I am ashamed to admit that I participated in this past week’s Black Friday ritual, not because I wanted to but because my children asked me to.  I think this possibly makes me a bad parent except that we discussed what we learned from the experience and perhaps that will change their perspectives for the future. We are a consumer driven society.  Last night...

I retired from my corporate job in 2007. At the time I was exhausted from the years of travel and pressure of working in a public company environment. I was hopeful that the “right thing” would just come along or one of the many ideas I have from time to time would be the next great thing to excite me. Four years have passed and I have dabbled in a number...

Last night in our final class of Channeling Aristotle we discussed the role of a person as citizen. Aristotle felt this role trumped all others. Our professor asked us “What is the first freedom”? Our class gave no strong response. His answer – The freedom to govern yourself. We the People. We govern ourselves. We choose. We get what WE choose. ...

7 Billion……… Person # 7 billion was born sometime yesterday on this earth. We were just at 1 Billion in 1804. It took about 1800 years to reach that first Billion. 100 years later in 1900 the population was 1.6 Billion. And now in 2011 it is 7 Billion. That is a daunting number which will rise to 9 Billion in the next 35 years. ...

I spent the day yesterday driving through the mountains of Colorado looking at the beauty of the changing aspens and taking pictures with my daughter. While driving around the mountains I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things but our forests and the debt crisis were two seemingly unrelated topics that floated through my gray matter. If you’ve read...

Stewardship -the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving Everywhere I hear and see finger pointing about who is responsible for this problem or that problem – global warming, the economy, loss of the moral compass, hunger, poverty. You name it, everyone is looking for someone or something to blame. As I...

I am currently taking a DU Enrichment Class “Channeling Aristotle: Cultivating a Virtuous Life in the 21st Century”. Our discussion last week evolved around the “golden mean” and finding purpose in life. Aristotle believe that happiness lay in the pursuit of one’s full potential and in maintaining a perfect balance between excess and...

I am the 1. The 1% that is to say. At least I was in 2007. I was surprised to learn that in 2007 the IRS reported 391,000 Americans with income exceeding $1 Million. I was one of them. I am not greedy, self-interested, dishonest or villainous. For a long time I was ashamed to admit it because I had some unsavory stereotypes of what people “with...

As I was listening to an interview on NPR today I was really struck by one of the statements made by Michael Lewis, the author of The Big Short, Moneyball and now Boomerang – The Meltdown Tour. In discussing the potential default in Greece and in municipalities across America he said, “People want to have things they don’t want to pay...