Arianna Huffington

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Arianna Huffington
Huffington campaigning for Governor of California at UC Berkeley on September 11, 2003
Born:	July 15, 1950 Athens, Greece
Occupation:	columnist
Nationality:	Greek
Genres:	non-fiction
Subjects:	politics, spirituality, environment
Website:	www.huffingtonpost.com

Arianna Huffington (born Arianna Stassinopoulos (Greek: Αριάννα Στασινόπουλου) on July 15, 1950 in Athens, Greece) is an author and nationally syndicated columnist in the United States.

Huffington describes herself as a "former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist". She is the founder of The Huffington Post, an online news and commentary website and aggregated blog. Her latest book is On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life.

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Career 2.1 California recall election 2.2 Spirituality 2.3 Radio and Internet presence 3 Trivia 4 Bibliography 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Personal life

Huffington is the daughter of Konstantinos (a journalist and management consultant) and Elli (Georgiadi) Stassinopoulos, and the sister of Agapi (an author, speaker and performer). She moved to England at the age of 16, and attended Girton College at Cambridge University where she was President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1971 and graduated with an MA in economics in 1972.

After graduation, she moved to London and lived with the journalist and broadcaster Bernard Levin, whom she had met while the two were panelists on the TV show Face the Music. She left Levin in 1980, after he refused to marry her, and moved to the United States (Levin died in 2004.)

She met millionaire Michael Huffington at a 1985 party hosted by Ann Getty in San Francisco. The couple were married in 1986. They moved to Washington, D.C., when he was appointed to the Department of Defense. They later established residency in Santa Barbara, California, in order for him to run in 1992 as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he won by a significant margin. He was a political conservative, although he had publicly supported gays in the military. In 1994 he narrowly lost the race for the U.S. Senate seat from California to incumbent Dianne Feinstein.

The couple divorced in 1997, and in 1998 Michael Huffington disclosed his bisexuality. A 1999 magazine article claimed that Arianna Huffington "entered the marriage... with full knowledge of [Michael Huffington's] sexual interests in men". ^[1] The financial terms of their divorce agreement remain undisclosed, but Huffington gained much of her wealth from her husband. Arianna Huffington chose to retain her former husband's surname, although she had been known as Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington during the period of her marriage.

[edit] Career

In 1996, Huffington and politically liberal comedian Al Franken participated in Comedy Central's coverage of the 1996 U.S. presidential election. For her work, she and the writing team of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher were nominated for an Emmy, for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program. She has also made a few forays into acting with roles on shows such as "Roseanne" and "Help me Help You".^[2]

Huffington's shift in political ideology was purportedly inspired by her Left, Right & Center segment colleague, Robert Scheer, her friend Al Franken, and her belief that the Republican Party does not do enough to help the "less fortunate." Huffington's political transition coincided with the crisis in the Balkans during the 1990s. Huffington was a strong, vocal opponent of American intervention against the Serbians during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars.

In 2000, she instigated the 'Shadow Conventions', which appeared at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. To one of the attendees at the Shadow Convention in Philadelphia, State Representative Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, "the subjects of the Shadow Convention—campaign finance reform, reform of America's drug laws, fighting the causes of poverty, reducing corporate influence on the political process—showed that she had come a long way from her days as a Gingrich-backer while remaining a registered Republican."^{[citation needed]}

Huffington heads The Detroit Project, a public interest group lobbying automakers to start producing "cars that will end our dependence on foreign oil."^{[citation needed]} The Project's 2003 TV ads, which equated driving sport utility vehicles to funding terrorism, proved to be particularly controversial, with some stations refusing to run them. Huffington drives a gasoline-electric hybrid car, the Toyota Prius.

