(NECN) - It's one of the things people ask -- "what's your sign"? Astronomers say because the earth's alignment is different from where it was three thousand years ago when the study of astrology began -- the Zodiac signs are different. New reports out from the Minnesota Planetarium society say the stars' alignment was pushed by about a month, because of the moon's gravitational pull on the earth. In fact, there's now a 13th sign. The new dates for Capricorn are January 20th through February 16th. For Aquarius, it's February 16th through March 11th. Pisces: March 11th through April 18th. Aries: April 18th through May 13th. Taurus: May 13th through June 21st. Gemini: June 21st through July 20th. Cancer: July 20th through August 10th. Leo: August 10th through September 16th. Virgo: September 16th through October 30th. Libra: October 30th through November 23rd. Scorpio: November 23rd through November 29th. The new sign, Ophiuchus is for people with birth dates between November 29th and December 17th. Sagittarius is now December 17th through January 20th. These are the old signs: Aries: March 21 - April 20 Taurus: April 21 - May 21 Gemini: May 22 - June 21 Cancer: June 22 - July 22 Leo: July 23 -August 21 Virgo: August 22 - September 23 Libra: September 24 - October 23 Scorpio: October 24 - November 22 Sagittarius: November 23 - December 22 Capricorn: December 23 - January 20 Aquarius: January 21 - February 19 Pisces: February 20- March 20
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Healing Source: It’s time for medical integration!
t’s time for medical integration! Integrative Medicine is a new term coined over the past decade by medical professionals who utilize conventional and alternative modalities to provide patient centered care. As people continue to recognize the benefits of alternative therapies, physicians who are adapt at administering care from the conventional and alternative worlds are essential. This integrated approach allows for maximal health benefits with the least invasion and toxicity to you. Dr. Nicole King is an Internal Medicine board-certified physician who practices Integrative Medicine. She received her B.A. in 1991 and her Doctor of Medicine in 1995 from Wayne State University. She completed an Internal Medicine (Adult Medicine) residency at Loyola Medical Center and completed an Integrative Medicine fellowship in 2001. She specializes in functional medicine, preventative care, nutrition, and alternative therapies to maximize control of chronic health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and vascular health. She serves as her patient’s primary care physician or as a complement to patients who are under the care of another healthcare provider. At Abraham’s Mark we believe that the physician-patient relationship is a partnership in which goals are set by both parties and an integrated plan is created to achieve that health goal. The most effective healthcare is achieved in partnership. You partner with a knowledgeable, Integrative doctor and make a commitment to become knowledgeable then implement a strategic plan with objective measures of accomplishment. As the saying goes, "change isn't change until it is changed." Direct measures of your health status are assessed then followed. Functional Medicine focuses on not just the absence of disease but on imbalances in the body’s system which indicates poor biological function that may eventually lead to poor health and chronic illness. The goal is to obtain and maintain optimal health and vitality based on the individual. Call for an appointment today (773) 667-0768.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Gmail - How Smart Is Your City, Auburn and Oregon Universities Fail At Graduating Black Athletes, Celebrate King Day, Can Tai Chi and Yoga Help Troubled Youth?
