Vanity Fair articles from May 2006

Vanity Fair archives from May 2006

Words Fail Him; Now that the daily White House briefings are instantly available online, Press Secretary Scott McClellan's mangled sentences, flat-footed evasions, and genial befuddlement have made him the butt of a thousand blogs, as well as of an increasingly savage press corps.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Wolff How come the White House pressroom doesn't have PowerPoint? Nearly every conference and meeting and middle-school assembly supplies this visual speaking aid and basic technology to lackluster and tongue-tied speakers....

Vanity Fair Nominates Dr. James E. Hansen.(director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: James Wolcott BECAUSE the heat is on, and he refuses to be put on ice. For more than 40 years, Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and its foremost climate expert, has been taking the...

"I'm With Oscar!"; With a pared-down guest list, a drop-dead setting, and Jon Stewart making a beeline for the bar, V.F.'s annual Oscar bash (No.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Krista Smith Noel Coward said it best: "I've been to a marvelous party." Those were the words engraved on the silver Zippo lighters given as favors to the 165 guests of Vanity Fair's 13th annual Academy Awards viewing party. "The...

The Gentleman Grafter; By night, Joe Ades dines with his fourth wife at exclusive restaurants, sips Veuve Clicquot at the Pierre, and goes home to a three-bedroom Park Avenue apartment.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Howard Kaplan In the early 90s a man named Joe Ades began showing up in the bar at the Pierre, Manhattan's famously posh hotel on the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 61st Street. Joe liked the crowd at the Cafe Pierre, but the real...

The Gossip Girl.(Cecily von Ziegesar)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Henry Alford Pssst. Check out what happens when you tell Cecily von Ziegesar, who writes those dishy, New York Times No. 1 best-selling Gossip Girl books for tween girls, how you saw a flyer for an upcoming reading she's giving in...

The Rape Of Appalachia; Appalachia's mountains are being blasted at a rate of several ridgetops each week.(mountaintop coal mining and its environmental aspects)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Michael Shnayerson The images are still fresh: candlelit faces in the West Virginia night, family snapshots of coal miners trapped below, hopes of a rescue raised and cruelly dashed, the gentle letters written by dying men. The...

Missy Peregrym.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Krista Smith AGE AND OCCUPATION: 23, actress. PROVENANCE: Vancouver, British Columbia. STICK IT ON: Peregrym, who previously shone in the short-lived ABC series Life as We Know It, stars in Stick It, a gymnastics comedy directed by...

No More Mr. Nice Guy.(actor Ian McShane)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... Byline: George Wayne With a long career in B movies and British television, Ian McShane, 63, finally found his indelible role as the cursing, tyrannical whoremonger and saloon owner Al Swearengen, on HBO's Deadwood. Now the central...

Yvon Chouinard; Founder and owner, Patagonia.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... If capitalism were a church, Yvon Chouinard, 67, would have been excommunicated as a heretic long ago. Not that it would have bothered the pioneering rugged-wear-maker, who has always been more comfortable on the rock faces of El Capitan than...

Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Pataki.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... These two strapping big-state governors have often found themselves at odds with many of their fellow Republicans in making the environment a priority. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order last year to reduce California's...

Lord John Browne; C.E.O., British Petroleum.
May 1, 2006... The best chair in the boardroom of the world's second-largest oil company is not where you expect to find a committed environmentalist. But Lord John Browne of Madingley, chief executive of British Petroleum, is exactly that. Soft-spoken and...

Etienne Bourgois; Fashion magnate, sailor, adventurer.
May 1, 2006... The ends of the earth are melting. Etienne Bourgois, C.O.O. of the Agnes B. fashion company, wants to help. After the tragic murder of explorer and environmentalist Sir Peter Blake, Bourgois purchased his hardy research vessel, Seamaster, and...

Wangari Muta Maathai; Government minister, biology professor, tree planter, Nobel Peace Prize winner.
May 1, 2006... When natural resources are scarce, people fight over the scraps. The Nobel committee recognized this connection between peace and environmentalism in awarding the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize to Wangari Muta Maathai, the famed tree-planting activist...

Zac Goldsmith; Editor, political adviser.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Zac Goldsmith is best known as a tireless environmentalist whose substantial inherited wealth (he's the son of the late British financier Jimmy Goldsmith and the brother of Jemima) lends him a certain freedom and panache that old-school, Earth...

