THE PRICE OF JUSTICE

DIRTY COAL

2011-02-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

As I begin to research my book about Caperton vs. Massey, one of the strangest things is the attitude of so many people about coal. They sit there in front of their computers running on coal-generated electricity in rooms lit up by coal-generated electrcity, looking out on almost everything before them that has in some measure benefited from coal energy. And yet they have this idea that coal is dirty and the coal business in dirty and anybody who gets near to it is soiled. One of the few journailsts to see it in a different way is James Fallows who wrote a terrific piece in the Atlantic about coal, a realistic essay about the role that coal will inevitably have in the forseeable future.

I think about the only acceptable prejudice left in American life is toward southern accents expecially if they're from West Virginia or Kentucky. Anybody who sounds like that just has to be stupid. And if you've got a New York accent, you've got to be smart.

PLUGGING A WEASEL HOLE IN WEST VIRGINIA

2011-02-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

Recently the West Virginia House of Delegates plugged what Associated Press news editor Brian Farkas called a "weasel hole." In doing so the elected officials by a unanimous vote asserted their rights as the people's representatives over a West Virginia Supreme Court corrupted by money and power. They delegates said that from now on the five justices cannot claim an exemption from the state's Freedom of Information Laws.

If there is one man who deserves credit for this important legislation that now must pass the West Virginia Senate, it is Hugh Caperton, who, for the past thirteen years, has been fighting a legal struggle against Massey Energy, the largest coal company in the state, and its CEO, Don Blankenship.

Massey Energy drove Caperton's small mine into bankruptcy in 1998. Caperton sued and he and his Harman Coal Company won a $50 million verdict in the circuit court in 2004. Massey Energy appealed to a West Virginia Supreme Court that Blankenship turned into an instrument to do his bidding. He spent over $3 million electing a conservative corporate lawyer, Brent Benjamin, to the high court. In a landmark ruling, the United States Supreme Court said that a plaintiff in a lawsuit cannot contribute large amounts of money to a candidate who will then vote on his case before the court.

Benjamin had to recuse himself, but Blankenship had not limited his largess to one justice. Blankenship had an even more special relationship with Chief Justice Elliot "Spike" Maynard. As the case was before the court, Blankenship and Maynard vacationed together on the French and Italian Riviera with their girlfriends. When photos of the two happy couples mysteriously showed up in Caperton's attorney's office, the judge had to recuse himself. But the court, nonetheless, for the third time voted against Caperton, citing an obscure procedural error.

The AP sued under the Freedom of Information Law to get hold of the emails between Blankenship and the chief justice. These emails may show evidence of bribery or they may show nothing at all. But they are a crucial part of the public record. The West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the mails must remain private.

In West Virginia, the political system has in many respects failed the people, and the courts have become the last refuge of true justice. Plaintiff lawyers are often not the most heroic of figures, but they are the ones standing up and taking on companies that have hurt the people of the state and needlessly damaged the beautiful hills. But what happens when justice can be bought? What happens when the highest court in the state is a repository for the lowest political motives? Where is justice then?

The House of Delegates is telling the people of the state that their elected officials are the true guardians of justice. There is restlessness in West Virginia now. Since 29 miners died in Massey's Upper Big Branch mine last April, Blankenship has been pushed into retirement. People are waking up to the damage Massey Energy did to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. The politicians can feel the ground moving under their feet, and they are rushing to get ahead or be trampled.

2011-02-05T09:32:00.001-08:00

I haven't been posting for a number of months, but I am going to begin again. I will primarily be talking about my new book The Price of Justice but I've got all kinds of interest and I plan to write various things every few days.

For Wealthy Tax Cheats, The Day of Reckoning is Here

2009-03-05T04:03:00.000-08:00

I posted this blog on Huffingtonpost.com yesterday. It has created a firestorm of controversy. A friend said that people in Palm Beach are going to be upset. I said that only the tax cheats will be upset.

In some of the great houses in Palm Beach and the penthouses of Manhattan's East Side, wealthy Americans are sleeping fitfully, their nights haunted by fear of exposure. In the Bush years, the IRS became so lax in its enforcement that cheating became routine and hidden Swiss bank accounts almost as much a status symbol as private jets.

Why not do it? Everyone else was doing it. You knew you would never be caught, and you were protected by accountants and lawyers to hide your tracks. Your deceit and betrayal of American laws was shrewd strategy. It's grossly unfair that after all these years you might have to take the perp walk. And doing it, you're not going to look as nonplussed as Bernie Madoff did either.

It was so simple. Say you had a women's clothing company importing dresses from China and you were purchasing $1 million in dresses. You had the Chinese manufacturer send you a bill for $2 million. You wired him the money and he immediately wired half into your Swiss account. And say you've got a half billion dollar company and you keep doing this for ten years. Figure it out. Nobody could ever catch you as long as the Swiss kept their accounts secret.

This is big business. A person I know decided to check out her account in Switzerland. She walked into a tiny bank that looked like a 19th century cuckoo clock and took the old elevator upstairs. It opened up to a modern trading floor as big as a city block.

And now in the early days of the Obama administration, the gig may be up and there is stark terror among the knowledgeable. The sheer amounts of money waiting to be discovered are staggering, billions upon billions of dollars. There is so much money out there that once the taxes and penalties are paid, it could have a significant impact on the budget. And it couldn't be happening to a greedier, more selfish lot, most of them faux patriots to the core.

The first moment of truth arrives Monday when Attorney General Eric Holder meets with Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Swiss councilor in charge of police and justice. In the wake of the UBS debacle, the American government is seeking information on 52,000 American customers. The Swiss are willing to give up 250 customers whose tax fraud is most obvious, but not the others.

The Swiss have a special gift in masking their hypocrisy and narrow self-interest in a veneer of morality and principle. The bankers of Zurich are not happy at this seeming attempt to abrogate treaties that allow thieves to hide their funds with impunity.

Faith Whittlesey, a former ambassador to Switzerland, is a brilliant woman and a dear friend of mine from whom I learn even when I disagree. And I've rarely disagreed more with her than I do on this one. I find her stern warnings in The Financial Times Monday hardly enough reason for the American government to back off. She writes that "one of the largest Swiss political parties is agitating for retaliation that would include discontinuing Swiss representation of US interests in countries such as Cuba and Iran, where the US does not have embassies" and warns of "more virulent anti-Americanism."

I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting here quaking. If it comes to it, I'm willing to give up Swiss chocolate. But as an American who pays his taxes, I want these wealthy tax cheats to be found and punished severely including serious prison time for the worst of them.

Dinner in DC

2009-03-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

I’m up in Washington for what I call a blizzard and my friend from New England says is a dusting of snow. Yeah, five inches.

I am an intellectual bigamist. When I’m in Palm Beach, I dress like the natives and am indistinguishable from the rest of the poseurs. Then when I come to Washington I don my journalistic garb, a ratty jacket and scruffy shoes, never leave the house without my hands stained with ink, pepper my conversations with the word “fuck” and snarl greetings to anyone outside my sacred circle of journalists.

In Palm Beach, there are more Italian restaurants than there are in Rome. At dawn the trucks laden with pasta make their way onto the island. In Washington, there are Ethiopian restaurants by the score, Indian takeouts on every corner, Thai places squeezed among Vietnamese restaurants and hardly any Italian restaurants. Oh there is an Italian chain restaurant. It starts with an “M” and that’s all I’m saying. The portions are gigantic, at least four times what a normal person would eat. They don’t give you plates. You line up at a trough.

20/20 Does its Thing

2009-02-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

Brian Ross is the best reporter in television. I already knew that even before I met the guy. He's a true reporter. He's not into glitz. He's into getting the story and he's fearless. He did his thing on Madoff and Palm Beach last night on 20/20 and it was by far the best thing that's been done. And I know lots more was there that didn't make the cut. The program was cut down from the hour it was supposed to be. Anna Schecter was the producer in Palm Beach. She's a killer. I don't want her on my trail. Don't be misled by her looks, she's a tiger as Robert Jaffe found out.

I've had experiences with reporters before where they suck you dry, ask for your sources, and then move on leaving with you nothing for your time. Brian and Anna made sure that I was amply quoted and the reaction is incredible. Nobody believes what this one segment has done to the sale of Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach. It was already a bestseller but it's now basically the number three nonfiction hardcover on Amazon, not bad for a book published a month ago.

Anyway, you might enjoy the program if you missed it. I'm in the second part. You can find it at:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020

Ellen Jaffe's Revenge

2009-02-21T05:51:00.000-08:00

I had a meeting at the Kravis Center Wednesday about my talk there on March 16. I knew that they had received all kinds of pressure to cancel the event, and I had been told that they had caved in. That wasn't true, and I left the meeting with great admiration for the administration of the Kravis Center and their commitment to intellectual liberty. It had nothing to do with me or my book, it was liberty and freedom of expression they were defending.

I assumed that the meeting was confidential and when the following day I received a phone call from Page Six at the New York Post, I figured someone at the meeting had leaked the story. It turned out, as I just learned from an email a few minutes ago, that the two events had nothing to do with one another. The person who alerted Page Six had learned the information from members of the Palm Beach Country Club. Alas, the gossip item makes it look as if I am the primary source. Nothing to be done and it's a healthy thing to have Ellen Jaffe's behavior exposed. Here's the piece:

THE wife of Bob Jaffe - the Palm Beach bon vivant in the doghouse for getting the tony island's millionaires to invest with Bernard Madoff - is fighting for her beleaguered husband's honor.
Author Laurence Leamer says Ellen Shapiro Jaffe is waging a fierce campaign to get his upcoming lecture at the Kravis Center axed because of unflattering cracks he made about her hubby in Boston magazine. "She is especially pissed and she's pressuring them," Leamer told Page Six. "You would think she'd be in social hibernation and have better things to do."
In the article, Leamer called Jaffe "a 60-something peacock in a black dinner jacket . . . [with] an aging gigolo's looks, with sleek black hair and a face that if not lifted by plastic surgery . . . looked not youthful so much as the caricature of youth."
Jaffe, originally a Boston shoe salesman, "was looking for a rich wife and Ellen was the best he could do," said one source, who describes him as a Madoff "middleman . . . steering eager clients his way and collecting easy fees in return."
Leamer - set to discuss his book, "Madness Under the Royal Palms," at the Kravis Center on March 16 - said, "The phone has been ringing off the hook for weeks asking them to cancel me - and the name behind it I keep hearing is Ellen Jaffe . . . She's not letting up. Luckily, they have the courage to stand up to it."
Jaffe's rep, Elliot Sloan, said that Ellen, a Kravis Center board member, made only two calls to officials there about Leamer's book because "all it does is open up hurtful wounds in the community." Sloan also slammed the article as "full of inaccuracies," insisting Jaffe has not had plastic surgery, noting he's been married to Ellen for 40 years and they "are very much in love."
Jaffe's name has been mud since the Madoff scandal broke. In December, he was called a "dirty bastard" and nearly pummeled at Mar-a-Lago by Nine West founder Jerome Fisher, who lost $150 million.

