Linda Chavez
Linda Chavez at CPAC in February 2010.
7th Assistant to the President for Public Liaison
In office April 8, 1985 – February 4, 1986
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Faith Whittlesey
Succeeded by	Mari Maseng
Personal details
Born	Linda Lou Chavez (1947-06-17) June 17, 1947 (age 65) Albuquerque, New Mexico
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Christopher Gersten
Children	David, Pablo, and Rudy
Alma mater	University of Colorado UCLA
Occupation	Politician Columnist
Religion	Roman Catholic[1]

Linda Lou Chavez^[2] (born June 17, 1947) is an American author, commentator, and radio talk show host. She is also a Fox News analyst, Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, has a syndicated column that appears in newspapers nationwide each week, and sits on the Board of Directors of two Fortune 1000 companies: Pilgrims Pride and ABM Industries Inc. Chavez was the highest-ranking woman in President Ronald Reagan's White House, and was the first Latina ever nominated to the United States Cabinet, when President George W. Bush nominated her Secretary of Labor.

Early life and family[link]

Chavez was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of Velma Lucy (née McKenna) and Rudolfo Enrique Chavez, a house painter.^[3][2] She is of Spanish/Mexican descent on her father's side (her father was descended from immigrants to what is now New Mexico from Spain in the 17th century; his family had lived in New Mexico for several hundred years, and one of his ancestors was a Governor of New Mexico while it was still under Mexican control).^[2] Her mother was of English and Irish ancestry.^[4][5] Chavez earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in 1970. She attended graduate school at UCLA.

She is married to Christopher Gersten, former Bush Administration official, and is the mother of three adult sons, David, Pablo, and Rudy. She is a grandmother of nine and resides with her family in Boulder, Colorado. Chavez was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism when marrying her husband.^[6] She later returned to Catholicism. Some of Chavez's distant paternal ancestors had been Conversos (Sephardic Jews who converted to Catholicism).^[7]

Background with labor unions[link]

Starting in 1975, Chavez was employed within the inner circles of the United States second largest teachers' union, the American Federation of Teachers, where she was responsible for editing that organization's publications.^[8][9] She was a confidante of Al Shanker,^[10] the AFT's president. While she believed in President Shanker's personal philosophy of trade unionism, she eventually came to feel that many in the organization were intent on moving the union in another direction after Shanker's inevitable departure. She later wrote that the more she learned about the goals of these newer union leaders, the less comfortable she felt in the organization. She left the AFT in 1983.

Career in Republican administrations[link]

Chavez has held a number of appointed positions, among them White House Director of Public Liaison (1985),^[11] under President Ronald Reagan; Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983–1985) appointed by President Reagan; and Chairman of the National Commission on Migrant Education (1988–1992) under President George H.W. Bush. Concurrently with some of these positions she served as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984–1986) under President Reagan.

In 1992, Chavez was elected by the United Nations Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. In August 1993, the sub-commission asked Chavez to study systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during wartime, including internal armed conflict. As Special Rapporteur, Chavez reported regularly for nearly four years to different sub-commission meetings. In May 1997, Chavez asked that the final report be finished and delivered by a colleague, and was granted permission to withdraw from the project. (On June 22, 1998, her successor, Gay McDougall, released the final version of "Contemporary Forms of Slavery".)^[12]

Chavez was the head of Governor George W. Bush's taskforce on immigration when he ran for president in 2000, and she later met with him on a number of occasions while he was president to discuss immigration reform.^[13]

Secretary of Labor nomination[link]

In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Chavez for Secretary of Labor. She was the first Hispanic woman nominated to a United States cabinet position. However, she withdrew from consideration after it was revealed, through her neighbor Margaret "Peggy" Zwisler, that she had allegedly given money to Marta Mercado, a one-time illegal immigrant from Guatemala who lived in her home more than a decade earlier.^[14] Chavez withdrew as President Bush's nominee but stated she never felt pressure from Bush's political team to do so. Chavez has always maintained that she knew Mercado was in the United States illegally, stating "I think I always knew." ^[15].

Run for U.S. Senate[link]

In 1986, Chavez ran as a Republican for the United States Senate against Democrat Barbara Mikulski in the state of Maryland. Chavez left her post as the highest ranking woman in Ronald Reagan's White House in an attempt to win the open U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. The election was the second time in modern U.S. history that two women faced each other in statewide general election. The race earned a plethora of national media coverage.