Natural Resources Defense Council; At table: Barbara Finamore, attorney; Wesley Warren, director of programs; Yerina Mugica, researcher; Lisa Speer, analyst; Johanna Wald, attorney; Allen Hershkowitz, scientist; Frances Beinecke, president; Alex Wang, attorney.
May 1, 2006... With the backing of its 1.2 million members and online activists, its $60 million annual budget, and its team of top-notch scientists, lawyers, and economists, the Natural Resources Defense Council goes up against those in power who would foul...

Hank Paulson; Chairman and C.E.O., the Goldman Sachs Group.
May 1, 2006... Hank Paulson once told a reporter that, until he went to college, all he ever wanted to be was a forest ranger. In 2004, after taking one of the unlikeliest career detours in memory, he effectively became just that-albeit a forest ranger worth...

Edward Norton; Actor, solar enthusiast.
May 1, 2006... In 2003, movie actor and reluctant celebrity Edward Norton purchased a solar-power system for his Los Angeles home from B.P., the energy giant with the eco-friendly image. Then he thought of hooking up B.P. with Enterprise Community Partners,...

David Miller, Toronto; Richard M. Daley, Chicago; Manuel Diaz, Miami; Martin O'Malley, Baltimore; Greg Nickels, Seattle; Gavin Newsom, San Francisco.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Our neighbors to the north certainly seem to get it: Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and its largest city, Toronto, run by Mayor David Miller, was voted Low Carbon Leader in 2005 by the Climate Group, an independent British organization....

Ali Hewson; Fair-trade clothing entrepreneur.
May 1, 2006... Ali Hewson is gorgeously maternal, an alchemical mixture of dark, mysterious beauty (the corner of her lips, the orbit of her hips... ) and down-to-earth, minivan-mum pragmatism. This is what makes her an ideal bridge between the worlds of...

Li Moxuan; Watchdog.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The Yellow River is in danger of running dry, says Li Moxuan, a climate researcher and campaigner with Greenpeace China. She was part of a team that made a horrifying trip to the upper reaches of Anyemaqen Mountain, where the river valley known...

Graham Hill, treehugger.com; Jennifer Boulden and Heather Stephenson, idealbite.com; Laurie David, stopglobalwarming.org; Chip Giller, grist.org.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Sitting at a computer may never be the most decisive, muscular way of saving anything, but the electronic dissemination of information and sense of purpose shared online are key to the call-up and formation of battle stratagems for the massing...

Green architects and designers.
May 1, 2006... The inventive men and women pictured here are bringing a brave new eco-friendly world into being in the hope that the way we live now-in energy-guzzling, carbon-spewing homes and offices-is not the way we will live in the future. Alliance...

Go Zero; Ed Begley Jr.
May 1, 2006... The modern age is great. It has gotten comfortable indoors: cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and the lighting is very good. Travel is a snap, compared with the days of the horse carriage, although parking can be a problem. But every...

The Reverend Richard Cizik; Lobbyist, Christian, conservative, Washington insider.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... In Genesis 2:15, God shows Adam to the Garden of Eden and instructs him to "cultivate it and keep it." This is something that the Reverend Richard Cizik, 54, takes very seriously. As vice president for governmental affairs for the National...

Nell Newman; Organic-food executive.(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... While other celebrity sons and daughters are content to dance on nightclub tabletops or play checkers in rehab facilities, Nell Newman is on a mission to bring organic foods to the all-American-family table, not to mention its pet bowls. With...

Paul Polizzotto; Public-private visionary.
May 1, 2006... Paul Polizzotto, a fast-talking surfing enthusiast who grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, has grim childhood memories of bad-air-quality days. After the first-flush rainstorms of the fall, he says, the waves in Santa Monica Bay would be at...

Bette Midler; Singer, actress, rescuer of vacant lots.
May 1, 2006... The gal who wowed 'em in the early 1970s with her song-and-dance act in the dank dungeon of Manhattan's Ansonia building is now bringing life to New York City in quite another fashion, as the founder of the New York Restoration Project. Its...

While Washington Slept; The Queen of England is afraid.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Mark Hertsgaard Ten months before Hurricane Katrina left much of New Orleans underwater, Queen Elizabeth II had a private conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair about George W. Bush. The Queen's tradition of meeting once a...

