CarolJoynt.com

TEXAS, PART 1, On New York Social Diary Today

Dealey Plaza

 INTO THE HEATWAVE

Some people drive away from a heat wave. We drove into the heart of it. A week’s road trip – mother and son -- Washington to Texas.  We made a mid-way stop in Nashville. The trip was always hot, temps rarely under 100 and once or twice as high as 112  - but it was also always interesting. I love America’s open road. There’s so much to see, hear, experience and, of course, eat. Road food is no diet but it would be a crime to count calories within 50 yards of a dry ribs place in Memphis or a Filete Cantinflas in Texas. It’s that simple.

Best of all, it’s healthy to get out of Washington. The city, the official city especially, is so into itself and alternately guilt-ridden or letting itself off the hook for bad manners, bad leadership, bad decisions. The power base (elected officials, media, lobbyists) inhabit a cocoon of each others’ voices, and that’s the disconnect. In the midst of the debt-ceiling crisis I attended a dinner of Democrats, a few hundred of them, many members of the House and Senate and other big names in the party, and the speeches (and there are always speeches) barely touched on the crisis happening just outside the auditorium where we feasted on catered food and good wine, as if the mess was not happening. Like, “if we don’t talk about the sky won’t fall.” I laughed to myself but it wasn’t funny.

Out on the American open road the sound track is sometimes akin to beaming in voices from alien planets. My rental car had satellite radio, enabling me to switch between outer space, I mean the mainstream (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews), and the local terrestrial stations. You have to search hard to find those stations that aren’t overrun with syndicated conservative rant, such as Rush Limbaugh, who spews and sputters, near ready to implode from the frustration of his self-proclaimed wisdom. 

Authentic, regional local radio is quieter. People are talking – about themselves, to each other -- about fear, honest frustration and anger toward Washington, and telling personal stories. The husband who lost his job a while ago and now the wife has lost hers. Or they can’t refinance the mortgage. Or, they are living almost entirely on credit cards. Health care. Education. Retirement funds, college tuition? Is anyone in charge? Do they care about us out there?

Outside the car windows, beautiful America rolled by.

Read the full story at NewYorkSocialDiary.com  Click on the Elvis!

Martha Joynt Kumar, Featured on Politico

 MARTHA KUMAR AT THE Q&A CAFE

This appeared on Politco Tuesday about Martha Joynt Kumar, my sister-in-law. She's supposedly on vacation, but as you'll note, not entirely:

Scholar Martha Kumar tracks President Obama and the media
By ABBY PHILLIP | 8/1/11 10:00 PM EDT

 At about 3:35 p.m., hours after President Barack Obama appeared in the press briefing room for thesecond time in a week to discuss debt ceiling negotiations, an email landed in the inbox of White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest.

Subject line: “From Martha: News Conference As Seen in Hilo Hawaii.”

“Or more specifically from the treadmill … in Hilo on the Big Island. It was carried in its entirety on CBS as probably on all the others,” wrote Martha Kumar, the Towson University professor widely considered to be the foremost scholar of tracking the interactions between the presidency and the press. “The newsers have worked to [Obama’s] benefit,” she added in her July message, as debt ceiling negotiations intensified.

Kumar, 70, is perhaps the only academic to spend more time in the White House briefing room and the West Wing than most correspondents. She records every instance of the president’s dealings with reporters — from press conferences and joint availabilities with world leaders to one-on-one interviews with local affiliates.

Kumar travels from her Georgetown home to Pennsylvania Avenue on her zippy silver Vespa as often as four days a week. She sits in the cramped basement of the White House press room among the scribes, and when she’s not conducting interviews for her book about Obama’s presidential transition, she makes the rounds in the West Wing, offering a political scientist’s insights on the administration’s communications strategy, home-baked treats and small talk.

Earnest said that when Kumar speaks, he listens. She advises from the prism of an academic who has scrutinized presidential administrations dating back to Gerald Ford.

“She’s agenda-free,” Earnest said. “I would say that most of the time that she comes with the data, she comes with some insight to share: The data comes as a one-pager, the advice comes in her gentle tone.”

Underlying all that work, Kumar says, is a desire to help each administration learn from the communications and organizational mistakes of its predecessors.

“Generally my feeling is as political scientists we should share the information that we gather to make government operate more effectively,” Kumar said in a phone interview with POLITICO from her home in Hawaii, scheduled during a marathon writing session for her book. “That is my goal: not only develop an understanding about how government works and how the White House communications operation works but also to assist people in government.”

It’s not unusual to spot Kumar perched on a small folding bench next to the briefing room’s front row. With clipboard in hand, she collects statistics about the briefing, including the number of questions asked and the number of reporters present. She has offered her data as a resource to White House press secretaries since the Clinton administration.

“Who’s that lady with the gray hair?” former Clinton White House press secretary Mike McCurry remembers thinking soon after he started the job. “A lot of people just assume she’s a reporter.”

Smart press secretaries learn quickly to use Kumar as a resource, McCurry said.

