Two more entries into the Denver Grassroots Rally "Promote the December 5 caucus registration deadline" contest:

Longmont Times-Call
Deadline nears to choose party affiliation
Voters have until Dec. 5 to pick a side so they can participate in caucuses
By John Fryar


Fort Collins NowKirk Brush has a busy winter ahead.
By Rebecca Boyle

The new Larimer County Republican chairman, elected to his post just two weeks ago, has plenty of organizing to do before the upcoming statewide caucuses in February.

Here's an entry into the Denver Grassroots Rally "Promote the December 5 Deadline for Registering for Colorado Caucus" contest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BThbfmUzmOk

Join us next Friday for the Denver Grassroots Rally, bring your entry! If nothing else, write a letter to the editor of your favorate newspaper, bring copies for us! RSVP at http://cocacop.meetup.com/2

From The Los Angles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-podclass24nov24,0,5117576.story

By making hundreds of lectures from elite academic institutions available online for free, Apple is reinvigorating the minds of people who have been estranged from the world of ideas.

For several years universities have posted recorded lectures on their internal websites, giving students a chance to brush up on their classes or catch ones they missed.

But 28 colleges and universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and Yale, now post select courses without charge at iTunes.

Check out Dr. Amar Bhide’s “Hustle as Strategy” in which he makes the case for true entrepreneurship and against formal market research and strategic planning.

Correction: This is the link to the Rocky Mountain News article where you can post your comment http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/nov/24/no-holds-barred-abortion-battle/

80 is the new 30 for senior citizen entrepreneurs, says America On Line and Inc. Magazine. Includes a profile of the world’s oldest entrepreneur, Denver’s Jack Weil. http://smallbusiness.aol.com/features/older-entrepreneurs

Lead story Rocky Mountain News Online this morning:

No-holds-barred abortion battle
'Personhood' amendment could ban some birth control, stem-cell research
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/nov/24/no-holds-barred-abortion-battle/?printer=1/
Read the article, then post your comment there on the new Rocky Mountain News Online.

Here's the comment I posted there:

When does a woman become a mother, and her child gain equal rights?

When the child draws its first breath? When it is conceived? When it can defeat its father in physical combat?

Who decides? In our representative form of government, in the long run it is our elected representatives. The League of Women voters has said your voice counts most in electing them at your neighborhood caucus.

Resolutions on both sides of the question are sure to be offered across the state February 5 at the 6000 or so meetings with neighbors at our Colorado caucus. To be part of the discussion, you must register as a Republican or Democrat by December 5. To learn more Google “Colorado caucus.”

Happy Thanksgiving!

"I think of myself ... as a troubadour, a village storyteller, the guy in the shadows of the campfire," (Louis L'Amour) once said. "That's the way I'd like to be remembered."

"He always felt that if he could get an education in public libraries," Kathy L'Amour says, "it is possible for anyone."

Education is manditory, school is optional. I wish L'Amour could have joined us for Socrates Cafe. http://socratescafe.meetup.com/82

Maybe if we'd met around a campfire...

(Yes, mandatory is misspelled above. Emerson said, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I’ve always put standard spelling in that category. Catagory? Maybe it’s time for me to spend a little more time in the library!)

The first Thanksgiving

The following account of the first harvest and thanksgiving observance at Plymouth colony in 1621 is from writings of two of the settlers, Gov. William Bradford and Edward Winslow, as compiled for 'The Pilgrim Reader' by George F. Willison. The spelling is that of the original manuscripts.

YOU will understand that in this little time that a few of us have been here, we have builte seven dwelling houses, and four for the use of the Plantation, and have made preparation for divers others.

We set last spring some twentie acres of Indian corne and sowed some six acres of barley and peas. And according to ye manner of the Indians, we manured our ground with herrings, or rather shads (or rather, alewives), which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at our doors.

Our corne did prove well and - God be praised! - we had a good increase of Indian corne, and our barley indifferent good. But our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom…

And although it be not always so plentifull as it was at this time with us, yet, by the goodness of God, we are so farr from wante that we often wish you partakers of our plentie.


(Today) there are LOTS of (GOP) folks still on the sidelines, including Iowa's Chuck Grassley, who appears happy staying unaffiliated. Jeb Bush would be a big get but one gets the sense he, too, wants to stay out of the fray. Ditto with his presidential brother and father. Is Arnold Schwarzenegger more interested in supporting Michael Bloomberg more than the eventual GOP nominee? The Doles, as a couple, could be a good one-day story for someone should they decide to pick a candidate. The NRA, if they truly put their political muscle behind someone, would a real difference maker. Like the Doles, Nancy Reagan would be a nice story for a candidate, particularly if she decided NOT to endorse John McCain. But since the Reagan library is hosting another GOP debate in January, she'll likely be on the sidelines. Frankly, the biggest "gets" will be when the two eventual frontrunners (whoever they may be) start fighting over the big-time dropouts.