How Smart Is Your City? America's Most Literate Cities, 2010 Drawing from a variety of available data resources, the America's Most Literate Cities study ranks the largest cities (population 250,000 and above) in the United States. This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. The original study was published online in 2003 at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Dr. John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, is the author of this study. Research for this edition of AMLC was conducted in collaboration with the Center for Public Policy and Social Research at CCSU. Click here for full study. 2010 Rank City 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 1 Washington, DC 2 3 5 3.5 3 2 Seattle, WA 1 1.5 2 1 1 3 Minneapolis, MN 3 1.5 1 2 2 4 Atlanta, GA 5 6 8 3.5 4 5 Pittsburgh, PA 4 12 9 6 8 6 San Francisco, CA 12 5 7 9 5 7 St. Paul, MN 7 4 3 5 9.5 8 Denver, CO 10 7 4 8 6 9.5 Portland, OR 6 10.5 12 10 11 9.5 St. Louis, MO 11 9 6 12 15 11 Cincinnati, OH 9 10.5 11 7 9.5 12 Boston, MA 8 8 10 11 7 13 Raleigh, NC 19 14 14 13 13 14 Cleveland, OH 13 13 13 14 18 15 New Orleans, LA 17 -- -- -- 42 16 Columbus, OH 22 15 21 15 12 17 Kansas City, MO 14 18 15 17 14 18 Baltimore, MD 26 16 27 24 21 19 Tampa, FL 20.5 29 20 21 24.5 20 Lincoln, NE 23 -- -- -- -- 21 Austin, TX 16 17 23 16 16 22 Nashville-Davidson, TN 18 19.5 19 18 17 23 Lexington-Fayette, KY 15 19.5 17 30 27.5 24 Tulsa, OK 20.5 21 16 19.5 24.5 25 Colorado Springs, CO 24 26 30 33.5 19 26 New York City, NY 29 24 28 42 32.5 27 Honolulu CDP, HI 28 22 18 22 35 28 Chicago, IL 30 34 40 39 46 29.5 Miami, FL 33.5 33 22 23 27.5 29.5 Milwaukee, WI 31 36 34.5 25 29 31.5 Charlotte, NC 27 31 26 19.5 20 31.5 Philadelphia, PA 32 28 31.5 33.5 32.5 33 Tucson, AZ 45 32 33 36 34 34 Indianapolis, IN 25 37 29 29 23 35 Virginia Beach, VA 44 27 24 27 41 36 Oklahoma City, OK 38 43 38.5 43 38 37 Oakland, CA 35 23 46 35 30 38.5 Greensboro, NC 36 -- -- -- -- 38.5 San Diego, CA 33.5 25 36 26 39 40 Louisville-Jefferson Co., KY 40 38.5 31.5 37 40 41 Buffalo, NY 41.5 42 42 44 47 42 Omaha, NE 37 40 34.5 31 31 43 Albuquerque, NM 39 35 41 38 36 44 Dallas, TX 48 38.5 47.5 49 48 45 Sacramento, CA 41.5 30 25 28 22 46 Fort Wayne, IN 43 44 -- -- -- 47 Toledo, OH 47 48 37 32 26 48 Wichita, KS 46 49 44 48 49 49 Jacksonville, FL 55 50 47.5 45.5 44.5 50.5 Fort Worth, TX 52 45 45 45.5 44.5 50.5 San Jose, CA 56 46 54 50 51 52 Las Vegas, NV 50 41 43 40 44.5 53 Anchorage, AK 49 47 38.5 47 43 54 Plano, TX 53.5 55 51 53 -- 55 Memphis, TN 53.5 58 59 54 58.5 56 Detroit, MI 51 51 50 52 56 57 Newark, NJ 57 52 49 51 37 58 Phoenix, AZ 59 57 56 59 54 59 Riverside, CA 58 53 52 56 58.5 60 Houston, TX 60 54 55 55 53 61 Los Angeles, CA 62 56 53 57 60 62 San Antonio, TX 61 64 62 63 64 63 Henderson, NV 64 -- -- -- -- 64 Fresno, CA 65.5 59 58 60 63 65 Mesa, AZ 68 61 61 58 52 66 Glendale, AZ 65.5 65 -- -- -- 67 Santa Ana, CA 67 62 57 61 62 68 Long Beach, CA 63 60 60 63 61 69.5 Corpus Christi, TX 74 69 65 68 67 69.5 El Paso, TX 75 71 68 69 68 71 Arlington, TX 70.5 63 62 64.5 57 72 Anaheim, CA 69 67 67 64.5 66 73 Bakersfield, CA 73 68 64 66 65 74 Aurora, CO 70.5 66 66 67 55 75 Stockton, CA 72 70 69 70 69 © 2010 CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY Auburn University: Number 1 in the Nation in Football; Number 85 Out of 120 Colleges in Graduating Black Athletes. The University of Oregon is Worse! At Auburn, White players graduate at the rate of 100 percent; Black players 49 percent. Auburn football team champs on field but not in graduation rates By Valerie Strauss January 11, 2011 Auburn University's football team won the national collegiate football championship, but the Tigers aren't exactly champs when it comes to graduation rates. According to the Academic Progress Rate, a four-year assessment by the NCAA of the movement toward graduation for a team's players, Auburn has dropped from No. 4 to No. 85 among the120 major college football programs. The drop was caused when Auburn closed academic loopholes that had allowed football players to pad their grade point averages and remain eligible to play by taking easy courses, according to a story in The New York Times. In addition, a study of 2010-11 bowl-bound college teams