I have always been more interested in having conversations about each of their views on the issues facing our country.  Call me crazy but I felt that I was making the world a better place by helping smart politicians get into office.

Fast forward to the present.  We are living in a very transparent world.  We can read on Twitter, watch on HuffPo, see on UTube, the realities of how bills are passed in both the Senate and the House.  It isn’t like I didn't know how it worked but I am now watching in live time with absolute disdain the disgusting realities of how the health care bill attempts to get passed.  It has put such a bad taste in my mouth that I have lost all faith in the process.

 From a birds eye view, it appears that getting anything passed is just about placating favors.  Making sure the large corporations, the biggest banks, the lobbyists and the promises made get into the bill.  It isn’t about what is right for this country.  It is just about making sure that your ass is covered for the big guns that gave you money.  I figure we are all getting screwed in the process.  I have absolute no trust that the bill is good for the people but am sure it is good for the people who cobbled it together.  It feels full of decisions based on what back room deals are being done with lobbyists but not we get to see it up front, close and personal.  It is all and all just disgusting.

Call me naïve but it seems that as more and more Americans watch the reality show of what happens in DC that as a group we are losing a sense of faith in the Government that supposedly holds us together.  I feel as if we are lost at sea with a bunch of pirates guiding the ship. 

I am a fan of Obama and he has certainly walked into a shit show that was left after 8 years but what happened to the buck stops here? 

Funny enough, Chuck Schumer called me yesterday.  Unfortunately I wasn’t home so he left the message with Josh but guaranteed he called to ask for cash.  I called him back but we haven’t connected.  I can hardly wait to give him an earful…and of course, not a god damn dime. 

Reading about health care

Reading about health care has been enlightening, distressing, and disgusting. 

What Claire McCaskill said yesterday about how difficult it is going to be to pass a new health care bill made me pause.  She basically said if it was easy, it would have been done years ago.  She also noted that there is so much money in health care that it will be difficult to get Senators to make changes ( basically as I am not quoting her here ).  What I got out of this was that lobbyists and money control each and every Senator in some way or another and that is why nothing gets done in Washington. 

Enlightening...yes.   Distressing....yes.  Disgusting...absolutely.  Surprising...not really. 

Take a look at Albany right now.  You can't make this stuff up.  It is like a bad reality show.  Obama is attempting to make serious changes in DC, I believe he should push even harder for each change, but how do you turn back hundreds of years of business as usual? 

I remember a few years back when we had a party for someone running for the Senate.  His assistant told me that after getting elected, a Senator has to spend about 75% of their time raising money for the next run.  Makes me really wonder about everything the Senator hopeful had to say about what issues they believed in and what they wanted to accomplish.  How can they accomplish anything when 75% of their time is spent raising more money? 

I make donations to support politicians that believe in what I believe in and I hope they represent my vote in the Senate ( or other places of Government).  It has nothing to do with access or slanting their votes.  I don't believe in that.  I am happy to discuss and give advice if they have any interest in listening to me but I really give to support people I believe in.  Call me crazy. 

After reading McCaskill's words yesterday, watching Albany implode and seeing a bit of the business as usual go on, it really makes me question the whole machine.  And BTW, as bad as the Democrats seem to be these days, the Republicans are in bed with the lobbyists and big business more than their counterparts.  Big business should not be controlling the voice of the people. 

Chris Quinn

I have been a big supporter of Chris Quinn since I had the opportunity to meet her.  She is smart, honest, charming and I just like listening to her thoughts. 

This past Tuesday night, I had a fundraiser for Chris.  It was a women only event.  The response to the women only concept was huge.  Many people ( particularly women ) come to political fundraisers and never feel comfortable asking questions.  I figured, if the group was a bunch of women only, the conversations would not only be interesting but there would be a higher comfort level for many to ask questions. 

After the event, I got a slew of emails from women who attended not only saying how much they loved Chris and how many great shoes were in the room, but many commented on what a commitment Chris has made.  As I continue to write and think about women in the workplace and is it possible to do it all, I see someone like Chris and I believe the women at the event applaud her efforts for many reasons.  Not only is she doing a fantastic job and has truly changed the landscape of what the City Council does for the city, she gives serious amount of time to the job.  She probably works nightly and many weekends and long days.  She obviously loves what she does but I would find it hard to believe that there are other parts of her life that may have suffered from it.  I would guess that the same thing for a man in his job but reality is men take different roles in their family life. 

