Monthly Archives: February 2010

(Community Matters) Niki Newberg talking about the hate on her 16th birthday.

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sign Austin is No Place for Hate

(Community Matters) Last night, mostly a reunion of our Marfa new years tribe and a wee bit of birthday celebrating.  Amy Rudy brought me this pic of Julie Thornton, Amy Rudy & me from the Cinderella themed Ballet Austin Fete we co-chaired.

good gosh we’ve always had a lot of fun together.  This pic: Cinderella & her step-sisters for the evening. It sorta rocked expectations of the black tie evening:

(Community Matters) Our friends at the McDonald Observatory have been nice enough to include us in the VIP/Board of Visitors weekend.  We didn’t stay for last night’s dinner but did make the reception at the Hyatt (which is looking fantastic btw).  Connected with a few friends including Joel Barna, Jeff Kodosky, Andy & Karen White, Rep. Elliott Nashitat and Saralee Tiede.  Missed Joe & Tana Christie – Joe’s on the BOV;  I’ll see him at today’s meetings.

Especially enjoyed meeting and chatting with four astronomers/PhD candidates: Amanda Heiderman, Carey Dean, Bi Qing and Jeremy Murphy.  Their areas of research: star formation, planet formation, where metals come from, and the principles of dark matter.

Today’s meetings include a special presentation from Dr. Charles Gebhardt. Jeremy is one of his graduate students – the lecture about giant elliptical galaxies and the measurement of dark matter.

(Community Matters) Steven and I had dinner at Annie’s last night.  Wow, have heard so much about it.  Suppose it could have just been an off night – no attention whatsoever to presentation.  The waiter fumbled Steven’s order, and even though it wasn’t very crowded, the food took a long time to arrive.  Nice enough staff and decent ambiance.  Definitely want to give it another try.

(Community Matters) I sent out the following update this morning to friends who’d donated to HelpHaiti.  Thought some readers might find of interest:

Good morning,

Once again, welcome to our new friends on this list of HelpHaiti (http://GiveToAustin.org/HelpHaiti) contributors.  We’ve raised $730k, still expecting to raise $1.2mm.  We have earmarked $150k for 30-day challenge grants specifically for 3 charities doing outstanding work in Haiti – more on this further below.  As a reminder, we expect to raise funds over a 5 or 6 month period.

Below I’ve pasted notes from three telephone calls with our operating partners in Haiti.  There’s a lot of information – sorry for the detail but I thought some would want to see it and others could just breeze over it.

You’ll notice the addition of Catholic Relief Services as a partner.  In our conversations with Concern Worldwide and Partners in Health, Catholic Relief Services stood out as a trusted and critical partner, especially for food and because of their distribution network through churches all around the country.  We had an enlightening conversation with CRS’s Director of Worldwide Emergency Operations, Pat Johns.  Pat was in charge for CRS in Indonesia for 5 years after the tsunami and oversaw $130mm worth of relief and rebuild – notes from this call further below. Continue reading →

(Community Matters) Michael Barnes’ published the list of nominees at http://bit.ly/2010AustinUnder40 – includes Clayton Christopher –> (Sweet Leaf Tea), Melanie Ridings (Topfer Foundation) and Michael Kellerman (Habitat for Humanity).  Congratulations to the entire list of nominees.

(Community Matters) Interesting conversation at Starbucks this morning with a prominent local oncologist.  Definitely plan to follow up with my friend Doug Ulman (LAF)

(Community Matters) It’s been a great one.  So many friends honored my birthday wishes and signed in at http://bit.ly/ADLaus for which the Austin Post donated $5.00 for every signature – if you haven’t signed, please do.

After a very sweet birthday breakfast with Steven, spent the morning with Dr. Raphael Travis and Leigh Christie learning a bit more about the principles of Positive Youth Development and LemonadeDay Austin (this year 10,000 lemonade stands, new entrepreneurs on May 2) A wonderful birthday celebration with our EF staff and Thinkwell friends, enjoying another extraordinary cake made by Amanda Chiampi aka http://bit.ly/ButtersweatCakes .  Lunch at an ARRO meeting joined by Pat Hayes, talking about social equity and how AARO might leverage its skills and contacts on behalf of the best practicioners.  Immediately onto a conference call with folks from Partners in Health discussing the situation in Haiti.  Now moving on from rescue to reconstruction, settlement and sustaining.  Over a million displaced from their homes.  The country’s entire class of 2010 nurses were killed when the medical school where they were learning collapsed.

We announced recipients of this year’s Entrepreneur Foundation’s awards:  Community Leaders:  Donna & Philip Berber, founders of the A Glimmer of Hope (and Barron’s 6th most impactful philanthropic organization in the world); Best Companies: Convio (over 100 employees), Troux Technologies (50 – 100) and a tie: Phurnace Software & Innography (<50) – presentations at our annual Texas Independence Day Celebration (March 2, Four Seasons).