ACROSS THE NATION: Primary calendar
November 21, 2007
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
Jan. 3: Iowa caucuses
Jan. 5: Wyoming GOP caucuses
Jan. 8: New Hampshire primary
Jan. 15: Michigan primary
Jan. 19: Nevada caucuses, South Carolina GOP primary
Jan. 26: South Carolina Democratic primary
Jan. 29: Florida primary
Feb. 1: Maine Republican caucuses
Feb. 5: Alabama primary, Alaska caucuses, Arizona primary, Arkansas primary, California primary, Colorado caucuses, Connecticut primary, Delaware primary, Georgia primary, Idaho Democratic caucuses, Illinois primary, Kansas Democratic caucuses, Minnesota caucuses, Missouri primary, New Jersey primary, New Mexico Democratic caucuses, New York primary, North Dakota caucuses, Oklahoma primary, Tennessee primary, Utah primary
Feb. 9: Kansas Republican caucuses, Louisiana primary
Feb. 10: Maine Democratic caucuses
Feb. 12: District of Columbia primary, Maryland primary, Virginia primary
Feb. 19: Hawaii Democratic caucuses (Hawaii Republicans will have no primary or caucus.), Washington primary, Wisconsin primary
March 4: Massachusetts primary, Ohio primary, Rhode Island primary, Texas primary, Vermont primary
March 8: Wyoming Democratic caucuses
March 11: Mississippi primary
April 22: Pennsylvania primary
May 6: Indiana primary, North Carolina primary.
May 13: Nebraska primary, West Virginia primary
May 20: Kentucky primary, Oregon primary
May 27: Idaho Republican primary
June 3: Montana primary, New Mexico GOP caucuses, South Dakota primary


In today's Denver Post:

Rodgers (detective paid to dig up dirt on Ritter) was not working for the Colorado GOP, as had been alleged, but was paid $750 by Trailhead, a political group founded by former Gov. Bill Owens, oilman Bruce Benson and beer baron Pete Coors. Rodgers, the former chief investigator for the Harris County DA's office, declined to name his friend, but said he was retired and possibly under a criminal investigation.

Here's my comment on this disclosure, which I posted on the above article:

GOP Gang

It’s widely acknowledged that the state of Colorado has turned blue because of it’s powerful leaders, the four big financial contributors.

Where were our GOP leaders? Our Three Stooges, Owens, Coors, and Benson, were stabbing Bob Schaeffer in the back, supporting C and D, supporting A thru I, and conducting back-ally attack politics. Is it any wonder that it’s almost impossible to find GOP volunteers in Denver right now? Or that phone calls to GOP county headquarters don’t get returned? Why would anyone in Denver want to be a Republican for this election cycle?

December 5 is the deadline for changing affiliation to vote in the Republican or Democratic neighborhood caucus that will be held February 5.

We have a lot to be thankful for today, but that does not include the GOP in Denver. Do we rebuild or abandon ship?

Christ’s instruction to the Apostles:” Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give” (Matt. 10:8) resonates with the soul of Ignatius. He harked back to the same concept repeatedly - in the Spiritual Exercises, in the Constitutions, and in his personal correspondence. “People will listen to us only when we can show them that we have nothing to gain from what we are calling them to.”

When the first Jesuit school was opened in Messina in 1547 gratuitous teaching was a novelty which in the following 150 years was continued by all Jesuit schools. The need to get involved in education arose from the fact that young Jesuit students needed training. If the Society were going to have schools for their own students, why not give the same opportunity to young people who are not Jesuits? Ignatius commissioned his secretary, Father Polanco, to provide examples of how the schools might be funded: by the city, by some prince, by some private individual, or by a group of individuals.

“Thus not to charge for education was a corollary to one of the most fundamental graces Ignatius received: to give freely what one has freely received, to minister without worrying about benefit and without support of gold or silver, concepts almost foreign to the way” Some dioceses and congregations are seeing things perhaps in India today even in some highly Christianised States. When the secretary of Ignatius, Fr. Polanco, wrote the programme for non-Jesuit students, he began by saying: ”First of all, we accept for classes and literary studies everybody, poor and rich, free of charge and for charity’s sake, without accepting any remuneration.”

