Smart Tips For Your Personal And Business Success Today……….Master blog article writer tells you exactly how to write articles that get read and responded to.

Smart Tips For Your Personal And Business Success Today……….Master blog article writer tells you exactly how to write articles that get read and responded to.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to spend some time with you and provide the detailed step-by-step information you must have to get the attention of the people on your list and get them to respond — and rain well deserved compliments on you and your notable work.Let’s dig right in; there’s lots of ground to cover.1)  The purpose of blog articles.Know much about space travel? Here’s a crucial part that astronaut pays a lot of attention to: the heat shields that protect a space capsule returning to earth. Without these shields the capsule and the passengers within would be fried. The same thing happens when you mail ad copy and nothing but ad copy to your lists. Recipients will get plenty angry plenty fast. They want more from you than just ads, and if they don’t get it, the unsubscribe link is near at hand.Blog copy is essential because it keeps subscribers on your list by giving them a good reason for staying on your list. In short, like those heat  shields, this copy protects the list and keeps it whole, growing, profitable.2) Don’t publish random articles. Give your articles increased weight importance by creating them as part of an ongoing series. When you write good copy, copy of substance and value, people not only want to read it… but they want more, lots more, from you, a person whose articles and opinion they come to respect.3) Number each article and announce that number along with each article. As I write (August, 2011), this is my 312 article in the series. You want people to know that, not least because they will want to find and profit from the other articles in the series, all the other articles. Furthermore, as your list of articles grows, so will your reputation and perceived standing. In short, you will be an authority, a commentator of renown and repute.4) Write your blog articles to a certain length, and stick to it.My daily blog articles (which I produce for blog owners worldwide) are all approximately 1500 words in length. That is three single-spaced pages. This length gives you ample space to develop an article on any given theme. It is also a convenient length for readers, not too long or demanding; crucial features in our time-pressed days. Once you have developed your format, you will soon start thinking in terms of your available space and will find it easier and easier the more you write to conceive and write articles of that length.5) Always search for and brainstorm new article subjects.I am on a dizzying blog article creation pace: one 1,500 word blog article per day. This is a challenging schedule for even the most experienced writers. That means I need 365 article subjects per year, challenging indeed.  But even if you decide to write just one blog article per week,you’ll need 52 subjects to write about, nothing to take for granted.When you write blog articles, you are always and forever in the business of finding hot new article subjects. To start, get  the major metropolitan newspaper from your area;(for me that’s The Boston Globe)… and a pair of scissors. Now sit down and review this newspaper with a new eye; an eye that’s seeking interesting, timely, readers-will-love-this subjects. Make time to cut these articles from the publication. Don’t fall behind with this crucial task.In my case, I review and cut out three times a week, more if at all possible.Keep a good pair of sharp scissors at hand. Look at each article in each edition to see whether an article on that theme or subject would fit your blog. If so, cut at once and make sure to date everything you cut out. That’s a must.Then deposit what you’ve found in a large drawer…  this is the article subject compost heap and it is essential. In it you will find subjects you will surely want to write about… and subjects you’re watching, to write about at some future date. Cut liberally; you can be sure you will have no subject readily at  hand. Having all these ideas will prove very useful indeed.6) Select the next subject you’ll write about, gather the information you need to do so.The creation of articles of substance, articles that draw continual kudos from your readers,is a direct result of knowing where to look for the information you need. The better you become at this necessary task, the better articles you will produce and the faster your reputation grows, too.Start by doing a search at any search engine (I prefer Google) to see what  information is available. Where you are writing an article about a breaking news item, don’t just check the available information, also pay close attention to the time the most recent material was posted (e.g. “7 hours ago”). This is essential for keeping what you write ahead of the news cycle. For timely articles, this skill is required.Then visit the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is one of the most ingenious and necessary tools ever invented. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use it, finding and printing the invaluable information I absolutely must have do my work… one aspect of which is studding my articles with the facts there in so amply provided. This source is crucial.You will also need to visit the websites of article providers such as Associated Press,Reuters, Bloomberg, etc. They are a terrific source of article subjects and timely data.7) Brainstorm articles.You and your lifetime of education and experience are also valuable sources for articles.Keep a pad at the ready, or an Internet file, where ALL possible article subjects can be listed. Never, ever rely on forgetful memory for such subjects. Write them down at once.8) Set a precise date for finishing all articles.I write and blog my articles daily. I have a precise time of the time when the deadline for the next article MUST be met: 8 a.m. Eastern time. To do this I find all the data I’ll need the day before and review it before bed time. Then I am awake and drafting editing, then finalizing the day’s article by 3 a.m. Eastern time; that is not a misprint? I have found the silent hours of the (usually) uninterrupted night the very best time to write, not least because I am wide awake and full of beans at that  time. You’ll find the schedule most suitable for you; set it, adhere to it religiously.  You will find if you do that your brain and body will be willing to work at that time, and that is a great benefit.9) Keep individual files for every article you write.These files should contain all the printed information sources for this subject as well as all your notes and each draft. Everything pertaining to this article (including the compliments readers email you) must be kept, not least because you may very well decide to write follow-up and related articles for which current data will be most helpful.Last words.Blogging is the future of the Internet; that is absolutely clear. And for blogging to work,and your list to be protected, superior blog  copy is a must. Now you know how to produce it.