Afternoon chat and wine with a favorite Goldman Sachs banker, Walker Moody. Conference call with award-winning film producer Turk Pipkin to determine if there is an intersection between his Haiti efforts and HelpHaiti. Dinner with Steven and Michael Mitchell – many thanks to Stella Lucio at Julio’s who insisted on treating. Thinking about all our dear friends dining with President Barack Obama tonight at the National Museum for Women in the Arts (including Kirk & Haylie Rudy, Diane Land & Steve Adler, Carli & Tony Martinez, Richard Garriott, Andy Tobias & Charles Nolan, Jane & Bill Stetson).  long day, now tired, time to go to bed . . .quite early

(Community Matters) Our board chair Steve Adler speaking about the light, against apathy & indifference within which hate & prejudice prosper.

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Aside from being our leader during the last year, Steve’s become a dear friend and mentor. He’s an extraordinary leader

Proclaim Austin is No Place for Hate here

(Community Matters) Milinda Mitchell’s sweet 29 – last night at House Pizzeria on Airport @ 51st St – really outstanding.

Melissa Henderson, Tana Christie, Milinda Mitchell & Heather

Joe Christie & Drew Valcourt

Drew and Steven got into iPhone ap swapping – especially something called Four Square.  I have to say, I’m completely over the idea that someone else could be declared the mayor of Julio’s (other, of course, than Julio, Stella, Luis or Marisa).  It may be what puts me over the line!

Milinda, Heather, Robert Torian and Michael Mitchell

Michael hosted last night’s gathering.  We’re all together quite a bit this month with Tana’s, Margaret’s, Nico’s, Ben’s & Janet’s birthdays Jan, Milinda’s, Robert’s and mine this month.  Of the adults, Milinda’s the baby in the family.  Happy Birthday dearest MEM

(Community Matters) The Economist’s special section on Social Networking

Facebook . . . which celebrates its sixth birthday next month . . . is now the second most popular site on the internet after Google . . . over 350 million users . . . were it a nation . . the world’s third most populous after China and India

Orkut (India & Brazil), QQ (China), Skyrock (France), VKontakte (Rusia) & Cyworld (S. Korea), Muxlim (Muslims), ResearchGATE (scientists & researchers)

Superb tools for mass communication.  They must demonstrate that they are capable of generating the returns that justify the lofty valuations

In the business world most hype around “Enterprise 2.0”, efforts to bring technologies such as social networks and blogs into the workplace to create huge benefits for business.

“This special report will examine these issues in detail [executives’ concerns about social networking leading to non-working and the leaking of sensitive corporate information].  It will argue that social networks are more robust than their critics think, though not every site will prosper, and that social-networking technologies are creating considerable benefits for the businesses that embrace them, whatever their size.  Lastly, it will contend that this is just the beginning of an exciting new era of global interconnectedness that will spread ideas and innovations around the world faster than ever before.”

(Community Matters) The Economists’ debate, Is Obama failing? Voting on the site says NO 65%; YES 35%

Many other presidents have found themselves in much more serious situations than Obama finds himself in now. He and his wife Michelle retain great personal respect. People like him and wish him well. They think that he shares their values. He has not been saddled with any of the demeaning scandals that plagued Bill Clinton’s presidency. He does not suffer from a character problem. Quite the contrary. The young people who voted for him in such large numbers are perplexed by his troubles but they are by no means ready to abandon him. His political troubles have not turned into personal troubles. This is critical. Personal failings and foibles fix themselves like glue in the minds of the public. Once a politician is regularly pilloried in the monologues of the late-night television comics he or she finds it nearly impossible to change the negative image. Unlike personal failings, political and governmental failings can be fixed.

Barack Obama is not failing. Failure in American politics is not subtle or nuanced, it is marked by a swift and deadly movement of public opinion from the political to the personal. At this stage in his presidency Harry Truman’s approval ratings were low and falling and he was the butt of jokes about his mid-west roots, his poker games and his cronies. One of many popular jokes went: “What would Roosevelt do if he were alive? What would Truman do if he were alive?” Truman suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1946 midterms but he still managed to pass the Marshall Plan and win re-election in 1948.

on the other side:

In many ways, of course, Obama has just doubled down on George W. Bush’s policies of bailouts, takeovers, expanded Fed powers and nationalisations. Some of the opposition to him reflects the public’s sense that we’ve been piling up spending and debt for over a year now, so he is being punished for his predecessor’s mistakes. But Bush or Obama, these policies take us in the wrong direction. After a crisis brought on by cheap money and distortionary subsidies, he is doing more of the same. In a recession he is adding debt, taxes and regulation to the burdens already felt by business.

And now the voters are turning against this sweeping agenda that seeks to make America a European welfare state. Obama came into office on a wave of good feeling, with 69% expressing approval and only 12% expressing disapproval. Now his ratings are below 50%. Obama’s approval rating fell 21 points during his first year in office, the largest first-year decline for any president since Gallup began tracking presidential approval ratings in the 1930s. Approval by independent voters has fallen from 62% to 45%. And even young people are leaving: The Politico/Insider Advantage poll showed Scott Brown leading among voters under 30 by 61% against 30%. In contrast, the 2008 exit poll showed 18-29-year-olds in Massachusetts voting for Obama 78-20.