The sad story of the Palm Beach Daily News

2009-02-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

When Bob Norman wrote his devastating account of the life of Society Editor Shannon Donnelly at the Palm Beach Daily News in his blog and printed edition of New Times, I was sure the investigative story would lead to an investigation on the part of Cox management. It led, instead, to top management standing firmly behind their publisher, editor and society editor without even a cursory examination. But now that I have seen the incredible comments to the article, I don't understand how they can stand back and not seek out the truth or falsehood of a myriad of serious allegations. In case you haven't seen them, here are the comments as of this evening.

John deGroot says:
Bob, your premise is flawed.Calling the "Shiney Sheet" a newspaper is like calling the Booby Trap a gentlemen's club.Truth is, whatever the so-called "Shiney Sheet" does to make a buck, it ain't no kind of journalism -- anymore than the Show-for-Dough whore's game played by the likes of City and Shore, and the many South Florida slick society mags that cater to readers with a surplus of money and a shortage of taste.PSCheck out Larry Leamer's interview on You Tube.The guy's a world class Snoot Hoot who clearly had a ball intimidating the snot out of the Flash-N-Cash Trash like The Donald that pass for High Society on Palm Beach these days.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3489445
Listen up, has-been says:
John, Obviously, you don't read the Shiny Sheet (note there's no "e" in Shiny). There's more to it than pics of people at a party. It IS a newspaper with a strong staff of journalists (including yours truly) who could give the hacks at any major metro a run for their money any day. At least the staff members at the Shiny Sheet don't have to live in fear they're going to be laid off. Maybe that's because they know how to put out a successfull newspaper. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3490151
Hack writer says:
Where was Leamer -- who for some reason calls himself a journalist -- when he talks about Donnelly at the head table?In his impossible to read, opportunistic and intensely boring book it's clear he was there too. Donnelly is probably the force that keep that paper afloat, and a more ethical journalist than you'll find at that or any other paper these days. Leamer on the other hand is an unemployed hack with a chip on his shoulder.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3490209
Lived Long Enough says:
This story isn't new. It was originally broadcast some time ago with gusto by a hired gun of some of Palm Beach's grandest dames who, while claiming to be a dear friend of Ms. Donnelly's, was simultaneously mouthing off to anyone who would listen about his file of canceled checks made out to Ms. Donnelly that he claimed to have in his possession- a file that he threatened would destroy both his clients and said society editor- one that he was holding for "judgment day." Whether it exists or not- it's all toxic- and indicative of the double standards, special exceptions, petty vendettas, blatant cover ups,indifferent management and corruption that define the Palm Beach Daily News- with or without Leamer's flaccid book. Any other Cox newspaper- any other newspaper of record for that matter- would have taken swift action to protect its "journalistic integrity."
What is truly disturbing, however, is that Ms. Donnelly habitually is the first in the Palm Beach Daily News newsroom to cry "impropriety" to management regarding her co-workers in a feeble attempt to draw attention away from her own misdeeds. Ask anyone who works for Palm Beach Newspapers Inc. If they weren't afraid of losing their jobs, they would sing like canaries- if they already haven't. Problem is, management has made it clear that "going there" is treacherous ground since "The Shiny Sheet" still turns a profit in the face of declining newspaper revenues, mainly due to its fawning society coverage. Therefore, Ms. Donnelly's gifted designer duds will remain Teflon-coated as long as her bosses choose to look the other way. Wonder why? It's called "bottom line." Or, are they also getting a piece of the pie?
Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3490541
John deeGroot says:
Senile has-been that I am, I stand corrected regarding my opinion of the Shiny Sheet.By the way, did you know some doddering Old Money WASPS on the Beach call it the "Sheeny Sheet."Anyhow..I am sure that, altho driven to serve the interests of whatever passes for High Society on Palm Beach these days, the Daily News does boast several hard-working and decent newspaper folks....Just ss I'm sure there are some gentlemen who view the likes of the all-nude, all-action Booby Trap as their club. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3491320
Former Floridian says:
Sorry miffed PBDN minion, I gotta back de Groot on this one.
The PBDN has always been an inconsequential chronicler of municipal press releases and feel-good local features, with the occasional traffic accident to provide some actual news.
What it always did best, even when I worked in PBC 20 years ago, was to drop names of well-heeled townies like pellets behind a deer. Yawn.
That's not to demean the work of the "strong staff of journalists" -- deer work exceptionally hard at what they do, and will also thrive in most environments. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3491819
Journalista says:
As someone who had to edit the Shiny Sheet "news" stories on occasion, let me assure you it isn't a high-quality newspaper by any means.The reporting is spotty and the writing is mediocre at best.However, it does serve its community to the degree of letting the upper crust get their names and mugs in the paper at regular intervals and connects clubs, charities and various organizations via print.I have always been surprised at how the newspaper keeps churning a profit, but then again I have to balance my checkbook once a week.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3492666
give me a break says:
Former Floridian, the Shiny Sheet is a community newspaper. It's not a big metro paper. Do you understand that? For what it is, the Palm Beach Daily News is a damn good product. It's Palm Beach, so of course, society coverage is huge. Bottom line: It sells and keeps people employed, including yours truly. I have no problem paying my bills and don't think I have to worry about it working here. You'd be hard-pressed to find too many other journalists in South Florida sharing that sentiment. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3492686
Lived Long Enough says:
The point that everyone seems to be missing is that regardless of the reality, the Palm Beach Daily News maintains that it is the newspaper of record for Palm Beach and a member in good standing of the fourth estate. Yes, it serves the community. But it also makes its own little rules and breaks its own little rules ala Marie Antoinette. And we all know how things ended for THAT queen.
It's said that the free press is one of the pillars of democracy, yet it's painfully clear that nothing about the Shiny Sheet is free. It's all for sale to the highest bidder courtesy of a gentleman's agreement on the part of management to look the other way while questionable practices run rampant, at least from one particular desk.
Search the archives of the New York Post's Page Six. This is not the first time that this messy little business reared its ugly head. And it's certainly not the last. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3493703
jennifer mckenna says:
Try to remember who was the publisher of PBDN for many years. The Cox style has been to do whatever they want to do and to whomever in their path. That includes employees (no matter how loyal, productive or amount of tenure). They let all know that them with the gold makes the rules even though those rules change sometimes as often as the tides. It is evident in how many management positions change at all Cox properties and the keepers of the keys end up without a desk to put them in. I have to really concentrate to remember how may bosses I have had with Cox. Some were gone before their business cards arrived.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3495074
islandqueenbizness says:
Bob - Wow. Finally, a little light on this.
As a follow-up to the post at Wednesday, Feb. 4 2009 @ 1:19AM: That person is right, this all isn't new, but Cox Newspapers --- if it has any interest in keeping any fleck of respect in Palm Beach County --- will get all over this quickly now, since the Shiny Sheet can't be trusted to police themselves from within. Here are the Cox newspapers in Palm Beach County taking all kinds of credit for being the reason so many Palm Beach County elected officials are going off to jail on a myriad of indictments, yet their own staffers can't behave well.
The "file" being referred to must be that of Kyle Zimmer's who has long threatened that it would destroy both his clients and Shannon. If it lands on Joyce's desk or Pat's desk, will they fire Shannon or burn it to keep their jobs? Have they never seen anything that gave them pause with Shannon? Beyond difficult to believe. Pat has a significant other who works at the Palm Beach Post across the bridge, and Joyce, as it is stated, is longtime personal friends with Shannon. The Post Publisher or Cox executives need to get into the Daily News quickly to restore respect and leadership. The "bottom line" will not last forever, and eventually the Shiny Sheet readers will realize they don't have to subscribe and advertisers don't have to spend obscene money on an ad no one pays attention to. These events now will just accelerate that unless stopped and corrected.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3496141
Former Floridian says:
Give me a break said:"For what it is, the Palm Beach Daily News is a damn good product."
OK. Seconded. But now there's a tricky question of figuring out exactly what it is -- which speaks to the broader points mentioned in both the article and subsequent comments.
As an inconsequential chronicler of municipal press releases and toothless features, it does a first-rate job and can -- and should -- skirt some of the touchier ethical questions at play here. If it's just pretending to be a news outlet, then its reps can merely pretend to follow journalistic standards.
That's likely why a society hack taking gifts isn't as big a deal at the PBDN as it was at the New York Post.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3496150
Lived Long Enough says:
Is everyone drinking stupid juice? Okay kids, it's time to play "Connect The Dots" Palm Beach style.
Kyle Zimmer-Lois Pope (doesn't live in Palm Beach)-Shannon Donnelly.Kyle Zimmer-Celia Lipton Farris-Shannon Donnelly.Kyle Zimmer-Patrick Park (doesn't live in Palm Beach)-Shannon Donnelly.
Now add to the recipe Kraft, Kessler, Jaffe, Bleznak, Stark, Cornacchio and poor departed Barry and Beverly Crown. That should be enough to make a nice big batch of kickback soup.
Bon appetit!
Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3497767
whatabunchoftwits says:
And this so-called piece of journalism, Pulp, reminds me of a quote from Romenesko the other day: this is a "fact-free blind slam." You should be ashamed of yourself.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3498850
Pulp says:
Here are a few for you.
Fact: Bestselling author Laurence Leamer, who has spent years researching his book, discovered that Shannon Donnelly took gifts from a source and someone she was writing about (Barbara Wainscott Berger).
Fact: Leamer and numerous other sources Shannon Donnelly accepted expensive gifts from the people she covers at her wedding.
Fact: Three reporters took concerns that Donnelly was taking gifts to the publisher.
Fact: When Leamer asked about that meeting, he was banned from the Shiny Sheet's newsroom and morgue.
Fact: When asked about a specific $1000 loan or gift, socialite Donna Shalek became evasive, said she didn't recall, and then hung up the phone. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3499066
Honest Abe says:
Fact: Publisher Reingolg is a personal friend of the accused
Has anyone read this book?
Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3504790
Anonymous says:
Journalists and ethics; Ha. Ha. Ha.
Write what you know, clearly and plainly, the rest will follow. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3510554
still pissed says:
Listen up, you are an asshole...loser.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3512359
Inky Gal says:
Miss Donnelly has made a complete mockery of not only The Shiny Sheet as an institution, but also her employers. She has them held hostage and she knows it. For management to admit that they have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear for too long from what too many people have continuously brought to their attention would only reveal them as more corrupt and inept than they already are. That's why they are reading from the "journalistic integrity" script, which only amplifies their desperation to sweep this matter under the rug ASAP.
Is Mr. Zimmer as psychopathic as Miss Donnelly? Has he actually played the Robert Jaffe to her Bernie Madoff for all of these years- facilitating her "voracious appetite" for payola- if not also getting a piece of the action? Is Ms. Reingold starring as the SEC at this performance? Who will be playing Eliot Spitzer?
Unfortunately, the real losers in this drama are the readers, whose confidence in the free press has been shaken. Miss Donnelly, Mr.Zimmer and Ms. Reingold, and God knows who else, are probably laughing all the way to the bank courtesy of the spoils from the many who took the socialite's advice of "just write her a check like we all do!" Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3513047
Jeff says:
Aren't the contretempts of the mega-rich amusing? Can you imagine a life so shallow the presence or lack of presence on a rag distributed to a mere 7k people makes any difference whatsoever? In a better world Ms. Donnelly and her ego would be inconsequential.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3513828
Inky Gal says:
Not everyone in Palm Beach is mega-rich. Many of us actually live modest lives in modest apartments on fixed incomes. Why don't we deserve a hometown newspaper of record as accountable as any other self-proclaimed newspaper of record?
We spend summers in a small town up north. Even our dinky little newspaper there prides itself on being accurate, unbiased and free of untoward influence. It takes its role as a real newspaper very seriously. Then again, most of us are too busy weeding and keeping the deer from eating our tomatoes to worry about how many times we get our names and faces in the paper, let alone willing to pay for it.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3513946
Anonymous says:
I think everybody here is missing the point.
I am not so familiar with all the names here, but can smell a rat.
This so called society editor, obviously, is on the take and Leamer seems to state that clearly, so something else is afoot at the Post and the Shiny Sheet, and they seem to think it is okay for her to do this.
Or they don't want to face the facts that they have a problem.
Or they don't want to believe that their star reporter is a greed-driven gal.
Must have something to do with adverts, right?
It does notseem like so many ads will be coming their way from charities right now, does it?
What gives?
If she's guilty, let her go the way of Jason Blair.
Should the reputation of a newspaper be summed up in one bad apple?
Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3514718
Brenda says:
Everyone knows that this gossip columnist is The She Devil and has fooled everyone including her bosses. I'm surprised that her co-workers haven't demanded her dismissal, since she makes the entire staff appear guilty by association. Then again, maybe that's part of her "scorched earth" master plan, to take the entire company and her feeders down with her? If so, she's doing a very good job. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3515973
Freda Enterprise says:
What's wrong with allowing underpaid, overworked gals to make a little on the side? Eva Peron did it.
"When the money keeps rolling in, what's a girl to do? Skim a little off the top for expenses, wouldn't you?"Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3516484
Outsider says:
Pulp: What is the net net of all this?
Where does the Shiny Sheet go from here?
How does it get its cred back?
If cred is the right word.
Is Mr. Leamer for real?
Does he have a legitimate case?
You seem to think so. Or do you?
Do society papers have to live up to the same standards as other media?
Just askingPosted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3518793
Insider says:
Please assist Outsider in understanding the real issue at hand.
IF the Palm Beach Daily News didn't cry crocodile tears about "journalistic ethics" and, instead, fessed up to the fact that it ISN'T a real newspaper, but a close cousin to the Enquirer, the Examiner and other pieces of... paper, maybe this would go away.
IF the management of the Palm Beach Daily News didn't hold the majority of its writers to one ethical standard and its society editor to another, maybe this would never have come up.
But it did come up and it's not going to go away.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3518830
Former Floridian says:
We have a winner!
"Insider" has it exactly right -- the PBDN is either a real newspaper or not, and how it handles this ethical quandary speaks volumes about the answer to that question. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3521075
Glenn C says:
I don't know why this stort is dragged through the mud as much as it had. With so many rumors of various residents and their Ponzi King "Mr. Madoff" financial secrets, along with murders and other scandels, why get so angry at a such a small scale issue as this? Most of these replies are of little value.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3521697
Newbie says:
Glenn, stop being such a Pollyanna! The reality is that this is much more than rumors or a small scale issue. I'm not saying that it's a vast right wing conspiracy, but it certainly reeks of a deliberate cover up, financial impropriety and a complete disregard for the ethical code of the free press. That's hardly small scale. Frankly, it's criminal.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3521754
CPA says:
Unless Miss Donnelly has been heeding the City Mattress commercials and packing it away in her Sealy Posturpedic, surely there must be some kind of paper trail- either on her end or the donor side. Hasn't anyone thought of that? Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3523763
Florida Floridian says:
CPA, if the groups giving the gifts are foundations, they might have to account for them under promotional expenses (but I don't know if they need to be itemized; maybe you'd know?)
If the gifts were from private individuals, as might be the case based on the examples in the article, then they would be tough to track. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3524635
Laurie B says:
Back when I lived in Palm Beach, I kind of remember the IRS freaking her out with some kind of investigation regarding her cashing out big checks at the various branches of banks they were drawn on. Whatever happened with that? Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3524772
car guy says:
What about the Mercedes that was leased by a "friend" for her use--did Shannon report that "income" to the IRS?Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3527289
bob2 from Davie says:
Bob,I just read this story and all the comments. When you are trying to keep your head above water, all of this sounds crazy.This story seems to infurate alot of folks. What do you think will happen here? You've been a pretty good watchdog for a while. I like your style.I think there's something to deal with but what is itWith all the dishonesty and troubles in the world today, its hard to think that something like this goes on with newspapers.Is this Leamerr just trying to sell some more books or does he have a real beef? You seem to think so, right?I haven't read any of the man's books, but what is he after.And does the Post really care. Who is this woman, Shannon Donnelly, who we now know is either power hungry or greedy.There are a lot of suspicions about her.Whoever heard of a reporter driving a mercedes.Sorry to ramble on, but the story here is interesting for those of us who dont live in Palm Beach.
Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3529015
Lake Way says:
For many years I served on various committees of Palm Beach charities. And it always seemed standard operating procedure to have a line in the publicity budget for Shannon or at least have one of her private supporters as a member of a big committee. This was usually at the advice of some of the older ladies on the committee who said that this was how things worked. If we had known that this was inappropriate, I'm sure we would have never done it, as it would reflect poorly on the organization.
But with so many events in such a short period of time, and the competiton for attendance and attention so great, I guess we were duped.
I think this whole thing began with Betty Scripps and Celia Farris, and just snowballed.Now, having read responses from so many people who appear to know far more than I do, I'm simply disgusted. Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3530070
Shopgirl says:
I was one of those gals who worked in various stores on Worth Avenue during the boom years. We were all friendly with each other. The stories about selling wedding gifts on ebay are true. She would constantly complain about getting stuff from Tiffany's as they would only give her store credit. That's what she sold for fifty cents on the dollar. She registered at Neimans because she could return for cash.Posted On: http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2009/02/palm_beach_author_laurence_leamer_shiny_sheet.php#comment-3530795

