‘We need a little Christmas.’ Why I’m working hard right this minute to make Christmas 2011 the best ever.

Posted on September 25, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. I was young then, blessed with that overflowing feeling of high animal spirits and joy to the world. It was 1967, I was in New York City for the first time, about to sail to Europe on the SS Aurelia  … The future seemed boundless, was boundless, and I had only good wishes and to spare for everyone, everywhere.

The only snare was that I couldn’t get tickets for “Mame” (music and lyrics by Jerry Herman); the hit musical based on one of my mother’s favorite books, “Auntie Mame” by Patrick Dennis (1955). Bummer. But not down hearted I somehow managed to get a program and discovered when Angela Lansbury, the star, the toast of Broadway, was likely to leave the Winter Garden Theatre. .. and just where I could stand for the best chance of getting her autograph.
I well recall the moment she came out the stage door, she was smaller than she appeared on stage… and I remember how the collar of her coat brushed against my cheek… and her scent as she bent down to autograph the program, a little crushed in my hand. It was lush, seductive, delicious…  And I was happy…

I have that program still, in good condition, too, a reminder when the song I’ve chosen for today’s theme music — “We need a little Christmas” — was just a peppy, high-stepping, belt-it-out number, not an absolute need for all of us. Start, however, by going to any search engine… get the tune… then let ‘er rip… it’s going to get your blood going, your feet tapping, and maybe even bring a tear to your eye, you sentimental softie you…

“For I’ve grown a little leaner, Grown a  little colder, Grown a little sadder, Grown a little older!”
These words pretty much sum up events since that magic moment at the door of the Winter Garden Theatre — and I don’t merely mean for you and me, either. I mean for America and for our deeply troubled world. And that is why I am already at work to ensure this Christmas in this year of general dismay and gloom is the best ever. We need it — for the good of home, hearth, soul, and, yes, the economy.  I began this week.

It is September 25, 2011 as I write, and my dear and valued helpers, Aime Joseph and his soothing wife Mercedes, have commenced Operation Christmas. We started with a herculean task meant to occur twice each year but often “forgotten” — polishing the silver. It is arduous, it is wearying, it is dull… and it is a necessary deed in creating the “wow factor” that is such an essential part of Christmas for me and mine.
The question is, why have we started so early… just what are we doing it for?

Over the last few years I have noticed the inception and development of an invidious trend in me and many others: scaling back, pruning, diminishing the high festival of Christmas. This is a very bad thing… and this year I decided to take constructive action before I bear an even closer approximation to Ebenezer Scrooge. This called for drastic action… and my better self answered the call.
Unmarried, no (known) children.  Katie Segal made a fortune on “Married with Children”(1987) in which she played the ultimate suburban vulgarian wife, Peg. She thought the holiday was for maxing out her credit cards and causing pain to her hapless bills-paying husband. It was funny… because, of course, we weren’t like Peg, no way. But we are… and not, I hasten to add, because we enjoy the consumer aspect of the event.
I have always thought the sanctimonious folks who decry the blatant commercialism of Christmas and seek to revert to prior usages, pure and holy, misread the original text and allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by Puritans. Now, lest you think I am anti-Puritan, be aware I am of Puritan heritage myself. And it pains me to admit, the Puritans got Christmas all wrong and missed its message.
The culprit in the matter was Oliver Cromwell, a man who, saying enough is enough, helped King Charles I to eternity in 1649 through the simple expedient (as Charles told his horrified children) by separating His Majesty’s head from His Majesty’s body. The Lord Protector, more powerful than most kings, then lead an effort to root out all vestiges of the traditional high-living English Christmas. And so for 10 years (until his successor son Richard got kicked out in 1659) Cromwell and company worked to make everyone just as miserable and gloomy at Christmas as possible. That was the right and proper thing to do.

For instance, zealous Puritans, rigid, unbending, inflexible, muffed the matter of the Three Wise Men, princes of the Orient. Each, if you’ll recall,  brought the Christ child very expensive gifts. These included gold (imagine if they’d held it), frankincense and myhrr. Unless these royalties just happened to have some extra gifts in their treasure trove (possible, but unlikely) each had to make a trip to the bazaar (which is what people called malls in those days) to scrutinize what was available and mull over their options.
This is exactly what the non-kingly people do nowadays at Christmas, parking their cars (easier to handle than malodorous camels which spit), returning over and over to get just the right gift, the gift that will say loudly and clearly, “I care.” So, where’s the problem? Christmas, in short, has had a pronounced commercial aspect from the first moment. People  should get over it and get on with the real business of the event: love!
Whether you consider the matter from the vantage point of God to man — “For God so loved the world that he gave  his only begotten son” (John 3:16) —
… or from the vantage point of human relations, the fact is that Christmas is the prime event of every year based on, all about, and dedicated to love. And we humans after this storm-tossed year should embrace the event and enjoy it for what it is: a chance to love one another, be kind to each other, embrace our diversity, and give the embedded rancors of our deeply fissured planet a rest… even if we know, as we do, they’ll be back in the new year. Even a little solace helps. We need it, we must have it, and we deserve it.
And because I have been, shall we say, neglectful both about giving and taking love, I have a huge love deficit to make up for… and so Christmas 2011 must be done right in every nuance and detail…  and this takes time, care, and thoughtfulness.
Cleaning the silver is just the beginning.
And then like the score says, “Candles in the window/Carols at the spinet.”
And gifts for all… and not merely anything grabbed at the eleventh hour Christmas Eve either… for the gift must be as special as the beloved who gets it…
All this takes time… meticulous attention to detail… and, most of all, love…
And it is this love, in short supply in years past, suppressed, which is the most important thing of all… This year will be different, for this year that love  will flow without stint…  as a resolute declaration to everyone, everywhere that this is a place where humanity is made welcome and where we know the true meaning of Christmas… and mean to have it! Share it! And renew it…
Knowing this, can you wonder why I am starting so early here? The wonder is that you have not commenced early, for your need is pressing, too.
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

Are you an entrepreneur? Check these crucial attributes and see if you really measure up. (You probably don’t.)

September 24, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. This is an article about bold, visionary, business risk- takers called “entrepreneurs”. Such people, by their intelligence, diligence, and shear bravado, overawe movie and sports stars in public awareness and regard and dwarf any renown which may come with mere public office, even the most high.
Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our age; never have they been more discussed, emulated, venerated and even worshipped as they are right now. On campuses around the nation and the world, the giants of entrepreneurial fame draw standing room only crowds while mere authors, statesmen, and musicians take second place, or worse.
Oh, yes, these are the heady days for entrepreneurs. It is no wonder you wish to enroll yourself amongst their ranks. But are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? This article will make that clear, one way or the other.

To put you in the right frame of mind, I’ve selected the theme music for the hit television series “Star Trek”, which celebrates those who boldly go where no man has gone before. This music was composed by Alexander Courage for the series which debued in 1966. It is highly suitable for those who don’t merely move into the future… they create it. You can easily find it in any search engine. Get it now… turn up the volume… and closely follow the points in this article which will make it clear whether you will captain your own Starship Enterprise, or not…
What is an entrepreneur? Let’s start with the definition.
Entrepreneur was originally a French word taken over lock, stock and barrel by the English speaking world, much to the dismay of the Academie Francaise, official guardian of the French language. Its definition is “One who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, assuming full control and risk.” Now let’s see if you are this person.

1) Entrepreneurs see the world not just as it is… but as it should be. From this fundamental fact about entrepreneurs all other facts derive.
Scratch an entrepreneur and you’ll find a person who is not just tinkering with human reality today… but has been tinkering with it right from the get-go, even from the cradle. They never see just what is… in their mind’s eye they see each and every situation as it can be… must be; they have only to do their bit.

2) Entrepreneurs say with Harry S. Truman, who proved as president of these United States to have the soul and inclinations of an entrepreneur, that “You can’t have anything worth while without difficulties”. And, “Mistakes would be made. No one who accomplished things could expect to avoid mistakes. Only those who did nothing made no mistakes.”
Those without the blood and fiber of an entrepreneur live their lives in chagrined remembrance for all the mistakes, errors, miscalculations and bonehead decisions they have already made… and are sure, given the chance, they will make again. This paralyzes them… for they are sure that when they decide, that decision will be wrong. On this destructive basis no progress is ever possible.
Entrepreneurs are very different.
Each and every decision made opens the possibility for error. This is the real world in which entrepreneurs live and flourish… accepting whatever transpires as yet another valuable learning step, as they walk the road to improving the human condition.