conducted by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida showed that Auburn has the highest disparity in graduation rates between white and black players of any major football team. White players graduate at the rate of 100 percent; black players 49 percent. The University of Oregon, according to that study, graduates 76 percent of white players and 41 percent of its African-American players. The study, released last month, showed that five of the bowl-bound schools had graduation success rates for African-American football student-athletes that exceeded their rates for white football student-athletes: Northwestern (one percentage point higher), Virginia Tech (three percentage points higher), Southern Mississippi (three percentage points higher), Notre Dame (four percentage points higher) and Troy (10 percentage points higher). Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been vocal about the importance of college sports teams maintaining high graduation rates. In an interview on Monday with Washington Post reporters and editors, he repeated that position, saying teams that do not have a graduation rate of at least 40 percent should not be allowed to participate in post-season play. He added that any sanctions for wrongdoing brought by the NCAA on a particular program should also follow the coach under whom they occurred. No more excuses! Become a Teacher, Become a Hero!!! The Chicago Teaching Fellows (CTF) is looking for outstanding, diverse individuals to become dedicated new teachers in Chicago Public Schools starting in summer 2011 through a streamlined teacher training and certification program. You may know of professionals or recent college-graduates who may be great candidates for the Teaching Fellows program. CTF is looking for individuals to teach high school math, high school science, bilingual Spanish education, and special education. Applicants do not need to have any prior education experience or coursework. All that is required is a bachelor's degree (conferred by June 2011) with an undergraduate GPA of at least 2.75 and authorization to work in the United States (citizenship or greencard). Families and Communities Must Take Charge of the Education of Children Call us at 773.285.9600 if you want to start a community-based PTA in a church, community center, neighborhood association or school Save the Date To Save Our Students! Experience a new way to contribute to the academic success of the children in your community through a new PTA® initiative that offers a variety of parent/caregiver engagement tools and strategies to ensure opportunity and equity for students in urban communities. PTA's Urban Family Engagement Initiative in partnership with Illinois PTA, Black Star Community PTA & Early Outreach Program at UIC is hosting a FREE event in the community. Join us for a Family Institute Day Mini Conference Workshop sessions: SETTING EXPECTATIONS / THE POLITICS OF EDUCATION/ UNDERSTANDING THE GROUP PROCESS Saturday January 22, 2011 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. UIC Behavioral Science Building 1007 W Harrison St. Chicago, IL 60607 Parking Info: Harrison Street Parking Structure (HSPS), 1100 West Harrison. Free parking is available if you tell the parking attendant that you are with the National PTA. To register: https://ptaspeakers.wufoo.com/forms/nptas-family-institute-day-mini-conference/ or Call 1.800.307.4782 ext 3511 Seating is limited. RSVP required by 1/15/2011. Free lunch, childcare and materials provided. Fathers and Men Should Spend Dr. King's Birthday Teaching Children about Peace and Love for Humanity The Black Star Project's Million Fathers Club Visits The DuSable Museum of African American History on King Day Today is a great day to teach American children about one of the greatest American heroes!!! Monday, January 17, 2011 all day at the DuSable Museum of African American History 740 East 56th Place Chicago, Illinois 60637 The first 80 children 12 years old and under will be admitted for only $2.50. The first 20 youth and adults 13 and older will be admitted for only $5.00. This offer is good only while tickets last. Please Call Bruce Walker at 773-285-9600 for more information about this