A R C H I V E

Highland Institute is deeply invested in addressing homelessness and its negative societal impact. In 2023, HUD reported 653,104 homeless Americans—a 12.1% increase from the previous year. City Club has actively hired, supported, and engaged with our local homeless population, hosting leaders like Bob Yates and Mike Block to discuss solutions.

Last Saturday, TEDxBoulderSalon held an event at the Boulder Canyon Theater, where ten public officials spoke to a packed house. Well-intentioned but constrained by limited resources, they remain trapped in the failed “Housing First” mindset—lamenting funding shortages while pointing to rare success stories as justification for the status quo.

We live in an era of uncomfortable truths. We’re told inflation is transitory while egg prices triple, that Joe Biden is fully capable despite struggling to complete a sentence, and that gender is fluid so boys can compete in girls' sports. Now, we’re expected to believe that homelessness will be solved by throwing billions more at housing…

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Sheep spend their lives fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd. Similarly, humans often fear an uncertain future, ultimately facing the angel of death.

Our advanced neocortex, amplified by artificial intelligence, gives us a false sense of superiority and control. Yet, our primal, fear-driven reptilian brain resembles that of the sheep. Human emotions perpetually swing between fear and greed.

At its core, man’s greatest fear is death. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s protagonist trades his soul for eternal youth. Anne Rice immortalized vampires and witches to explore humanity’s obsession with escaping mortality. From Juan Ponce de León’s quest for the Fountain of Youth to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, humans have long sought the meaning of life—and ways to defy their ultimate end…

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Two scores and seven years ago, I took on the herculean task of saving and renovating the dilapidated historic Highland school as a home for an ideal community. City Club’s newsletter began as a lunch menu notice, evolved into a space for announcements, and morphed into a philosophical venue to refine our common vision for an Epicurean-inspired utopian community. 

With renovations complete, membership growing, and our community thriving, I started writing a concise weekly column to explore big ideas, hoping to promote dialogue.

Writing these columns allows me to wrestle with lingering questions. I write about topics I want to learn more about – philosophy, politics, religion, finance, technology, and the human condition. Like a pebble in my shoe, a topic may nag me for weeks or months before I start reflecting, researching, and embarking on the writing process to refine my thinking. The process is communal; friends, trusted advisors, and numerous editors help discuss and refine each column to promote productive conversation…

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Happy Valentine’s Day. May you love deeply and often in good health.

In past years, I have written on marriage, the concept of Twin Flames, and my ongoing efforts to understand love in its many forms: romantic, familial, platonic, love of the country, and the divine.

As I grow older and experience love through the lenses of my reptilian, mammalian, and neocortical brains, I’ve come to understand that most love has a sticky quality, tinged with various shades of neediness, co-dependency, jealousy, or the fear of loss.

Two thousand years ago, Rabbi Hillel posed a timeless question: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?” We can apply this concept to love by asking, “If I cannot love myself, how can I truly love others?”…

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In the fall of 1858, Nebraska prospectors struck gold in the mountains west of Boulder near present-day Gold Hill, staking their claim along Boulder Creek. In November 1871, the City of Boulder was incorporated as a base camp to service the miners in the hills.

A progressive city from the start, Boulder landed the State University in 1874 and attracted the Chautauqua Institution and Dr. John Kellogg’s Health Sanitarium in the 1890s. In the 1920s and 30s, downtown Boulder became the County seat for retail, banking, and office. Science, technology, and the National Labs arrived in the 1950s and 60s. The Hippies and their counter-culture movement arrived in the 1960s. The 70s brought the Pearl Street Mall, transforming downtown Boulder into a dining and entertainment center.

But, once again, Boulder faces deep challenges. Crime, drug use, mental illness, homelessness, traffic, and office vacancies continue to rise. Visiting downtown and strolling along Boulder Creek feels unsafe, requiring Boulder to pull another rabbit out of its hat to reinvent itself…

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Aldous Huxley’s classic “Brave New World” depicts the World State as a dystopian society in which human beings are genetically engineered and conditioned from birth to fit into a strict social hierarchy, eliminating individuality and emotions in favor of stability and pleasure.