Confrontation in the streets of Palm Beach

2009-02-14T10:30:00.001-08:00

Other than being confronted during an interview with Tim Malloy of Channel 5 with a berserk Palm Beacher accusing me of writing a “disgusting, despicable” article for Boston Magazine full of racism, it’s been an uneventful few days. I asked this gentleman on camera to say specifically what his complaints were but coward that he is, he continued walk away spitting out a few epithets as he left. If you want to read the “disgusting, despicable" article, you can find it at: Http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/dispatch_reversal_of_fortune/

If you find anything at all offensive about the article, please comment. And if you don’t, please weigh in too.

Here’s the link to the video of the confrontation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Sj_ToRqcE

If anyone knows who this man is, please let me know.

2009-02-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog,

I have betrayed you. I have been disloyal for days, and now I will have to play catch-up. I’ve been busy promoting my book. A great time in Boston largely due to Marilyn Riseman, a dear friend and one of the world’s great characters. And the events on the island have been overwhelmingly successful. There was a sold out luncheon at the Pundits Monday and a standing room only event in the evening put on by the Palm Beach County Historical Society. I was so worried that the book would be so controversial that it would create problems for me, and I have a wonderful life in Palm Beach. But just the opposite. People have been overwhelmingly supportive. I’ve made new friends, and been new places, and it’s been generally marvelous.

There’s been just one exception and that’s the Palm Beach Daily News. I won’t bore you with the details, but the piece that Bob Norman has written a piece about Shannon Donnelly and the Palm Beach Daily News in New Times is the talk of the island. You can read it at: http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2009-02-05/news/shiny-sheet-sellout/

What Norman doesn’t say is that a group of Palm Beachers are contemplating starting their own daily newspaper. That’s how bad they think the Daily News has become. I’m astounded at the response they are getting. I think people have moved beyond being afraid of the paper to being rather embarrassed that the Shiny Sheet is the public image of our island. So many serious stories are not covered or are written about in the most twisted, desultory way. There are terrific reporters on the paper. The problem is not with them so much as with the editor and publisher. The reason Cox doesn’t do anything in my opinion is that the paper makes money. But it’s on a downward trajectory in almost every respect.

Obama's First Betrayal?

2009-01-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

Has President-elect Barack Obama committed his first betrayal? Has he turned away from his most exalted ideals in an act of such spiritual malfeasance that it will condemn his administration?

Some observers cite the fact that the stimulus package contains money for AmeriCorps but nothing for the Peace Corps as evidence that the president-elect has turned his back on his pledge to double the size of Kennedy's most noble child. There is buzz among former Volunteers and others associated with the Peace Corps that the expanded future of the organization is in immediate and dramatic peril. The Peace Corps $330 million budget is insufficient even to maintain the current level of 7,876 volunteers. In recent months some potential volunteers have been asked to defer their enlistments for up to a year. To expand dramatically another $80 to $100 million is needed, a pittance in terms of the impact such an escalation would have on America and the world.

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal in 1964-66, an early supporter of Obama, a volunteer and a member of the steering committee in Palm Beach County, and I don't believe for a minute that he will back away from his historic pledge. He can't or he will be denying his essence. Obama will be the first president whose most formative life experience was service, working as a community organizer, and service/volunteering will be one of the essential themes of his presidency.

Obama will be our president, the leader we thought one of us might be, a leader going back to those ideals and taking them to new dramatic place in American life. "To restore America's standing, I will call on our greatest resource - our people," Obama says in the winter issue of Worldview Magazine. "We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And, we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity. This will not be a call issued in one speech or on program. This will be an important and enduring commitment of my presidency."

As Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel told Thomas Friedman in his column the day after the historic election: "The biggest applause line in his stump speech was the one that said every American will have a chance to go to college provided he or she performs a period of national service -- in the military, in the Peace Corps or in the community. Obama's campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again."

It is that "dormant civic idealism" resonating among millions of Americans that can change our country. In the Obama years service/volunteering may well become the crucial mark of social legitimacy without which we are not full citizens. I understand the profound linkage between the Peace Corps/volunteer experience and the Obama campaign.

Let me tell you the story of two women, one who was in my Peace Crops group, and one who volunteered with me in South Florida. Suzanne Cluett was a feisty, determined blonde from Seattle who in the Sixties trekked to remote areas of Nepal bringing medical advice to women. She worked in that same field after leaving the Peace Corps. She became the first employee of the nascent Gates Foundation. Suzanne worked with Bill Gates' father in her basement developing what has become the greatest foundation in the history of the world. Thanks to Suzanne, the Gates Foundation is imbued with the spirit of the Peace Corps.