In the campaign, Chavez attacked Mikulski as a "San Francisco-style, George McGovern, liberal Democrat."^[16] Because of a possible interpretation of "San Francisco-style", Chavez was accused of making Mikulski's sexual orientation a central issue of the political campaign. However, the term referred to Jeane Kirkpatrick's 1984 Republican National Convention "Blame America First" speech, in which she coined the phrase "San Francisco Liberal" in reference to the Democratic Convention in San Francisco.^[16]

Mikulski defeated Chavez with 61% of the vote. Chavez earned more votes than any Republican in Maryland in a generation.

Columnist and commentator[link]

Chavez is a syndicated columnist and a Fox News political commentator. She frequently appears on a number of national news programs, including The O'Reilly Factor, the Glenn Beck show, Hannity and Colmes, The Rush Limbaugh Show, Good Morning America, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and Fox and Friends. She has previously been a regularly panelist on the Mclaughlin Group, Crossfire, and Eye on Washington. She has guest-hosted several shows, including Hannity and Colmes, sitting in for Sean Hannity, and To the Contrary, sitting in for host Bonnie Erbe.

She quit PBS's To the Contrary after a May 12, 2000, incident when the host, Bonnie Erbé, made the claim on air that, at her age, Chavez was more likely to be hit by lightning than raped.^[17] The comment was made during a discussion on gun control and whether it was necessary for Chavez to obtain a gun to defend herself against a potential rape. Chavez and Erbé argued on the opposite sides of the gun ownership issue. Chavez decided to leave the show after Erbé's controversial comment. After an absence of more than seven years, Chavez returned to the program on January 18, 2008^[18] and is listed as a panelist on its website.^[19]

Political Action Committees and non-profit foundations[link]

Chavez "sits at the helm of a political empire," according to the Washington Post. She is the chairman and founder of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank devoted to issues of race and ethnicity. The Center is the leading conservative organization fighting against race-based public policies, known as "affirmative action" in contracting, employment, higher education, and K-12. Under Linda Chavez's leadership, the Center for Equal Opportunity has released dozens of studies documenting the extent to which race is a factor in college admissions, at over 60 colleges and universities.^[20]

Chavez is also the founder and Chairman of Stop Union Political Abuse (SUPA), a federally registered Political Action Committee. In August 2007, the Washington Post reported that Chavez and her immediate family members, through political action committees they had created, had raised $24.5 million from January 2003 to December 2006. The Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse, and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee donated $242,000 to politicians. The Post also listed the salaries of her family members, who worked for the PACs. Chavez's family members earned a total of $261,237, each earning an average of approximately $10,000 per year for their part-time work with the PACs.

The Post also reported that over the previous two years, the Federal Election Commission has fined three of the PACs for a total of $262,500 for failing to file timely reports and for not promptly disclosing all the money raised and spent. However, the FEC found no intentional wrongdoing.^[21]

In addition to the income from the PACs, the Post reported that Chavez and her family had been paid as executives of four nonprofit foundations founded by Chavez and her family. Between 2003 and 2006, the four foundations, combined, raised about $350,000 per year.^[21]

In January 2008, Chavez and her husband said that they were continuing some of their fundraising operations, though they were closing down one of their PACs.^[22]

Affiliations[link]

Chavez is a Director of two Fortune 1000 companies, Pilgrim's Pride and ABM Industries. Pilgrims Pride is the largest poultry producer in the United States, and ABM Industries is the 2nd largest property management company in the United States. Chavez is a past Board member of Greyhound Lines as well as the Foundation for Teaching Economics.

Chavez sits on the Boards of several non-profit organizations, including the Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy,^[23] and was named to the advisory board of the Bruin Alumni Association.^[24]

Awards and recognitions[link]

In 2000, Chavez was named a Library of Congress Living Legend.^[25]

Writings[link]

• Betrayal: how union bosses shake down their members and corrupt American politics, 2004 (ISBN 1-4000-5259-9)
• An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (Or How I Became the Most Hated Hispanic in America), 2002 (ISBN 0-4650-8903-8)
• Out of the Barrio: toward a new politics of Hispanic assimilation , 1991 (ISBN 0-465-05431-5)
• Dumbing Down Higher Education Creators.com Opinion Column, January 11, 2008
• Hispanics and the American Dream

References[link]

External links[link]

• Center for Equal Opportunity web site
• Podcasts of Chavez's recent articles
• Booknotes interview with Chavez on Out of the Barrio, March 22, 1992.

v t e Assistant to the President for Public Liaison Special Counsel to the President, Special Assistant to the President, Assistant to the President for Public Liaison, Assistant to the President for Public Outreach, Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs Charles Colson · William J. Baroody, Jr. · Midge Costanza · Anne Wexler · Elizabeth Dole · Faith Whittlesey · Linda Chavez · Mari Maseng · Rebecca Range · Bobbie Kilberg · Cecile B. Kremer · Alexis Herman · Maria Echaveste · Minyon Moore · Mary Beth Cahill · Lezlee Westine · Rhonda Keenum · Julie E. Cram · Valerie Jarrett

Adrian Grenier
Grenier at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, April 2007
Born	(1976-07-10) July 10, 1976 (age 35) Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, musician
Years active	1997–present

Adrian Grenier (born July 10, 1976) is an American actor, musician and director. He is best known for his lead role on the HBO original series, Entourage, as Vincent Chase.