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. 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 Income Hybrid ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=wd9GQode
Skype me at homeprofitcoach

Aja’ toro! An appreciation for the life of Juan Pedro Domecq Solis, breeder of fighting bulls, bringing artistry to death. Dead at 69, April 18, 2011.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s note: To add an extra dimension to this article, go to any search engine to find Rita Hayworth singing “Verde luna” from the 1941 version of “Blood and Sand” with Tyrone Power. It is the story of a torero and the woman who mesmerizes, then deserts him. He dispatches bulls with consummate skill and artistry; she does the same thing to him. The result is the same: death in the afternoon. Ole’! Death was fiery and quick for Juan Pedro Domecq Solis,a head-on collision with a truck, both vehicles going at breakneck speed, the better to reach eternity faster. And so the man known to aficionados of the corrida known simply as “Juan Pedro” died… the 7th member of his family to die in traffic accidents, including his son, Fernando, and a nephew. The man who presided over an industry of death was now dead… Sadly, we shall never know whether that death lived up to his exacting standards… the standards on view any Sunday during bullfighting season. Sunday at Seville’s Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza (finished in 1765). You are in Seville, Spain now; it is any Sunday from Easter through October. You are making your way, along with thousands of the faithful, to the epicenter of bullfighting,the most majestic,historic, prestigious site for these ancient rites. You can see the elaborate architecture blocks away… the very stones which for centuries have witnessed the artistry and skill of generations of toreros… as well as young bodies, dead in the sawdust in their own blood. This is the realm of Juan Pedro Domecq Solis… the man whose job was to produce the bulls that delivered what you came for: a good kill, an exciting kill, a kill that brought you to your feet, waving your white handkerchief, over and over again before death descended on the bull… or the torero. Either way the body dragged out to make way for the next fight, the next thrill, the next kill. A dynasty of breeders. Juan Pedro Domecq Solis was born in Seville on April 10, 1942 and grew up in Jerez de la Frontera, 15 miles northwest of Cadiz. He studied Engineering for a year in Seville before moving in 1959 to Madrid, where, in 1966, he completed his studies in Agriculture at the Escuela Especial de Ingenieros Agro’nomos. In 1972 he moved to Barcelona to study business management at the Institute of Higher Business Studies. By then he had already taken over the management of the other notable aspect of his family’s farming business — vines. “We are a family that began making sherry in the 18th century,” he said. “But we always had a second passion, the breeding and selection of livestock.” The Veragua “iron” (or brand, associated with the family’s estate) is every bit as old as the Domecq family’s history in sherry. In 1755, in Seville, Gregorio Va’zquez created a mixed herd of bulls. This herd was acquired by Juan Pedro Domecq y Nunez de Villavicencio in 1930. It was his son, Juan Pedro Domecq y Diez, who revolutionized bull fighting by breeding animals that “struggled until death.” Until then bulls were bred for their power and aggression when faced with the mounted picadors of the first act of the fight, whose lances wound the bull in the neck, weakening it. But the Domecqs were visionaries; they didn’t just breed bulls… they were artists, creating with their bulls moments of grandeur, beauty, courage — and death. This meant breeding just the right bulls for the toreros, the bulls which would “understand” their roles and work to exult the torero and entrance the crowd. Breeding just the right bulls was absolutely essential to achieving the results they had so clearly in mind. These results included the awe-inspiring close passes and the daredevilry that form the modern bullfight. The Domecqs, dreamers, perfectionists, artists considered themselves the people who, above all others, maintained, preserved, and enhanced a great tradition of immemorial Spain. They wanted perfection… and they were prepared to be diligent, focused and, above all else, patient to get it… one bull at a time. Domecq Solis takes charge. After Juan Pedro Domecq y Diez’s death in 1975, Domecq Solis inherited a small fraction of the herd — 84 cows and four bulls. — “Ojalado”, “Desgranado”, “Garabato”, and “Rancherito”. From these four bulls he meticulously drew out the traits established by his father. He developed a genetic database of his herd in partnership with the veterinary faculty at the Complutense University in Madrid. He was determined that his animals should be fit enough to last the 20 minutes of any fight, the 20 minutes the torero needed to show the courage, boldness, evanescent beauty and transient artistry of his craft. Towards this end, he ran his bulls daily to build up their endurance. Slowly, the definitive “toro artista” emerged… Traditionalists were, of course, outraged; they wanted what they had always wanted, bulls that show “courage” in death. But Domecq Solis understood that to live and thrive, this ancient blood sport had to keep and expand its audience. This meant breeding bulls that would act their appointed role: to showcase the torero and give him every opportunity to dominate the arena, the bull, and the audience. It is no wonder that when toreros saw the “V” brand on the bull racing towards them, they smiled; fate had handed them just the right bull, a Domecq bull, the bull that would — with its broader shoulders and slender waist — make them a star… perhaps even immortal. For such an end every particle of who they were and what they could do was required. “Death in the Afternoon” by Ernest Hemingway (1932). In his definitive book on bull fighting this is what that ultimate aficionado wrote: ” The chances are that the first bullfight any spectator attends may not be a good one artistically; for that to happen there must be good bullfighters and good bulls; artistic bullfighters and poor bulls do not make interesting fights, for the bullfighter who has ability to do extraordinary things with the bull which are capable of producing the intensest degree of emotion in the spectator but will not attempt them with a bull which cannot depend on to charge…” Juan Pedro Domecq Solis and his family (including his son and heir Juan Pedro Domecq Moreno) have created the essential bulls about which Papa Hemingway was writing. Their vision and the genes of their bulls now dominate a sport very much under attack and perhaps fated for oblivion. But till that day dawns, toreros will continue to excite a crowd with their moves of danger and grace — but only because the bulls, Domecq bulls, cooperate and embrace their fate, to the gratification of the audience, shouting ole’ at every breathtaking pass.
??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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Massive Auto Traffic -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=hi76Cl4e

'Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew.' Haunting, evocative, elegiac, the lilacs return to Brattle St.., Cambridge, May 7, 2011.

To get you in the mood click on this link comments are always welcome
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I was out early today. Even before dawn’s first light, I was up and about and soon on my mission… to find the first bunches of lilac, and drink in their unmistakable scent with the pristine dew.
What passersby (not too numerous so early) must have thought to see the flowers held against my face, though gently so as not to crush them, I cannot say. I did not care. The lilacs that I love to excess have returned to Cambridge… and with them every memory of this most evocative of flowers and their flagrant, haunting fragrance.
Beloved of Russian empresses…
One day the great Empress Catherine of all the Russias (1762-1796) went walking in her garden of Tsarskoe Selo and found a branch of lilacs, so perfect she was sure it would be picked to amplify the bouquet of some lovelorn lad to his much desired lady…  so she stationed a soldier next to this lovely branch. In 1917, a soldier was still stationed where the plant no longer flowered or even existed. But then Tsar Nicholas II wasn’t surprised… for his wife Alexandra, called “Sunny”, loved lilacs to distraction, too… and created a room in the most palatial of palaces where everything was in a shade of lilac. It became, in due course, the most famous room of the empire…
My grandmother Victoria had this same tendresse for her much loved and coddled lilacs. She craved their scent and their colors, too, in every shade of purple… heliotrope, mauve, violet, lavender, puce, and all the other variations. Even my grandmother’s perfume, Muguet de Bois by Coty (launched 1941) featured lilac… and  lily-of-the valley. Proust-like, that scent brings her back… as does my mother’s Chanel. Lilac is like that. It will not be denied and can never be resisted.