Suzanne died of cancer in 2006. A group of us from Nepal IV built a school in the mountains of Nepal in her honor. Bill Gates donated a million dollars part of which went to build a maternity hospital high up in the Himalayas so for the first time Sherpa women can give birth in a hospital. But Suzanne real immortality rests in the Gates Foundation. Every time you read about or see its accomplishment, think that you are seeing the Peace Corps at work.

Maria Cole is a beautiful, fortyish African-American dentist. She had a practice in reconstructive dentistry in South Florida. She sold it because she wanted to do something different and that something different was volunteering for Obama. She flew up to New Hampshire and worked organizing Enfield. Then she went on to South Carolina. She wanted to go to Texas but got no response from the Obama staff in Chicago. So she and a friend took off on their own and set up shop in Eagle Lake where Obama won both the primary and the caucus. In South Florida during the general campaign Maria managed the northern part of Palm Beach County. The largely black Rivera Beach generally had about a twenty percent turn out; this time it was over eighty per cent, almost all for Obama.

Suzanne and Maria never met but they are sisters of the blood and spirit, partners in helping to build a great and noble movement. I am witness to the fact that as brilliant and historic a figure as Obama is, he is in some measure the vehicle for a movement far larger even than the presidency. The millions of people who volunteered discovered a spiritual affinity with each other and a cause and they has a momentum and energy that nothing can stop.

I volunteer once a week for the Lord's Place in West Palm Beach working with the homeless. It's a sacrament with me. I've talked about it to Jorge Quezeda, the Latino maintenance chief in my Palm Beach condominium. Jorge's a big Obama supporter too, and he got excited hearing me talk about the Lord's Place, and he's going to start volunteering too.

Something is happening everywhere in America. The dormant idealism is awakening. The size of the Peace Corps will double. Young Americans will go to Asia and Africa and Latin America not as soldiers but as missionary of a new faith, emissaries of the best in America. They'll go into the slums, and so will middle-aged folks and retired people, and we will change this country and this world.

We are ready, Mr. President, ready for you to lead us.

A Fan of Snoring

2009-01-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

Ben Dronsick left the following comment about my post: "Heavy Snoring in Palm Beach":"Mall buzz, tourists, and restaurant crowds moving north county: how exactly is this a problem? Laurence, I'm disappointed. Or, perhaps, you are."

Well, Mr. Dronsick, you seem to like the sound of heavy snoring, but you make a certain point. So let me explain. As far as restaurants, they've gotten threadbare in Palm Beach, endlessly redundant. There should be a law banning spaghetti trucks on the island and any new Italian restaurants with Nicaraguan waiters greeting one in pseudo Italian.

I was at Cafe l'Europe last evening to have dinner with Brownie McLean and a fascinating old friend of hers. He was an amazing man, or so I think, but I didn't hear a word he said. The sound was that deafening. In the classy restaurants in north county you still can have a conversation.

I don't think it's a good sign when a generous, fun-loving guy like Patrick Park sells his Palm Beach place and moves to Jupiter. Does he know something we don't know? So enjoy the snoring when you can, Mr. Dronsick, and turn off the lights when you leave.

SMALL CHANGE FOR THE HOMELESS

2009-01-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve been volunteering for the past four years at The Lord’s Place, an extraordinary organization that helps the homeless in Palm Beach County. I’m also on the development committee as well as another committee working for our second annual SleepOut on February 6 in which hundreds of people will attend the evening events and scores of people will be spending one night the way many of the homeless spend many nights.

In the development meetings, I’ve been arguing that the charity is not targeting the wealthy in Palm Beach forcefully enough, that in this harsh climate these people will be receptive in a new profound way. The Lord’s Place has been placing cans for change in businesses around West Palm in advance of the SleepOut. I said I would try to do it in Palm Beach as a way of testing my theory.

I was a little nervous when I set out as to the response I would get. The first place I went was Palm Beach Book Store where I talked to owner Candice Cohen. “Wait a minute,” she said and went into her back office. She came back with a check for a hundred dollars. “I wish it could be a thousand,” she said as she placed the can on the counter. At Green’s Drug Store, there was a problem. They wanted two cans for both cash registers not one. Testa’s Restaurant insisted on two cans too. Wherever I went the response was immediate and positive.

I can’t tell you how good this makes me feel. I’m going out again today with more cans but here is the list so far of those who have said yes and the one owner of two locally owned restaurants who has said no. She said if she said yes, she would have to say yes for all kinds of things and that she helps in her own way. I have no reason to doubt her.

YES
Palm Beach Book Store
Classic Bookshop
Main Street News
Testa’s
Cucina
Amici
Bici
Taboo
Blue Provence
Salon Magrit
Nick and Johnnies
Sprinkles

NO
Hamburger Heaven and Island Palm (same owner)

Stop Your Joking, Leamer

2009-01-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

I've got to stop joking around. See the last sentence.

Scribe says, Watch your back, Bernard Madoff

By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa with Simone Press, Boston Herald, January 14

Alleged socialite swindler Bernie Madoff, who continues to live in the lap of luxury while his victims fume, might be better off in jail.
Because as long as the accused chiseler is out walking the street, he might get shot!
So says Laurence Leamer, author of "Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach."
Leamer, who has had an up-close look at the Madoff scandal and its effect on the uber-rich rubes, said Bernie’s victims reportedly include a laundry list of dangerous characters - any one of whom may want revenge on the alleged mastermind of the $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
"There’s a Russian oligarch who six months ago tried to get his money out and Bernie wouldn’t give it to him," he said. "There’s also a report that he had $300 million in Colombian drug money. You don’t want to irritate these people."
True dat.
Madoff is due in court in NYC today where the government will again try to lock him up while prosecutors investigate charges that he bilked scores of investors in a massive, decades-long scam.
Earlier this week, a federal magistrate refused to revoke the 70-year-old’s $10 million bail, enraging his alleged victims - many of whom are from the Boston area. The investors are outraged that Bernie is awaiting trial from the comfort of his $7 million Manhattan apartment, while they’ve lost their shirts.
Leamer, a former Boston resident who winters in Palm Beach, completed "Madness" before the Madoff scandal hit the headlines. It paints an ugly picture of the pampered Palm Beach set - "sad, angry, insecure and frequently nasty people hiding behind empty smiles, luxury cars and socially invisible servants," as Amazon.com described them.
"You read the book and see the inevitability of people like Madoff and how, in the climate of Palm Beach, someone like that can be nurtured," Leamer said.
The author added that the scandal has so rocked the exclusive haunt that it may never recover.
"You have to remember this is the second hit most of these people have taken. They’d already lost half of what they had in the stock market," Leamer said. "There is this billionaire I know who just gave an incredible party for 250 people, but he says he’s not doing that anymore. The elaborately constructed fantasy of this place is finished."
Leamer, who will be prominently featured in an upcoming ABC "20/20" piece on the Madoff scandal, will be back in town later this month at an oh-so-swish soiree at the Mandarin Oriental hotel to celebrate the publication of his new book, which hits stores Jan. 20.
The author of three previous books about the Kennedy clan, Leamer said he’s working on a final chapter for the paperback version of "Madness" about the Madoff mess.
"Somebody has to make money off of this," he joked.

Heavy Snoring in Palm Beach

2009-01-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

One of the things I keep telling people in Palm Beach is that the energy and excitement in the county is moving north. The most innovative restaurants and the most interesting new developments are all in the north end of Palm Beach County. There are people up there of wealth and privilege who could give a damn about Palm Beach. There are a couple of luxury malls that have almost everything one finds on Worth Avenue. There is no need to come to the island any longer. It is yet another reason why Palm Beach is an unrecognized crisis.

I had a personal look at this last night when my psychiatrist friend and virtual brother Dr. Frank Vaccaro and I drove north a half hour to Jupiter to attend an extravagant party put on by Patrick Park. Now Patrick is one of the most celebrated public figures in Palm Beach, his face on the cover of the society magazines and constantly in the Palm Beach Daily News,but he no longer even lives here.

We drove along Donald Ross Road in the pitch blackness, passing little but scruffy shrubbery looking for Bears Club Drive. When we finally found it and were issued into the development, it was astounding. I’ve never seen a development with so many gigantic homes. It’s a trailer park for the mega wealthy. Patrick’s is listed at a mere 9,972 on 1.1408 acres, but that’s got to be only the living area. It’s enormous, doubly so since the ceilings are high enough that planes could fly through. It's actually over 20,000 square feet as I learned subsequently.

I had brought a gift of a copy of my soon-to-be published book, Madness Under the Royal Palms. Poor Patrick is featured hosting last year’s Cancer Ball is which because of the drinking at the end “some of the men were so disheveled that their cummerbunds popped up around their midsections and became so twisted that they looked like tourniquets. It was Animal House meets Cocoon.” Thank God Patrick is a good sport or I wouldn’t have been invited.

I went up to Patrick and introduced Frank, who with his wife Terry was visiting from New York. “Frank is my psychiatrist and he’s got to be with me twenty-four hours a day now,” I told Patrick. “I’m having these wild mood swings and if I have one here I might slash my wrists or jump up on the table naked.”

Patrick wouldn’t have minded the latter but he just had his carpets done. He got the joke, but several people who overheard this thought I was telling the truth. And all during the evening people were coming up to Dr. Frank asking about his patient. He’s a lousy doctor since he spent much of the evening off on his own, not watching out for his patient.

There were well over two hundred people at the party and they were almost all from Palm Beach. It doesn’t bode well for Palm Beach unless the leaders wake up. And all I hear is heavy snoring.

Thanks, Regis

2009-01-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hey, Blog, I am back again. Got to tell you the news. A couple weeks ago I sent the first hardcover copy of Madness Under the Royal Palms to Regis Philbin’s home in New York with a cover note from a mutual friend, Rita Greenberg. A few days later Rita said she saw Regis in the gym at Mar-a-Lago and he was reading the book.

On New Year ’s Day I was at Trump’s club for a wedding brunch. Regis was there too having lunch on the patio. I know how celebrities guard their privacy in such moments. I figured he would be less than delighted if I intruded on his afternoon. But damn it all, I’ve got a book coming out and I went up to him and introduced myself. He was pleasant enough, but it was clear to me that he wanted to enjoy his long weekend, and when I left I thought I probably had blown it. So much for Regis.

Then this morning the phone starts ringing off the hook. At the end of his monologue Regis had talked about meeting me and reading my book. He showed the cover and basically gave it his imprimatur. Of course, I went to check Amazon. The book isn’t being published until January 20 and it was already at 16,000, not a bad figure two weeks before hand. Next time I looked it was 460.

You know how unusual it is for a celebrity to do such a generous thing. He wasn’t handed a script from a producer who had it written for him by some PR person. He wasn’t doing me a personal favor. He’s just an incredibly good human being. I already knew that from a distance. Now I know it personally.

Why Have I Forsaken You?

2009-01-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Oh, dear Blog, why have I forsaken you? This always happens to you, doesn’t it? They start with family photos or some pseudo-profound declaration and it just peters off until there’s nothing but blankness and you sit there by yourself day after day empty and void. And fewer and fewer people come to visit you until finally there’s nobody, no hits, and you feel a devastating aloneness.

