“They have a huge commitment to building up the investigative team,” said Mr. Bernstein said of his new station. “We will be very involved with several investigations related to the election season,” he said, noting Colorado is a swing state.

Mr. Bernstein was an investigative reporter at The Daily until July, when he was laid off as part of the iPad newspaper’s round of reductions.

Prior to joining The Daily, Mr. Bernstein was a television reporter in Wichita Falls, TX (“I was this Yankee Jewish kid from Great Neck”) and Phoenix. At iPad newspaper, Mr. Bernstein got scoops on the planning behind the September 11 terrorist attacks and the BP Oil Spill.

Mr. Bernstein announced his departure from New York as one does these days, in a Facebook post:

“Time to say goodbye ☹. It has been a fabulous few years back home in NYC, but duty calls and my wonderful wife and I are relocating for work. I’ve accepted a Senior Investigative Reporter gig and I couldn’t be more excited! Details to be released at a later date.

The things I will miss most about NYC: my adorable and loving niece, The Daily and ALL my fabulous colleagues and friends who are truly some of the most talented journalists, editors, writers, producers, designers and developers in the biz, Central Park, jogging the reservoir, my long bike rides and fabulous conversations with Jonathan Tortora, nagging my producer extraordinaire Shalini Sharma, fabulous food, family and friends.”

Here's hoping he keeps up the good work (and avoids altitude sickness) in the Mile High City!

Back in December, Page Six reported that Discovery Channel's Into The Unknown host Josh Bernstein had been "disciplined" by Explorers Club president Lorie Karnath for accepting tickets from Rolex to his own club's annual dinner. Other members were furious and cited the move by Ms. Karnath as a power-play.

Today, an Outside Magazine piece (brilliantly titled "BATTLE OF THE BIG SWINGING PICKS" of course) further details the internal machinations and warring of the club, members of which thought the Josh Bernstein incident was yielded by another a "breaking point" in which Ms. Karnath reportedly desecrated the club's highest honors with favoritism (thus cheapening its legacy).

A number of club officials had been upset with Karnath for a while, stewing over what they call a capricious management style that has alienated members and sponsors alike.

Ms. Karnath is only the second female president in the club's history, and has reportedly brought it into the 21st Century. She has also, under her reign, seen The Explorers Club take their self-seriousness to new heights by inducing paranoia in members.

From the Outside Magazine piece (emphasis ours):

On a cold afternoon in early January, I met with a high-level Explorers Club official at a restaurant in Manhattan. This person, who asked not to be named, was worried that his cell phone was bugged. During our conversation, he kept glancing anxiously at an older woman several tables away, fearing that she could be a Karnath spy. “I’ve never seen anything like the way it is now,” the official said. “If you ask a simple question, you’re immediately thrown before the ethics committee or slammed down. What happened with Josh was a monkey trial.”

In short, the entire thing is nuts. It's like The Life Aquatic meets War of the Roses with some Archer thrown in for good measure. So today, seemingly in response to the Outside Magazine piece, The Explorers Club's 'Honorary Chairman' Jim Fowler sent a message to the entirety of The Explorers Club membership.

In the letter, Mr. Fowler calls the fiasco a "mess" that "continues to eat away at [The Explorers Club's] prestige and reputation" and that "something must be done quickly."

Also, "the bickering over 'who said what' and public exposure of the Club's disputed internal affairs (most would call it 'dirty laundry') must stop." We suppose the source who leaked this to The Observer would disagree. If anything is clear by the memorandum we've pasted in full below (emphasis ours), it's that a solution to the mess at The Explorers Club is worth further exploring, if there's anything left of it by the time their internal warring ends.

Highlights:

February 24, 2012
Jim Fowler
Honorary Chairman, The Explorers Club

A Call for Action to Our Members from Honorary Chair, Jim Fowler:

The mess at The Explorers Club has obviously not been resolved and continues to eat away at its prestige and reputation. Something must be done quickly, before the Annual Dinner in March, or else that important event, which should be a salute to our membership, will be adversely affected.

Above all, the mission of the membership, the President, the Board, staff, the Honorary directors, Honorary president and Honorary chairman is to protect the credibility of The Explorers Club first, not last. This has not been the case. The action of a few has seriously hurt the reputation of our Club. In fact, if one really believes in the value of The Explorers Club there can’t be anything more important than protecting the respect the members have for the Club, its prestige and long-term sustainability.

Our President has been unfairly criticized since the beginning of her first term, over two and a half years ago, by a small minority of board members who are apparently seeking personal gain. In spite of this negative atmosphere which no President should have to endure, Club events have been well organized, important improvements made to the Lowell Thomas Building, and a spirit of exploration backed by an enthusiastic membership continues. None the less the individuals who have initiated the criticism are apparently eager and willing to damage the reputation of the Club.