3) Entrepreneurs are “people-people”. They understand their work, all their work, is for people, unlike those without the entrepreneurial wherewithal who, in this withering phrase, “love humanity but hate people.”
An entrepreneur looks at a given situation and sees people unable to fulfill their God- given potential because of a condition, an obstacle which can, given the idea, the desire, the resources, and their own time and energy, be changed, improved, or even eradicated, sent to the scrap heap of invidious, enfeebling circumstances that the collectivity of entrepreneurs and their active, can-do ways have  removed as obstacles to the perfectibility of mankind.
In short, while others immerse themselves in fallibilities and dismay, the entrepreneur activates Teddy Roosevelt’s celebrated recommendation to “do the best you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
They know to the depths of their being that there is nothing so wrong that cannot be righted by the sum and substance of their parts, their humanity, their problem-solving capabilities… and that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes them from the run of mankind which sees obstacles as finalities… not challenges which they can meet… with grace, joy, and gratitude that they had the chance to serve.

4) Entrepreneurs crash, burn, hurt… and get up to try it all over again.
In the international best-seller “Zorba the Greek” (published 1964), author Mikis Theodarakis writes of a young English entrepreneur who gets entangled with and wiped out by the bad advice and worse assistance of Zorba, who is at best a con man. He follows Zorba’s catastrophic advice… and in a memorable scene watches as the Rube Goldberg machine Zorba has created collapses, costing the entrepreneur every cent he has… and more. For an instant, stunned by the implosion of all his prospects, every dream and expectation, he is stupified, angry, lost. Then he shows the true grit of even the grieving entrepreneur, “Teach me to dance,” he asks  Zorba, not at all the line we expected… but should have. It is what a real entrepreneur would say… and dance the sirtaki.
This is how entrepreneurs face catastrophe… for as Thomas Alva Edison, revered of American entrepreneurs, said, â? I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work ât , commenting on what he learned from the exasperation of years of “failure.”  Sublime.

5) Entrepreneurs uplift, never cast down.
No one knows better than an entrepreneur how difficult the improvement of the human condition can be; certainly those without the entrepreneurial disposition and experience cannot.
Thus, on any opportunity, wherever they happen to be, entrepreneurs lift up, encourage, and ease the way. Thus they administer in friendship and human solidarity essential truths and elements which have benefited them and from which hopeful others may benefit, too.
Entrepreneurs carry with them at all times, truths and insights derived from their unique vantage points, practical advice and admonitions, steady advice, always utilitarian, on what to do… and what not to. They never think, as those without entrepreneurial proclivities do, that to give to others is to diminish yourself. Their point of view is radically different — and always helpful.
And one more thing…
Entrepreneurs, however much they have managed to achieve alone, know that their success is always predicated upon the dedicated assistance and endeavors of the crucial people who constitute their team. It is their honor, their pride and responsibility to recognize and thank these sinews of their success, and they are glad to do so.
When was the last time you did as much for the good people who have helped you? Isn’t it time you did, you who aspire to be an entrepreneur?

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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

When you meet a kindred spirit, reach out to them… especially when they are about saving our threatened language. Meet Huck Gutman.

Posted on September 23, 2011

Huck Gutman

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. I’m going to do something different today, something occasioned by my discovery (compliments of The Boston Globe, September 21, 2011) of Huck Gutman. The theme “music” for this article will be an instrument we all have — the human voice — this time wielded by a master of delivery, Robert Frost.
Many years ago, over a half century in fact, I used to ride my bike from the tiny hamlet of Belmont, Illinois into the nearest town, Downers Grove, so I could sit in the cool recesses of the public library. I had many objectives and purposes there, books, of course, always books. But there were the records made by authors and by those very special authors called poets, one of which was recorded, and most memorably, by Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963).
I can recall to this day Frost’s reading of “The Pasture,” a selection from his volume “North of Boston,” published in 1915. It begins so…
“I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may); I sha’n’t be gone long. — You come too.”
I doubt I can convey to you now — though I shall try — just how evocative, how thrilling the simple words, powerfully rendered, “You come too”, were to me, for I was a boy who longed to see the world and meet its people, and here was an invitation to accompany this special man who had a simple mission he made seductive…
“I’m going out to fetch the little calf That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, It tottered when she licks it with her tongue. I sha’n’t be gone long. — You come too.”
Oh, how I wanted to go… and I believe Huck Gutman wanted to go, too. Before you meet him, go to any search engine and listen to Robert Frost read, especially “The Pasture,” then return here for I want you to meet Huck.
Sensitivity and a love of words from an unlikely place — the Capitol.
Huck Gutman is what Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables to you) would call a “kindred spirit.” She, an author too, loved words and would have written Gutman a nice note complimenting his labor of love; she would have deemed it an act of lexicological solidarity to be lavishly complimented… I agree.
Huck Gutman, a civilized man.
Gutman is 67 years old, an age at which many seek the joys of retirement — travel, golf, socially sanctioned sloth subsidized by Social Security… but Gutman has other fish to fry. This long-time professor at the University of Vermont (where I myself gave many workshops in business success) now serves as chief of staff to the Senate’s most “out there” liberal, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. Since the senator has his hands full resurrecting America’s anemic Left, Gutman is kept busier than most of his administrative peers. But he makes time for another occupation, one which keeps him grounded and of good cheer… he is an avatar of words and of words properly read… particularly the diamond-sharp words of poets.
And he has set himself the (perhaps Sisyphean) task of building civil bridges in the epicenter of internecine political warfare through the love of poetry, of words, and of language. Whew! This is truly a labor of love… but one bringing a special joy to the growing cadre of those who like the likable Huck… and appreciate what he is doing. His e-mail list includes 1,700 readers who include all the Senate chiefs of staff, several White House staffers, university presidents, academics, journalists, and former students.
His point is simple, profound, and absolutely necessary to the well-lived life: “It’s to remind them there are other things than the debt ceiling and Social Security.” Amen.
Here’s how he does it…
Every couple of months or so, Gutman, on leave from the university, makes time to find and circulate a poem. It may be from Ancient Greece, Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, or William Carlos Williams — there are no limits but one: it must be a poem by a master, a poem that can (if properly read) read well.
Gutman, educator to his fingertips, presents the work with one admonition. “LISTEN to the poem.” “The worst thing to do with a poem is to try to get at its meaning. We have done an absolutely horrendous job in teaching people how to read poems.” I go even farther than Gutman here… we have done the same horrendous job teaching people — and not just students either — to read prose, novels, letters, speeches, too.
Gutman’s solution is to encourage his audience to read for enjoyment, just as they would listen to music. Gutman is right, but reading his carefully considered selections, for all he gives his readers a few directional signals, is not enough. They need to read aloud, one of the great joys our speed-reading culture has left behind, to the detriment of human communication and meaning.
The marvelous human voice.
Most every day I write an article; the subject range is unlimited. Like all authors I like to have these articles (which can easily double as scripts) read and read widely. But I also insist on them being read aloud, each and every word
My experiment in reviving the joys of recitation started in our online Live Business Center where 24-hour-a-day monitors give out effective business advice… and also read my newest article or any of the hundreds of classics. I must confess: there was a universal, almost rebellious opposition to this innovation by the people who had to read the word aloud. What a mess!
They mispronounced words they’d used since grammar school.
Tripped over anything longer than a couple of syllables.
Disdained the helpful dictionary… making even more errors.
Moaned, groaned, complained that they were being “forced” to learn.
Killed every inflection, every intonation, every emphasis and so rendered brilliant prose banal.
Tossed necessary punctuation away… and thus forced the collision of words which to provide full meaning, needed careful enunciation and precise delivery.
It was brutal, excruciating, painful… . But I knew, despite the squawks and maledictions, I knew, I say, what I was about. I insisted on my point and moved forward word by liberated word. To great effect…
Now monitors take pride in reading these articles… and reading them well by mastering the text, individual words they have not previously encountered, including the mot juste which can make or break a composition. This article, starting today, will enter the repertoire… to touch people worldwide who are charmed, enchanted, comforted and enlightened by the human voice properly used.
Last words (for today) for this fellow New Englander and his romance with words.
Thank you… thank you for allowing all the poets you have carefully selected to speak again and anew, profoundly, passionately, resoundingly. For this you have been rightly praised. Let me add these words to your plaudits. They are from Joachim Du Bellay (1522-1560) “Heureux qui comme Ulysse qui fait une belle voyage.” You deserve such a voyage, and with the multitudes of poets who travel with you, will always be welcome wherever you go.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

What a great idea! Wish I’d thought of it! Cambridge, Massachusetts and MIT inaugurate Entrepreneur Walk of Fame.