Chris has been with her partner Kim for quite awhile.  Kim also has a major job.  They do not have any kids so their focus can actually be about them and their lives together and their passions, be it their jobs, during the day.  Then I look at someone like our new state senator, Kirsten Gillibrand.  She is married to a guy who has a major job and she has 2 kids, one who is barely a year and the other who is a toddler.  I am not here to pass judgement on Gilibrand but I would find it hard to believe that it is hard to be successful in every facet of her life with the demands of being a US senator.  It has to be really tough.

I applaud Chris Quinn for so many reasons but she has made decisions in her life and the commitment she has made to be the Speaker of the City Council and as NYer's, we can all be glad that this is the path that she chose. 

Hanging in the morning and talking about the Pope

Image via Wikipedia

Fred and I are hanging this morning before we hit the slopes.  Fred was saying this morning that the Pope's latest comments about how condoms won't help the spread of AIDS is utterly ridiculous.  I couldn't agree more. 

In essence, the Pope, the head of the Catholic religion, does not believe in birth control.  If you want to have sex and not get pregnant, then you have to be very very careful.  What he is really saying is that you only have sex when you want to conceive.  I am not sure that this has been the case for anyone for thousands of years.  Call me crazy.

My feeling is, don't trash something until you've tried it.  Perhaps if the Pope tried sex, he'd feel very differently about only having sex to conceive. 

Immigration

Immigration is one of those topics that create a lot of conversation.  I believe that we are a country of immigrants and we should continue to open our doors to other people who want to come to the US and participate by being working educated citizens.  Not always so easily done. 

In Australia, if you want to become a citizen, you have to have a degree and then work.  After 3 (or 4) years, if you become a working member of society, you get to become an Australian citizen.  It is helping the Australian economy grow and because of this law, many Asians have moved there for work. 

In this country, we have treated many of our immigrants not with open arms but quite the opposite.  We are forcing them to leave this country instead of letting them fill jobs that I am not sure many Americans would want.  But what is worse is that we have been deporting 18 year olds who have lived in the US their entire life, who grew up here, who's parents have become US citizens or have green cards and are sending them back to where they came from.  Why they don't have the paperwork is probably because the system is really hard to navigate and most of them are not educated enough to figure it out.  But, where these kids come  is the US. 

Any kid under 18 regardless of being at US citizen will and must be educated while they are here, it is the law.  For instance, in Denver, 60% of the kids in some of the public schools English is not their first language.  I don't know if they are legal of illegal but they are being educated.  Once they hit the age of being able to go to college, they can't go because they do not have a VISA or green card.  Instead, we deport them.  Did anyone think that perhaps these young "Americans" might be good hard working citizens that have been educated in our public school system and can make an impact on our economy?

There is a woman who works for us.  She is wonderful.  She has been part of our family for almost 10 years.  Yes, we pay her taxes.  She came to the US illegally with her daughter in tow 25 or so years ago.  She started out in Chicago and eventually ended up in NYC.  She worked hard.  A total jack of all trades.  She came here to make a better life for her only daughter.  She is from Brazil.

When it was time to go to college, the only place she could afford to send her daughter was to the top University in Brazil.  Perhaps not well thought out but once her daughter got to Brazil to go to school, she couldn't return because she wasn't an American citizen.  She got on a plane to come home for Thanksgiving ( an American holiday ) and was turned away at the gate.  Her mother, who has been happily married to a US citizen for over 10 years, can't have her daughter visit her.  Although her husband tried to adopt her daughter years ago, the wonderful state of Florida lost all their paperwork for 2 years and by the time they found it, she was too old to be adopted.

Now comes the long tedious process of attempting to get her daughter back to the US.  Seven years have passed.  It should have taken 10 but I was aggressive about pursuing this through the NY State Department.  Her first interview, in Sao Paulo, was done by a person who works for the US Immigration Department who proceeded to harass her in the interview.  I won't go into details but it was disgsting. Regardless, she eventually went to the next level which takes a few more years.  The process is tedious and frustrating.  More important, nobody cares.

Yesterday, was the finale, and her VISA has been approved.  She will be here in 10 days.  What resonated with me more than anything else was when she called me to thank me for all my help, the first thing she said was "I'm coming home".  Home because the US is her home.  The US is home to the thousands of kids we deport for not having the proper paperwork.  Why don't we help them become happy engaging citizens instead of sticking them on a plane back to a place where they no one and don't even understand the culture.