event. Celebrate King Day with the AKA's One thousand teens will learn about service, excellence and leadership The Monarch Awards Foundation, Inc. Xi Nu Omega Chapter, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority presents 9th Annual MLK Day Teen Summit on Monday, January 17, 2011 at Bronzeville Scholastic Academy High School DuSable Campus 4934 South Wabash Avenue Chicago, Illinois Can tai chi and yoga keep youth out of prison? New juvenile delinquent rehab program may soon include yoga, tai chi by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer Saturday, January 08, 2011 (NaturalNews) Barry Holman, interim deputy director of the Washington, D.C., Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), has come up with a new approach to overcome the agency's current flailing system: yoga. According to a recent report in the Washington Examiner, Holman has petitioned his staff members for help in finding someone to teach D.C.'s troubled youth the "mind-body" techniques he believe may help them. "It was an exercise on my part to see what other qualities, besides the professional qualities, that they can bring to the job," explained Holman to the Examiner about his idea. Temporarily fulfilling the position after the departure of four previously unsuccessful DYRS directors in 2010, Holman inherited a rehabilitation program with a very poor track record. Besides the numerous murders involving facility wards, the program was actually implicated in causing a surge in violence among youth. Something needed to change, so Holman made his proposal. "We're always looking at expanding our offerings," he is quoted as saying. "The benefits of yoga or tai-chi are no different for youth in a correction facility than for anyone else." And his plan could work, as it just might provide troubled youth with the physical and mental stimulation they need to stay out of prison. Yoga has also been shown to alleviate depression and improve mental health, reduce stress, boost heart function, and reduce inflammation, among other things. These factors together have the potential not only to improve the mental stability of troubled youth, but also improve their overall physical health, in conjunction with standard rehabilitation protocols. Holman is also investigating other programs that might be of interest to the youth that will provide them with a constructive outlet for their overall rehabilitation. Click on links below for more information about the great programs of The Black Star Project For more information on our other programs and how you can get involved, click on these links below or please call 773.285.9600: Attend a Black Star Event in Chicago Become a Black Star Mentor
Monday, January 10, 2011
Ex-Cubs GM Green’s granddaughter among six killed in Ariz. - Chicago Sun-Times
Ex-Cubs GM Green’s granddaughter among six killed in Ariz.
' + first_letter + ' Jan 9, 2011 11:24AM
The 9-year-old granddaughter of former Cubs General Manager Dallas Green was among the six people killed in a rampage in Arizona that targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
Green is now an executive advisor for the Philadelphia Phillies, which he managed to the World Series championship in 1980.
“She was a talented young girl with a bright promising future. Her untimely death weighs heavily on our hearts,” Philadelphia Phillies president David Montgomery said Sunday. The Phillies said the girl’s name was spelled Christina-Taylor Green; Arizona authorities provided a different spelling, Christina Greene.
Greg Segalini, an uncle of the girl, told the Arizona Republic that a neighbor was going to Giffords event at a grocery store and invited her along because she had just been elected to the student council and was interested in government.
Christina, who was born on Sept. 11, 2001, was involved in various activities, from ballet to baseball, and had just received her first Holy Communion at St. Odilia’s Catholic Church in Tucson, Catholic Diocese of Tucson officials told The Arizona Daily Star.
Her birth date no doubt helped prod the girl’s interest in politics, her mother, Roxanna Green, told the Star. She was one of 50 babies born on Sept. 11 featured in a book called “Faces of Hope.”
