Mr Anderson Cooper

The other day, while reading OK Weekly (yes, we subscribe--the greatest birthday present a girl could ask for.  It's also my favorite gift to give to newly weds.  I like to say that if there's a celebrity gossip magazine in the house the newly weds will never lack for conversation) I passed by an ad for the new Anderson Cooper talk show.  I turned to the hubbs and said, "Did you know he's a Vanderbilt?" (I should enter here and say that the hubbs had no idea who Anderson Cooper is).  The hubbs said, "This generation of Vanderbilts are all self-made.  We used it as a case-study once.  They dispersed their money to the point that none of them were worth anything." 

I looked straight at the hubbs and said, "with a name like Vanderbilt you can never be self-made.  Gloria may have been born penniless (which she was not) and she is a gifted person in her own right but having the last name Vanderbilt paved the way for her to get the things that she wanted."

The hubbs could see where I was coming from but still thought that we could use the Vanderbilts as people who didn't invest well.

The whole conversation reminded me of this quote.

Vanderbilt or no, I say we're all pretty lucky to have the opportunities that we do.