Well, Blog, I’m back and I want to give you my excuses. On December 22, I received an email from James Burnett, editor of Boston Magazine, asking me to do a major article about how Boston has been affected by Bernie Madoff. Now dear Blog, you know that I was with my mother and brothers and was too busy enjoying Christmas to do any work. And you know too that the day after Christmas I took Amtrak to Washington to be with sick mother-in-law and wife before flying back to Palm Beach where 20/20 spent New Year’s Eve following me around.

And, beloved Blog, you wouldn’t have agreed to write this article. You’re too smart. But I’m ready for punishment. So I’ve been working twelve hours a day or more, calling sources, writing, thinking, and just a few minutes ago I zapped off my finished 6,200 word article. I’m tired, Blog, and kind of irritable. I just took my wife to the airport where she’s flying back to be with her mother. I don’t do well alone.

But now that I am alone in my solitude, I will have time to struggle to answer the one great philosophical question left in the world. Why does one only lose one sock? Why doesn’t one lose a pair? And why is my drawer full of twenty single socks. And as I puzzle over that I will attempt the one thing I must do before I can die happily. Once, just once, I would like to go into a men’s room and fully dry my hands on the hand blower and not come out as if I had just left the pool.

Dear Blog, I am alone now in a town where a heterosexual single man is a rare as a portfolio that hasn’t collapsed. And I will be going out now almost every night. And I won’t forsake you any longer. I’ll be watching for things that will make you happy and I’ll never never desert you again.

NEW YEAR'S EVE IN PALM BEACH

2009-01-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

I thought that New Year's Eve in Palm Beach would be different this year, but I had no idea how different.

My evening was to begin with a cocktail party at the home of Dick and Susan Nernberg, friends of mine from Pittsburgh. They live in an exquisite apartment above Maus and Hoffman, a clothing store on Worth Avenue.

Then I was to go to the wedding of George Cloutier and Tiffany Spadafora at the Breakers Hotel. I would have to leave at some point to go to the Coconuts party at the Flagler Museum. This is the most exclusive invitation in Palm Beach by far. Then finally, Mark Brentlinger and Brian MacDonald were giving their annual blast at their mansion. They were gay and last year at midnight the bartenders stripped off their shirts to greet the New Year. That would be a fitting ending to the evening.

In the last few months the lives of the mega wealthy have been twice devastated, first by the collapse of the stock market and secondly by the embarrassing losses of the Madoff Ponzi scheme. That made even those who had lost nothing angry and fearful looking for someone or something to strike out against. And when people learned that ABC's 20/20 was following me around New Year's Eve, that became the target of the moment.

The day before yesterday, I knew something was wrong when Susan called and said that guest after guest at her cocktail party was backing out, terrified by the idea of camera snouts intruding on their lives. A few months ago, most of these same people would have lined up for their shots, but now AM(After Madoff) they seek to hunker down in obscurity. I scarcely had time to decide what to do about that problem when George Cloutier called to say that he had guests refusing to come if there were cameras. George loves publicity, and it was extraordinary that he was willing to give up the klieg lights in the name of love and a full house.

Mark Brentlinger said that he didn't want cameras either. These were tough economic times, and it would not look right that he and friends were having a wildly extravagant blast.
I couldn't do anything about George's wedding or Mark and Brian's party but I sure could do something about the cocktail party. So I started calling around inviting a whole new group of people to the cocktail party. ABC interviewed on camera many of the guests. What was so striking was the seriousness of their comments and their convictions that Palm Beach was a different place now and their lives different too.

After the cocktail party, my wife Vesna and I drove over to the Breakers for the wedding. "If this is the Titanic," Cloutier had told me in one of his more philosophical moments, "Well, we're in the ballroom and we're going down dancing." It was most flamboyant, extravagant, over-the-top, spare-no-expense blasts imaginable. Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey tried to talk over the din of music while Florida's Senator Bill Nelson and Louisiana's John Breaux sat quietly.

Former Senator Breaux and I were at the same table, and we discovered that we shared a lot in common. Our apartments in Washington are two blocks from each other. We were wearing the same stripped dress shirt. And as a politician, he shared with journalists one of the defining attributes of our mutual castes. We never pay for anything. When I started talking about my forthcoming book, Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death in Palm Beach, the good Senator whipped out his business card and asked for a freebie. (Don't worry, Senator, you'll get it next week).

I left the Breakers before eleven to make it to the Coconuts at the Flagler Museum. Last year several of the twenty-five Coconuts had told me that they had been upset at the quality and quantity of their several hundred guests, but this year was different. It could have been fifty years ago, all these faces of the old American elite. As the fireworks exploded brilliantly above the Inland Waterway to the sounds of popular music, I found it poignant. I knew this world was ending, even if few of the people here realized it.

Just as the final barrage of fireworks exploded, my wife and I left to drive north half a mile along the ocean to Jungle Road and the big gay party of the evening. Palm Beach was once one society, now it is many and gays are one of them. Gays were once servants of the wealthy. They escorted the ladies as walkers. They clothed them. They decorated their homes. And now they are often the mega wealthy themselves.

It was an overwhelming event that spilled over from the gigantic mansion next door to Ivana Trump's home. Everywhere there were pretty boys, handsome gay men, and occasional tongues placed in occasional ears in manners unseen at the Coconuts. And there was former Congressman Mark Foley, who left the House in a scandal involving Congressional Pages. And in the middle of it all dancing endlessly was the co-host, Brian MacDonald, in a white décolletage shirt that made him look like Errol Flynn playing a pirate.

As I drove back to our home, I thought what a fantastic evening it had been but one filled with a sense that I was seeing the last of something. Palm Beach has retreated into itself seeking to preserve a world of privilege and wealth beyond human imagination. But there is a stirring in the land, and a stirring even within many people on the island itself. America has to change and Palm Beach has to change as well. And there may not be too many more evenings in Palm Beach like New Year's Eve.

Christmas Gifts

2008-12-25T13:17:00.000-08:00

Last evening at Christmas Eve dinner my two brothers and I tried to get our ninety-one-year old mother to reminisce about our childhood Christmases. She has a sound memory but she did not have much to say largely, I think, because she spent that time trying to make sure that her three boys had wonderful Christmases. My father had a modest salary but when we came down the stairs Santa Claus had always left an overwhelming array of gifts under the tree.

Later in the dinner, Ed and I started talking about the emotional side of our family. We were brought up rarely showing feelings. We are a classic WASP family and I've struggled all my life to overcome the emotional distance that is part of that heritage. It troubles me still and I asked Mother why she never hugged us or told us she loved us. She said she didn’t think that’s what being a good mother was about. It was showing your children you loved them by the way she brought us up. It was giving your children good values and staking them to whatever education they could attain.

Today we just got through opening our gifts and from her three sons, Mother received three gifts. I gave my mother one of the first copies of my new book, Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Beneath the Gates of Palm Beach. When my parents visited the island, I could tell my mother couldn’t stand it. She found it false and glittery, obsessed with money and status, and she was always glad to leave.

My brother Bob placed a big box in front of my mother containing the 2009 edition of Who’s Who in America. For the first time, it contains the names of all three of her sons, none of whom are there because they inherited position or wealth, and have achieved success in three different fields. I don’t know how unusual this is, but I suspect it is quite unusual.

Then my brother Ed gave my mother the best gift of all, a HP Digital Picture Frame which he had loaded with hundreds of carefully selected images of our family life. The technology has advanced amazingly and these are brilliant images flashing on the eight-inch screen one after another. Here were photos of our little white house in Vestal, New York, one of our bedrooms, my daughter’s wedding in Marin County, family reunions, outings, Ed’s daughters getting married, image after image, memory after memory.

When we were looking through our gifts, I noticed my mother had moved to the end of the sofa and was staring at the picture frame not a foot from the screen. Picture after picture went by, much of her life passing before her.

As I watched her, I thought, “Mother never has to tell me she loves me.”

A Wealthy Man--An expanded version also posted on Huffingtonpost

2008-12-25T04:03:00.000-08:00

This is a Christmas and Hanukah season like no other. Many people have lost money. Millions are out of work, and those who still have jobs fear for their own future. That was a full plate of despair already and then Bernard Madoff appeared to savage whatever joy was left, and to tear into shards the trust that is fundamental to a democratic society.

It is a bad time but it is a good time too, because most of us are reflecting on what matters and in the end we may deepen the faith that sustain. I have a dear friend whose Jewish father after flying planes in World War II built a great fortune. He was intending to donate most of it to charity including building a wing on a hospital on Long Island for children with special needs. Now most of that money is gone and he feels he has betrayed so many people when he has betrayed no one at all.

His daughter wrote this letter to her father and shared it with me:

"There are no words to describe how sad and rage-filled I have become. I don't even want to write what I have been fighting in my heart. This season perhaps more than in any other years, we have decided to give whatever we can (and of course it is much, much less than other years) to help others who have so much less than we. I have heard from my kids who are doing the same. Dad, if you ever wanted to know what your legacy to us really is, it is this. That in bad times for our country and our people, we give what we can to others rather than in giving unnecessary trinkets to each other. We stick together as a family in unity and love. This is our strength. This is what we teach our children. Happiness is not an entity to be pursued, but a feeling that overcomes you when you have lived a meaningful life."

I've been having some bad times too that have made me reflect in ways I have not for years. In recent days both my mother and my mother-in-law have been in the hospital. My mother-in-law is still there and my wife is with her in Washington, D.C. I decided that I'll fly up from my Florida home and spend Christmas with my mother and brothers in New Jersey and then take to train to Washington to be with my mother-in-law.

My mother came from a poor family in Westport, Connecticut. Her father worked in a lumber yard and as a chauffeur for the owner. She was the only one of seven children to go to college. She was very smart and she received a tuition scholarship to the University of Chicago in the Thirties, probably the most exciting college in America. She didn't have enough money even to sit up all night on the train to Chicago. She took a bus. The driver worried about this innocent young woman finding her way in a difficult part of Chicago and he drove the bus out his way to deposit her in an on-campus building. She was too afraid to go out and she sat her room eating a Hershey bar for dinner.

My mother needed to earn room and board. First thing in the morning, she went into the office that handled these things. They told her that she should go to see Mrs. Hays because if Mrs. Hayes liked you she would hire you right away. So my mother walked over to this great house, and Mrs. Hayes, whose husband was the grandson of President Rutherford B. Hayes, hired my mother to work twenty hours a week taking care of her young children and doing other duties.

The first evening Mrs. Hayes asked my mother to set the table. She went into the dining room and carefully set the elegant table. When she finished Mrs. Hayes came over to my mother and said, "Helen, you've made a mistake." My mother was mortified to have made an error on her very first day, and she went back into the dining room to check everything again. But as hard as she looked, she could not see what was wrong. So she came back to Mrs. Hayes and said she didn't understand. And Mrs. Hayes said, "Helen, you didn't set a place for yourself."

