Category: Events

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch at noon on Tuesday, December 19, at the Landmark Center in St. Paul on safety in schools and student character development with Ambrose Russell.

Ambrose is a member of the Minnesota Character Council. Ten years ago, he founded the Inner Hero Organization to work with youth in schools on becoming community leaders.

As “bad” behaviors when someone harms another become more and more to the fore in our communities – theft, assault, unsafe schools – we look for causes and for solutions.

Where public schools are concerned, one response, now questioned by many, is to place police or other law enforcers in schools.

But if the cause of “bad” behavior is a failure of character, the weakening of the moral sense, succumbing to fears and insecurities, the rise of self-referential values and disparagement of the “other,” then should not these causes of “bad” behavior be addressed, rather than responding to behavior as only symptoms?

What could be the constructive deployment of ethics in our schools to improve their safety for all students?

Cost to attend is $20 per person, which you can pay at the door.

Box lunches will be provided by Afro Deli.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last between an hour and hour and a half.

Please join us on Zoom at 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, November 9, for a briefing on my discussions in Bangkok and Tokyo on bringing forward the middle way taught by the Buddha and similar perceptions of balance and harmony, which underlie Shinto philosophy.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Relatedly, some reflections on following a “way” will be included in the October issue of Pegasus, which will be available shortly.

The event will last about an hour.

When we say the words “mental health,” our thinking likely automatically goes to things like depression and suicide.  But the fact is that being mentally healthy matters to all of us.  And let’s be honest here, that seems to be more of a struggle lately than it has been in the past.

All the news these days seems to be bad news.  From climate catastrophes, to deep political division, to warring nations, to a worldwide pandemic, it seems all we find everywhere we look is reasons to feel bad.  Suicide rates are up almost across the board.  Closer to home, the free online questionnaire offered by Mental Health Minnesota led to 10,700 mental health screenings in 2022 and they’ve already exceeded 18,000 screenings in the first half of 2023.

But, there is some hope.  While suicide rates are up in general, they actually fell 8.5% among 10–24-year-olds.  And mental illness is increasingly viewed as not something filled with shame, but an illness like most other chronic conditions, one that can be accepted, treated and lived with.

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch at noon on Tuesday, September 26 at the Landmark Center in St. Paul for an in-person round table to discuss mental health and its importance to the times we find ourselves in.

Registration and lunch will begin at 11:30 am.

Cost to attend is $20, which you can pay at the door.

Lunch will be provided by Afro Deli.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last between an hour and hour and a half.

Our 2023 Global Dialogue took place on July 26 and 27 in Caux, Switzerland.  A brief report has been sent to you.  The themes that emerged out of the Mountain House discussions are of such general importance that we would like to expand the discussion to include others in our network who might improve our thinking.

Thus, we would like to invite you to join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Tuesday, August 29 on Zoom for you to contribute your thoughts and observations, drawing on your experiences and concerns for our global future.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last about an hour.

Recent revelations about Hunter Biden and his agreement to accept responsibility for failure to pay tax on his income has diverted attention away from John Durham’s report on the FBI, the Department of Justice and the investigations of Donald Trump for “collusion” with Russia.

In John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Civil Government,” use of the government’s police powers to persecute political rivals was cause for removal of that government and its replacement by another.

In the Declaration of Independence, one of the abuses of power on the part of King George III, an abuse which justified termination of his rule, was: “He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.”

Under the Caux Round Table Principles for Government, public office, such as held by employees of the Department of Justice and the FBI, is a public trust:

Power brings responsibility.  Power is a necessary moral circumstance in that it binds the actions of one to the welfare of others.

Therefore, the power given by public office is held in trust for the benefit of the community and its citizens.  Officials are custodians only of the powers they hold.  They have no personal entitlement to office or the prerogatives thereof.

And justice cannot be provided if the rule of law is ignored:

The civic order and its instrumentalities shall be impartial among citizens without regard to condition, origin, sex or other fundamental, inherent attributes.  Yet, the civic order shall distinguish among citizens according to merit and desert where rights, benefits or privileges are best allocated according to effort and achievement, rather than as birthrights.

The rule of law shall be honored and sustained, supported by honest and impartial tribunals and legislative checks and balances.

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch at noon on Tuesday, August 15 at the Landmark Center in St. Paul for an in-person round table consideration of the state of justice in the U.S. today.

Joining us will be Matt Bostrom, a Caux Round Table fellow and former sheriff of Ramsey County, to share his reflections on contemporary law enforcement best practices.

Registration and lunch will begin at 11:30 am and the event at noon.

Cost to attend is $20, which you can pay at the door.

Lunch will be provided by Afro Deli.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last about an hour and a half.

For nearly 170 years, the thought of Karl Marx has justified fierce opposition to capitalism.  But, in retrospect, was his critique at all in alignment with reality?  Should it matter to us anymore?

The March issue of Pegasus, coming your way, suggests a new take on Karl Marx and Adam Smith.  Consider them as storytellers, not as scientists.  What are their storylines?  What do they seek to teach us through story?

Please join us for a round table discussion over Zoom on Karl Marx and how to critique capitalism at 9:00 am (CST) on Tuesday, March 28.

Now, last year, we sent out a special issue of Pegasus wherein I contended that Marx did not at all understand capitalism and the universal human process of wealth creation.  Rather, I suggested, he only saw rent extraction as the basic human approach to the acquisition of economic assets.  Thus, he came up with a theory of capitalism as nothing more than rent- seeking.  You can find my essay here.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

Professor Emeritus Doran Hunter, a member of our board, has proposed that the Republic of the United States of America needs a renaissance – a rebirth – of civic virtue.

I agree.

Please join me and Doran for lunch at noon on Thursday, February 16, at the Landmark Center in St. Paul (this event was originally scheduled for January 19, but was cancelled due to weather).

Doran’s thesis is that in the beginning – ad fontes as leaders of the Italian Renaissance directed – private virtue was proposed as the foundation of a just society, economy and polity.  But, as Doran has written, the founders of our republic intuited that private virtue was a public good, as it, willy-nilly, gave rise to public virtues in the minds and hearts of citizens.

The issue, of course, is what is virtue and what are the virtues we should enfold into our character?  Doran proposes a list, with some assistance from Benjamin Franklin.

As thinkers of the Italian Renaissance and then the European renaissance, which triggered the Reformation and then the Enlightenment, which has given us modern civilization, looked back to Aristotle and Cicero, let us look back to Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, Locke, Smith, Blackstone and others who set forth the design of constitutional democracy and a just capitalism.

Cost to attend is $10, which you can pay at the door.

Box lunches from Afro Deli will be provided.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last about an hour and a half.

How would you spend $18 billion if it were your money and doing the greatest good for the greatest number were your objective?

The annual celebration of John Brandl’s uncommon quest for common ground will consider this question.

John Brandl (1937-2008) was dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a Minnesota legislator.  A staunch Democrat, he was inquisitive and inclusive.  His politics and his friendships, as we might say today, were those honoring diversity of all, equity for all and thoughtful inclusion of all.

Having known John, I am tempted to say, in his case, that the arc of the moral universe is indeed long, but expressed itself in bending towards the common good.

Each year since his passing, I and several colleagues of very different political orientations, have convened discussions on public policy to continue John’s uncommon search for that common ground.

The convocation seeking wisdom from the opinions of many will be held from 4:00 to 5:30 pm on Thursday, February 2, at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Cowles Auditorium and you are invited to attend.

To register, please click here.

The event is free and open to the public.