“She was born back East and Sept. 11 affected everyone there, and Christina-Taylor was always very aware of it. She was very patriotic and wearing red, white and blue was really special to her,” her mother said.
via suntimes.com
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Tragedy in Tucson: What Motivated Giffords' Shooter? - TIME
A medical helicopter evacuates victims from an event in Tucson, Ariz., where 19 people were shot and U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded. Reuters CommentPrintEmailReprintsFacebookTwitter MORE 1 digg The La Toscana Village is a shopping mall like most others in Tucson, except it happens to be in one of the city's tonier neighborhoods. Here, the rugged Santa Catalina Mountains give way to gently rolling foothills in the high desert. Many of Tucson's prominent families live in the area, in sprawling ranch-style homes, surrounded by well-groomed flora. The mall has banks, a flower shop and, at the back of the parking lot of the Safeway, a Beyond Bread, the favorite bakery belonging to Tucson's star restaurateur, Sam Fox. It was toward Beyond Bread, shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, that everyone ran when the shooting began at the La Toscana Safeway. Just outside the supermarket, the local Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat who had just been sworn in for her third term in Washington, was a few minutes into of one of her regular town-hall-style meetings when a young man approached. He had reportedly been trying to speak to Giffords even before the event got underway but had been told to wait his turn. "He was intent," Alex Villec, a Giffords volunteer, told the Arizona Daily Star. "He was intent when he came back — a pretty stone-cold glance and glare." (Is violent rhetoric behind the attack on Giffords?) The young man eventually got up close to the politician, took out a semi-automatic weapon with an extended clip and opened fire. He shot Giffords once in the head and sprayed the rest of the crowd with bullets, hitting a total of 19 people. Before he could do more damage or get away, he was tackled by two men in the crowd. Emergency vehicles and medical helicopters soon converged, with the choppers landing in the eastbound lane of one of Tuscson's busiest intersections, which would be closed for close to seven hours. So far, six of the victims have died, including nine-year old Christina Taylor Green, who was born on Sept. 11, 2001 and had just been elected to her school council, and a federal judge named John Roll, who, after attending Catholic church services in downtown Tucson, decided to drop by the Safeway to say hello to his friend, the congresswoman. "Unfortunately, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who provided some details at an evening press conference. Giffords remains in critical condition. But Dr. Richard Carmona, a former U.S. Surgeon General who now works with the Pima County Sheriff's Department — and who became an important local ally of Giffords during the heated debate over health care — said he had looked at her medical records at the hospital and that he had "guarded optimism" about her recovery. (See Giffords' congressional record.) Meanwhile, by the time local officials held a press conference, media reports had identified the alleged shooter as Jared Lee Loughner, 22. Although the sheriff did not refer to the suspect by name, he mentioned various online postings that the media has attributed to Loughner. Dupnik also said that investigators believe the gunman had help from a white man in his mid-50s. The sheriff did not say how this second "person of interest" is believed to have played a role in the shooting. Giffords was no stranger to danger or threats. Though she managed to eke out a victory in her most recent Congressional campaign, it had been rife with contention as anti-immigrant, anti-Obamacare rhetoric dominated the debate. Some windows of her congressional offices in Tucson were knocked out shortly after she cast her vote in favor of the President's health care reform. At the press conference on Saturday, Dupnik said police were investigating a suspicious package found at her offices. (See how Gifford and other Arizona Democrats grappled with immigration.) Nevertheless, at her Safeway meet-and-greet, Giffords did not have any security forces with her. Dupnik said she was the shooter's main target, but declined to discuss details of the grocery's security camera footage. And although the sheriff did not speculate on the shooter's motive, Dupnik did say, "I have no reason to believe this individual was insane." "Was he unstable?," Dupnik said at the press conference. "I would agree with that." With the suspect in custody, the media has been parsing rambling online commentaries allegedly posted by Loughner. Among them: a video on YouTube ("I can't trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar") as well as what appeared to be a farewell message on MySpace ("Goodbye... Please don't be mad at me"). (Comment on this story.) What is not clear is what role politics — and, in particular, the red-hot rhetoric of