And so for four years my mother sat at that table. In class she met my father who was a graduate student and became a professor at the university. I remember growing up Mrs. Hayes visiting us. She was just another friend. My father has left this earth and my mother lives in a continuing care community in New Jersey and has what she unfailingly tells me is a wonderful life. And a few months ago two of the Hayes my mother watched over, now old and retired, came to visit my mother and pay their respects.

And so I'm flying up to New Jersey for Christmas to be with my Mom and my two brothers and their wives. I'm sorry my wife and my mother-in-law won't be there for family and friends are all that matters. I don't care how much money you have, how much money you have lost, if you have family and friends you are wealthy. And I am a wealthy man.

Christmas in New Jersey

2008-12-24T05:38:00.000-08:00

I am in the frozen north now picking my way carefully through the frozen tundra of New Jersey. Ever the Florida patriot, I proved my bonafides once again last evening when I fell asleep during The Winter’s Tale at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey. I should have known something was wrong by the way they spelled "theater."

Napping is the Florida tribute to culture. There is always someone sleeping. When I give speeches, I judge my success by how many are dozing. Two I consider a triumph, more than six and I seriously consider shortening my talk.

Last evening even the frolicking Bohemian peasants on stage could not prevent me from nodding off. If my brother Ed had not nudged me brutally in the ribs when I started to snore, I would have been beaten to death by outraged theater goers. I have my excuses. I had awakened at six that morning to catch the 6:45 train to New York City. My other brother Bob, who is a saint in lawyer’s clothing (if that’s possible), got up to drive me to the train station in Chatham.

I was wide awake since I was heading into Manhattan for an important meeting with the two top executives at Hyperion concerned with my forthcoming book, Madness Under the Royal Palms. Will Balliett, the editor-in-chief, and Kristin Kiser, vice president and associate publisher. I had asked Hyperion to do a few modest things to promote my book including pithy thirty-second ads during NFL games, sky writing over major cities, handbills on commuter trains, and an advertising insert in the New York Times, and Hyperion was balking. As the sad eyed commuters perused their newspapers, I came up with the perfect zinger that would open up the long closed vaults of ABC, the parent company. “You people aren’t publishers,” I intended to say. “You’re printers.”

Alas, the meeting went exceedingly well. I was meeting Kristin for the first time, and she was professional, charming, and astute, an ideal person at the helm of a publisher in difficult times. “The least you can do is after the first of the year announce a second printing three weeks before pub,” I said, drawing from my massive publishing acumen. “That sends a signal out." Kristin said they had already pulled the trigger on a second printing almost four times the number I had suggested. That angered me. It was getting harder and harder for me to see how I could use my immortal zinger, but when an author has a phrase he loves, which usually means it’s garishly overwritten, he’s going to use it. So at a momentary lull in the conversation, I said it: “You people aren’t publishers, you’re printers.” That said, we moved on with the conversation.

After my triumph at breakfast, I moved onto Carnegie Hall rehearsal studios to prepare for my debut as a violinist that evening. Actually, I was there at a studio to be on On Point the NPR radio program hosted by Tom Ashbrook. The subject was Caroline Kennedy seeking the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Clinton. My three books on the family have made me what is called an expert. That is an unenviable position to be in these days. It means when I talk about the Kennedys, I have the misfortune of being grounded in fact, when so many others on the air are not limited by that disability. Katha Pollitt of the Nation attacked Caroline as if she were only slightly better than a serial killer. I had a massive mike and a competent technician on the other side of the glass booth, and she had what sounded like a cheap cell phone talking from the bathroom of a garret in Soho. I’m sure she considered that another sign of the massive, brutally unfair inequalities of American life.

After that melancholy hour, I plunged out into the frigid, icy Decmber morn and searched for a nonexistent cab. On 57th Street, I ducked into a bank to look for phone numbers on my computer. When I jumped out into winter again, I spotted a cab and as we headed north, I realized I had lost my cell phone. The driver, the first decent human being I had met in a while, gave me his cell phone to call my number. The man who answered shamelessly squandering my minutes was the bank guard. Outraged at this abuse of my property, we drove back to the bank where I wrestled the device out of the man’s hands, and headed out into the blizzard again.

When the driver left me off in front of ABC at Columbus Avenue and 66th, I gave the man a big enough tip to allow him to move back to China. And then after moving through security worthy of the White House, I made it up to Brian Ross’s investigatory unit.

The week before Brian had interviewed me for ABC World News and Nightline. He was in New York and the producer, cameraman, and soundman were on the roof of my condominium in Palm Beach. I said, “Brian, I’m delighted to do this but when we finish I’d like two minutes of your time.” He agreed and when we finished I pitched him 20/20 doing my book. My publicist, SallyAnne McCartin, one of the best in the business,had already pitched the program and been turned down but I believed that it was a great idea and such perfect timing that I had a shot at convincing the top investigative reporter in journalism. I don’t think I even used my two minutes when Brian said, "It’s a must.”

We all know that’s not the way things work in the world, but it worked that way this time. Brian was off in Italy skiing. That’s why I was sitting in hisoffice with Anna Schecter, a young producer who will be working on the piece. She is made for the Palm Beach world and when she gets down to the island, she will have almost everyone wanting to be interviewed. And when Brian gets back to the States and flies down, the two of them will put together by far the best thing ever done on Palm Beach. Remember, you read that first here.

So after that I took the train back to Chatham where Mary Frances, my sister-in-law, picked me up. She is an unbelievable cook, but alas this evening we went out to one of my brother Bob’s discoveries, a tiny restaurant in a strip mall. New Jersey’s greatest contributions to civilization are a law that an attendant must pump your gas at service stations and a progressive policy so that few restaurants are allowed to serve wine or liquor. Customers bring their own bottles and drink them dry. The result is that by nine o’clock half the people on the roads are drunk, and it’s a good thing that there is someone to pour gas because the customers can’t see to put the fuel in their cars.

This was a tapa restaurant. “Tapa” is a Spanish word for “overpriced appetizers.” There was only the chef and one waiter and most of the waiting was being done by the customers. My ninety-one-year old mother travels on her stomach. She must be fed or she grows unbelievably grouchy and starts throwing glasses and plates. So we gave her every bit of food that arrived at the table, all of which she devoured shamelessly. All I did was drink. Most of the food arrived just as we were leaving. I ate a few quick bites burning my mouth in the process, deadening the pain with another glass of a decent Pinor Noir. I should know. I bought it.

So that’s why I fell asleep. Today I have to go Christmas shopping, so in this moment let me wish Merry Christmas to the two people, one of them a lifer in San Quentin, who are reading my blog.

A Wealthy Man

2008-12-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

In recent days both my mother and my mother-in-law have been in the hospital. My mother-in-law is still there and my wife is with her in Washington, D.C. I decided that I’ll fly up from my Florida home and spend Christmas with my mother and brothers in New Jersey and then take to train to Washington to be with my mother-in-law.

I was talking to the manager in my building the other day, and I told her the story I am about to tell you. I don’t cry but as I started telling it to her, I started to cry and as I write this I am crying too, and I can’t stop crying.

My mother came from a poor family in Westport, Connecticut. Her father worked in a lumber yard and as a chauffeur for the owner. She was the only one of six children to go to college. She was very smart and she received a tuition scholarship to the University of Chicago, in the Thirties probably the most exciting college in America. She didn’t have enough money even to sit up all night on the train to Chicago. She took a bus. The driver worried about this innocent young woman finding her way in a difficult part of Chicago and he drove the bus out his way to deposit her in an on-campus building. She was too afraid to go out and she sat her room eating a Hershey bar for dinner.

My mother needed to earn room and board. First thing in the morning, she went into the office that handled these things. They told her that she should go to see Mrs. Hays because if Mrs. Hays liked you she would hire you right away. So my mother walked over to this great house, and Mrs. Hays, who was the great granddaughter of President Rutherford B. Hays, hired my mother to work twenty hours a week taking care of her four and five year old sons and doing other duties.

The first evening Mrs. Hays asked my mother to set the table. She went into the dining room and carefully set the elegant table. When she finished Mrs. Hays came over to my mother and said, “Helen, you’ve made a mistake.” My mother was mortified to have make an error on her very first day, and she went back into the dining room to check everything again. But as hard as she looked, she could not see what was wrong. So she came back to Mrs. Hays and said she didn’t understand. And Mrs. Hays said, “Helen, you didn’t set a place for yourself.”

And so for four years my mother sat at that table. In class she met my father who was a graduate student and became a professor at the university. I remember growing up Mrs. Hays visiting us. She was just another friend. My father has left this earth and my mother lives in a continuing care community in New Jersey and has what she unfailingly tells me is a wonderful life. And a few months ago the two Hays men, now old and retired, came to visit my mother and pay there respects.

And so I’m flying up to New Jersey for Christmas to be with my Mom and my two brothers and their wives. I’m sorry my wife and my mother-in-law won’t be there for family and friends are all that matters. I don’t care how much money you have, how much money you lost, if you have family and friends you are wealthy. And I am a wealthy man.

It Could Happen Here

2008-12-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

Last week I published a post titled “Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach.” I wrote about a Palm Beach devastated by the potentially 50 billion dollar scam. I described the world at the Jewish Palm Beach Country Club where Madoff was an esteemed member managing the fortunes of many members.

The piece had hardly been posted when the New York Post emailed asking to reprint it. Since then the Jewish Voice has asked to reprint it, and I felt that I had written something worthwhile and true.

But when I posted the piece on my own blog, there was an anonymous comment that startled me. “I don't know much about the author or about Palm Beach, but what struck me about the post was the title,” Anonymous wrote. “It’s a sophisticated author's way of expressing anti-Semitism in a way that toes the line between what will be considered acceptable to the most liberal and despicable to those who (sic) no better. ..a sick way to rub it into the face of the victims and espouse what to many will be considered an anti-Semitic title is going too far.”

To me there’s nothing worse than being called Anti-Semitic. There were plenty of positive comments including one from someone who appeared to use his real name. “All Larry is doing is stating the facts, no bias or prejudice,” Neil Rogers wrote. “Don’t let your insecurities, shame, embarrassment and guilt surface by playing the anti-Semitic card. Shalom.”

Even though to my mind I was simply reporting the facts in the context of Palm Beach, I still felt badly about this. My ex-wife and the mother of my daughter is Jewish, and thus by Jewish tradition my daughter and my grandchildren are Jewish. But I am not Jewish and I’ve come to realize that only someone born Jewish can understand at the most profound level what it means to be Jewish, and the inchoate fears that are an integral part of that heritage.

This got me to thinking about the whole issue and I talked to a friend of mine in Boston, David Goldberg. He has been following the Madoff news in among other places the Palm Beach Daily News where he said there were any number of truly anti-Semitic comments that should have been removed. I went to the website and it was as ugly and vicious, worthy of Hitler.

There was one comment posted criticizing these evil rants but for days they sat there. Editor Pat Thomas says that “it became apparent that there were — along with a number of well-reasoned and interesting comments — a number of comments that were clearly anti-Semitic and/or obscene.” Pleading that she did not have big enough a staff to cull out the obscene and foul, Thomas closed down the comments.

