Community Matters

(Community Matters) Deficit reduction is critical – and increasing some taxes is just as critical as cutting spending. Until both sides of the Congressional aisle get serious about righting the economy, American workers will suffer

The Economist

(Community Matters) Saw The Tree of Life last night. I am constitutionally incapable of processing poetry; I’m not so into metaphors and symbols. So, one would say the movie is not up my alley. Nevertheless, it’s probably to enter the film making canon, so don’t regret having seen. especially didn’t get Sean Penn’s character

light dinner after at Fonda San Miguel. Their al pastor so beats Frontera Grill. Kerry & Dawn joined us.

(Community Matters) this is such great news – Jeff Garvey & MariBen Ramsey make for an unbeatable team

Thursday, June 2, 2011 — Austin, Texas — The Austin Community Foundation (ACF) announced today that Jeffery C. Garvey has been selected by the Foundation’s Board of Governors to serve as president and chief executive officer.  Garvey will lead ACF’s mission to promote local philanthropy and make enduring investments aimed at improving the quality of life for Central Texans.  Garvey will begin work at the Foundation on July 5.

Garvey has been an admired business and philanthropy leader in the Austin community for more than 30 years.  He is a founder of Austin Ventures, one of the largest venture and growth equity firms in Texas.  Garvey has also served on the boards of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, KLRU, Center for Childhood Protection, St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and St. Edward’s University.  Garvey is the Vice Chairman and Founding Chair of the LIVESTRONG Board of Directors and served as the executive director of LIVESTRONG from 2001 to 2003.

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(Community Matters)

still in my head

(Community Matters) when you 1) have Kathie Tovo kitchen cabinet members on city council video saying they’d rather unemployment increase than welcome new companies & jobs to Austin, and 2) have Kathie Tovo kitchen cabinet members imposing historical zoning on their neighbor’s homes against owners wishes to satisfy an elite group of city hall insiders’ . . . .  yeah, you’re gonna have business owners & their employees doing what they can to help elect Randi Shade. Randi – a successful entrepreneur, UT student body president, Harvard Business School graduate, mother of two and neighborhood activist – brings balance to the council. She’ll help Austin prepare for the future, not blow up plans and contracts in a quxiote quest to prevent growth (which even if we could would result in too few jobs, decreased standard of living and more traffic congestion).

AAS article

Many small independent businesses are scared of Kathie on council. Certainly anyone worried about jobs, economic growth and the ability of small businesses to fairly negotiate with surrounding neighbors are supporting Randi. Austin’s live music industry could be wrecked by Kathie’s election to council because of her strident support for the most radical of neighborhood activists complaining about music & traffic

(Community Matters) Dinner last night at Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill with Wally Brewster, Bob Satawake and Paul Horning – after drinks and hors d’ouevres hosted by Andy Tobias at Table 52. A nice gaggle of friends and colleagues at the latter; good al pastor on excellent tortillas at the former.

(Community Matters) in Chicago

my good friend, Tony Martinez (the new mayor of Brownsville) and Mayor Rahm Emanuel

(Community Matters) I love traveling and there’s nothing like a night in one’s own bed – slept like a baby. Now only if Steven had been here instead of San Francisco.

(Community Matters)

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(Community Matters) loved it.

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moving here in 2013?

(Community Matters) a Roman friend says 75% of the world’s art originates from Italy. I don’t know if this is correct, but from three days in Rome, I believe it could be true when including ancient Rome and the principalities which form modern day Italy.

Yesterday was action packed: a tour of the Church of San Gregorio (the first Pope Gregorio who successfully merged the Benedictine philosophy that the Christian church should serve the poor with the ambitions of political supremacy) including its frescos by Domenichino (a Bologna contemporary of Caravaggio), the Roman Museum and its collection of earliest Italian and Greek sculptures, the Casa Museo Giorgio de Chicico, a tour of the Rome Gagosiam Gallery’s *Made in Italy* retrospective of 60 years of Italian artists (celebrating Italy’s 150 years of Italian reunification), cocktails on a terrace on the Spanish steps, to lunch at the private club at the Broghese Palace, a private tour by Sandro Chia of his Rome studio, cocktails at the American Academy in Rome, and dinner & cocktails on what’s got to be the most exquisite terrace of a palace in Centro.

Our guide for the day equals my friend Ron Perry in Israel – Alessandro Celani brings a scholar’s knowledge of art, architecture, history and politics. His assistants were a graduate of Cambridge interning with Senator Kerry this summer and a Harvard junior of Venetian and Roman aristocracy, the latter who I inexplicably grew so fond of he’s a candidate for godson (not to mention a likely USA house guest).

This morning attended church (then lunch) with my friends Nicolo and Rita Compagni, Principe and Principessa Boncompagni Ludovisi. He went to St Ignacio, the cathedral built by his family, while Rita and I attended the English services next door at Caravita. After a tour of the Boncompagni Ludovisi Palace, lunch at La Scalla which just happened to be 2 blocks from my hotel (especially sweet after two bottles of wine).

All very heady. I love MM’s frame not to forget I’m B list just allowed to play in an A list world from time to time. Quite true and ever mindful how my friend Suzanne Deal Booth has introduced me to almost all my friends in Rome.

(I’ve also been working on plans to bring Steven here for at least 6 months in 2013. Rome is like Marfa for him – it inspires his creative energies and douses his commercial ambitions. This trip could only be better if he was with me.) Posted from my blackberry since I think the nuns are teaching me a lesson and denying me wifi access.

(Community Matters) Suzanne Deal Booth gathers friends like Graham gathers notes. In the few short years we’ve been buddies (admittedly traveling a bit of the world together – hmm, wondering if David & Steven arrange this to gain a bit of rest) I’ve added several as my own. Last night at our table – a princess, a prince, a count, a travel writer & cook, an international architect, a writer & artist, an international art dealer and a lucky daughter – quite an evening honoring Italian artist, Luigi Ontani.

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