Posted on September 22, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. I live and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just steps away from Harvard Sq. This compact area along the MBTA’s Red Line arguably contains the greatest concentration of brain power and technological innovation on earth. I’m here to tell you about a great new idea hereabouts which you’ll want to come and see.
To set the background for this article and get you in the mood, I’ve selected “You have to admit it’s getting better” by the Beatles, 1967, from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.” It’ll certainly get your blood flowing… a feeling every innovator young or old knows well and just cannot get enough of. Go to any search engine, find the tune, then crank up the sound and prepare to do your bit to ensure the future will keep getting better all the time….
Just the other day, September 16, 2011, something new, creative, innovative and long overdue was inaugurated the shortest walk from the Kendall Square MBTA stop in Cambridge. It’s the brand spanking new Entrepreneur Walk of Fame… and I say, “Hurrah!” and special thanks to the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a handful of foundations and groups. The walk celebrates the essential importance of entrepreneurs, people who improve the nation and the world through invention and innovation, not least by being engines for the creation of new jobs; a task our nation’s capital and its bewildered office holders just cannot seem to do better.
For openers, the founders of the walk have honored 7 grand entrepreneurs, some of whom we know well, others we may not know at all, for all that we have enjoyed in one way or another the fruit of their experience and experiments. They include…
* Inventor Thomas A. Edison.
* Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
* Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs.
* Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor.
* Genentech cofounder Bill Swanson.
* Hewlett Packard Co. founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard.
How they were chosen.
Once the idea of the walk had been approved and financing was arranged, prospective honorees were canvassed… and, ultimately, inclusion criteria determined. These stated that those honored must be respected US entrepreneurs who developed an innovative, technology-based idea into a billion-dollar company, and who are known — and respected — as risk takers, thereby embodying the essence of the entrepreneur. They don’t need local ties, but must have had a big impact — creating jobs, or an entire industry. In short, these are the biggest of the big fry.
Why each entrepreneur was chosen.
The selection committee for the first seven honored released its reasons for each entrepreneur selected.
* Bill Gates… for creating the software industry.
* Steve Jobs… who embodies “bouncing back from adversity.”
* Bob Swanson… “showed that anything was possible. Created the biotech industry when he was in his 20s.”
* Bill Hewlett and David Packard. They “demonstrated the power of the team.”
* Mitch Kapor (always a local favorite). “Changed the entrepreneurial culture.”
* Thomas Edison, grandaddy of entrepreneurs, “created both inventions and a company.”
Inspirational quotes.
Each star in the walk is amplified by an inspirational quote. Here are a few of them…
Mitch Kapor’s “Building a workplace which engages a diversity of employees and brings out their best makes a far greater contribution than financial success alone.”
Bill Hewlett’s “Men and women want to do a good job, and if they are provided the proper environment, they will do so.”
Bill Gates’ offered this: “Never before in human history has innovation offered the promise of so much to so many in so short a time.” (I must say, Gates’ line is the best written, owing everything to Winston Churchill’s immortal remarks on the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain. But then Gates had a Harvard education, though he did drop out long before he would have graduated.)
Interactive, innovative.
Innovatively, the walk also offers pedestrians such interactive stories as how Steve Jobs famously started Apple in his garage and how Gates left Harvard to become the richest man in the history of mankind, a tale from which restless undergrads have drawn all the wrong implications, to the chagrin of their worried parents who urge patience and the security of the degree Gates tossed away without a second thought. His parents worried, too….
Thoughts on entrepreneurs.
Let’s begin with the dictionary definition of the word, always a good place to start: “One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise.” Entrepreneurs are bold, action-oriented, visionary, energetic, energizing. They can see the future and they want to do, will do, whatever it takes to deliver it. They are thrilled by challenges, not oppressed by them… and as a result they shape the lives of the rest of us… and reap unimaginable rewards… kudos, deference, money and — no matter how nerdy — the cute boy or girl of their dreams. It is no wonder, then, that the great age of the entrepreneur is here, now! It is a marvelous thing to be the cynosure of every eye with the deepest of pockets.
That’s why — right this minute — young men and (increasingly) young women throw off the comfortable and predictable to risk everything, knowing that failure is always a possibility, but proceeding anyway…
These folks, crucial to the economy, to the job market, and to the good of all, deserve just as much help as they can get. The Entrepreneur Wall of Fame and its many activities are an excellent start. Bill Aulet, managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, and his team should take a bow….
But it is not enough…
1) Every presidential candidate needs to visit the Walk of Fame and the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and see what it takes to make a better future.
2) The president of these United States should especially be invited. He knows nothing about the needs of entrepreneurs… and as a Harvard Law student never went near Kendall Sq. and MIT, and we are all suffering accordingly.
3) We need to establish and enthusiastically develop and promote a cabinet-level Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship where we do everything possible for the crucial people reshaping the world to general advantage.
And one more thing, we ought to chastise roundly the candidates who lambast Cambridge, Harvard, MIT and, in general, the brainiacs here about. Such attacks are despicable, usually are made by those on the right in an attempt to frighten the uneducated, and get us no where. America needs entrepreneurs and their daring; let’s celebrate, not trash, them, for they are coming up with the ideas we need, not you.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

Autumn comes to New England, September, 2011. And we are glad of it.

Posted on September 21, 2011

1

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. Our first travelers to Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth just in time for Winter, too late for Autumn, specifically trodding on terra firma, December 26, 1620… and were they ever irritated, taking the opportunity to lambast the luckless captain who delivered them so late after a most disagreeable voyage, my dear, anxious for something new and exciting, but not (so they all later agreed) so new and exciting as the standard walloping, punishing New England Winter they came to know so well.
And so the mystique of Autumn, as something worth having and decidedly superior to what follows, was planted at once… and has never waned. And for good reason.
Autumn in New England is not merely a season. It is a mood, evocative, sacerdotal, an essential experience for the sensitive and anyone with the soul of a poet. It is a season that forces us to deal with transition, decay, transient beauty, and history scattered around and through the hamlets, towns, and occasional city. Indeed there is a feeling, never shared with outsiders and casual visitors, that each and every citizen of New England is merely history that hasn’t quite happened yet. History in New England is not merely vestiges of things past; it is present reality, no ghost, but events of long ago, our neighbors still, as fresh today as at inception. This view of ancestors puzzles casual travelers who have no ancestors. They come from places without History… and are, of course, of no consequence whatever. They naturally take umbrage and as many pictures of dying foliage as the traffic allows. We are glad to see the back of them.
States that more (or less) make up New England.
It is well known to even the least educated that New England is comprised of six states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut. The least educated, however, know nothing more than that and are not, therefore, in a position to inform you of sundry facts which if left untold to you will create problems for life and submerge your social standing. Here are the facts:
* Massachusetts is the largest New England state and offers a dizzying array of important events, people, ideas, institutions, etc. I don’t have either the time or inclination to share these significant details… for that you must visit any one of our dwindling number of bookstores and buy something. We need the money.
Autumn in Massachusetts is most about students arriving at pluperfect academies and institutions of higher learning graced by Corinthian columns and departments of humanities beset by troubles and the budget axe at every side. Such institutions attract the brightest students of the world. Sadly, even these are less educated than their parents, though they pay substantially more for what no one anymore considers a “good” education. Future students enrolled in such places in what is known as the Bay State will come for only a few weeks or even a few days, the prime objective being to say they “went” to (whatever institution they may claim) and to have their pictures taken in front of those venerable columns. Of course, it goes without saying that tuition and fees will not decline; rather the reverse. You will remember: we need the money.
Rhode Island, minute state, longest name.
Rhode Island, the littlest state, suffers from an indelible inferiority complex which has produced in once nick-named “Little Rhody” the insistent temerity of the “mouse that roared.” Rhode Islanders take no guff, and with that chip on the shoulder, defy you to knock it off. Even the boldest think twice before they try…
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by zealous brethen who grew appalled and aggravated with the sanctimonies and regulations of their former colleagues in Massachusetts and walked to a new destiny, one in which their truth was The Truth. So busy with the business of God, they had no time for the wistful vistas and God-delivered splendors of Autumn.
In due course, after their relationship with God was well and truly cemented and its manifestations — money — began to pour in… Rhode Islanders of means (and there were many) had no time for Autumn… they were busily spending their millions on sad copies of European culture and so nicking their fortunes and ensuring the sniggers of more enlightened, less respectful generations.
Later, in recent years, Rhode Islanders still had no time for Autumn. Gambling, lurid sex, and corrupt politics held sway… and to those who indulged the only season that mattered was the season in which their nocturnal activities waxed.
As a result of all these episodes Rhode Island came to know nothing at all of Autumn… something the more enlightened amongst them should regret, but probably do not.
New Hampshire.
There was no “Massachusetts” in the Old Country; there was no “Rhode Island.” But there was a peaceful place, a verdant place… called Hampshire. It is no wonder new citizens of the new land wished to memorialize it and pass a nostalgic hour reliving the place they would always remember as “home.” Such a place is a good place to see and to reflect upon the verities of Autumn, its beauty, its sadness that such beauty must be fleeting.
Go, then, to New Hampshire where their by-word is “Live free, or die.” It is a silly motto and would be better rendered “Live free, or fight,” something feisty, bold, gutsy, uplifting. But at least the folks in New Hampshire mean well, though that isn’t always enough. After all, at a time of fiscal austerity, they have wasted millions promoting that foolish motto of theirs.
Vermont.
Now we come to the Holy of Autumnal Holies, a place as sanctified and revered as Delphi. It’s everything that every Sunday travel supplement says it is… villages rendered and revered by Currier and Ives, places so quaint and tidy you are sure they are imaginary. I confess. I love Vermont in Autumn, and so that is when I scheduled my classes at the University of Vermont. One bows low before such a riot of glorious colors and swiftly dying verdure. Still, I have a pet concern… Vermont is not a name of Old England; rather it is a name of Ancien France, for Vermont (“Green mountain”) was an outpost of the Bourbons and reminds us they dreamed imperially, too, if less successfully than England. Perhaps locals kept the name which concerns me because it was tangible evidence that they had pulverized those Frenchies… even to the extent of annexing these words from their language for eternity… an insult to the people most conscious of the outrage of insult. En garde!
Maine… Connecticut.
As far as Autumn in New England is concerned, after the “in your face” exuberance of Vermont, the rest is dross. Maine, after all, was just a hunk of Massachusetts ripped off the Commonwealth in 1820 and established as a “free state,” to balance the “slave state” of Missouri then entering the Union. But we canny folk of Massachusetts are glad; Mainers are poor and exigent. They really need the money.
And as for Connecticut, the less said the better. Connecticut looks today as it has looked for eons south to New York and Pennsylvania. The folks in Hartford and environs condescend to the rest of New England. We hate them cordially and have made sure to sell them everything we can at inflated prices. You see, they have the money.
At the end…
Now you know about Autumn in New England. Book your tickets at once. Bring the family; the more the merrier. And, remember, bring all your credit cards and instruments of credit. Keep in mind at all times, we need the money.
Oh, and by the way, should you like a little light music to accompany this article, I recommend Edith Piaf singing “Autumn Leaves”, in both Johnny Mercer’s English and Jacquec Prevert’s French. It is superbe. You’ll find it in any search engine. Do it now before the falling leaves have all drifted past your window…
* * * * *
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

