Monthly Archives: April 2014

(CommunityMatters) The launch of this year’s Fusebox Festival couldn’t have gone better. Graham Reynolds’ & Peter Stophchinsky’s Mozart Requiem: Undead was beyond expectations. Each rewrote two pieces of Wolfgang Mozart’s unfinished Requiem Mass, and they invited other composers (Glenn Kotche, Caroline Shaw, Todd Reynolds, Adrian Quesada, Petra Hayden, Kate Moore, Justin Sherburn, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Brent Baldwin) to rewrite the remaining pieces. A 40ish person orchestra & the Texas Choral Consort under beautiful skies, outdoor at the French Legation. 

(CommunityMatters) love this guy & so happy he & Julian are so dedicated

(CommunityMatters) What a treat having Luke Hayes back in town for a long weekend. Dinner with two of our godsons.

 at the Carillion – Will Roman, Steven, Eugene & Luke

(CommunityMatters) exciting times – hope you’ll join us for the launch of Steve’s campaign at City Hall, May 4 3:30 to 5:30. Let’s take back City Hall.

hey, I love it here. Think it’s one of the best cities in the world. Many enjoy a spectacular economy and standard of living, most a good one, and too many are left out of this prosperity. Traffic, underperforming schools and affordability threaten the Austin we know & love.

Steve spent years practicing civil rights law, leading & transforming important nonprofits, taking leave from his law practice for four legislative sessions to fight for equity & education during Texas legislative sessions and raising three beautiful, successful daughters. And, he hasn’t forgotten his roots (he & his brother were the first in their family to attend college – on scholarships) and today devotes time & energy seeing that first generation, potential college attendees have the resources & mentoring to go to college.

I love the platforms of the other candidates . . . and traffic, education and affordability have gotten worse during the last eight years. It’s time for a new way forward.

(Community Matters) The Greater Austin Chamber’s Federal & State Advocacy Council sponsored a trip for DC staffers of our two senators & local congressman to visit Austin, tour, meet & greet, hear more about pressing issues. FWD.us sponsored a lunch and brought several business speakers enthusiastic about comprehensive immigration reform. Both senators and our congressional representatives participated. What a super investment of time and relationships. Every staffer I met was intentional about learning more about Austin and how their elected official could better represent the area.

(CommunityMatters) Loved hosting Andrew Hinderaker and Brett Schneider for a reading/performance of Andrew’s new play, Impossible. He’s still writing it, so more a workshop, and still, way fun.

much fun having friends join us: Stephen Dietz, Allison Gregory, Michael Mitchell, Kevin Keim, Matt Wolski, Brant Pope, Steve Adler, Lynn Meredith, Melanie Barnes, Jolynn Free, Sharon Watkins, Pete Schenkkan & Will Roman.

(Community Matters) Playbook: N.Y. Times Magazine “How the White House got to ‘I do’: Inside the tentative, anxious, heavily scripted and occasionally blundering ‘evolution’ of a president’s view on gay marriage,” by Jo Becker, a Times investigative reporter; adapted from “Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality,” to be published Tuesday by Penguin Press: “[I]f he was really contemplating an endorsement of same-sex marriage, his advisers urged him to do it in a manner that caused minimal political damage. David Plouffe … reached out to Ken Mehlman for advice. …

“Mehlman had already met with Obama over lunch at the White House and told him that people voted for him in 2008 because they viewed him as an idealist who would put politics aside and do what was right. Endorsing same-sex marriage would remind voters that he was still that man. ‘The notion that politically this is going to kill you – I don’t buy it,’ Mehlman recalled saying.