But a bubbling up of anti-Semitism does exist and the more I talk to people about this situation, the more I am convinced that we must deal with it not by giving into fear by shutting down the comments of everyone but by vigorously standing up against such ideas.

The fear is simply this. The Madoff story is being played rightfully and painfully as an overwhelmingly Jewish story, and it may spill onto the whole coverage of the economic debacle and that too would become seen as a Jewish story. Of course, it’s ridiculous but I remember when I was doing my last book on Arnold Schwarzenegger and how on my trip to Austria several Austrians told me that the Jews controlled the media and banks of their country, though there are only a few thousand Jews left. It can happen here. As things get worse and people look for scapegoats, the Jews once again can become the targets.

I don’t know how we fight the growing anger and hate in America. We fight it in part by being up front. We must stand up to those reeking of prejudice but we almost must stand up to those who find prejudice when there is only legitimate commentary and criticism. As journalists we fight it in part by trying to get the context right. And maybe we fight it a little with a sense of humor too, the true Jewish penicillin. But whatever we do we must never forget and never forgive those who seek to exploit our divisions and fears.

The Game is Up

2008-12-16T02:59:00.001-08:00

The Bernard Madoff scandal has swept over Palm Beach like a monumental hurricane, leaving wreckage on every street and byway. Last Thursday evening started like every other night at Amici, a popular Italian restaurant just down the street from my ocean-front condo. At about 7:30 one dinner guest got a phone call and jumped up screaming and within minutes there was turmoil in the sedate restaurant.

Everyone knows someone who has been destroyed or hurt. A friend called me yesterday and said he was “nicked.” He and his wife had invested $2 million with Madoff years ago. He wouldn’t tell me how much it had grown to but it must have been at least $5 million and perhaps twice that. In Palm Beach that’s a nicking.

I don’t know what to say anymore. Palm Beach is not the same. The fantasy is dead. The game is up. And sooner or later everyone is going to realize it.

Bernard Madoff and the Jews of Palm Beach

2008-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

Below is a piece that I posted on Huffingtonpost.com yesterday. About ten minutes after it went on line, the metropolitan editor of the New York Post emailed me about running it and it's on page four in Saturday's paper. The piece has reacted in a full range of opinion, from overwhelmingly positive to outrage. I'm trying to understand why some people are so upset. And as soon as I have a full grasp on this I'm going to publish again at Huffingtonpost.com and put it in my personal blog as well. I've got wonderful friends and I've had some extraordinary discussions that I think will result in a worthwhile piece about the piece.

Bernard Madoff is a member in good standing of the Palm Beach Country Club, the exclusive Jewish club on the North End of the island. When I would talk to friends and acquaintances who were members, they often chatted about good old Bernie. The 70-year-old Madoff had been the chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. He was a brilliantly successful money manager who may well have handled the assets of a majority of the 300 members as well as that of those of a largely Jewish clientele across the eastern United States and a number of wealthy WASPS.

Bernard and Ruth Madoff bought their home on North Lake Way in 1967, and are among the most long standing members of the club. The Palm Beach Country Club is the ultimate symbol of the Jewish ascendency. Unlike the WASP clubs, to join you have to have made major charitable contributions. You also have to have made your fortune in clean ways. There are no garbage magnates, no slum lords. You have to be a person of character. And there was no one more revered and honored than Bernard Madoff.

Earlier this year I gave a talk at the club about my forthcoming book, Madness Under the Royal Palms. There were people in the room who are in my book and I avoided talking about them or anything that I thought might irritate or offend. I've been doing this sort of thing for years and I can take a few amusing anecdotes and strung them together into something that's not too painful and generally brings smiles if not laughter. But this afternoon there was dead silence. Nobody found anything I said amusing. In retrospect, I realize that these people had come to a bastion of anti-Semitism where Jews could not even enter the Breakers Hotel until 1965, and they had made the island theirs. And here I was to their minds mocking this world they had made their own. They found it profoundly unsettling.People in Palm Beach sort themselves out into the group in which they belong based largely on how much money they have. Even the poorest of the islanders seem to have everything yet joy proves elusive, even for the country club members, because there is always someone richer or better socially connected. Joy is driving out of your 35,000-square-foot mansion in your Bentley and tooling up to the entrance of Mar-a-Lago for your fifteenth ball of the season, the valet parkers salivating at the chance to take your car and the prospect of a twenty-dollar tip. Joy is having a wife younger and thinner than any of the other wives at your table. Joy is subtly announced during dinner that your hedge fund scored 33 percent last year, while that of the arrogant son of a bitch across the table with the fat wife scored only 17 percent.

Those with the biggest financial gains generally had their money managed by Madoff. It was an honor having him handle your fortune. He didn't take just anybody. He turned down all kinds of people, and that made you want to give the man even more of your money. When he took your fortune, he told you that he would tell you nothing about how he achieved his returns. He was a god. He had the Midas touch.Yesterday Madoff was arrested and accused of running what probably will prove the greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. He may have dissipated as much as fifty billion dollars into nothing. For the elite Jewish world, it is a curse of almost biblical proportion. I was at a dinner party last night and one of the guests called on his cell phone a man whose money Madoff had managed. I know the man and he is a generous, kind person who recently gave away over a hundred million dollars. He said that both his company's retirement plan and his charitable foundation had been handled by Madoff. He was preparing to fly back to his Boston home to walk among the ruins. It's a story told scores of times yesterday. Bankruptcy. Despair.

There was one largely Jewish charity event last evening. "It was like the Titanic," one attendee said. "The ship was sinking, and people were crying, 'I lost this and that.' And everybody was drunk. The Titanic was going down and we might as well carry on."

There is a feeling of incredible shame, embarrassment, of exposure, as if their whole world has been exposed as jerry built. This evening the synagogues in Palm Beach will be full. And there will be men and women listening to the truths of a great and ancient faith as they have never listened before.

It's not easy even in Palm Beach

2008-12-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

In my new book, Madness Under the Royal Palms, I am critical of the fantasy that is Palm Beach, but I’m realizing that I imbibed and enjoyed that fantasy too. There is a relentlessly upbeat feel to the place that is infectious and I’ve felt better here than in my home in Washington, D.C. where life is drearily serious. But this year everything has changed. Wherever I go people are depressed and angry and there is scary emotionality. It’s an inchoate anger because no one knows whom to blame. But the overwhelming feeling is of having been cheated by a secret enemy who has stealthily stolen one’s life in the darkness of night.

Failure is infinitely more interesting than success, and it’s perversely fascinating to watch what’s going on. But I’ve come to have profound empathy and feeling toward some of these people and their losses. It’s tough when you’ve given your kids thousands of dollars each year so they can have a lifestyle that they could not possibly enjoy on their salaries and you have to call and tell them the check won’t be coming. It’s tough when you’ve promised a major hospital on Long Island that you will build a special children’s wing and you no longer have the money so you can do it. It’s tough when you’ve been making a ten percent commission in the perfume department at Neiman Marcus on Worth Avenue and you’re suddenly make ten percent of nothing. It’s tough when you’ve got to walk away from membership at Mar-a-Lago and the $200,000 you paid to join the club two years ago.

No it’s not like people in West Palm Beach losing their homes and their cars, but it’s not easy these days even on the most privileged island in America.

A Perverse Justice

2008-12-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

When the parents of a young teenager went in to see Police Chief Michael Reiter and told him how Jeffrey Epstein had sexually abused their daughter, Reiter could have politely listened to the couple and backed away from a serious investigation of one of Palm Beach’s wealthiest resident. Instead, the chief instituted a serious undercover investigation that led to Epstein’s arrest. Reiter did not let matters rest there, but pushed to have the New York businessman indicted on charges that would have put him away for years. Instead, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to relatively minor offenses for which he was sentenced to a year and a half in jail. That was bad enough but it is disgraceful beyond imagination that Epstein is now out six days a week on a work-release program. The Palm Beach Police Department did not make their extraordinary efforts to have a perversion of justice that equals the perversion of Epstein himself.

The end of Fred Keller

2008-12-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

One of the major characters in Madness Under the Royal Palms is Fred Keller, who murdered his ex-wife when she was awarded half his wealth. I spent about thirty hours talking to Keller in prison, and it was one of the most disappointing experiences of my career. My technique basically is to empathize with the person I’m interviewing, finding some authentic commonality with the subject. I tried it with Fred but in retrospect, it was a disaster. He was a sociopath and there was nothing to which I could truly relate. Basically, he used me. I was his free shrink and his ersatz friend for a number of weeks.

Yesterday I attended an auction of the last of Keller’s belongings. It was a perfect metaphor for Keller. Money was all that mattered to Fred and this was how it all ended. The only thing that would have made it better was if they had auctioned off his ashes. It took place in a crude industrial park in Rivera Beach, a downscale rude little town where Fred had had his office and was his natural habitat. The room was full of about a hundred bottom feeders, many of them pathetic voyeurs clutching a few dollars that they hoped to parlay into something. The first item sold was a lot that consisted of two brand new cheap sofas, a cheap matching coffee table, a ping pong table, and a kind of card table. It went for one dollar.

Fred had no taste and he bought things that he thought marked him as classy but almost always came up short. There were quasi antiques, Oriental pieces, crystal, some fine tables, a couple of decent paintings but most of it was upscale junk. I was thinking of buying a couple of things but I didn’t. I’m not superstitious but I didn’t want anything of this man in my house. Whatever he touched he destroyed.

Keller's former brother-in-law, Wolfgang Keil, was there wandering among the merchandise, buying a few things. Fred shot him and destroyed his life, and Wolfgang told me that his whole family has been destroyed. The Keils are feuding over money. The only ones truly to benefit are the largely despicable group of lawyers who will walk away with about twenty million dollars.

Notice

2008-12-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

If you're trying to reach my website, Leamer.com, it is so new that it's not listed on any of the search engines. You've got to type in Leamer.com in the address bar.

Donald Trump and the nudists

2008-12-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

Donald Trump and nudists have a great deal in common. They both think it’s impossible to be overexposed. When I was pitching Madness Under the Royal Palms to the editor in chief and president of Hyperion, they wanted nothing of the Donald. They said he was overexposed. I said you couldn’t write a book about Palm Beach without talking about Donald Trump. But they wanted nothing of the man.

A few days later on Christmas Eve, I was having dinner at Donald’s club in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, when the great man and his daughter walked into the ballroom levitating about two inches off the floor. I went up to Donald and told him what my publisher had said. “But I think they’re wrong Donald,” I told him. “And I’d like to get together with you and work it out so in some unique way so you can be a major character in my book.” Donald looked at me as if I had just told him that I was calling all of his loans. By calling him overexposed, I had insulted him in a manner beyond belief. I tried for months to get him to talk but he wasn’t about to do it.

I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should put a scarlet band on the cover with the words: EXCLUSIVE: THIS BOOK HAS NO INTERVIEW WITH DONALD TRUMP.