An urgent message for all those in their first job… what to do to move up fast… even in troubled economic times.

Posted on September 19, 2011

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An urgent message for all those in their first job… what to do to move up fast… even in troubled economic times. September 19, 2011
 
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. Everyone remembers their first job with, perhaps, a bit of nostalgia and a soupcon of fondness, after the fact. But did you really know what you were doing… and, more to the point, leverage that job and rise high — even in a period of economic dislocations, miseries, and muddles?
Perhaps because of these depressing realities, you had to take a job, any job, just to pay the rent. In such a situation you may have felt chagrined (to say no more) that you didn’t have the job of your dreams and were not sky rocketing to fame, fortune, and the cover of Time magazine. Whoa… bad analysis, worse attitude. YOU need this article desperately.
My favorite nephew Kyle is in this boat. He’s a bright lad, a newly minted honors graduate from a well-regarded California institution of higher education… marooned by the seemingly unending recession and its never quite better aftermath. He couldn’t find a job in his field, and so with prodding and exhortation (and a great deal of it) took the first job that was to hand, working in the vegetable department at Kroger.
Don’t laugh. And don’t go all arrogant and condescending either.
Is he disappointed? Yes! Irked? Let-down? Oh, yes, but that was before his wily Uncle Jeffrey picked up the phone for some down-home success tips. Now, Kyle is the “maniac on the floor”, primed for greatness and the executive suite. And so I selected one of the most exhilarating songs of the 80?s to accompany this article; “Maniac on the floor” from the film “Flashdance” (1983), belted out of the park by diva Irene Cara. Whatever despairing depths you are plumbing today, this red-hot dance tune will lift you and lift you higher.
Serendipity.
The gods of corporate Olympus move in mysterious ways… and so it was with Kyle, Kroger, and me, for I made my first stock investment into Kroger when I was 13 or 14 back in the ’50?s. The reason was one stock maven Peter Lynch of Fidelity Investments would applaud: because we shopped there. I didn’t have so many shares to start with, but I visited Kroger as often as the family wished to eat… and I could see how my biggest (my only) investment was faring. Even then I took a very proprietary interest in “my” Kroger. I even recall picking up some soiled lettuce off the floor and properly disposing of it. It was a portent… but of what? It took the better part of a lifetime to discern, but Kyle’s launching pad in the lettuce department seems to be the link.
Introduction to The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR)
Kroger, as you may well know, is the country’s largest grocery store chain and its second-largest grocery retailer by volume and second-place general retailer, Walmart being the largest. As of 2010, Kroger operated, either directly or through its subsidiaries, 3,619 stores. It reported US$ 82.2 billion in sales during fiscal year 2010, with 338,000 employees, including Nephew Kyle, right there at the bottom, on the first rung of the ladder of success, nowhere to go but up. Lucky boy.
Why so?
Kyle is a business “virgin.” He knows as little about business as is possible. This can be either a very good or a very bad thing, depending on what happens next. Kyle, for instance, has no bad business practices to unlearn and overcome; he has no such business practices at all. Thus he starts with a “tabula rasa”, a clean slate, in the immortal phrase of monumental 18th century savant John Locke.
Kyle has two options: fill this slate with one bad, progress-destroying habit after another, or knuckle down and learn the crucial things to turn a pedestrian entry-level job into a launching pad for lifetime success.
It ALL starts with attitude.
Kyle, unless your department at Kroger is a little bit of heaven, your supervisor’s biggest problem is personnel. They will demonstrate and perfect every sin venal and cardinal. They will specialize in complaining, their moans and groans elevated to stratospheric heights. Rather than get on with the job for which they were hired, they will conspire to cheat, chisel, and connive, liberally biting the hand that feeds them, gratitude and service towards the company inconceivable notions getting lip service and nothing more.
This being the case, an employee, any employee no matter how junior and inexperienced , who actually works up to their full potential, understanding that they work for Kroger, goes on the supervisor’s Christmas card list at once, with kudos, compliments, and useful perqs galore.
Now hear this: you have been gifted with every advantage. The one you most need at present is the right attitude. You are now a Kroger man. You are now a part, albeit on the first step, of a large, growing, proud establishment. Act like it!
For openers, let your supervisor know, best by superior work ethics and results, that you are a grateful, loyal and enthusiastic member of the Kroger team, a team which has grown steadily larger and more lucrative since in 1883 Bernard Kroger nailed his colors to the mast, “Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself.”
* Look the part. Spruce yourself up, exemplifying everything you learned as an Eagle Scout. Wear the insignia of this achievement. It will show your new colleagues what kind of fellow you are and suggests you have what they want.
* Read everything you can about Kroger, including their annual report and the plethora of useful documents you’ll easily find at their website. Print these documents. Study them. Make yourself thoroughly conversant with the facts. You will also find a thorough report at the Wikipedia. Put your copies in a folder and carry them with you; make sure your supervisor sees you studying them at your breaks. Believe me, you’ll be the ONLY one showing such initiative.
* Always be on time; that goes without saying. Inform your supervisor that you are willing to take extra hours if others in the department cancel shifts. Let the supervisor know that your first loyalty is to the company, its customers, and what Kroger values: one grocery innovation after another. Kroger people are proud of what they’ve done to feed America and feed America well.. You must know these achievements and swell their pride.
* Have a good, solid, professional relationship with your supervisor, but never be a brown nosing apple polisher. Your job is to help your supervisor run the complicated store with its thousands of products in which you now work. At all times be polite, respectful, professional. You are not his buddy and pal, you are something far more valuable, a colleague who assists him rise… and whom he values accordingly.
* When you see a good deed, tell the supervisor; also, tell the person you have told the supervisor. One of the most important things you will ever do in business is to recognize employee achievements and, by a timely word in the ear of someone more advanced in the hierarchy, help that person secure the many emoluments which business can and does offer.
Two more things.
I know of your great interest in the ecology “green” movement. That is fine. In this connection I advise you to broaden your understanding of what it is and should be. Remember. the most important animal you can help save and preserve is the human animal, and here what you do could be of the greatest importance. Study Kroger and its ecological endeavors; make it a point, when possible, to seek out the food chemists and others who are helping us all live better lives with more nutritious and safer foods.
And, remember, even if you do not stay at Kroger, every word in this message remains germane since you will require good references to move up… and this is how you get them.
Now….. become the maniac on the floor, your presence and good work everywhere apparent, noticed with approval and approbation by the Kroger executives who see in you themselves and wish to advance you accordingly. And remember…
“You work all your life for that moment in time It can come or pass you by…”
And for you that moment is now.
* * * * *
About The Author
Howard Martell serious inquires only 757=962-2482
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com Check out Chris Mentor Me ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ld8pbXWE

An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at 88.