And now the lilacs are in rampant bloom along Tory Row on  Brattle Street, breathtaking, sensual, glorious. The Loyalists would have remembered them for all the rest of their long lives; the merest hint of their scent would trigger the painful memories that come with unending exile.
A few facts about lilacs.
You may be surprised to  learn (I was) that syringa (lilac) is a genus of about 20 to 25 species of flowering woody plants in the olive family (Oleaceae) native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia.
They are deciduous shrubs or small trees, ranging in size from 2 to 10 meters (6 feet 7 inches to 32 feet 10 inches) tall, with stems up to 20 to 30 centimeters (7.9 to 12 inches) in diameter.
The leaves are opposite (occasionally in whorls of three) in arrangement, and their shape is simple and heart-shaped.
The flowers are produced in spring and are bisexual, with fertile stamens and stigma in each flower. The usual flower color is a shade of purple (generally a light purple or lilac), but white, pale yellow and pink, even a dark burgundy color are known. Flowering varies between mid spring to early summer, depending on the species.
The fruit is a dry, brown capsule, splitting in two at maturity to release the two winged seeds that have within them everything that produces the lustrous magnanimity of the lilac and commands your eye and reverence.
The poets irresistible attraction to and understanding of lilacs.
Poets, including many notable poets, saw lilacs and wished, in words, to produce the lyric quality of their scent. The scent, the unforgettable scent, swept them away. It was exuberant, excessive, a warning to the dangers of immersion in a thing so powerful, so rich, so cloying; a thing that draws you away from the little duties and miseries of life and whispers of pleasures you want beyond reason. Too much of this unalloyed richness gives way to madness… and exultation.
Amy Lowell (1874-1925) knew the potency of lilacs. She wrote
“Your great puffs of flowers Are everywhere in this my New England… Lilacs in dooryards Holding quiet conversations with an early moon; Lilacs watching a deserted house Settling sideways into the grass of an old road; Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering  under a lopsided shock of bloom….”
And then….
“You are everywhere. You were everywhere.”
Lilacs know their power and seduce you with it, every wind wafting the scent into your brain and memory.  They offer you the same terms that a beautiful woman offers the man distracted by her — none at all,  just surrender. Lilacs are the sorceress of blooms, enchanting, elusive, sharing their magic for an instant… leaving you longing for what you fear you will never have again.
The flower of elegy, mourning, decay, death.
Lilacs are the flower of remembrance. After the fall of Tsar Nicholas II and the entire structure of tsardom, the ex-emperor and his wife Alexandra found themselves prisoners of the new regime, forbidden even to walk in the magnificent park at Tsarskoe Selo. Alexandra looked out upon an ocean of lilac, once hers, now as distant as the moon. Her haunted look, beyond mere dismay, touched the heart of a simple soldier. He gave her a sprig. His officer saw this as “fraternizing with the enemy” and had him shot.
Amy Lowell, too, saw lilac as an accoutrement of death.
“The dead fed you Amid the slant stones of graveyards. Pale ghosts who planted you Came in the nighttime and let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.”
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) also knew the immemorial association between lilacs and death, and he gave us the simple words that bespoke the greatest tragedy:
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”
He picked a sprig of lilac and thought of the passing into eternity of Abraham Lincoln, “Night and day journeys a coffin.” It is unbearably painful for him, only the simple words — and the lilac — with its promise to return — giving solace, for that is within the power of the lilac, too, which Whitman knew and relied on:
“Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.”
But this cannot be the last word on lilacs, not this.
Think instead of Lynn Riggs’ 1931 play “Green Grow the Lilacs”, the basis for the libretto of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma,” a musical about real people and their real concerns. They brought lilac seeds with them to beautiful their often difficult lives because they couldn’t bear the thought of life without its beauty, comfort and serenity. And I cannot either.