In cases like this, I believe nice guys finish last.  I am always amazed at the people who figure out how to work through the system, particularly the immigration system, who get here and are not good citizens.  Our policies must change.  We should be helping all kids of immigrants figure out how to stay, be educated and love this country.  We should be opening our doors to any educated person who wants to come here and start their business.  We should be opening our doors to people that have the skill set to work in our companies and make them better.  Our world is flat and until we participate with that in mind, our economy is never going to be as robust as it should be. 

Today is finally here

Image by BIG_Slow via FlickrToday, the Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, is finally here.  I feel as though I have been waiting 8 years for this.  The Bush administration stood for everything that I do not.  On one hand, there is something satisfying knowing that I knew all along that this administration was going to leave this country in chaos but on the other hand ( the bigger picture ) is it incredibly upsetting.  Happy to see people who were hard core Republicans see the light.  There is not a person in this country, regardless of their loyalties to either party, that want to see Obama be successful.  Our future really depends on it.

I hope that our Government, our elected officials, can put their egos, their pet projects, their way of doing business in the past and pull up their boot straps and get to work.  We are going to spend a huge amount of money that will put our country into an even bigger hole financially but this money must be spent on projects that will actually create revenues and jobs and put us into the 21st century.  Not a little here and a little there that selfish Senators and Governors will use towards projects that are politically motivated.  We need to all think big picture. 

The Republicans have to stop whining about spending too much Government money.  Bush left us with a larger deficit than any other President ever.  If we need to spend more than we thought to move this country in the 21st century particularly in terms of brick and mortar, bridges, tunnels, transportation, parks, etc., then let's do it.  There needs to be an entire new way of thinking.  There also needs to be a total face lift.

When new companies start-up, they can go through lots of cash before they fine tune the model.  Sometimes young companies get started and before they know it there are millions of users but they are still losing money daily.  But eventually, if they have smart people, and a really smart entrepreneur, they figure out how to make money with all the users and make the business profitable.  A few years down the line of paying back the debt is fine because in the long run, the upside is huge.  That is how we need to look at the huge amount of money our Government is going to spend.  We will get it back, it will take time, but the money spent now needs to execute on a vision, build a brand and grow the user base. 

I do believe Obama knows that.  I hope that the egos in Washington will get behind him.  Nancy Pelosi who made a stink because she wasn't consulted about Leon Panetta is exactly the bullshit I am talking about.  Everyone in Washington needs to roll up their sleeves, think out of the box and get to work in a new and different way.  A really smart entrepreneur knows that if the business model is not working at 11am on Tuesday morning, then at 11:01 on Tuesday morning, changes must be made immediately.  I think Obama is that type of leader but our elected officials who seem to be uninnovative and set in a mode that is incredibly stagnant, need to think differently too.

Today is a day for a fresh start on so many levels.  The fact that Americans took the bold step of electing an African American to be the leader of the Western world because he was the best candidate of this time is remarkable in itself.  He represents change, he represents new thinking, he represents the youth (our future), he represents community, he represents family, he represents collaboration and he represents intellect. Yes, intellect is a good thing.  Not only should we applauding that the change today is hopefully a change in America's future, we should be applauding ourselves as a nation that we took the bold step of electing the first African American to be the 44th President of the United States. 

a more transparent world

Image by Barack Obama via FlickrFred sent me to the site where Obama's campaign photographer, David Katz, posted all the pictures he took of the Obama family election night.  To me, the fact that Katz was allowed to post his picks on Flickr sets an entirely different tone than one we have lived in for the past 8 years. 

Not only does the Obama presidency (to be) understand the world that we live in - transparency, socialization, the Internet - he understands that in order to move forward as a country, the veil of secrecy must be lifted.  We have lived in a world of fear that had been trumpeted through the Bush years.  Obama stated very clearly on election night, that he would always share with the American people the challenges that we faced.  By putting intimate pictures of his family on the Internet proves sets the tone that he will have open lines of communication. 

Those pictures give the viewer a glimpse of the relationships between his family and Bidens which are genuine.  You can't fake that for hours while a photographer is taking pictures of you watching tv and waiting for the night to end.  You gotta love that.  It is also pretty incredible that Obama, our next President, wears a blackberry on his belt.  Now that says something about a guy who is going to roll up his sleeves and not take his cues and get all his information from his staff.  He is ready to go to work.

Obama gets it and on that reason alone, regardless of the hole that Bush has put us in that will take serious work and time to dig us out of, gives us all a reason to sigh a breath of relief.