“Some of Obama’s top advisers urged him to take Biden to task for forcing his hand … The first lady saw the whole thing as a blessing in disguise. The endless debate was over. You don’t have to dance around this issue anymore, she told her husband over breakfast, … in a conversation she relayed afterward to several top White House officials. ‘Enjoy this day,’ she said as he headed off for his interview [with ABC’s Robin Roberts]. ‘You are free.’ …

“In the months after the announcement , the coalition that Obama needed to win a second term did not crumble. To the campaign’s surprise, Election Day exit polls showed that endorsing same-sex marriage did not hurt him among key constituencies – Catholics and Latinos, for instance, supported it. And the backing motivated Obama’s progressive base, including voters ages 18 to 30, who broke decisively his way. In addition, voters in three states for the first time approved ballot measures legalizing same-sex marriage, while those in a fourth voted down a ban. Mehlman was correct in predicting that it would do little to drive Republican turnout. As Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director at the time, put it: ‘It was the bomb that didn’t go off.'” http://goo.gl/rjR2qj .

(CommunityMatters) So love having Sonya, Gabel, Dio & Reid Cramer in Austin for Spring Break.

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(CommunityMatters) Paul Krugman: Health Care Nightmares

 the nonpartisan RAND Corporation released a study estimating “a net gain of 9.3 million in the number of American adults with health insurance coverage from September 2013 to mid-March 2014.

RAND finds that fewer than a million people who previously had individual insurance became uninsured — and many of those transitions, one guesses, had nothing to do with Obamacare. 

not one of the supposed horror stories touted in Koch-backed anti-reform advertisements has stood up to scrutiny

The number of uninsured Americans is dropping much faster in states accepting Medicaid expansion than in states rejecting it.

(CommunityMatters) oh my . . . Steven tells this story from our early days. We were having breakfast one morning at Chipolina’s in Clarksville. We were seated inside when up drives this long white vintage Cadillac. Out of it float an older man and an elegant woman (one doesn’t refer to women as old) both dressed in white silks, the woman carrying a white poodle. They enter the store and purchase a bottle of champagne and two croissants. They take their purchases outside, pour champagne and light up cigarettes. I’m mesmerized. I remember Steven looking at me and shaking his head. I asked what’s wrong. He continued shaking his head and just said, “oh no . . . why do I feel like I am watching the future you.”

This story on Tangiers captivates me.

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In a shrinking world, Tangier is a place where eccentricity is celebrated, where fiscal nomads and expatriates thrive in the midday sun, where light filters through the palms and makes an atmosphere of dreaming. 

When Matisse came to the city in the winter of 1912 . . . . He was astonished by the colors and the “decorative force” that came out with the sun, painting . . . . the famous “La Fenêtre à Tanger,”

“It’s not really necessary to like your friends in Tangier,” 

 “Tangier is still unique,because it’s neither West nor East. It’s a tiny point where all these things meet and give it this strange magic.” 

 

(CommunityMatters) Much fun last night co-hosting with Suzanne Deal Booth our dear friend Arianna Huffington. What was to be another intimate dinner at Wheeler turned into dinner for 150 at the Headliners. Good, she’s on a book tour so worked out well.

fun evening: our guests: Beth Broderick, Diane Land, Steve Adler, Marc & Suzanne Winkelman, Kevin Keim, Chandler Booth, Michael Barnes, Josh & Liz Jones-Dilworth, Ann Arnoult & Jim Banks.

(Community Matters) Plans coming along swimmingly for the April 28 Entrepreneurs Foundation’s CEO Summit on Corporate Culture. Discussion leaders include Brett Hurt on corporate culture during the launch; Rackspace’s Henry Sauer on corporate culture in recruiting & retention of talent; Bill Bock on corporate culture during transitions & crises;  Kirk Dando on corporate culture during growth; Gene Austin on community involvement; and New York-based serial entrepreneur, Nancy Harvey, on corporate culture in communications. Doubly excited Steven Tomlinson is facilitating and Sunni Brown’s company helping us plan, execute and document using games and mind maps. Jones Dilworth Inc. (Josh Jones-Dilworth & Kevin LaHaise our partners in everything way cool) are helping us record and publish. much fun!

Should have called this EF & Capital Factory CEO Summit on EmployeeAwesomeness (the great thinker Joshua Baer another much fun partner in all good we do).