Hot Couch Potato.(actor Keri Russell)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Frank Digiacomo In the fall of 1999, Keri Russell made bizarro-television history when, as the namesake college student of the WB series Felicity, she received an unfortunate on-screen haircut. Rather than rely on Hollywood...

Everyone Fell For Suzy; Unlike any fashion model before her, Suzy Parker was on a first-name basis with the world, bringing her own radiant personality to every shoot.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Laura Jacobs December 21, 1956: Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person gives America a captivating Christmas gift. She is five feet ten, a slim bough in a dark Chanel suit, her hair a tumble of copper that even on black-and-white...

Edward M. Kennedy; In 1962, Ted Kennedy replaced his brother John in the Senate.(Interview)
May 1, 2006... Which historical figure do you most identify with? My brothers Jack and Bobby. Which living person do you most admire? My wife, Vicki, because of all she does. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I gain weight...

Green Is the New Black.(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Graydon Carter I'm confident that the environmental path that I announce will benefit the entire world. -George W. Bush, February 2002. Like father, like son. In his 2004 State of the Union address, President Bush did not...

The Green Team.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Evgenia Peretz, Jim Windolf If Julia Roberts can do it, so can you. An admitted latecomer to environmental concerns, Roberts is proof that it's never too late to start caring for the earth and that it can all start at home. From...

Cover Judgments; The naked truth; Conrad Black on his houses and finances; long live Flashman.(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Your March cover stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to rack my brain to figure out where I had seen an image like this before. Finally, it dawned on me. It's virtually the same layout as douard Manet's 1863 painting Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe....

Hot Type.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Elissa Schappell These are dark days. How dark? Authors practically need night-vision goggles to write, but several novelists are exploding the darkness, blasting back, lasers set on devastating intelligence and stunning humor. ...

Bold Whimsy.(decorator Dorothy Draper)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Laura Jacobs Cross manners matriarch Emily Post with clever couturiere Elsa Schiaparelli and whom would you get? Interior decorator Dorothy Draper, that's who. Like Post, Draper was a rich girl from Tuxedo Park, New York, raised to...

Head of the Class.(writer Alan Bennett)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: James Wolcott It's the quiet ones that bear watching. Their talents tick to a different clock. The mild, bespectacled Alan Bennett was the self-effacing one in the 60s comedy troupe Beyond the Fringe, warm milk compared with the...

Green Streets.(OZOcar car service)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Aaron Gell When Roo Rogers and Jordan Harris launched OZOcar, their kinder, gentler car service, in New York City last year, they knew that coaxing Manhattan's movers and shakers out of their ubiquitous Lincoln Town Cars and into...

Little Willy's Debut.(play on Adolf Hitler's nephew: William Patrick Hitler)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Edward Helmore It takes a special kind of wit to make jokes about Hitler, but when it comes to his scheming Irish nephew, (Little) Willy Hitler, it's an open goal. The Fuhrer's nephew was a classic figure of fun, in the opinion of...

The V.I.P. Tour.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Victoria Mather ROME John Fort can get the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum closed for private evening visits. It's worth spending some $3,500 for a chance to lie on the floor and marvel at Michelangelo's ceiling, with a...

Green Gifts.
May 1, 2006... ENVIRONMENTAL LANGUAGE TIAN COFFEE TABLE Using sustainably harvested wood and crafting veneers combining traditional and modern design aesthetics, E.L. is at the forefront of the eco-smart furniture market. Its Tian coffee table celebrates...

DR. HAUSCHKA'S RX.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Christine Muhlke The Oscar Wilde quote "One does not see anything until one sees its beauty" is well used in the introduction to Awakening Beauty, the Dr. Hauschka Way, out this month (Clarkson Potter), by Susan West Kurz. In 1967...

NATURALLY PRETTY.(Crabtree & Evelyn Naturals collection )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Byline: Maria Ricapito If you're lucky enough to wash ashore on the island in the Bahamas that India Hicks calls home, it won't be hard to spot her house. It's the one with no A.C., even on the hottest day, and a big rainwater tank that...

You're Nobody Till Somebody Bugs You; A computer-hacking scandal has ensnared banking heir Matthew Mellon, ex-husband of Tamara Mellon, who built the Jimmy Choo shoe empire.
May 1, 2006... Byline: Dominick Dunne It's easy to be flip about a man who is usually referred to in newspaper articles and gossip columns as "the scion of one of America's wealthiest banking and oil families," especially if the references have to do...