Part of me wants to shrug and say “you play big, you lose big,” and part of me simply rolls my eyes at the short-sighted greed of those who are in a cyclical business and pretend that they are not…but the other part of me recognizes that sh-t rolls downhill, and fears what the fallout will be on my meager retirement investments, my ability to pay for my kid’s final year of college and the continued success of my small business. More than anything else, though, I resent the people at the top of the house at Stearns who made bad, risky decisions and no doubt have ensured that their fortunes will be insulated from the hit everyone else is taking. Sorry, just can’t muster up a tear for the gazillionaires.

His problem is hypocrisy far more than adultery. There are in fact women who would prefer that their partners dally with clean, high buck sex workers than have affairs with others. Sex workers in these operations are usually medically very safe, as their employer cannot afford to have a client catch a disease. Personally, I could care less about the sexual antics of our public figures, and think the American fixation on same is unfortunate. All this said, Spitzer’s “crime” is his hypocrisy and his humiliation of his wife and family. If their relationship is strong enough that she wishes to be by his side as he suffers for his sins, perhaps there will be something healing in it for her. To do so for any other reason, misguided loyalty or his demands, is unthinkable.

I have had some fine meals at the Gramercy Tavern and also at the Mansion. There is something ineffable about the proper universe of food, wine, host and vibe. I love that the night before the NYC marathon, I essentially crawled into the Gramercy in my jammies, and was treated like royalty, including being given a pre-marathon meal for my hotel room in the morning.

I hesitate to do so, but must respond to Ms Katz above. The fact that my genitals are the same as Ms. Clinton’s hardly means I have “tossed Hillary over for Obama.” Is it not the height of misogyny to suggest that one’s gender should be the sole determinant of one’s choices? We may disagree about many things, but please do not suggest that my disagreement with Ms. Clinton’s approach to governance is disloyalty to my gender. It panders to the very essence of what makes her candidacy most polarizing.

I had e-mailed, but like others, it’s not here. If we are limited to US born women, I would say Golda Meir, Oprah Winfrey, Sagajawea and Eleanor Roosevelt. If we can go international, Mother Theresa and Indira Ghandi would have to substitute somehow. I’d like to think that we would build a monument more inclusive than just four!

I appreciate the notion that Obama was being “stoic” or embarassed by taking on the mantle of another culture. I was proud to see him be welcomed into a cultural environment that our current administration has painted with a broad, demonizing brush. The discomfort, I am afraid, is the viewers own xenophobia being projected on someone who has, I believe, a high degree of cultural competence. It telling that a Clinton surrogate banked on our national prejudices hoping that the picture would be seen as a negative, instead of recognizing that for some of us, it would make us hopeful that we could have a leader unashamed to embrace the many cultures of the world.