First, the bickering over “who said what” and public exposure of the Club’s disputed internal affairs (most would call it “dirty laundry”) must stop. If a board member of any club, corporation, institution or business anywhere in this country spoke out publicly against their organization or administration, they would be expelled forthwith. Discussions and dissent are, of course, welcome as long as the subject is expressed in an atmosphere of honesty and an attempt to solve problems, not to make them worse. Specifically, if a board member threatens to bring suit against the Club for whatever reason, he or she should resign from their membership immediately.

For a Board Member or Club Member to put their own personal agenda before their duty to protect the prestige and reputation of The Explorers Club by going public with their inflammatory comments, shows they have lost perspective or do not respect the Club and its mission.

Several events that precipitated the current state of conflict simply show that some of these participants have lost their perspective and have allowed personal agendas to take precedent over protecting the welfare of the Club and its Members.

Bickering over who gets what medal is immature and unnecessary. This kind of discussion should be solved through thoughtful discussion and “give and take”, not through threats of resignation by the Flag and Honors Committee that could and in fact has hurt the Club. The bickering over the award of a medal to the point of threatened resignation diminishes the value and prestige of the Flag and Honors Committee and is therefore counter-productive.

Pursuing personal, extremely vengeful vendettas that result from minor conflicts such as “who is the main speaker at one of the smaller dinners”, is simply out of place and by “going public” does nothing but to help to destroy the Club by dissention.

Individuals who seek to create a “divided camp” should have had the better sense to know it would cause severe damage to the Club. By supporting those individuals who are so critical of their fellow members on the internet, or who “bad mouth” the Club to the press about our internal differences they continue to hurt the reputation and prestige of the Club. Put plainly, their actions jeopardize the Club’s credibility with our sponsors and weaken the support of our membership. Supporters who give credibility to those few who have gone public should know they, too, are hurting the Club.

A sensible solution to the problem would be for the Club’s Ethics Committee to request that these few Board Members resign from the Board and the Club before the Annual Dinner. That request should “clear the air” and underscore to all that the Club is once again functioning properly.

The derogatory remarks about the Club and its internal affairs, publicly, should never be tolerated. The honorable thing for the dissenters to do in this case, if they have any integrity at all, is to offer to resign. Their refusal to do so would again reflect their lack of respect for the Club.

It is my fervent hope our President will run for office again. When the facts become better known about the triteness of the dissenters, their methods and the serious damage they have inflicted on the Club, all Board members should vote for her. Lorie Karnath is devoted to the Club and has brought much success to it in spite of the few detractors and their hurtful actions. I am behind her all the way. Most importantly, we can’t sacrifice our reputation and lose members over this current state of affairs. We need to lose the people who caused the problem; the ones who went public.

"Long live The Explorers Club" and for all it stands.

Jim Fowler, Honorary Chairman

Huzzah?

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

“Because I love the moon, actually,” Ms. Lima told the Transom, citing the spherical satellite’s feminine mystique, and the fact that she kind of sees herself “in a weird way” in the orbiting rock.

“I have a tattoo here in the shape of half a moon,” said the model, whose pleated moon-dust-colored dress artfully concealed her pregnancy. She turned her left leg outward, and gave the Transom a view of her inner ankle. There it was, the moon!

The moon, and the 40th anniversary of the first moonwalk, was the raison d’être for the July 13 party at the American Museum of Natural History’s Rose Center for Earth and Space. Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, was there. So were the gregarious Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in Apollo 13) and Sally Ride, of space shuttle fame.

Louis Vuitton sponsored the event, and when the Transom caught up with the fashion house’s U.S. president and CEO, Daniel Lalonde, he said that if he had his pick of outer space attractions, he would visit Mars.

“I feel like we’ve already been to the moon,” said the absurdly handsome business executive. “I think we should be at Mars by now. Someone’s got to make that happen.”

Discovery Channel leading man Josh Bernstein would go there, too.

“Well, I think Mars is a good first step.”

Why?

“Because we have our rovers there and our landers and it would be nice to see what’s actually on the ground and what’s actually … below the surface,” Mr. Bernstein explained.

Is any of this all that important?

“I do think it is important,” he said. “I think it represents our reaching beyond ourselves, in a metaphorical sense, and also the culmination of putting together science, technology and travel, which is fascinating.”

Downstairs, partygoers milled about antique space toys and the Willamette Meterorite. The brave ones took turns standing on a scale that calculated their weight on Halley’s comet. (Word to the wise: It adds more pounds than television.) Glittery stars were projected onto the convex screen above. Michael Jackson played on the stereo. Alliums, which, come to think of it, are very alien-looking flowers, were arranged about the room like so many molecular models.

Partygoers picked at moon-shaped risotto balls and spherical Rice Krispie treats covered in white chocolate.

The Transom finally got Buzz Aldrin’s attention after he’d finished up yet another round of photos with on-hand celebrities, including Gossip Girl’s Jessica Szohr, who, by the way, would go to the moon, because, as she quite rightly pointed out, people have successfully returned from it.

“Mr. Aldrin! Could we talk to you about your new book?”

Mr. Aldrin planted the Transom with an androidal blue eye.

“No,” he said. And then he turned away.