Music drifts into our back yard from the benefit party almost one mile away and it’s only 5:00 pm. This is the land of benefits; almost every Democratic candidate for President comes to the Hamptons in the summer to raise money. Last night we attended two parties, to one we were invited, to the other we were not. At the first we met Lloyd C. Blankfein, recently elected Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. We (my wife Sheila and I) commented on the wonderful research Goldman had done detailing how the performance of responsible companies exceeded those that were less responsible. Mr. Blankfein had not read the research, but noted that there were over 1,000 people at Goldman who write such reports. We also learned that he had two children at Harvard. Telling him what I did (he didn’t ask) he said he was unfamiliar with Seventh Generation since he never went shopping in a supermarket.

At the second party, with several hundred in attendance, I noticed Senator Corzine of New Jersey dancing up a storm – I was amazed given his recent accident. The house that housed the party was huge, I’m guessing it is worth over $40 million. The Hamptons is a place that attracts a huge number of people with lots of money, there are convertible Bentleys and more Mercedes that you could ever keep track of.

This morning my son came running out of the house. He told be that a young woman, only 20 years old, who had been his boss all summer at the store where he worked was killed last night in a car accident. She drove her car into a tree. He sobbed for a long time in my arms. He couldn’t understand how someone so young could die. I was glad to be home to help comfort him.

Life is short under the best of circumstances, and much, much shorter under the worst. My son went to work today on his day off to fill in for her. He didn’t know what else to do.

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