Huffington, who was once a Republican, changed political affiliations in the late 1990s, and backed the Democrats. Huffington explains her sudden conversion on her official web site. In a 2004 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart she announced her endorsement of John Kerry by saying that "When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling." In recent years, she has moved closer to the Democratic Party. Huffington was a panel speaker during the 2005 California Democratic Party State Convention, held in Los Angeles. She also spoke at the 2004 College Democrats of America Convention in Boston, which was held in conjunction with the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

[edit] California recall election

Huffington was an independent candidate to replace California governor Gray Davis in the 2003 recall election. She described her candidacy against front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger as "the hybrid versus the Hummer," making reference to her ownership of an energy-efficient vehicle, the Prius and Schwarzenegger's of the gas-guzzling auto brand. Despite briefly retaining former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley as a campaign advisor and noted ad executive Bill Hillsman as her media director, she dropped out of the race on September 30, 2003 to instead try to get the recall defeated. "I'm pulling out, and I'm going to concentrate every ounce of time and energy over the next week working to defeat the recall because I realize now that's the only way to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger," she said. Others attributed her exit to her inability to garner support for her candidacy, noting that polls showed that only about 2% of likely California voters planned to vote for her at the time of her withdrawal.[2] Though she failed to stop the recall, Huffington's name still appeared on the ballot and she placed 5th in a field of 135 candidates, capturing 0.6% of the votes. Her former husband endorsed Arnold Schwarzenegger (a fellow Republican) over her.

[edit] Spirituality

Huffington has always embraced spirituality. Her book The Fourth Instinct is based on the idea that all humans have an inherent spiritual yearning.^[3] She now does not belong to an organized religious group, but meditates regularly. She was allegedly a longtime follower of John-Roger and a minister in his Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (considered "a suspicious organization" by the Cult Awareness Network, a once-independent religious watchdog group now operated by associates of the Church of Scientology). During her then-husband's 1994 campaign, she denied being a member of the organization, but stated she was a close friend of its leader.^[4]

[edit] Radio and Internet presence

In the 1970s, on the strength of her prominence in the Cambridge Union, Arianna Stassinopoulos was a frequent panelist on the weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, Any Questions?

Huffington is co-host of the nationally-syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Center. She was originally introduced by the moderator as occupying the chair "from the right," but is now described as "coming from the fourth dimension of political time and space", or from the 'independent-progressive blogosphere'.

Huffington also has an Internet presence with her website The Huffington Post, which features blogs and commentary from her and from a number of journalists, public officials, and celebrities. The site also highlights news stories from various sources. The site was a source of controversy when it was revealed that a post identified as the writing of George Clooney had actually not been written by him per se, but had been compiled from statements he had made and opinion pieces he had previously written. [3] (For more information on the website, see the Huffington Post article.)

Prior to the Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a Web site called Arianna.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a Web site called Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for right-wingers opposing Clinton.

[edit] Trivia

Wrote (as Arianna Stassinopoulos) with Irene Papas the words to the album "Odes" (Polydor CD 833 864-2), which was released in 1979. The music was performed by Vangelis Papathanassiou (Vangelis).

[edit] Bibliography

• The Female Woman (1973) (ISBN 0-7067-0098-8)
• After Reason (1978) (ISBN 0-8128-2465-2)
• Picasso: Creator and Destroyer (1988) (ISBN 0-671-45446-3)
• The Gods of Greece (1993) (ISBN 0-87113-554-X)
• Maria Callas (1993) (ISBN 0-8154-1228-2)
• The Fourth Instinct (1994) (ISBN 0-7432-6163-1)
• Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom (1998) (ISBN 0-517-39699-8)
• How to Overthrow the Government (2000) (ISBN 0-06-098831-2)
• Pigs at the Trough (2003) (ISBN 1-4000-4771-4)
• Fanatics & Fools (2004) (ISBN 1-4013-5213-8)
• On Becoming Fearless....in Love, Work, and Life (2006) (ISBN 0-316-16681-2)

[edit] References

1. ^ GQ magazine, 1999 profile of Michael Huffington
2. ^ Arianna Huffington's imdb page.
3. ^ Gallagher, Maggie. "The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul" (review). National Review, July 11, 1994. Accessed online June 11, 2006. [1].
4. ^ http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/msia.html

[edit] External links

• The Huffington Post website
• The Detroit Project website
• Arianna Huffington at AlterNet
• Arianna Huffington on the Tavis Smiley show. Watch her interview online. October 2006
• Campaign contributions made by Arianna Huffington
• Left, Right and Center website
• Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness website
• Vanity Fair profile of Arianna Huffington
• Arianna Huffington Profile at BigSpeak