D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A B R E A S T C A N C E R A L L I A N C E H O S T E D A B R I D G E TO U R N A M E N T AT T H E G R E E N W I C H C O U N T R Y C L U B
Debbie Black and Yonni Wattenmaker
Mrs. Kennedy. Co-chairs for the evening wereSloan LindemannBarnett, Nina Rennert Davidson, Karin Luter, Kalliope Karella Rena, Christine Schwarzman, Tracy Snyder, and Monica Wambold. These are the girls who sell the tickets (tables) and raise the money to pay for everything, including the ballet. At least five of them have multi-billionaire husbands or fathers and the rest of them have access to big funds. This is how the opera and ballet survive in New York. During intermission I happened to be having a glass of champagne by the bar and noticed I was also standing alongside Roman Abramovich with a very attractive young brunette woman. Soon after, another Russian tycoon, also a New Yorker, Len Blavatnik, came by to say hello to the man who spent more than half 38 QUEST
Laurie Fried, Debbi O’Shea and Ellen Kaidanow
Tad Smith and Caroline Brecker
of a billion dollars on one of his three yachts. Both men were dressed very casually: open-collar shirt, jacket, and pants. They were fairly innocuous looking, all things (and site) considered. Not the sort of costume you’d expect from men of great wealth attending the ballet on a gala opening. But then… Mr. Abramovich went mainly unnoticed and he was enjoying himself looking around at the company he was keeping. At one point, a young man came up with a camera and asked if he could take a picture. Abramovich and his lady friend pleasantly agreed. Then the young man asked the lady friend if she would take a picture of him with Abramovich, who found the whole thing amusing and went along. Tuesday, May 14. I went over to Roosevelt House
Terrie Henry, Kim Augustine, Lee Woodruff, Mary Jeffery and Annie Amato
Carol Santora and Kathy Clark
to hear a lecture by David Stockman, who wrote the current bestseller The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America. Roosevelt House is part of Hunter College. It is located in twin townhouses built by Sara Delano Roosevelt for her and her son and only child, Franklin, and his wife Eleanor and their children in 1908. The Roosevelts (including Mama Sara, the mother-inlaw) lived there until Franklin and Eleanor and family moved to the White House in 1933. Stockman’s book contradicts the mainstream media’s message about our current economic “recovery.” Although I haven’t read it yet, I will because its subject is, in my opinion, as pertinent to the health of our society as ecology is to our planet. Stockman is a very good orator. He had been a
Richard Blumenthal and Lisa Matthews
congressman from Michigan before he joined the Reagan administration at its beginning. He learned well. He began adult life in divinity school. His path that led to politics and finances seems entirely coincidental in the telling although, in retrospect, he must have had a proactive attitude about what interested him. His story on how he became involved with Ronald Reagan and was appointed as Reagan’s first director of the Office of Management and Budget is a fascinating political anecdote, and a rewarding story as well as a story of political reward. His is not the first of this kind. What is different about his knowledge is that he understands what it means to The Man On the Street. He understands the financial mechanisms. He understands the political process—the Wall Street process—and
CO U RTE S Y O F T H E B R E A S T C A N C E R A LL I A N C E
Scott Mitchell with Maura and Frank Corvino