Posted on September 20, 2011

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An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at 88.

September 20, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

Holly Hickler

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. This is a story about words and a woman who understood the power of words properly used to motivate adolescents, some of the toughest customers on earth. It is the story of Holly Hickler, proud to be a teacher, exhilarated by the challenges of her profession, a model to the less committed, who are legion.
Words, words, and ocean of words.
If you are a word person (as I confess I am) you will be sad upon reading this article that you never knew Holly Hickler. The minute I read her obituary in The Boston Globe (July 31, 2011), I was so saddened… I wanted to know her… and I wanted the world to know her, too. Words, you see, even words in an obituary, can make you feel so; words can do anything, convey anything, rouse anything, exult anything, change anything, remove anything, love anything, revolt anything…
… but you must know the words, have them not just in your head, but in your fingertips; words must be your constant companions. They must intrigue you, mystify you, bring you to your knees with grief, carry your prayers to God, and then, doubling back, conjure love from indifference… then ask your too late mate when she will be home for dinner.
Holly Hickler loved words, every word; she loved the sound of them, the textures, the complicated words and the simple words which proved upon reflection to be the most complicated of all: heaven, love, death, God, forever.
Mischievous, this mother could with laughter and purpose confound her children by reciting at any time or place a sprig of Frost on an autumn day:
“”Summer was past and the day was past. Sombre clouds in the west were massed. Out on the porch’s sagging floor Leaves got up in a coil and hissed….”
( from “Bereft” by Robert Frost, 1874-1963)
Or this written by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844-1889) in 1877, but not published until 1918.
“GLORY be to God for dappled things — For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow: For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings:…”
( from the poem “Pied Beauty”).
Poems like these, even simple seeming Frost, are hard to read… harder to understand… and that would have suited Mrs. Hickler just fine. Such words, in such order, forced the surly, withdrawn, moody, often aggravating adolescents (either school delivered or borne by her) to stop, read the words clearly, sharply, for words must be heard; then look up the definitions… recite them again with greater clarity both of recitation and of meaning… then again and again, transforming brain cells into repositories of words, to be yours forever, shared only when you wish to touch a human heart or uplift, if only for a minute, some weary passerby in need of the comfort of the right word right delivered.
Her life.
Born Helen, in Philadelphia, her mother, Jean Miller Schloss, was fashion coordinator for Gimbels Department Store, and her father Edwin Schloss, a cellist who played chamber music with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a home of culture, the arts, and of sensitivities to music… literature… and, always, to words.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 with a major in English, she worked on women’s magazines and publishing for a time and interviewed authors on television in New York City. Unfortunately (and tellingly) her greatest achievement in these years was not the stunning prose she wrote and published (for she did neither), but rather the fact she survived the crash of a B-25 aircraft which plunged into the Empire State Building in July, 1945 while she was working. But she survived…
In 1946, she married Courtland Yardley White III, her former writing professor. They had twins, Peter and Kate. Mr. White died of tuberculosis in January, 1950. That September she married Frederick Dunlap Hickler, an architect. They had three children. When their oldest child left for college, Mrs. Hickler started teaching at the progressive Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts. Here her vocation for teaching became evident to all.
Sympathetic, loving, strict standards.
Unwary students often misread Mrs. Hickler’s educational approach, to their peril. She was kind, empathetic, even loving towards her students, but this did not mean any diminution of the high standards she expected students to meet. As Bonny Musinsky, a fellow teacher at the school for 17 years, said, “when it comes to grading, she was no push-over. If they didn’t measure up — with all her love and caring — she would give them a C.”
The writer’s eye.
Writers are a probing, observant, perceptive, invasive kind of people. They never merely glance and are the masters of minute detail and of actually seeing a thing. No one can write effective prose without these skills. Mrs. Hickler made it a point to foster this ability which she used to good effect in her 1981 book co-authored with Cambridge psychiatrist John Mack. It was titled “Vivienne: The Life and Suicide of an Adolescent Girl”, and focused on the impersonal attitude of teachers in meeting the needs of teen-agers. No one ever accused Mrs. Hickler of such misunderstanding and dereliction and that is why she was such an effective, impacting, and always memorable instructor.
Writer’s block.
I can guess, but cannot confirm, that one of the great sadnesses of this productive life was her own difficulties with writing words and slender published oeuvre. It must have been maddening, discouraging, irritating at the very least. So much so, that at age 75 she took a class to overcome writer’s block. In due course, she wrote again. It was prose remembers Deborah Carr of Wellesley, a member of the group, about her “youth in an artsy, intellectual family in Philadelphia which she told in a voice that sounded as young as Holly was at heart.” Unfortunately, it was not published… but this article, which will be read by thousands, will help keep green the memory of Holly Hickler, and her message that words matter, good writing matters, and that both are essential in the complicated business of human communication.
Infuriatingly, this is something far too many school districts have not grasped, which is one reason SAT reading scores have sunk to a record low with the class of 2011. In this connection, Wayne Camara, College Board vice president of research, mused, “We’re looking and wondering if more efforts in English and reading and writing would benefit students.”
Having read this article, just what do you think Holly Hickler’s resounding response would have been? Or what yours should be, now that she has gone?
Then go to any search engine to find the recording by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia of Tshaikovsky’s Variations on a Roccoco Theme. Holly would have loved it…. and so will you.
* * * * *
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

Autumn comes to New England, September, 2011. And we are glad of it.

Posted on September 21, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. Our first travelers to Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth just in time for Winter, too late for Autumn, specifically trodding on terra firma, December 26, 1620… and were they ever irritated, taking the opportunity to lambast the luckless captain who delivered them so late after a most disagreeable voyage, my dear, anxious for something new and exciting, but not (so they all later agreed) so new and exciting as the standard walloping, punishing New England Winter they came to know so well.
And so the mystique of Autumn, as something worth having and decidedly superior to what follows, was planted at once… and has never waned. And for good reason.
Autumn in New England is not merely a season. It is a mood, evocative, sacerdotal, an essential experience for the sensitive and anyone with the soul of a poet. It is a season that forces us to deal with transition, decay, transient beauty, and history scattered around and through the hamlets, towns, and occasional city. Indeed there is a feeling, never shared with outsiders and casual visitors, that each and every citizen of New England is merely history that hasn’t quite happened yet. History in New England is not merely vestiges of things past; it is present reality, no ghost, but events of long ago, our neighbors still, as fresh today as at inception. This view of ancestors puzzles casual travelers who have no ancestors. They come from places without History… and are, of course, of no consequence whatever. They naturally take umbrage and as many pictures of dying foliage as the traffic allows. We are glad to see the back of them.
States that more (or less) make up New England.
It is well known to even the least educated that New England is comprised of six states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut. The least educated, however, know nothing more than that and are not, therefore, in a position to inform you of sundry facts which if left untold to you will create problems for life and submerge your social standing. Here are the facts:
* Massachusetts is the largest New England state and offers a dizzying array of important events, people, ideas, institutions, etc. I don’t have either the time or inclination to share these significant details… for that you must visit any one of our dwindling number of bookstores and buy something. We need the money.
Autumn in Massachusetts is most about students arriving at pluperfect academies and institutions of higher learning graced by Corinthian columns and departments of humanities beset by troubles and the budget axe at every side. Such institutions attract the brightest students of the world. Sadly, even these are less educated than their parents, though they pay substantially more for what no one anymore considers a “good” education. Future students enrolled in such places in what is known as the Bay State will come for only a few weeks or even a few days, the prime objective being to say they “went” to (whatever institution they may claim) and to have their pictures taken in front of those venerable columns. Of course, it goes without saying that tuition and fees will not decline; rather the reverse. You will remember: we need the money.
Rhode Island, minute state, longest name.
Rhode Island, the littlest state, suffers from an indelible inferiority complex which has produced in once nick-named “Little Rhody” the insistent temerity of the “mouse that roared.” Rhode Islanders take no guff, and with that chip on the shoulder, defy you to knock it off. Even the boldest think twice before they try…
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by zealous brethen who grew appalled and aggravated with the sanctimonies and regulations of their former colleagues in Massachusetts and walked to a new destiny, one in which their truth was The Truth. So busy with the business of God, they had no time for the wistful vistas and God-delivered splendors of Autumn.
In due course, after their relationship with God was well and truly cemented and its manifestations — money — began to pour in… Rhode Islanders of means (and there were many) had no time for Autumn… they were busily spending their millions on sad copies of European culture and so nicking their fortunes and ensuring the sniggers of more enlightened, less respectful generations.
Later, in recent years, Rhode Islanders still had no time for Autumn. Gambling, lurid sex, and corrupt politics held sway… and to those who indulged the only season that mattered was the season in which their nocturnal activities waxed.
As a result of all these episodes Rhode Island came to know nothing at all of Autumn… something the more enlightened amongst them should regret, but probably do not.
New Hampshire.
There was no “Massachusetts” in the Old Country; there was no “Rhode Island.” But there was a peaceful place, a verdant place… called Hampshire. It is no wonder new citizens of the new land wished to memorialize it and pass a nostalgic hour reliving the place they would always remember as “home.” Such a place is a good place to see and to reflect upon the verities of Autumn, its beauty, its sadness that such beauty must be fleeting.
Go, then, to New Hampshire where their by-word is “Live free, or die.” It is a silly motto and would be better rendered “Live free, or fight,” something feisty, bold, gutsy, uplifting. But at least the folks in New Hampshire mean well, though that isn’t always enough. After all, at a time of fiscal austerity, they have wasted millions promoting that foolish motto of theirs.
Vermont.
Now we come to the Holy of Autumnal Holies, a place as sanctified and revered as Delphi. It’s everything that every Sunday travel supplement says it is… villages rendered and revered by Currier and Ives, places so quaint and tidy you are sure they are imaginary. I confess. I love Vermont in Autumn, and so that is when I scheduled my classes at the University of Vermont. One bows low before such a riot of glorious colors and swiftly dying verdure. Still, I have a pet concern… Vermont is not a name of Old England; rather it is a name of Ancien France, for Vermont (“Green mountain”) was an outpost of the Bourbons and reminds us they dreamed imperially, too, if less successfully than England. Perhaps locals kept the name which concerns me because it was tangible evidence that they had pulverized those Frenchies… even to the extent of annexing these words from their language for eternity… an insult to the people most conscious of the outrage of insult. En garde!
Maine… Connecticut.
As far as Autumn in New England is concerned, after the “in your face” exuberance of Vermont, the rest is dross. Maine, after all, was just a hunk of Massachusetts ripped off the Commonwealth in 1820 and established as a “free state,” to balance the “slave state” of Missouri then entering the Union. But we canny folk of Massachusetts are glad; Mainers are poor and exigent. They really need the money.
And as for Connecticut, the less said the better. Connecticut looks today as it has looked for eons south to New York and Pennsylvania. The folks in Hartford and environs condescend to the rest of New England. We hate them cordially and have made sure to sell them everything we can at inflated prices. You see, they have the money.
At the end…
Now you know about Autumn in New England. Book your tickets at once. Bring the family; the more the merrier. And, remember, bring all your credit cards and instruments of credit. Keep in mind at all times, we need the money.
Oh, and by the way, should you like a little light music to accompany this article, I recommend Edith Piaf singing “Autumn Leaves”, in both Johnny Mercer’s English and Jacquec Prevert’s French. It is superbe. You’ll find it in any search engine. Do it now before the falling leaves have all drifted past your window…
* * * * *
About The Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