Early life[link]

Grenier was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the son of Karesse Grenier and John T. Dunbar. His parents met at a commune in the 1970s, and were never married.^[1][2][3] His father was from Ohio and was of European ancestry (the Dunbar surname is of Scottish origin); his mother was born in New Mexico to a Hispanic family, with Mestizo roots; a DNA test, on the PBS program Finding Your Roots, showed Adrian to have approximately 8% Native American ancestry and that his matrilineal line was Native American.^[4][5] (The 2 facts are consistent with the mother of the woman he thought was his Apache ancestor being the full-blooded Apache.)

Grenier was raised by his mother, a real estate agent, in Manhattan, New York.^[6][7][8] He went to Bard College in New York.

Career[link]

In 1997, Grenier made his film debut in the independent drama Arresting Gena. In 1999, he played opposite Melissa Joan Hart in Drive Me Crazy as well as in Britney Spears' music video "(You Drive Me) Crazy", in 2001, starred in James Toback's Harvard Man . In 2002, Grenier made his directorial debut with the documentary, Shot in the Dark. The documentary chronicles his years-long search for his father, with whom Grenier's mother broke up when Adrian was still a baby. Grenier and Dunbar remained estranged for 18 years, and in 2001, Adrian began work on the documentary in an attempt to forge a relationship with Dunbar. The two eventually reunited and maintain a warm relationship.^[9] HBO premiered the documentary on June 3, 2007.

In 2004, Grenier landed the lead role in the HBO series Entourage, which has brought him his most substantial notice and success.^[10] In 2006, he won a role in The Devil Wears Prada, as Anne Hathaway's boyfriend, Nate. In 2007, People magazine ranked him #7 in its annual list of Sexiest Men Alive.^[11]

On June 2, 2008, Grenier's new show, Alter Eco (not to be confused with Fair Trade importers Alter Eco), premiered on Planet Green. The show features the actor and his team of green experts showing changes that can be made to become more eco-friendly.^[12]

On December 17, 2009, Grenier and his business partner Peter Glatzer founded the green lifestyle site shft.com.^[13]

On September 27, 2010 HBO premiered the documentary Teenage Paparazzo, a film concerning the relationship between the celebrity and society that Grenier worked on for three years as a producer. The work features interviews with celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Alec Baldwin, and Whoopi Goldberg.^[14]

In addition to being a filmmaker, Grenier is also a musician, playing guitar, drums, French horn, and the piano. He is a member of two New York bands, lead singer in Kid Friendly and drummer in The Honey Brothers.^[15][16]

In 2012, Grenier partnered with a Seattle, Washington brewery and former Nike designer Jim Hawkins to found Churchkey Can Company.^[17]

Filmography[link]

Films[link]

Television[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Adrian Grenier at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview on WHO.com with Adrian Grenier
• Interview in Submerge Magazine with Adrian Grenier on his band The Honey Brothers
• Reckless Adrian Grenier App

Michelle Rodriguez
Rodriguez at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2010.
Born	Mayte Michelle Rodríguez (1978-07-12) July 12, 1978 (age 33)[1] San Antonio, Texas, US
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1999–present
Website
www.michelle-rodriguez.com

Mayte Michelle Rodríguez^[2] (born July 12, 1978),^[1] known professionally as Michelle Rodriguez, is an American actress. Following on from her breakthrough role in 2000's Girlfight, she is best known for playing tough-girl roles and starring in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Fast and the Furious (2001), Resident Evil (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Avatar (2009), Machete (2010) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011), as well as for her role as Ana Lucia Cortez in the television series Lost (2005–2006, 2009, 2010).

