On this date in 1875 J.C. Penny was born, who started his career in retailing here in Colorado.

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From Readers Digest, September, 2007
Stand-up Comics’ Funniest Lines
My problem is I belong to so many anonymous groups, everybody know who I am.
Nancy Redman

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose. Brian Kiley

You don’t get married to get sex. Getting married to get sex is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts. Jeff Foxworthy

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So if it is not for the free peanuts, why do we get married or have close friends? Melville knew.

This is from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, at the end of Chapter 10. Ishmel tells about his becoming a soul-mate with Queequeg:

After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room
together… He then went about his evening prayers, took out his
idol, and removed the paper fireboard. By certain signs and
symptoms, I thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well
knowing what was to follow, I deliberated a moment whether, in case
he invited me, I would comply or otherwise.

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible
Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator
in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I.
Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and
earth--pagans and all included--can possibly be jealous of an
insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is
worship?--to do the will of God--THAT is worship. And what is the
will of God?--to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man
to do to me--THAT is the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow
man. And what do I wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why,
unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship.
Consequently, I must then unite with him in his; ergo, I must turn
idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent
little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salamed before
him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and
went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world.
But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.

How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for
confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say,
there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old
couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus,
then, in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg--a cosy, loving
pair.

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But sometimes friendships can take an evil turn. Have you heard of Colorado’s Gang of Four, a cabal so rich and powerful that they can buy elections? As Republican political expert Alan Philip says, it is easy to understand why legislators and candidates in the state of Colorado are wary of getting on the wrong side of them.

Robert Frank talks about this dangerous Kolorado Kash Kabal in his new book about the last few election cycles "Richistan: A Journey Through The American Wealth Boom And The Lives of The New Rich" which you can read online for free; the book is being serialized in my friends Stephen Keating’s very interesting and informative Politics West website.


The Gang (of Four) included Jared Polis, a 32-year-old dot-com whiz who’s already created and sold several tech companies and has a net worth estimated at more than $200 million.

It included Tim Gill, a former software magnate who’s worth more than $400 million and who’s become the nation’s top funder of gay-rights causes.

Rounding out the group was Pat Stryker, the billionaire heiress to the Stryker medical-device fortune, and Rutt Bridges, a geophysicist who made his money creating software for oil exploration and had a fortune worth tens of millions.

On this date in 1904 Theodor Seuss Geisel, who wrote and illustrated the popular 'Dr. Seuss' children's books, was born.

In 1927, Mr. Geisel married Helen Marion Palmer of Orange, N.J., a teacher he had met when they were studying at Oxford. It was she who persuaded him to give up thoughts of teaching and make drawing a career.

"Ted's notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals," she later recalled. "So I set to work diverting him; here was a man who could draw such pictures; he should be earning a living doing that."

In addition to serving as her husband's business manager and helping edit his books, she wrote children's books under her maiden name.
From New York Times Obituary, Sept. 24, 1991.


John Wren’s Comment: How often does the right choice of a companion contribute to the success of a person? I just read Team of Rivals about Lincoln, he was much more successful because of his marriage to Mary Todd. My dad was much more successful because of my mother and the influence of her family on him. One of my most vivid memories of the IDEA Café over the last decade is a woman who quit her job as a High School teacher to market her struggling artist husband’s artwork. It worked.


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I love the Internet, it is a marvel… It provides a voice to the formerly voiceless… Anyone can publish their thoughts instantaneously and they are available forever… Reporters now live in fear, a healthy development. Ned Desmond, president of Time Inc. Interactive, in his talk last night about the impact of evolving media technologies on the Catholic believer, part of the Denver Archdiocese Lecture Series.


John Wren’s Comment: I asked Desmond how the Internet had change reporting. He said reporters are now instructed to post information right away, to not wait for final preparation of the article at deadline. Internet news readers demand instant information in small bites. Desmond discounted Wikipendia, “I never cite it,” but I think that would be said by most people who’s paycheck ultimately depends on large printing presses. The big downside of the Internet, in his opinion, is the sharp decline in time for quite reflection for most people, “there is just too much competition from the urgent and the entertaining.” Desmond estimates he sends about 100 emails a day and reads 200+, and that this is typical for the people he knows. To stay abreast of breaking news he reads Netvibes.

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Communications technology makes new forms of church organization possible, and geographically distant congregations can easily join together. Rather than voting with your feet, you may now vote with your mouse, perhaps the most amicable form of religious divorce. Jack Miles, a senior fellow for religious affairs with the Pacific Council on International Policy and a scholar in residence with the Getty Research Institute in his New York Times, A Divorce the Church Should Smile Upon.

Google has been frustrated in its efforts to reach comprehensive deals with major studios and networks to put their video on YouTube. Meanwhile, it is forming partnerships with hundreds of smaller media companies that see value — or at least a valuable experiment — in contributing to the site. New York Times, Google Courts Small YouTube Deals

History is the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience, forcing us to a recognition of the fact, so often and so sadly displayed, that the future outwits all our certitudes. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who died Wednesday, quoted in the New York Times.

Words kill… Grow up… Live out your God-created identity.
Mt 5: 20-48