the mid-term elections — played in the shooting. Descriptions one of Loughner's high school classmates posted on Twitter only added to the mystery. "He had a lot of friends until he got alcohol poisoning in '06, & dropped out of school. Mainly loner very philosophical," @caitieparker tweeted. "As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." And, most ominously, "He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'" Loughner lived with his family in a small, 1,400 sq. ft. house in a part of Tucson quite different from the well-to-do La Toscana. The buildings need renovating, the landscaping is overgrown. Like many of the homes in this blue-collar, multi-racial neighborhood, the Loughners' property has a sign that discourages solicitors. By Saturday evening, the police had set up a perimeter around the house and the immediate homes nearby. Neighbors say the Loughners kept to themselves, but weren't exactly unfriendly. The family, they say, had a passion for classic cars and were often seen driving up the street in 1970s-era muscle cars that they had worked on and restored. The father would occasionally exchange a neighborly wave. Still, Dawn Cook, 33, says she and her daughter avoided the house. "We go selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door," says Cook, who works at her husband's Tucson scrapyard. "But we didn't go there," she says of the Loughners' house, because it appeared foreboding with its unkempt plants. (See TIME's most unforgettable images of 2010.) "This has not become the nice United States of America that most of us grew up in," Dupnik said at his press conference, which took place at the posh Westward Look Resort, roughly half a mile from the crime scene. "And I think it's time that we do some soul-searching." He had opened the conference by blaming the media — particularly broadcast news and cable television's talking heads — for adding fuel to the "vitriol" that sets off these sorts of fires. He called it a "sad day for America." U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who spoke at the press conference, said that Americans all "long for more civility everywhere, but I wouldn't want to ascribe what happened today to [political rhetoric]. Usually when we speak out on something like that, we are proven wrong." The Congressman said he disagreed with Giffords on a lot of issues, but that they were always friendly. Still, the risks of public life are changing the security equation for politicians. "I wouldn't want to reveal how security measures have changed," Flake said. "You never want that out there. But certainly, I'll be more careful." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2041427,00.html#ixzz1AWcDNLuL
Saturday, January 8, 2011
David Plouffe, Obama's Whiz Kid, Returns to the White House - The Daily Beast
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David Plouffe, the brains behind the president's 2008 campaign, joins a revamped White House on Monday. Daniel Stone talks to top advisers about Plouffe's cool style, occasional tantrums, and hefty to-do list.
The first time Barack Obama asked David Plouffe to work for him, Plouffe almost said no. It was December of 2006 and Obama, weighing a presidential run, had begun to imagine his inner circle.
"The most important role I need to fill is campaign manager," Obama told Plouffe in the senator's Chicago home, before offering the job. Plouffe, a seasoned, although rusty, campaign operative had a small child, and he and his wife wanted to have another soon. Plus, it seemed to Plouffe—as well as most people at the time—that the candidate was running "with little more than hope in his sails," he has since recalled. But he did it anyway.
The second time Obama asked Plouffe to work for him, he did say no. After Obama's election, the campaign manager who orchestrated the victory explained to the president-elect that he'd spend some time on the outside. The president could use a strategist and unofficial adviser somewhere outside the White House complex to call when he needed a fresh opinion. Maybe, Plouffe told him, he'd come to work in the White House after the midterms.
Now, during the biggest shake-up of his president's administration — including new chief of staff Bill Daley, a handful of new economic advisers, and a new press secretary expected soon—Plouffe will reunite with his former boss today as a senior adviser. The strategist, who has split his time between Chicago and Washington, will take the baton from outgoing counselors David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, marking Obama's pivot toward the 2012 campaign.
"David Plouffe will be one of the people coming in who I think is going to bring a great deal of leadership and direction to the communications operation and the political operation here," Axelrod says. That communications operation during the campaign was a production of Plouffe and Axelrod, but the wheels seemed to fall off once Obama took office. Two years later, Axelrod and Gibbs have conceded that at times the messaging was sloppy, even as they blame the economic calamity they inherited in 2009.