"Is he a guest of the hotel?"

2008-12-05T15:03:00.001-08:00

Last evening I attended a memorial for James Sheeran, the late publisher of the Palm Beach Society Magazine. Jim was a charming, rakish ex-Marine who understood the island as well as anyone and made his living publishing a splendid fantasy. I would have lunch with him once a week and he told me all kinds of things that never made it into his glossy pages. When he told me he had only a few weeks to live, I thought what I could do to ease his last weeks a little. I told him that I planned to dedicate Madness Under the Royal Palms to him. He was deeply touched by my gesture, and I hope my book merits his name.

Jim had a great sense of humor and he would have appreciated what happened to me the afternoon of the memorial. I didn’t know the time of the event, and since the magazine was already shut for the day, I called the Colony Hotel where the early evening cocktail was taking place. “What time is the memorial for James Sheeran,” I asked. “Is he a guest of the hotel,” the receptionist asked.

An Aristocrat at the Luncheon Table

2008-12-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

I had lunch yesterday with a third generation Palm Beacher, a man who travels in the highest circles of American social life. He spent most of the time lecturing me on how misguided I am. His assertion is that the aristocratic world of Palm Beach is not only still vital but larger and more active than ever. He divides the island between the aristocrats and the pathetic wannabes whose presence he pointed out in the restaurant, especially one table of loud and garrulous men. I pointed out that his beloved Everglades and B&T have any number of members who scarcely qualify as aristocrats, a term that he speaks with delicious pleasure.

I told him how in my book I conclude that it’s his WASP associates who live in a ghetto in Palm Beach now, residing primarily in the estate section, traveling between the B&T and the Everglades, and attending parties which include almost all of their diminishing set. He would have none of that. I don’t agree with him but he was persuasive and devastating describing the new, vulgar world of the wannabes. If the men at the next table could have heard him, they would have cringed.

My friend talked a good deal about Shannon Donnelly, the society editor of the Palm Beach Daily News, who sees herself as writing about the most generous, charitable Palm Beachers in her column. This selfstyled aristocrat views her as the queen of the nouveau, promoting wannabes whose only virtue is their money. He is irritated that the paper almost never writes about the old world of Palm Beach, but that is largely by the choice of people such as my luncheon companion.

The Fall of Abe Gosman

2008-11-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

Lin Gosman is in jail over the weekend until her bond hearing. She is being charged with hiding millions of dollars in bankruptcy proceedings involving Lin and her husband, Abe Gosman. I had a strange experience with Abe. He used to own the most expensive home in Palm Beach that Donald Trump sold recently to a Russian billionaire for $95 million. Abe was the king of nouveau Palm Beach one day and the next he was a broken, bankrupt man whose wife was apparently living elsewhere. I would see him occasionally having dinner at Trevini alone with his dog.

Of course, I wanted to interview Abe for my book, and he said yes. But every time I went to see him, he had an excuse. Once at ten in the morning, he was downstairs waiting, and I thought he was waiting for me. But he said a friend from Boca was coming and they were going out for ice cream cones.

This went on for perhaps a year and a half. I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t irritated. I found it perversely fascinating. Just how many times would he have me come over and make excuses? In the end, I think the way I deal with it in my book is as revealing of Abe Gosman as any interview.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

2008-11-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I like it because it’s Christmas without the gifts. But you go nowhere in Palm Beach without a gift. We were invited by dear friends for their family Thanksgiving. My wife baked a wonderful cake and I brought a decent bottle of wine. I usually carry a trinket gift everywhere but the bathroom, and maybe that would be a good idea too. You never know whom you'll meet. My wife came home a couple days ago with a bag full of wrapped gifts. I asked her what they were for. She said it was to be ready for the season.

Some of these gifts are pretty amazing. Wine is a big favorite. Last season I noticed a special bottle of wine in my modest cellar. Someone had left it at one of our dinner parties. Something told me that it might be quite valuable. I checked it out on Google and it’s worth about $500. Now what do I do? I don’t remember who gave it to me and I probably didn’t even thank them in a note afterwards. I could drink it but it seems a pity to waste it on me. I could give it as a gift to somebody special but what if that’s the person who gave it to me. So it just sits on my shelf getting more and more valuable by the minute.

There’s a woman I know down here who got a birthday gift from a cheap friend of hers. She knew it was something like an electric can opener or doilies and she didn’t bother opening it. She was invited to another birthday party of someone she barely knew and couldn’t stand. And leaving the house she picked up the gift, put a new card on it, and headed out to the party. When the hostess opened up her birthday gifts, she was ecstatic at the incredible generosity of her new friend. It was a silver chalice worth well over a thousand dollars.

The Biggest Turkeys

2008-11-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving everything is on sale in Palm Beach including the turkeys. The Shiny Sheet did a story on holiday dinners at all the island restaurants and they're I Hop cheap. The only exception is the Breakers where they're charging $125 and the biggest turkeys will be seated at the tables.

A Fatal Fire

2008-11-22T05:15:00.000-08:00

The Palm Beach Daily News—aka The Shiny Sheet—had a front-page story yesterday about eighty-year-old Jimmy Barker whose house burned in May and whose friend James Heyman died in the blaze. And now the town is on Jimmy’s back to get him to repair it. I think they should cut the guy a break. Jimmy had no insurance but he’s got ten acres of land in Nantucket worth over $20 million and once he sells some of that he can easily rebuild. He’s been trying to get a reverse mortgage to repair the house but no luck.

When the house caught on fire James Heyman was taking a nap in the upstairs west bedroom. That’s what he did almost every morning at that time and onlookers, Barker, and even the police told the fire fighters where he might well be. In retrospect--and that's the most dangerous phrase in the English language--all they would have had to have done was to have placed a ladder against the wall, broken through the wooden shutters with their axes, and they would have found Heyman in his bed. Maybe he already would have died of smoke inhalation but maybe he would have been alive. Now the Fire Department disputes this and say that they acted professionally and they are not shy in presenting their version.

What troubles me is that in a typical Palm Beach manner, this whole issue was swept aside. Why wasn’t this matter looked into publicly by the Town Council? And why when at least one resident—Gunilla von Post—says that she wrote letters to the editor at the Shiny Sheet criticizing the Fire Department didn’t the paper publish them? And why according to my sources has the Police Department even purchased or plans to purchase special equipment so police officers can enter burning buildings—a matter left exclusively to firefighters in most places.

Another Perfect Day in Paradise

2008-11-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

I got a call from a friend chairing one of the major charity balls. It’s a thousand dollars a ticket, and she’s in trouble. She projects this cavalier what-will-be-will-be nonchalance but I know how worried she is. People aren’t going to come. This is one of the big three and she probably will have enough tables so she can justify the evening but there will be all sorts of events this season that should be cancelled. But they won’t be cancelled. The egos are too big. So they’ll paper the house and cut down what the charity gets and people will eat their fancy meals and drink their fancy wine and pretend it’s all the same. But it’s not. In this economic climate, it’s simply inappropriate to show off in such flamboyant fashion unless there is an extraordinary payoff to the charity.

My wife dragged me to Saks this afternoon. Nobody was there. Nobody. The prices were criminally low and I bought a suit for my book tour and two pairs of shoes. I felt guilty and wouldn’t have done it except that the salesman, William Quinn, was so incredibly well read and so incredibly charming and so incredibly well dressed that I had no choice. But the point is that despite unprecedented sales nobody is shopping. We were the only people there. It was astounding. We were in Jimmy Choo and the salesman there was outraged that his best customers were coming in and proudly telling him they weren’t buying. That’s just the kind of thing to make a guy feel great. Imagine what it’s like working for commission on Worth Avenue and the only place where people are buying anything is at Starbuck’s. Nothing like a nonfat latte grande as the world falls apart.

Let’s talk about money. Somebody was telling me about their friend who was worth $600 million six months ago. Now the poor bastard is worth $500 million. I know it’s tragic and I’m sorry even to mention such devastating news. Anyway, the half billionaire takes his friends out to dinner. They think they’re going to Café L’Europe or some fancy place. They go to a cheap pizza joint in West Palm and Mr. Half Billionaire is ecstatic. Everybody down here is cutting down even people who have immense fortunes. There’s a sense of fear. That’s the overwhelming emotion. Nobody ever says it. But it’s there.

Charity Begins at Home

2008-11-20T15:52:00.000-08:00

Cathleen McFarlane Ross is one of my favorite people and she comes off well in my book. I was with her three days in a row this week. First night was a dinner at the Lord’s Place, the extraordinary institution for the homeless in West Palm. I’m a volunteer there. I work one day a week at Café Joshua serving meals and talking to clients. There are about a hundred volunteers and only one other volunteer from Palm Beach. Cathleen founded the Lord’s Place Auxiliary and for years was hands on for the homeless and hungry. Diana Stanley, the Lord’s Place director, is not happy at the direction the auxiliary has taken, and there is a devastating account of it in Madness Under the Royal Palms. This evening was a dinner party in which the new chef and his staff at Joshua's Cafe, most of them formerly homeless, tried out their culinary thing on potential donors. It was a wonderful evening. The next evening Cathleen was honored at an event at St. Anne’s Catholic Church where the nuns have their own program for the homeless. Cathleen was with them from the beginning and the room was full of charitable Catholics.

And then today there was a luncheon at Club Colette for another of Cathleen’s major charities, for feral cats. It was interminable, tedious speech after tedious speech. I’m thinking there are 4,000 homeless across the waterway and we’re wringing our hands about feral cats. It costs about $65 apparently to neuter a feral cat. Food on the island for these cats runs around $2,000 a month. The budget to take care of these cats is several hundred thousand dollars a year.

One woman got up and said that she owns 18,000 acres in the Adirondacks and she would be glad to fly some of the cats up to her land in her jet. I just don’t think these people get where we’re heading in America and how they’ve got to make some tough choices. Cathleen is one of the few socially prominent people on the island who cares about issues of poverty and homelessness. The Lord's Place is very outré but with new efforts and the devastating increase of homelessness in the county perhaps that will change.

A Season in Palm Beach

2008-11-11T15:37:00.000-08:00

I'm going to keep a running chronicle of life in Palm Beach for the season. Something tells me it's going to be like no winter in the island's history. These first days since the election everything is the same and nothing is the same. Among some Republicans there is a fury about the election results, something I’ve never seen in my life. And among the workers in our building there’s a quiet joy and the feeling that this is their country now. It’s very European, reminds me of Paris in the Sixties. It’s that polarized. Wednesday, I had lunch with one of the ladies in my book. She said, “That black tar baby won and the only problem about him being killed is that the one who would take over would be just as bad.” Friday I attended a party at the home of Cynthia Friedman, a prominent Democratic fundraiser. All the Democratic heavy hitters on the island were there. There were some mixed couples, one spouse for Obama, the other for McCain. One pro- McCain man came up to me and talked about lunch that day at the Everglades Club. “We kept the Jews out and now we’ve got a n_____ in the White House.” I didn’t say anything but afterwards I wondered why did he think he could say such a thing to me?