Bernard Marx, the novel’s protagonist, encounters John, a “savage” from the “reservation” outside the controlled world. John's world stands in stark contrast to the World State that creates babies in hatcheries, conditions citizens through sleep learning, discourages monogamous relationships, and encourages drug use to suppress negative emotions and promote blissful apathy.

As human evolution accelerates at an unprecedented pace, with twice more economic progress made in the past two centuries than in the preceding eighteen-hundred years, ideological movements— Communists, Socialists, Nazis, Progressives, and today’s Woke— still cling to utopian visions.  While fairness is a laudable ideal, attributing humanity’s progress solely to white colonialism is the simplistic and irresponsible ramblings of those in a reconstructed brave new world…

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Throughout history, natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, and fires, coupled with technological disruptions like the Industrial Revolution and the advent of electricity, computers, and now AI, have acted as evolutionary hinges. Add wars and revolutions to this toxic witch’s brew, and we have all the necessary ingredients for the death and destruction of the status quo, leading to fertility and rebirth of a new era.

History repeats itself. Cycles are real.

In the 1950s era of segregation, Joseph McCarthy and the KKK represented the far right of the political spectrum, leading to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society era. Today, events like Donald Trump’s election, the assassination of a healthcare CEO, the terrorist attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, and now the fires in California suggest that society has swung too far to the political left, with the Woke in control…

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How does it feel?

To be on your own

With no direction home

A complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

Next week, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. Mr. Trump is the leader of the free world and the most controversial man alive. A real estate billionaire and successful TV personality, the 45th President of the United States is a womanizing felon who has twice been selected as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.  Mr. Trump is the most famous and yet the least understood personality alive.  — A complete unknown…

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From its inception, City Club has had fun baked into its Vision Statement and its Charter. In fact, the central piece of art defining our community is a large diptych painting by Frank Sampson called “Celebration” that graces the ballroom.

I’ll be the first to admit that in the past, we have been more focused on foundational tasks like planning, building infrastructure, and intellectual pursuits than on the indulgence of simply having fun. But I am pleased to say that with Dustin in charge of operations and Chef Tim Cook in the newly expanded kitchen, we now have the luxury of celebrating life with all its beauty and underlying playfulness.

Last year’s highlight was completing our expanded kitchen and bar, including our new state-of-the-art Italian cappuccino machine using Boxcar Coffee. We also offer fresh Dry Storage pastries and Kinship Bread daily. This year, we plan to expand our food offerings and grow City Club into a private social, business, and dining club…

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I find myself drawn to the principles of Cliodynamics as I reflect on contemporary events, such as the significance of Trump’s re-election and regime changes afoot in France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and South Korea. The map of the entire Middle East is being redrawn after Israel morphed from an injured cornered animal to become a regional power with the potential to disrupt the world power balance.

Cliodynamics is the application of a dynamical systems approach to the social sciences in general and the study of historical dynamics in particular. More specifically, in End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, Peter Turchin defines Cliodynamics as an area of research that integrates cultural evolution, economics, macro sociology, and mathematical modeling of historical processes to explain the rise and fall of empires, population booms and busts, and the spread and disappearance of religions.

In my interpretation, the pendulum's swing causes kinetic energy to convert to potential energy and capital to cede power to labor. This cyclical phenomenon is often marked by a clear tipping point akin to the decline of the progressive woke movement following Donald Trump's election…

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Please allow me to share my vision for City Club as a Securus Locus and your home away from home. I hope you will resonate with this vision and be equally committed to its manifestation as your shelter from the storm in an otherwise challenging and uncertain world.

City Club’s foundation is a safe and embracing place, providing delicious and healthy food in a beautiful and functional work environment. This process entails completing the 46-year arduous task of renovating the historic Highland School into a private social, business, and dining club. We now plan to build on that foundation by expanding our operating team in the new year with the addition of full-time baristas and bartenders, along with a third team member for the kitchen, service, and concierge teams. Once this expanded team is in place and fully trained, we plan to hire an Operations Manager, hoping he or she can grow into a General Manager.