David Plouffe, Campaign Manager For President Barack Obama, shown here on June 25, 2009 In Cannes, Southern France. (Photo by Lionel Cironneau / AP Photo)
Plouffe's task, in many ways, is an old one: He'll reach out to the party base and reacquaint the president with minority and women voters, and the much-valued youth vote, that initially swept him into office. But the 2012 campaign will be complicated by Obama's list of accomplishments, most of which—from health care to financial reform—are complex packages that can be obtuse to explain.
Following the midterm shellacking, young voters turned out to be the most elusive demographic—and they may be central to Obama's reelection. "I worry about young people," says Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "Many wanted to see big change and I don't think they did."
Campaign staffers recall Plouffe as cool, calm and even, says one, "bizarrely stoic."
According to several officials, Plouffe won't do much actual governing. Unlike Karl Rove, who engaged deeply in political matters for the Bush administration, or Dick Morris, who coined the hands-on "triangulation" strategy for President Clinton, several staffers said Plouffe will resemble neither. "His skill set is more mechanics of politics," says one senior staffer. "He's not going to be a policy adviser." (Plouffe declined, through a spokesman, to be interviewed for this story.)
That might be for the best, because the way former campaign colleagues tell it, Plouffe doesn't get lost in the weeds. Like his boss, he also doesn't get caught up in dramatics. On the campaign trail, says former Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass, "David and the president were both temperamentally and behaviorally in sync. They really had this great ability to listen to what others were saying and to communicate in a way that was understood."
During one of the most trying moments of the campaign—the surfacing of inflammatory sermons from Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright—several campaign staffers recall Plouffe as cool, calm and even, says one, "bizarrely stoic."
No campaign manager, of course, could always keep his cool. There were times that Plouffe misfired or lost his temper over the usual rigors of campaign life. When the McCain team announced Sarah Palin as the ticket's running mate, Plouffe fired off a nasty memo, uncharacteristic of the campaign's No Drama operation, that dinged Palin's lack of experience, and undercut Obama's argument that experience wasn't all that mattered. Several weeks before the election, Plouffe got into a testy exchange with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who was pressured by McCain to invite him and Obama to a meeting with President Bush about the bank bailouts.
Plouffe is expected to move into the office currently occupied by Axelrod on the south side of the building. Two staffers that he'll bring with him will sit in the building's inner, windowless center.
One of his first tasks will be to help find a replacement for Gibbs. Then he's expected to spend lots of time working with the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America, the advocacy wing (that morphed out of the Obama for America campaign) that ran Obama's successful my.barackobama.com campaign portal—and went largely silent after the inauguration.
But finding out more about Plouffe's day to day activities may prove difficult. In the press office, one staffer laughs at the idea that Plouffe will talk to reporters, or do many live TV interviews on the North Lawn, like Gibbs, Axelrod and economic adviser Austan Goolsbee have frequently done. A Pouffe mantras during the campaign was that he only mingles with reporters "when it serves a purpose."
With hefty access to the president, his purpose in the West Wing will be to rebrand Obama as a messenger of hope and change. He's got his work cut out for him.
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Friday, January 7, 2011
Anonymous Obama Administration Novel Spurs Speculation about Author - The Daily Beast
Could it be Robert Gibbs? Joe Klein? David Plouffe? The race is on to figure out the author of a new novel about the Obama administration, says Lloyd Grove—and no one has even read the book yet.
It is, at minimum, an intriguing coincidence that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced his resignation a mere three weeks before Simon & Schuster is publishing its much-buzzed-about January 25 release, O: A Presidential Novel by the celebrated author “Anonymous.”
The book, described in news accounts as a 368-page roman à clef inspired by President Obama and his inner circle, has yet to leak, nor has Campbell Scott’s audio version been heard. The rumors suggest that the mysterious unnamed author has “vast personal experience” of the president and is privy to Obama’s 2012 re-election strategy.