Early life[link]

Michelle Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother, Carmen Milady (née Pared Espinal), is a native of the Dominican Republic, and her father, Rafael Rodriguez, is Puerto Rican and served in the United States Army.^[3][4][5] She has a total of ten siblings and half-siblings. She was partly raised by her devoutly religious maternal grandmother and was brought up a Jehovah's Witness (her mother's religion), though she has since abandoned that faith.^[6][7]

Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight and lived in Puerto Rico until the age of eleven, later settling in Jersey City, New Jersey. She dropped out of high school but later earned her GED;^{[citation needed]} in total she was expelled from five schools.^[8] Rodriguez briefly attended business school before quitting to pursue a career in acting, with the ultimate goal of becoming a writer and director.^[9]

According to the PBS television show, Finding Your Roots with Dr. Louis Gates Jr., Rodriguez is 73% European, 23% African, and a tiny percentage of Indigenous.

Career[link]

Rodriguez at the New York Fashion Week, spring 2006

Having run across an ad for an open casting call and attending her first audition, Rodriguez beat 350 other applicants to win her first role in the low-budget 2000 independent film, Girlfight. With her performance as Diana Guzman, a troubled teen who decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer,^[10] Rodriguez accumulated several awards and nominations for the role in independent circles, including major acting accolades from the National Board of Review, Deauville Film Festival,^[11] Independent Spirit Awards,^[12] Gotham Awards,^[13] Las Vegas Film Critics Sierra Awards, and many others. The film itself took home a top prize at the Sundance^[14] and won Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2002, she was also featured in Ja Rule's music video for his song Always On Time.

Subsequently, she has had notable roles in other successful movies, including The Fast and the Furious, Resident Evil, Blue Crush, and S.W.A.T..^[15] In 2004, Rodriguez lent her voice to the video game Halo 2, playing a Marine.^[16] She also provided the voice of Liz Ricarro in the Cartoon Network series IGPX.^[17] From 2005 to 2006, she played tough cop Ana Lucia Cortez^[18] on the television series Lost during the show's second season (the character's first appearance was a flashback on season 1's finale, Exodus: Part 1), and returned for a cameo in the second episode of the show's fifth season The Lie in 2009 and again in the penultimate episode of the series What They Died For in 2010. In 2006, Rodriguez was featured in her own episode of G4's show Icons.^[19]

In 2008, she appeared in Battle in Seattle alongside Charlize Theron.^[20] Rodriguez next appeared in the fourth installment of the The Fast and the Furious franchise,^[21] which was titled simply Fast & Furious and released to theaters on April 3, 2009.^[22] Rodriguez starred in James Cameron's high-budget sci-fi adventure film Avatar, which was released to theaters on December 18, 2009. The film became the highest-grossing film in history and Rodriguez's most successful film to date. She has also expressed interest in returning for the film's two sequels.^[23][24]

She starred in Trópico de Sangre, an independent film based on the Dominican Republic's historic Mirabal sisters who were assassinated in 1960 by the Dominican dictator Trujillo for opposing his rule, the same year.^[25][26]

Michelle Rodriguez (left) and Aaron Eckhart (right), along with director Jonathan Liebesman at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International

In 2010, Rodriguez appeared in Robert Rodriguez's Machete, which also co-starred Danny Trejo, Robert DeNiro and Steven Seagal. The film was opened to mostly positive reviews and earned $44 million in the box-office on a $10 million budget.^[27] In 2011, she appeared with Aaron Eckhart in the science fiction film Battle: Los Angeles which grossed over $200 million in the worldwide box office.

As of July 20, 2010, Rodriguez's films have grossed $1,272,734,719 in the United States and $3,686,521,043 worldwide.^[28]

Typecast[link]

Following her debut in Girlfight, Rodriguez has consistently portrayed tough girl, tomboyish characters that operate in traditional male fields such as the police force or armed forces. Rodriguez says that she does not mind the typecasting, and in fact, is somewhat responsible for it:^[29]

Oh baby, I was typecast the minute I did a film called Girlfight years ago. That has nothing to do with anything, it just has to do with… you allow yourself to be typecast. If I decided I didn't want to be typecast tomorrow I'd just go do an indie film where I play some poor girl who goes through some excruciating experience and win myself an award for crying or being raped [breaks into laughter] or playing someone with mental illness. But at the end of the day I'm not in it for the acting. If I were in it for the acting then I would be worried about people not giving me the opportunity to express my vast array of emotions on the screen.

I could give two shits. I only wanna be someone I respect or someone that I consider interesting or fun. I'm here to entertain people and make a statement about female empowerment and strength and that's what I've done for the last 10 years, and people can call it typecast, but I pigeonholed myself and I put myself in that box for saying no to everything else that came on my plate. Saying no to the girlfriend, saying no to the girl that gets captured, no to this, no to that and eventually I just got left with the strong chick that's always being killed and there's nothing wrong with that.