Combining Boxcar Coffee, Dry Storage baked goods, and Kinship Bread makes City Club an ideal place for breakfast and afternoon gatherings, inside or in our award-winning gardens. Chef Tim Cook plans to launch a new All-Day Menu that will rival the best appetizers, lunches, and early dinners in Boulder…

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Wow! Such an amazing year:

President-elect Donald Trump is Time Magazine’s Man of the Year; Elon Musk is the richest and most influential global citizen; Ukraine is still holding; Russia is bleeding; Israel went from surprised prey to a regional force on the verge of destroying Hamas, eradicating Hezbollah, causing regime change in Syria, threatening Iran, and potentially causing the downfall of Putin.

Meanwhile, at City Club, we have managed our way through many challenges. First, we fully recovered from the pandemic. Then, we completed the five-year project to plan, design, and expand our kitchen and bar as part of Highland's transformation from a one-time abandoned school to a private social, business, and dining club. The search for and hiring of Chef Tim Cook is an integral part of our newly expanded kitchen and all-day food program…

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I am fascinated by Judaism. Born Jewish, I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what that means and have concluded that Jews are the canaries in the mine; what happens to them today may be a harbinger of what’s ahead for humanity tomorrow. As such, there’s gold in figuring out what the Jews will do to survive and thrive.

A hundred years ago, Berlin, Germany, was the safest place for Jews to live, work, teach, compose music, advance science, and make money. Within twenty years, they were dying in gas chambers and burning in industrial ovens, followed by WWII and the consequent death of nearly a hundred million innocent souls. But, after eighty years of global peace and prosperity, we now find that “Never Again” has become just a slogan, that the world is divided again, and the Jews are somehow to blame.

As the state of Israel fights for its survival on seven fronts, the International Criminal Court has accused it of genocide and issued an arrest warrant for its Prime Minister. In Amsterdam, Paris, and London, Jews are advised not to be seen in public for their safety. In America, the Ivy League campuses are set aflame in the name of anti-Zionism. Even so, fewer than eighty years into this experiment called Israel, this one-time desert has morphed into the fruit basket of the Middle East and a start-up nation commanding the world’s eighth most powerful military force. Nevertheless, storm clouds remain…

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It may not be an accident that the Thanksgiving holidays follow our elections, giving us a chance to think, reflect, and digest what just happened, why, and how.

Last week, while in Florida, I had the opportunity to rest, relax, and give thanks for another peaceful presidential election, which was held out as one of the most contentious and consequential in our lives. Afterward, there were no tanks on the roads, blood in the streets, or weeks-long legal or political fights over the result. Our country, while still divided, was not shattered.

Donald Trump and the Republican party clearly won this election, if not by a landslide, with a clear mandate for change. I don't pretend to understand exactly how and why it happened, so I chose to solicit differing opinions. They say that over time, we become the average of the five people closest to us, so I strived to seek the opinions of people I respected to gain a more comprehensive view of the political landscape. Here, in no particular order:..

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Without tradition, we’d all be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof.

Tradition is the bedrock of every culture and religion. Every year, we celebrate Christmas and America's Independence Day, not only during good times but even when faced with unprecedented internal and external challenges. The Thanksgiving tradition is a great opportunity to adopt an attitude of gratitude even when we struggle to find something for which to be thankful.

And so it is this year. Call it what you will – "A Hinge in History" or the classic "Fourth Turning." Inflation, continuing wars in Ukraine and Israel, antisemitism and the globalization of Antifata, Donald Trump’s historic re-election as the 47th President of the United States, and the chaos it may cause, are all troubling signs…

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Philosophy is the study of fundamental truths about the world, ourselves, and our relationships. Simply stated, philosophy is "the love of wisdom."

The Greek Stoics of 2400 years ago approached life’s problems backward and asked: Knowing we will die soon, is the problem we face today significant in the long term? 

Assuming we are lucky and resourceful, we must then ask, how should we enjoy the fruits of our life’s labor before we die? What should a successful “retirement” look like? 