Interesting video of Robert Kiyosaki just went up on YouTube, I just linked to it. What do you think of it? Have you read his book? Message is don’t just be an employee if you want to be rich. Be self-employed, or better build a business and be an investor. I’m going to talk about his “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book at the next few IDEA Café sessions.

Bella is supposed to be the movie to see on Thanksgiving. For details see http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809423607/info

And they are off!!! The Colorado Legislative Council announced the 30 bills that will go before the Colorado Legislature. More to come, these bills do not go against the 5 bill limit for each legislator. Hold on to your wallet. With A thru I there will be a real possibility for the state to use the same Chinese menu technique with a referral to the 2008 ballot. For list of bills already pending see: http://www.leg.state.co.us/Clics/Clics2007A/csl.nsf/BillFoldersHouse?openFrameset

Businesses in the 21st century trying to practice sustainability -- balancing environmental and social concerns with generating profits -- would do well to open their U.S. history books and study the contributions of inventor, author and diplomat Benjamin Franklin.

"He was the epitome of values-based leadership," Walter Isaacson, former media executive and author of a 2003 biography of the Philadelphia statesman, told a Pittsburgh audience yesterday… http://www.business.duq.edu/Beard/

Mr. Isaacson was the keynote speaker at a symposium on sustainable business sponsored by Duquesne University's Beard Center for Leadership in Ethics and Palumbo Donahue School of Business. About 200 attended the event in the Hilton Pittsburgh, Downtown.

As the proprietor of a print shop in Philadelphia, Mr. Isaacson said, Mr. Franklin spearheaded the Leather Apron Society -- a group of tradesmen who met every Friday to talk about how they could best serve their community. "They asked themselves the moral questions of the day," which are the same moral questions facing business owners today, Mr. Isaacson said.

Mr. Franklin believed that successful business people had an obligation to be civic and community leaders, "And that's a key to sustainability," said Mr. Isaacson, whose most recent book is a biography of Albert Einstein.

To meet the growing demand for business leaders better versed in the concepts of sustainability, Duquesne's business school this fall began offering a master's degree in the topic and has earned high ratings by the Aspen Institute for its program and for being among the few small universities in the United States to have one.

From: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07320/834328-28.stm

Yorktown University announces a launch of thirty-one courses and seminars at Apple iTunes. Starting Friday, November 16, Yorktown University will commence a rollout of lectures from thirty-one courses and seminars at Yorktown University.

Here is a listing of the first ten courses made available to the public: 1. Dr. C. F. Sills, History of Ethics 2. Dr. Gregory Browne, The Progressive Era 3. Dr. Gary Lee Wolfram, Introduction to Political Economy 4. Lawrence Roberge, Nutrition 5. Dr. William Luckey, History of Economic Thought 6. Michael Pollock, Principles of Genealogy, www.Anquestory.com 7. Dr. William Martin Sloane, Communication Media Law for PR Professionals 8. Dr. Thomas Landess, Writing as a Small Business 9. Dr. Arthur Pontynen, History of Art 10. Dr. Eugene Heath, Virtue and Business

Faculty biographies are posted at www.yorktownuniversity.com and www.yorktowncollege.com. Mr. Pollock’s genealogy service is located at www.Anquestory.com. These thirty-one courses and seminars are being made available free of charge by Yorktown University. Each month lectures from courses and seminars will be made available at iTunes.

December’s launch will feature podcasts from nine courses and a five-hour seminar on Supply-side Economics with lectures by the Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore, Economists Alan Reynolds, Mark Skousen and Stephen Entin, and tech entrepreneur George Gilder. A guide to access iTunes is located at http://www.yorktownuniversity.com/podcasts.

About Yorktown University: Yorktown University is an Internet-based institution licensed by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and incorporated in Colorado as a for-profit stock corporation. The University enrolled its first students in May 2001 and offers the Associate of Arts, B.A. in Government, B.A. in Managerial Economics and M.A. in Government degrees. A new MBA in Entrepreneurship degree will be launched in August 2008. Yorktown University is an applicant for national accreditation. Headquarters:Denver, Colorado Websites: http://www.yorktownuniversity.com http:// www.yorktowncollege.com http://www.yorktownpatriot.com

Here's an idea. Mike Coffman and his heir apparent Ken Gordon, both good men, should put their heads together and decide what should be done with our elections here in Colorado. They are both well connected to their political parties; they could use those parties to find a true grassroots solution and then communicate it through those parties with a common resolution at the state-wide neighborhood caucuses that will be held February 5.

Below are two releases I made to the media Friday, please take a look right now, OK? Then set me straight if I'm off base with your comment here or email to me at JohnSWren@aol.com if you don't want to embarrass me in front of my friends. :)