Friday, January 16, 2009

Alexandra Penney Stopped Reading Comments On The Daily Beast Message Board



(image via Jeffrey Hirsch/NySocialDiary)

Not to all those critical commenters of Alexandra Penney's column/serial "The Bag Lady Papers" in The Daily Beast on life after having her savings plundered by Bernie Maddoff: she's no longer reading the message board comments. From our favorite social chronicler, David Patrick Columbia (who had lunch with her yesterday) at NYSocialDiary:

"I went down to Michael’s to have lunch with Alexandra Penney – she of the now long list of serious Madoff loser/victims ... She got involved with Madoff about ten years ago when she had a nice chunk of an IRA and wanted to put it somewhere safe and providing income. A man she knew, who was 87 at the time (and now at 97, having been with Bernie Madoff for 30 years, he’s LOST EVERYTHING), advised her to put her money with Bernie.

She had never heard of him until that moment. She also didn’t like the idea of putting it all in one place. But her adviser was both older (obviously), and someone whom she held in respect and esteem as being smart and wise.

"... She got involved with Madoff about ten years ago when she had a nice chunk of an IRA and wanted to put it somewhere safe and providing income. A man she knew, who was 87 at the time (and now at 97, having been with Bernie Madoff for 30 years, he’s LOST EVERYTHING), advised her to put her money with Bernie.

"She had never heard of him until that moment. She also didn’t like the idea of putting it all in one place. But her adviser was both older (obviously), and someone whom she held in respect and esteem as being smart and wise.

"... Right after, Tina Brown hired her to write a blog about it for the Daily Beast. After the first one was published, she was surprised to read the Comments to her blog. Many messages were angry and nasty. She stopped reading them."


Read about the whole fascinating luncheon here.

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