Upon the occasion of the 70th birthday of my dear friend, Professor Robert Dobson, on having and being a friend.

Posted on September 18, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. Because I remember that you are, genetically at least, some substantial fraction Hungarian, I have chosen Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2? (published 1851) to accompany this article. Stirring isn’t it…. and also just a tad bombastic? Your ancestors in Buda or Pest no doubt enjoyed it… and I hope you will, too.
You were right….. again.
You told me I would forget the date… and I did. I could claim “pressure of work”, but we both know better. I could claim that I’m casual, even oblivious, to dates of anniversaries, birthdays, and such like, so unlike you with your mania for such accurate data.
In extremis I could say that my dyslexia (so useful at such times) so manifests itself. But we both know, you who know me so well, that that is so much balderdash… and so, despite a gentle reminder, I did, after all, forget.
Fortunately I am beyond the time in life when I think infallibility not only important but essential. I feel no resentment or even necessity to defend the indefensible, and can own up to inadequacy.
The plain truth is I missed your 70th birthday… and I mean to make up for it here and now.
Hungary.
You probably know, though I think I have never said, I have a particular interest in things Hungarian. I love tokay (you will remember the occasion I forced you to buy a good vintage)… I can quote the details concerning Hungary’s elevation to constitutional equity with Austria, so creating the Dual Monarchy (1867). (You cannot).
And of course I remain committed to a Habsburg restoration and to the renewal of the Kingdom of Hungary. That is why I am so punctilious about gathering the artifacts of the dynasty, including the signed photographs of his last Hungarian majesty, King Karol. I suspect, though I do not pry into a man’s unlikely obsessions, that you harbor such a commitment, too. If so, you have remained admirably and completely discrete, as you are about so many matters.
Books.
I went looking this morning at about 5 a.m. for an excellent book I possess on the history of the twin cities which became in due course Budapest. You would like this book, too, which is why I shall never lend it to you, though your acute organizational skills may defeat my objective… for, as usual, when you visit you will (you cannot help yourself) arrange and re-arrange titles I have thrown together helter-skelter. That affronts your abiding need for order, proper arrangement, and perfect clarity. I would like these traits, too, but I fear I cannot rise to them… and so the book I would like to find today… you will certainly find tomorrow. It may well migrate then with you to Connecticut and another fate, for you are tenacious of books.
More books.
One of the enduring links we share is the love of books. It has enabled us to spend companionable hours with maximum pleasure and communion but minimum words. Remember, if you will, the places in which we have indulged ourselves in this manner… London (often), New York (not often enough), a bevy of Italian cities, and memorably the isle of Capri, where in the shadow of Tiberius’ palace we enjoyed the many pleasures of words on the printed page especially on those extraordinary beaches where the sybaritic imperator sported and outraged the locals. Since history is so often written by the disapproving, I have long felt Tiberius got a bum rap. Perhaps, so advanced are your opinions on such matters, you agree, though you have gratefully supported the man without emulating his idiosyncrasies.
Food.
I feel compelled to touch on a few of the many aspects of foods we have shared. Here, as elsewhere, your habits are admirable, though, as elsewhere, they are strict, immutable, written in stone. I here have a confession to make. Have you wondered at the timing of my telephone calls, so often transpiring at 4 p.m.? This is deliberate, mischievous, designed to probe and challenge your predictable habits and tested regime. Forgetful of dates I may be… but I well remember just when you are preparing your evening meal… and mean to throw you off your schedule. So far, in many attempts, unsuccessfully. I am therefore in a position to aver, affirm, attest to the fact that you are a man of fierce habits, cherished, adhered to, set in cement.
My eating habits are, as you know, quite different… and it is because they are, I can offer a heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your conscientious care and concern. You eat… I forget to eat… you remind me to eat… I eat.
When we first met, so many years ago, I was immersed in writing a book (my first)… neglecting everything else. (Plus ca change.) This may have A) offended your sense of order, or B) roused your humanitarian feelings, or C) both.
I cannot say.
But I can say that your calls to remind me to eat were useful — and touching — and necessary. My kitchen was terra incognita for me, not for you. “You will find such and such a nutrient in such and such a place.” I didn’t know… you did… and if my thanks over the years had not been frequent and fulsome, I would say them all over again, always gratefully.
Money.
For decades now, I have been urging you (without noticeable effect) to open your fustian pocketbook and let the moths fly free. The Scots, of whom I am one, have a word for you, “near”, and since it is a word no one but Scots know or use, I can always use it with impunity. It is short, sweet and to the point, a combination of the niggardly, frugal, parsimonious and cheap.
For instance, consider the matter of your clothes. At once humbly and patriotically, I urge you to donate them to the Smithsonian Institution, for they are, at the very least notable, and arguably historic. Do this deed for God and country or for the tax deduction, but do it. Your popularity (as a worthy donor) will soar, and you’ll be helping your flagging candidate by assisting the economy, something he has proven manifestly unable to do. Help him here, while helping yourself.
“I am officially ‘old’ “.
When I called you the other day, you answered with the line above. It was at once a gentle reminder of what I had (again) forgotten… but more importantly it constituted an acknowledgement, a declaration, an admonition and a reality. We booked places on Time’s winged chariot at conception, as everyone does. But now we know what that means.
When you were born the world was mangled… all but glistening America, the only great power on earth. The sciences to which you have devoted your life were at the threshold of unimaginable advances. You have seen every development and, unlike so many of us isolated in the humanities, you have, because of your training, understood them.
That is why I treat your opinions in this matter with the respect they deserve. You have, principally in the classroom you graced so well, helped legions who all recall you with respect, not merely as a learned man, but as an honest man. I am an honest man, too, in part because of the example you have provided for so long.
Thus, I say this to you: stay clear headed and warm hearted to the end, whether that end be nigh or long delayed. Browning was not being merely optimistic when he wrote, “The best is yet to be.” He knew, however, that we must, all of us, take the best as we find it… for it, in some form or another, will always exist. And for me that will always include you.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

5 tellltale signs you’re not really interested in business success… you just like talking about it.

