Daily Archives: 10/27/2013

People Fund’s East Night & Silverton Partners’ Open House

1375756_10201474007025456_1707216677_n(Community Matters) Wow, week moved too fast. Almost forgot all about a fun Thursday night.

We’re long time, enthusiastic supporters of People Fund (formerly Austin CDC). They hosted a successful casino fundraiser at their E MLK site Thursday night. The Entrepreneurs Foundation served as their underwriter, Steven and I as their honorary chairs. Well attended and well supported. Thanks to CapitalOne Bank for coming in as a second underwriter. Loved seeing lots of friends including Cloteal, Adrian, Bryan & Shannon Jones and tons more.

Bill Wood, Morgan Flagger and Kip McClanahan host Silverton Partner’s Open House every year, this year at the Belmont where we saw every Austin entrepreneur and investor. First chance to congratulate our friend Heather Brunner on her new role as CEO of one of Austin’s hottest startups, WP Engine.

Oklahoma

steven 52(Community Matters) Super visit to Oklahoma to see Carol & Phil for Steven’s birthday. Bonus treats: Craig coming in for Saturday lunch, Hilary joining us for dinner and Avery’s play at OBU, meeting Rickie Bond in Dallas for a quick dinner on the way here, and anticipating lunch with Rickie & Charles Santos on the way home.

Chorus Refrains On USA Foreign Policy

flags(Community Matters) “‘The United States did a lot of damage to their image by failing to attack Syria,” said an Israeli diplomat in Jerusalem.”

Seriously? The resolution is Syria surrendering all its chemical weapon. Criticizing the US for achieving this surrender just shows a blatantly self serving perspective – and a short term one at that. Yeah, yeah, I hear the chorus refrain how Russia saved the day here, but the facts are Pres O and Putin had just met, Kerry “casually mentioned” this as a solution (diplomats don’t just ad lib), then the Russians followed up; nevertheless, even serendipity counts as opportunity meeting preparation.

Ditto Saudi Arabia – upset by a “cooling” in the diplomatic cold war between the US and Iran. Evidence that economic sanctions are driving their government to, at least, conversations with the west . . . and an important ally which continues to deny women equality, a dictator state from which radical islamists groups are financed by certain Saudi families, expresses hurt that we didn’t follow through with an attack on Syria and that we abandoned a dictator neighbor, threatens to pull away from an alliance.

Admittedly, Iran is not a credible player, and we can’t rely on their word but on deeds. Saudi Arabia and Israel are important regional allies – Israel like a brother. Not to mention our disastrous foreign, NSA spying on principals, though, seriously, how long do we imagine this has been going on? Who doesn’t do it? My appreciation for Snowden’s whistle blowing about domestic spying notwithstanding, foreign protests feel a little like the wolf complaining that grandma’d eaten something unsavory before being eaten.

President captured Osama Bin Laden, has captured or killed most of his top men, pulled out of Iraq, Syria is surrendering chemical weapons, Iran is, apparently, at the table talking, we successfully and with minimal damage intervened in Libya, and this administration has prevented what I’m assuming are hundreds of domestic & foreign terrorists incidents. Okay, NSA abuse sucks and I think unconstitutional, and we may need to reign in drone killing; I’m uneducated and not sure about the latter. Benghazi . . . unfortunate, obviously some people fucked up and I wish those who can’t get over the four Americans who accepted the risks of their missions would care as much about the thousands of Americans who die every year because of the lack of healthcare. I don’t want to be an apologist, and I’m offended by these sophomoric refrains.