Notable rankings[link]

Several times over the course of her career, she has been ranked in Stuff magazine's "102 Sexiest Women In The World", Maxim's "100 Sexiest Women", and People en Español's "50 Más Bellos", and was ranked No.74 in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World 2009".

Writing[link]

Rodriguez is currently working on two screenplays. One is a family film based on a concept which she describes as "a 2012 story about purity and animals and children"^[30] and the other is a revision of an American remake of the 1997 German film Bandits which she describes as a film "about four girls who break out of jail and get chased across the country by the feds and by this MTV-like representative".^[31]

Personal life[link]

A DNA test of Rodriguez, performed by the television program Finding Your Roots, on PBS, stated that her ancestry is 73% European, 23% African, and 4% Native American.^[32]. She also stated on the program that there was some racial conflict between her families since her Puerto Rican father, Rafael was light skinned and her Dominican mother, Carmen had a dark complexion.

Relationships[link]

Rodriguez in December 2009

In early 2000, Rodriguez broke off a near engagement to a Muslim boyfriend, citing opposition to religious requests he asked of her.^[33] She has since dated or reportedly been linked with her Fast and the Furious co-star Vin Diesel,^[34] and SWAT co-star Olivier Martinez.^[35][36]

In July 2006, Rodriguez told UK's Cosmopolitan magazine that she was not lesbian, but had "experimented with both sexes."^[37] In November 2006, her openly bisexual Bloodrayne co-star Kristanna Loken's comments to The Advocate were widely interpreted and reported by the media as an admission that the two were in a relationship, though the relationship was never officially confirmed by either actress.^[38]

In June 2007, the lesbian magazine Curve ran a cover story that claimed Rodriguez to be bisexual.^[39] Rodriguez criticized the magazine for this, asserting that the magazine "put words in (her) mouth".^[40] She again stated that she was not a lesbian in a November 2008 interview in the Dominican women's magazine Cayena.^[41]

Legal issues[link]

Between 2002 and 2008, Rodriguez was involved in a number of legal issues, mostly relating to charges of driving under the influence of alcohol.

In March 2002, Rodriguez was arrested for assault after getting into a fight with her roommate.^[42] The charges were later dropped after the roommate declined to press the allegations in court.^[43]

In November 2003, Rodriguez went to court to face eight misdemeanor charges based on two driving incidents including a hit and run and DUI.^[44] In June 2004, Rodriguez pleaded no contest in Los Angeles to three of the charges: hit and run, drunken driving, and driving with a suspended license.^[45] She went to jail for 48 hours, performed community service at the morgues of two New York hospitals, completed a three-month alcohol program, and was placed on probation for three years.^[46]

In 2005, while filming Lost in Hawaii, Rodriguez was pulled over by Honolulu police multiple times; she was cited for driving at 83 mph (134 km/h) in a 55 mph (89 km/h) zone on Oahu on November 1, and was fined $357, paid a $300 fine for driving 90 mph (140 km/h) in a 35 mph (56 km/h) zone on October 20, was fined $197 for going 80 mph (130 km/h) in a 50 mph (80 km/h) zone on August 24.^[47]

On December 1, 2005, Rodriguez was pulled over and arrested for driving under the influence.^[48] Rodriguez pleaded not guilty when arraigned,^[49] but on the day of her trial in April 2006, she pleaded guilty to one charge of driving under the influence. She chose to pay a $500 fine and spend five days in jail instead of doing 240 hours of community service.^[45] Rodriguez cited her high doses of allergy-relieving steroids as part of the reason for her erratic behavior.^[50] Because the Kailua incident was a violation of her Los Angeles probation, Rodriguez was sentenced to 60 days in jail, a 30 day alcohol rehabilitation program and another 30 days of community service, including work for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, by a judge in Los Angeles on May 1, 2006.^[51] Because of overcrowding, she was released from jail on the same day she entered. She wrote about the experience on her blog.^[52]

In September 2007 however, Rodriguez allegedly violated her probation by not completing her community service and not following an alcohol education program. It was reported that Rodriguez originally submitted a document stating she performed community service on September 5, 2006, but it was later confirmed she was actually in New York City that day. Her lawyer claimed it was a clerical error.^[53] On October 10, 2007, following a hearing, she was sentenced to 180 days jail time after agreeing to admit to violating her probation. She was expected to spend the full 180-day term in jail, as she had been deemed ineligible for work furloughs and house arrest.^[54] However, after turning herself in to begin the jail term at the Century Regional Detention Facility located in Lynwood, California on December 23, 2007,^[55] Rodriguez was released 18 days later on January 9, 2008 due to overcrowding.^[56]

Filmography[link]

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References[link]