Posted on September 16, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. This is one of the dozens of articles I’ve written about success. All are prescriptive, honest, detailed… the kind of articles you use a refrigerator magnet to post for the one in your house who talks the best game about success… but never does what’s necessary to achieve it. (That could be YOU!)
I’m writing this report for those who engage mouth… but nothing else.
Who try to make you feel small by always prattling on about the BIG things they mean to achieve… but somehow never do.
These people need help and they need it instantly. I aim to provide it… and I’m going to call on the spirit of Harry S. Truman, once president of the United States, to assist. I’m in a big pro-Truman phase right now, not least because I’m again reading one of the best written and most intelligent presidential biographies, David McCullough’s “Truman.” It is so rich I only permit myself to read a bit every day, because I know how good it is and how distressed I’ll be at its conclusion.
For this article’s theme music I’ve selected Paderewski’s Minuet in G, a piece Truman knew well; Paderewski himself had shown Truman how to play it… and on one memorable evening during the Potsdam conference of 1945, he played it to the most distinguished audience in the world, headed by the other two of the “Big Three”, Stalin and Churchill. The elegant music of another, more graceful age incongruously rose into the night air drifting over the macabre ruins of prostrate Berlin. You’ll find it in any search engine. Play it now.
Getting on with the job.
Harry Truman was one of the most quintessentially American presidents the Great Republic has ever had. He was hard-working, conscientious to a fault, direct speaking, humble about himself but determined to improve America and the world using the powers of the office he venerated, and graced. He had the profound American belief that problems were not obstacles, but challenges… and that they could be solved, all of them, if folks just got down to the essential business of solving them.
His approach, of course, might have been so very different. Being President of the United States, he could have pontificated in endless wordiness about what he was going to do… then returned to the White House to play the poker he loved with the buddies who made him laugh and relax, promises forgotten.
Or he could, following in the footsteps of one of the most revered of leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, give way to feelings of inadequacy, a man of slender skills dwarfed by one of history’s giants. But he didn’t go this direction either, despite a famously indiscrete toast by Winston Churchill who said, “I must confess, sir, I held you in very low regard. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt.” With friends like these… Untimely delivered to be sure, but a sentiment the majority of the American people shared with Churchill and which they, along with Churchill, changed as they came to know the man and his methods better. Then, Churchill rendered his revised opinion thus:
” ‘He is a man of immense determination. He takes no notice of delicate ground, he just plants his foot down firmly upon it’. To make his point, Churchill jumped a little off the wooden floor and brought both bare feet down with a smack.”
Now, be honest, would anyone call you a person of “immense determination” with an acute desire to solve problems and a practical willingness to do so as soon as possible? We have now arrived at the moment of truth, where you need to be a person of total veracity and integrity. Can you rise to this absolutely essential level? If so, it’s time to transform your habits so that you can create success after success; to start having and quit merely talking about it.
1) Shift from talking about to actually having success.
So, when was your last success? The longer ago the date you now provide, the bigger your problem. Successful people are starkly “now” oriented. They won’t tell you about the successes of years ago; the successes that matter are the ones of recent date. Thus, just how far back you have to go to find a meaningful success constitutes a very clear indication of just how big a problem you have.
2) You must be confident enough about your judgement to make decisions.
Successful people are decision-making people. They know that the achievement of success, then the maintenance and expanding of this success is a function of not just hundreds, but thousands of decisions:
Should I buy this inventory at this price, or not?
Should I invest the company’s assets in an interest paying account for this amount of time, or not?
Should I inform this very difficult customer that my firm cannot handle her business anymore, or not?
Should I fire this, hire this, advance this, demote this particular individual, or not?
Review the life and condition of any successful person, and you will see a steady increase in the number and importance of decisions made. Leadership, prosperity, success is all about the ability to make complicated decisions without regret, without second guessing yourself.
3) Successful people will work with you to work things out.
There is a marvelous phrase in the Bible that says simply, “Come now, let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1-18) This is precisely what successful people do. Of course, they want to make the best deal, but they realize the best deal contains substantial benefits for the people they are negotiating with; in other words, it is mutually beneficial. If the parties are mutually content, the deal is not only satisfactory for now, but keeps the door open for subsequent deals. And this is the best deal of all.
4) Successful people know the point, grasp the point, and keep their eyes and mind on the point.
Successful people are focused people. Life, already short, cannot be wasted; carpe diem is their motto, guide, and objective. They know that this day will end; that is a given. What is not a given is what benefits they have garnered from the day. The fact of a day is God-given; what happens in that day is determined by each of us. People who talk about tomorrow, next week, next month are fooling themselves and are rightly shunned and disregarded by people who regard procrastination, sloth, and inertia as completely unacceptable and root them out accordingly.
5) Successful people anticipate what people they are working with might need and gather it in advance.
Successful people are perceiving people, thinking people, aware people. They brainstorm options and are thoughtful about what may happen and how to prepare for it, for the ease and comfort of all.
Is this how you are? Or are you always a part of the problem, never part of the solution?
In this regard, consider what Floyd Boring, one of President Truman’s secret service agents, said about him:
“He never came on as being superior. He could talk to anyone! He could talk to the lowly peasant. He could talk to the King of England… And that was, I think, his secret.. He never got swellheaded — never got, you know, swagly.”
Ask yourself if anyone will ever regard you this way… and work hard to make sure they do.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

Don’t like American politics? They change as fast as the weather. Just ask U.S. Representative-elect Bob Turner the apple of the Big Apple’s eye

Posted on September 15, 2011

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. I wasn’t going to write about politics today. I had everything all laid out for a laudatory article on an extraordinary woman and her important work with children. That, alas, will have to wait because of what a 70 year old Roman Catholic named Bob Turner accomplished on September 13, 2011, viz. he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of 7 term sextexting joyboy Anthony Weiner, who hereby earned fresh execrations and maladictions. If only the Honorable Anthony had texted less and loved his put- upon wife more…
The hot news is that Turner did it  in a district comprised of Queens and Brooklyn, New York.  So?…….. (and here’s the stink bomb for the astonished, horrified Democrats)…  He did it as a REPUBLICAN in a House district which has NEVER elected a Republican. (Drum roll.)
So, who’s the genius who gets the credit for this implausible, even unthinkable development?
You know him as B. Obama, president of these United States, and this morning in the Casa Blanca he didn’t eat his eggs, he wore them. Oh, my.
So I’m sending El Presidente a copy of the most famous political song ever sung in NYC, “The Sidewalks of New York,” lyrics and music by James W. Blake and Charles E. Lawlor. It was written in the 1890s but took off with the candidacy of “The Happy Warrier” Al Smith, Governor of the Empire State, candidate for the Democratic party nomination for president (1924), Roman Catholic, defeated Democratic party candidate (1928). Find it in any search engine; it’s a grand old tune and is today being belted out for Mr. Bob Turner, retired media executive, a hero to ecstatic Republicans, “East Side, West Side, all around the town…” Don’t even hum this ditty around the Oval Office today…
Another referendum on our de-escalating chief executive officer.
Bob Turner is a lucky man, and not merely because he was elected either. It was how he got elected. Nobody, absolutely nobody (possibly including Bob Turner) expected him to win. They just hoped he didn’t embarrass himself and the party in a district where Democrats hold an overwhelming majority, 3 to 1, and where his competition, a member of the New York State Assembly, David  Weprin, was an Orthodox Jew in a district at least 40 percent  Jewish. Moreover Weprin’s political family was well known and respected in the district.
In the end, everything going for the Democrats — and they had everything going  for them (on paper) —, wasn’t enough to counteract the toxicity of the president. From Day 1, it was 100% about him, his policies, and his descending political prospects… In New York of all the stalwart places!
So because it didn’t much matter, Turner got the luxury of telling the truth as he understood it… the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And feisty New Yorkers (who so often take underdogs to their hearts) liked what they heard from this unlikely hero who walked the pavements, knocked on doors, and talked to everyday people about their everyday concerns even though, out of earshot, these people thought he had a snowball’s chance in Hell to be their next Congressman.
But he just kept doing the necessary… and sharing his thoughts and common sense with his fellow countrymen, who bit by bit from the grass roots became the essential fuel for this unlikely event.
Turner talked about the punk economy and asked folks if they were happy with what they knew, what they saw, what the president and Democrats generally were doing to improve things. He turned this election into a referendum about BO and his malodorous policies. Were they helping the folks of his prospective district? If so, they should vote for his opponent. But if they were not, they should give him a chance.
Turner asked them, too, to give him the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. pledged to bring business efficiency, business accountability, business standards to the notoriously chaotic and expensive management quagmire so notoriously mismanaged by Uncle Sam. Again, this message resonated with New Yorkers… who came to like Turner and his message… and the more they held their noses about BO, their former love, the better Turner looked.
Hidden losers.
An election is never just about the candidates; rather, it is about the legions of folks whose fortunes are to a greater or lesser extent connected to those candidates. Their stock and prospects go up or down depending on how the cat jumps.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, now Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-California), gets a pie in the face  — again. Clearly she, although supposed to be au courant on the affairs of her minority members, missed this boat. Pelosi is already shop worn… a couple more bumbles like this one, and she can go to work for the chocolate company on whose addictive product she dotes… and will never be missed on Capitol Hill. In all fairness, her liberal distribution of free chocolates would be…
Democratic New York Governor Andrew  Cuomo is another hidden loser, but it probably won’t hurt him much. He, too, was asleep at the switch and so missed the opportunity to provide necessary life support for Assemblyman Weprin. A governor of New York, any governor of New York, has a plethora of tools, resources, manpower, and, of course, money to be doled out liberally to forestall catastrophes like this one. Had he been more alert, Mr. Turner would never have succeeded.
Cuomo should burn the midnight oil studying his mistake. You see he aims to be president in 2016 and cannot afford too many rookie mistakes and oversights. It’s just not what we expect from such governors, or will tolerate.
Hidden winners.
Victory, it is said, has many fathers. If so, it’s certainly true here, and the list of hidden winners is very interesting indeed, including as it does former New York City mayor Ed Koch who ditched his party to endorse Turner. Koch gave the usual reasons, that Turrner would be good for America, etc. But the truth is Koch, as much as anyone, was glad for the chance to show Obama what he thought of him, which wasn’t much.
New York Assemblyman  Dov Hikind headed a list of well-known Orthodox Jews in this heavily Jewish district, usually reliable Democrats, who ditched their Jewish candidate Weprin and made Catholic Turner their man. Scratch the surface here and you’ll find evidence of the complicated, labyrinthine, tortured vicissitudes that make New York politics so arcane, and interesting.
One more  not-so-hidden winner, Donald Trump. He backed Turner but probably just to get his name in the papers. If so, The Donald achieved his objective.
Turner, a  keeper.
Prior to the election, the  Assembly (controlled by Democrats) and the Senate  (controlled by Republicans) had the hot potato of eliminating two congressional seats because of the census. They had pretty much decided to get rid of Weprin. But with Weprin’s crushing loss, Republicans see a chance to redistrict in such a way that Turner is protected and re-elected. Stay tuned for the machinations around this event… which won’t take place on the side walks of New York. It’ll definitely be clandestine and behind-the-scenes and so reassure us things are back to normal.
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About The Author
Howard Martell serious inquires only 757=962-2482
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com Check out Chris Mentor Me ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ld8pbXWE

