John Sperling (1921-) is a US billionaire who is credited with leading the contemporary for-profit education movement in the United States. His fortune is based on his founding of the for-profit University of Phoenix for working adults in 1973, which is now part of the publicly traded Apollo Group (NASDAQ:APOL). 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The University of Phoenix is a for-profit university, founded in 1976 by John Sperling, that specializes in adult education in three modes: Ground (in classrooms), Online (a virtual campus), and FlexNet (a combination of the two). ... Apollo Group (NASDAQ: APOL) is an S&P 500 company based in Phoenix, Arizona. ... NASDAQ MarketSite (Times Square, New York City) at night NASDAQ (originally an acronym for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is a U.S. electronic stock market. ...

John Sperling received his undergraduate education at Reed College, Oregon, a master's from U.C. Berkeley under the G.I. Bill, and then went on to attain a PhD. in Economic History at Cambridge University. Before becoming an entrepreneur (at age 53), he taught as a tenured professor at San Jose State University. Reed College is a liberal arts college with 1341 students as of the fall of 2004 (45% men and 55% women), located in Portland, Oregon in the Eastmoreland neighborhood. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ... The G. I. Bill of Rights or Servicemens Readjustment Act of 1944 provided for college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans as well as one-year of unemployment compensation. ... REDIRECT [1] ... San Jose State University San José State University, commonly shortened to San Jose State and SJSU, is the oldest university in what became the California State University system. ...

Sperling has gained additional notoriety recently for his funding the project to clone his dead pet dog Missy in a project called Missyplicity. A subproject of Missyplicity was called Operation CC which successfully created the first cloned pet. The pet created was named Cc after the project, which was short for CopyCat. Cloning is the process of creating an identical copy of an original. ... The term copycat (also written as copy-cat or copy cat) refers to the tendency of humans to duplicate the behavior of others, as expressed in the saying, monkey see, monkey do. ...

More recently John Sperling has directed his attention towards the life extension movement that extend the life span of human beings, often called longevity research or biological immortality projects. Wired magazine reports in their February 2004 article John Sperling Wants You to Live Forever that his fortune is quickly approaching US$3 billion, and has plans to donate it to human biology research when he dies. If he does so, this would be the biggest private program devoted ever to human biology. Life extension is an increase in the maximum lifespan beyond the current maximum lifespan, especially for humans. ... Biological immortality can be defined as the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. ... Wired (magazine) is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ...

John Sperling is also an opponent of drug prohibition and is actively financing initiatives to decriminalize medical marijuana in the United States. According to Time Magazine John Sperling smoked pot to combat pain caused by the cancer he fought during the 1960s. Many drugs are provided in tablet form. ... Cannabis sativa extract. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... The 1960s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1960 and 1969, but the expression has taken on a wider meaning over the past twenty years. ...

Sperling has together with George Soros, and Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance raised considerable amounts of money for drug related causes and other liberal causes, especially during the 2004 presidential campaign. George Soros George Soros (born August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary as Schwartz György) is a financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist. ... Peter Lewis is the Cleveland, Ohio-area based Chairman of Progressive Insurance Companies. ... The Progressive Corporation (NYSE: PGR) is a U.S. auto insurance company headquartered in Mayfield Village, Ohio. ... Look up liberal on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Liberal may refer to: Politics: Liberalism American liberalism, a political trend in the USA Political progressivism, a political ideology that is for change, often associated with liberal movements Liberty, the condition of being free from control or restrictions Liberal Party, members of...

In August 2004, John Sperling published Retro vs. Metro, a liberal sociological treatise attempting to explain the Red America / Blue America cultural and political divisions of the United States - co-authored by himself, Suzanne Helburn,Samuel George, John Morris and Carl Hunt. The book was launched with an accompanying website [1]. ... ...

See also

• CopyCat
• Biological immortality
• Life extension
• Longevity Research
• Futurist

The term copycat (also written as copy-cat or copy cat) refers to the tendency of humans to duplicate the behavior of others, as expressed in the saying, monkey see, monkey do. ... Biological immortality can be defined as the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. ... Life extension is an increase in the maximum lifespan beyond the current maximum lifespan, especially for humans. ... This article is about the art movement, futurism. ...

Political

• Drug Prohibition
• Medical marijuana

Cannabis sativa extract. ...

External links

• Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People
• Fast Company magazine, 'The Hard Life and Restless Mind of America's Education Billionaire'
• Utah Initiative B Contribution Details

News articles

• Wired Magazine, 'John Sperling Wants You to Live Forever'
• USATODAY.com - Independent voices rising in ads

• Is America Going to Pot, article on Time Magazine