Some people’s ideal retirement plan is a life of leisure, waiting for 5 pm to roll around for their first cocktail. Others take up golf, tennis, and travel or strive to become coaches, mentors, or philanthropists. The Greeks believed an ideal retirement entailed the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom. In short, one should strive to become a philosopher.

But how does one accumulate wisdom in a world dominated by TikTok and Instagram, with attention spans of under a minute?…

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Otto Von Bismark said, “Politics is the art of the possible.”

In the jungle, might makes right. It is hard to fathom that today, most humans are still governed by dictators and despots who rule through fear and force. Our Founding Fathers strived to devise a better system to govern ourselves with minimum violence. Notwithstanding the ugliness of politics, the backstabbing, cheating, physical fights on the floor of Congress, deadly duels, and a devastating civil war, the American system has survived 248 years and 47 presidential elections.

Though imperfect on many fronts, this is the best and longest-lasting system of government man has devised, which is why millions of immigrants risk their lives to join it…

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After nearly five years of planning, design, permitting, and construction, we are pleased to unveil our expanded state-of-the-art kitchen and bar. Like the cherry on a Sunday, these projects are capped off with the arrival and installation of our new La Marzocco espresso machine, hand-made in Florence, Italy. Many consider La Marzocco the Ferrari of espresso machines. It enables us to serve world-class espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, and other exotic coffee drinks. 

With Dustin in charge of the Club and Chef Tim Cook settled in the new kitchen, effective January 1, 2025, we plan to launch a new All-Day Menu that rivals the best food in Colorado, served anywhere within the Club or To Go, at a fraction of restaurant cost. As a private club, we can accommodate our members’ personal preferences, whether by taking orders in person or through your Mobile App, in accordance with your particular tastes or preferences.

Additionally, we are excited to announce a new partnership with Dry Storage Bakery to expand our baked goods, pastry, and dessert service to complement our famous homemade granola so you can treat yourself and your Guests to the best coffee, baked goods, and pastry service in Boulder…

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If a bar in Paris can establish a hundred-year tradition of accurately predicting American Presidential elections, it may be time for City Club to get in on the act.

As a Securus Locus, City Club has been an ideal safe place for our members to discuss politics during this “historic” and “most important election of our lifetime.” According to a Times/Siena poll, three-quarters of American voters say democracy is under threat, and nearly half say it does not accurately represent the American public.

With the election in a dead heat, half the population thinks Donald Trump is a Fascist, while the other half thinks Kamala Harris is a Socialist. Trump is too confident about everything, and Harris is too invasive about everything. The idea that America’s decline is inevitable has been in vogue since the 1920s when the industrialist Armand Hammer promoted the idea that the future belongs to the Soviet Socialists. In the 1930s, Charles Lindbergh saw Hitler’s Germany as the emerging global power. In the 1970s, Japan’s rising sun and industrial efficiency were destined to overshadow American Capitalism. Today, many believe Communist China’s central planning will overtake America’s chaotic approach to governing…

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America, having prevailed in WWII with an iron will and a steel backbone, at a significant cost of blood and treasure, changed the name of its Department of War in 1949 to the Department of Defense. Since then, we have managed to fight and lose four wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

In 1979, America withdrew its support of the Shah of Iran, paving the way for fanatic Ayatollahs to come to power, take 52 Americans hostage for over a year, and enable the killing of thousands of our Marines and soldiers in Lebanon and Iraq. Amidst chants of “Death to America; Death to Israel,” the Iranian regime has financed Hamas and Hezbollah to form a “Ring of Fire” around Israel while developing the nuclear capacity and sophisticated long-range cruise missile delivery systems capable of obliterating Israel, which they consider to be “a one bomb State.”

America appears fickle when pro-Hamas university students on campus chant “From the River to the Sea” and accuse Israel of “genocide” while not caring about America’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. But these same people are now against the idea of Israel defending itself after Hamas brutally raped, burned, and murdered 1200 innocent Israeli citizens and remain largely silent in the face of Israel’s elimination of Nasrallah in Lebanon and Sinwar in Gaza, both of whom were terrorists with American blood on their hands…

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