New York City women who support Barack Obama held a rally at City Hall yesterday, ostensibly to counter the post-Palin storyline of female voters moving to John McCain.

At the end of the rally, I asked some attendees if thought Palin was being treated fairly during the campaign, or if, as Hillary Clinton asserted during her campaign, sexism is still an issue on the campaign trail.

“I can’t speak for Ms. Palin,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James.

“Nor do I think that we need to waste much time on it!” shouted actress Kathleen Turner.

The crowd roared. Afterwards, Representatives Nydia Velazquez and Yvette Clarke took turns at answering the question.

When he’s not grilling rocker Jon Bon Jovi, or tooling around Dubai with ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft is often found chatting up the various characters at Café Luxembourg on West 70th Street.

“It’s always been my local,” said Mr. Kroft.

On Sept. 10, owner Lynn Wagenknecht’s longtime celebrity haunt celebrated its 25th anniversary with a bubbly, sliders-and-fries-stuffed party attended by such notable guests as screenwriter Nora Ephron and actresses Kathleen Turner and Aida Turturro.

Mr. Kroft was among the first to arrive—and last to leave.

“It’s halfway between work and home…I know that I can walk home, stop here, have a drink and meet interesting people,” said Mr.  read more »

On Tuesday, July 29, an uptown crowd of socials gathered at Michael’s to celebrate a new book called Party Favors: A Novel of Politics and Greed, about the corrupt ways of Washington, D.C., political fund-raising.

The author, Nicole Sexton, spent 15 years in Washington as a Republican Party fund-raiser working for the likes of former Virginia Senator George Allen, North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole and publisher Steve Forbes, when he ran for president in 2000. Ms Sexton has since departed for a more do-gooding role, working for Bono’s One Campaign against global poverty and AIDS, but not before she wrote the novel--which she described as "Legally Blonde meets Thank You For Smoking"--based on how she went from a naïve White House intern to a disillusioned G.  read more »

“I have a broken toe and I walked here—I break them all the time!” said actress Blythe Danner (a.k.a. Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom), wearing not hideous gladiators but daisy-accented sandals with an elegant white pantsuit at Planned Parenthood’s One Million Strong Cocktail Party on Monday, June 3.  read more »

Actress Kathleen Turner officially joins the ranks of Margaret Seltzer and James Frey today, having admitted through a lawyer that certain parts of her recent memoir are untrue. In the book, published stateside in February as Send Yourself Roses by an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, Ms. Turner wrote that during the filming of the 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married, Mr. Cage was "arrested twice for drunk-driving and, I think, for stealing a dog. He'd come across a Chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket." The line also appeared as part of an excerpt published in UK paper The Daily Mail under the headline, "Why I detest Burt Reynolds and Nicolas Cage."  read more »

Want to get up close and personal with actress Kathleen Turner, near enough to feel her, um, body heat? Better start riding the bus. As the director of the off-Broadway revival of Crimes of the Heart, Ms. Turner has had to forfeit her generous Hollywood salary. She now eats out less and takes mass transit, she told Newsweek.  read more »

Wall Streeters prop up the real estate bubble in anticipation of juicy year-end pay-outs; not since before 9/11 have finance folks been compensated for their troubles so handily.

Aaaaaaaagh, George Gurley and his lover Hilly are back in couples therapy.

Back to Canada with ya, eh? Michael Ignatieff says see ya to America, off to save his homeland.

A flood in Mort Zuckerman’s penthouse triplex at 950 Fifth Avenue has forced him to take shelter at the New York Palace hotel, according to New York magazine. And Coney Island could soon look a lot more like Vegas.

And Daniel Akst wants to break out the Champagne and toast the end of the housing bubble.