That fits Gibbs to a T—though any informed speculation shouldn’t ignore the fact that the presidential spokesman has seemed rather busy during the past two years and hasn’t heretofore demonstrated much literary flair (unless one counts some of his priceless tweets and official “Statements by the Press Secretary,” which can, on his best days, be reminiscent of Tolstoy in the original Russian).
Perhaps we might direct our search elsewhere.
“I don’t think it would be a member of his administration—more likely a reporter who is looking to cash in, and thinks he or she can sell more books by writing it anonymously,” said a veteran White House correspondent—who, naturally, demanded anonymity. “Doing it anonymously could be a lot better than the reality. Primary Colors was a pretty good book before you found out that Joe Klein had written it.”
“And what would they dish about? How they compromised on the public option doesn’t really make for a great dishy book,” says Richard Wolffe.
Photo Illustration
Primary Colors, of course, was the 1996 Bill Clinton roman à clef that became a runaway bestseller for Random House long before a couple of enterprising journalists outed Klein as the novelist. (It was later a movie starring John Travolta.) The author’s secret identity was so well protected—and, let’s face it, such a brilliant marketing gimmick—that it was news even to Harold Evans, who cooked up the marketing gimmick as president and publisher of Random House and these days is a Daily Beast contributor.
• Bill Daley’s Real Agenda: Obama’s Reelection
• Are John Edwards and Rielle Hunter Getting Married?Maybe Klein, a very well-connected columnist for Time magazine, has tried to repeat his earlier success?
“You get to do that only once in a lifetime, I think,” he told me on Thursday. “For the record, what I’m saying is I didn’t write it. Of course the real author would say the same thing. But I have no interest in this. If it turns out to be a well-written book, I will have an interest.”
Klein insisted he’s not at all miffed that Simon & Schuster stole his marketing strategy. “I stole the author of the Bible’s marketing strategy. I stole Henry Adams’ marketing strategy; he wrote Democracy anonymously. I stole Jane Austen’s marketing strategy. She published her novels ‘By a Lady.’ This is one of the oldest literary traditions around. I truly believe that it should be used by anybody who can get away with it.”
Among Obama insiders, departing presidential aide David Axelrod, a former political journalist and longtime media consultant, is a certified professional writer—but way too disorganized to have produced a novel in his spare time. Incoming White House communications czar David Plouffe, who wrote a very readable memoir of the 2008 campaign, might have the organizational ability but not the inclination to dish on his boss and colleagues.
Perhaps “Anonymous” is Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, who oversaw much of the Obama campaign’s ground game but didn’t follow his friends into the White House; he’s certainly in a position to gossip about them in novel. No such luck.
“I don’t have the attention span to write a book so it’s not mine,” he insisted. “However, if the book says really bad things about me, I probably wrote it.”
Maybe Daily Beast contributors Richard Wolffe, who so far has written two books about Obama, and Jonathan Alter, who has written one, The Promise, and is working on another, needed to spread their wings and express themselves fictionally.
“Nah,” Wolffe told me. “I’m productive, but not that productive. Three books in one year would be even too much for me.”
“No, I’m not that industrious,” Alter likewise demurred.
Both were skeptical that a genuine Obama insider would do something so arguably disloyal—or, for that matter, artistic—as tell tales out of school in novelized form.
“Let’s just say you’d really have to have quite powerful imaginative and literary abilities,” Wolffe said. “And what would they dish about? How they compromised on the public option doesn’t really make for a great dishy book.”
Unless, of course, Anonymous is an established bestselling author of two well-received memoirs of surprising literary merit, whose compulsion to publish is so strong that, even while holding down an impossibly demanding day job, he has managed to write a children’s book and continues to keep a meticulous diary for future nonfiction works. Far-fetched? Sure. But a possibility worth considering.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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