“She doesn’t have any of the barriers that the members of the Fourth Estate have,” McCurry said. “She’s somewhat outside of the adversarial relationship, so she can observe it and comment on it. She helps the White House understand the press and the press understand the White House.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/60431.html#ixzz1TvzT3eQk

 

Stephanie Ruhle: High Finance (and working Mom) Role Model

From The Glass Hammer, this is about a friend of mine, Stephanie Ruhle Hubbard, and worth a read. The full story is at the link at the bottom:

August 1st, 2011 | 6:00 am

Voice of Experience: Stephanie Ruhle, Managing Director, Relationship Management, Deutsche Bank

filed under Voices of Experience

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“It’s an interesting time to be a woman in this business – you have the opportunity to be a pioneer and affect change. Women might be on the verge of real change thanks to women supporting women. There is a sense of urgency to promote and empower,” said Stephanie Ruhle, Managing Director in Relationship Management at Deutsche Bank.

Ruhle thinks more women are entering the discussion for senior roles on Wall Street. She spoke enthusiastically about the opportunities afforded by the field, as well as the importance of senior female role models to empower the next generation of women.

Unbelievable Energy

Ruhle began her career in 1997. While studying abroad in Italy, she took an internship with Merrill Lynch – which sent her to New York for the summer.

“On my first visit to the trading floor I was so impressed by the energy and spontaneity. This was a business environment unlike anything I had imagined. The sense of opportunity was palpable – a real meritocracy.”

Ruhle joined Credit Suisse and took a role in sales and trading right after graduating college. “I began in corporate bond sales and started to focus on credit derivatives – and this was really when hedge funds were getting into the CDS space,” she recalled. She stayed at Credit Suisse for six years working in hedge fund sales, and moved to Deutsche Bank in 2002.

She explained, “Deutsche Bank is the preeminent powerhouse for credit derivatives on the Street.” Last year, Ruhle transitioned to senior relationship management, covering some of the banks largest clients for all Corporate & Investment Bank business.

“Based on the way the market has moved, it’s been great. In 2010, Deutsche integrated investment banking and sales and trading. You could see the synergies day one.”

Currently, Ruhle said, she is energized by the...continue 

 

Innocent Spouse on NewsTalk

NewsChannel 8's "News Talk" is an hour show. This interview was recorded today.  Fast forward to 16:15 to hit the interview with me about "Innocent Spouse." Or, also listen to the preceding interview about the debt ceiling drama.

 

Innocent Spouse Featured In Lyndon Ford's "Tax Trouble Help"

Comments from “Innocent Spouse” Book Author Carol Ross Joynt on New Spouse IRS Rules

By TTH | Published: JULY 31, 2011

NOTE: Listen to the PODCAST of Lyndon Ford's interview with Carol Ross Joynt, the author of the book “Innocent Spouse.”Joynt was charged with multi-million dollar IRS tax fraud – shockingly discovered after the sudden death of her husband! To listen to the podcasts use this link http://taxtroublehelp.com/radio-show/

Carol Ross Joynt's statement on the new IRS innocent spouse rules: 

"The IRS Monday changed its rules to make it a little easier for women and men who seek innocent spouse tax relief. They dropped the rule that required filing within two years. People familiar with the code –both inside and outside the IRS — considered the time limit unduly stringent. Innocent spouse cases typically are messy. It can take years for the fraud to emerge and the spouse left “holding the bag” to get their legal case organized. I was fortunate. I knew within two weeks of my husband’s death, but my case was relatively clear cut. Howard committed a crime that was routine in the restaurant business and fairly transparent.

"Since publication of my memoir, “Innocent Spouse,” I hear daily from people who want to file for innocent spouse relief. Mostly women but also men. Their stories are harrowing, often making mine pale in comparison. Some are married to people who committed elaborate schemes and cons. Some are married to people who are in jail. Some have been physically abused and are afraid to seek a defense. Each and every one of them is scared and trying to figure it out, or did get it figured out and are trying to put their lives back together. So, this is a big day for a lot of those individuals."

Innocent Spouse Is "The Big Book" on Public Radio

Here's from American Public Media's "Marketplace" website, with links below for listening to the show hosted by Tess Vigeland:

The Big Book

Innocent Spouse: A Memoir

Title: Innocent Spouse: A Memoir

In this memoir, Washington-based journalist Carol Ross Joynt recounts how she picked up the pieces after the death of her husband, Howard. Left to raise her 5-year-old son as a single parent, forced to take over her family’s financial and legal responsibilities — as well as run her deceased husband’s restaurant — Joynt soon discovers Howard had many secrets. One of them: He owed the IRS nearly $3 million. This memoir recounts how Joynt found the strength to soldier on in the face of heartbreak and suffering.

Listen to this Story    Read The Text

The 9/11 Memorial Museums, on NYSD Today

 
In my New York Social Diary column today I focus on the three memorial museums at the sites of September 11th terrorist attacks. They were discussed in detail in a program last week at the National Building Museum. It was a moving prelude to the upcoming tenth anniversary. Read it here.