Reflections upon the completion of 350 articles of commentary in the current series; what it takes to write commentary worth reading.

September 14, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

Napoleon's office, Malmaison

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It is still dark outside my brilliantly lit Cambridge, Massachusetts office at 5:31 a.m. Eastern time, September 14, 2011. I am happy not only because I have just a few minutes ago completed my article of the day… but because this is the 350th article in my current series. Today’s article was a series of way out on a limb predictions about the 2012 American elections; prognostications at once cheeky and magisterial. Quick, can you say President Rick Perry?
It occurred to me upon the completion of this article that I owed it to my millions of online readers, to posterity, and to myself to explicate my view of what constitutes superior commentary and how to provide it. Incipient commentators will want to know… and it is always a wise idea to record your side of any given matter before successors mangle, distort and rearrange the facts.
Where my commentary is written.
My office is situated across the street from Harvard Law School, a place of renown amongst whose graduates are the current president of the United States, the chief justice of the United States, and 5 of the 8 associate justices. It is a place where words matter and where students are instructed in the writing of limpid, precise, meaningful prose. It is a powerful example to have before oneself every day, and I strive to maintain these standards and be guided by them.
The actual room in which I write is unique. It resides on a piece of property originally owned by the Reverend Charles Follen, Harvard College’s first professor of both the German language (1825) and of gymnastics and physical education (1826). His abbreviated career at Harvard ended in 1827, perhaps because of his advanced political opinions.
Professor Follen was a reformer, an apt example for me. He wished, of course, to bring the latest advances in German pedagogy to Harvard… and he was also a rabid abolitionist at a time before such a viewpoint was acceptable. His views were so extreme they affronted his colleagues and neighbors who were undoubtedly pleased when a boat on which he was traveling from New York foundered on January 14, 1840. Dead prophets are so convenient… and it is safe to name myriad roads and places after them, as they memorialized the deceased Follen who no longer roiled the peace of their comfortable consciences. But here’s what’s important about Follen as far as I’m concerned. He had rage about the status quo, an acute desire to change and improve it, and moral superiority. All are useful to the commentator, and the spirit of Herr Doktor Follen envelope and reinvigorate me.
I call this room the “Imperial Webcast Facility” and that is accurate, if a trifle grandiloquent.
I used the word “imperial” for several reasons. First, it was a major subject of mine at Harvard, where I studied principally European history (from 1969), taking the M.A. degree in 1970 and the Ph.D. in 1975.
Second, I call it “imperial” because of the portraits and signed photographs which inhabit this space along with me. These include the boy Phillippe d’Anjou (born 1640) who became Philip V of Spain. Just 17 when he was made king by the decision of Louis XIV, he became the longest reigning Spanish monarch ever. He was never actually called an emperor but as ruler of 1/6 of the globe we may confer this courtesy.
His portrait by Henri Gascars, portrait painter to the Royal Children of France, Spain and England, is quite possibly unique… for when his Spanish majesty was a mere French duke he was of no importance whatsoever. Perhaps Gascars felt put upon painting such an insignificant subject; if so, I trust he kept his sentiments to himself, for King Philip was of a vengeful disposition. In any event it is a lovely picture of a young man elevated to rule by small pox and God’s will.
Two emperors of Austria hang near their earlier cousin of Spain, Joseph II (reigned 1764- 1790) and his brother Leopold II (reigned 1790-1792). These were just two of the many siblings of unlucky Marie Antoinette. Both pictures of these imperial brothers came to me in shocking condition, but the careful ministrations of my long-term London conservator Simon Gillespie brought them back to majesty.
Joseph’s portrait was by Josef Hickel, a well known painter who fathered an even better known painter son. It’s an artistic rendering that does full justice to the aesthetic man known to history as sublime Mozart’s patron. As for the painting of the Emperor Leopold, it is exceedingly rare because it shows him as Grand Duke of Tuscany, a training position for younger sons of the dynasty.
The room is packed with one royal, imperial, grand ducal and noble artifact after another, including two signed photographs of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, assassinated in 1914 along with his morganatic wife Sophie, the proximate cause of World War I. The 1890 photo of the young Franz is on my desk where I can stare at leisure into the eyes of this man of destiny. It is part of the palpable history that irradiates this special room. But important though this is, it is not the most important thing in this room…
… that would be the essential tools of the imperium, the keyboard where I compose, the screen where I daily webcast… and the unceasing flow of commentary from the one to the other. These tools and the messages are all mine, but the arrangement owes much to the office of another imperator, Napoleon.
When he was a young man on the make, Napoleon met the love of his life, Josephine, a woman made for love and pleasure who adored luxury and never minded the bills; someone, she knew, would always pay. That someone more often than not was her second husband, General Buonaparte. In 1798 he left his faithless wife to seek fame and fortune in Egypt. While he was gone inventing himself and his legend, she purchased a lovely country house neither could afford. She cared not; he was enraged… and so Malmaison, the estate where both were happiest, came to be.
In it, the soon-to-be emperor had an office, not so very much larger than mine. In it were fine examples of the grand and grandiose Empire style, so imposing, including his desk and chair. Of course such artifacts are off limits, never to be touched, much less used. But I knew at once I wanted an office like this… and so, while the slothful guards took a long break I sat down in the chair, positioned myself just so and reviewed every millimeter, opened every drawer… then starred out the window to the verdant lawn on which the couple Bonaparte found happiness together as they strolled and loved each other.
I was happy there, too… and mulled over what Napoleon would add to this room were he alive today.
The answer was obvious for a man who spent his life communicating to manage and administer his empire… live 24 hour a day webcasting … and so that is what I added to my international communications center and from which I talk to the world en masse and to every individual like you. Right now, there are over 100 people here… that number waxes and wanes throughout the day and night, but it is never without visitors. Now you must consider yourself invited for this is a place of culture, humanity, a progressive outlook and a can-do attitude, where learning is valued, solutions sought for grave social issues and personal dilemmas, and where the focus is always on uplifting, improving, enhancing… just like it should always be for every commentator… and is most assuredly the way it is for me.
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About The Author