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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Easy Quick Profits ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=fx8jUl6w

Smart Tips For Your Personal And Business SuccessToday……….And she asked me “Was I a good mother… ?” Mothers Day,Sunday May 8, 2011

On the day remember to post comments on this article about mothers day and feel free to share your stories!
To get into the mood here is some Mothers Day Music


by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Today is Mother’s Day in the United States. It occurred just the other day in England… and will occur around the globe at various times all year long as millions of people make a point of honoring mother and making this day special for her. Those of us whose mother has passed on will take time this day for remembrance… turning this into a day of bittersweet joy and sorrow.  There will be tears… but there will be smiles, too, as we recall every aspect of Mom with all the memories we cherish so. Yes, there most assuredly will be smiles, too… for Mom, even if gone, still has the power to lighten our lives and soothe us, just as she did so often once upon a time…Anna Jarvis and the creation of Mother’s Day, 1914.There have, of  course, been mothers’ days as long as there have been mothers. Kind-hearted fathers and grateful children undoubtedly saw to that… but one woman wanted more for mothers than a casual, occasional compliment. Her name was Anna Jarvis and she is the reason you are dropping by your mom’s today, your arms full of spring flowers and a myriadof affectionate tokens. Anna Jarvis was born May 1, 1864 in Webster, Taylor County, West Virginia.She was the ninth of eleven children born to Ann Marie and Granville Jarvis.From childhood Anna idolized her mother, and she often heard her say thatshe hoped someone one day would establish a memorial for all mothers,living and dead. Anna always recalled one particular incident that drove home her mother’sunceasing message. This incident occurred during a class prayer given by Mrs. Jarvis in Anna’s receptive presence. Mrs. Jarvis’ lesson was on “Mothers of the Bible”. She closed the lesson with the prayer “I hope that someone, sometime will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”Anna was just 12 years old… and not only did she never forget; she dedicated her life to achieving her mother’s desire. We can now see the contours of this  story. Mrs. Jarvis, kept perpetually pregnant, laboring under a mountain of never-ending work, with a husband who never understood all she did and how much herelied upon her… and a daughter completely receptive to her mother’s urgent plea for recognition, assistance, and above all else — love. Mrs. Ann Marie Jarvis poured it all into her daughter’s dutiful ears… and whatever her resentments,disappointments and moments of chagrin… here at least she was abundantly  rewarded. Her darling Anna saw to that…After her mother’s death on May 9, 1905, Anna, now living with siblings Claude and Lillie, began her life’s work, a day that would fulfill her mother’s fervid desire. Fueled by love and the image of her overworked,  under loved (but neverby Anna) mother… Anna put  her active pen to paper, determined  to achieve her goal of establishing a nationwide observance of Mother’s Day. Nothing was going to stop her, and so from love came the focused, unceasing activity that moves mountains. She bombarded hundreds of legislators, executives, and business men on both state and national levels.Everyone was polite, muttering general words of support… but, despite her efforts and her skills as a notable and motivating speaker, Anna Jarvis was making no progress. Then one of the greatest marketers in history, John Wanamaker,merchant prince, entrepreneur, philanthropist heard Anna and saw at once that her idea was good for Wanmaker’s, good for business, good for America, and good for mothers everywhere. It was a win-win situation all round… With the inventive genius, power, influence and energy of John Wanamaker (1838-1922)behind her, Anna Jarvis and her idea moved onwards and upwards at incredible speed. On may 10, 1908 15,000 folks eager to honor thy mother showed up at Wanamaker’s Store Auditorium in Philadelphia to hear Anna Jarvis speak.10,000 of them had to be turned away for lack of room… It was a magnificent event… thereafter success followed success, Wanamaker saw to that; he was a dynamo of a man, success his birthright.By 1909, 45 states, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Canada  and Mexico observed Mother’s Day.  People by the millions wore the white and red carnations the movement had adopted as a visible means of showing that the wearer loved Mother and supported the international movement.  Everyone was happy now;a great goal had been achieved… everyone, that is, but Anna Jarvis.Everytime a florist sold a bouquet… everytime a husband hard-pressed fortime and with worries of his own bought a card… everytime anyone made a buck off her Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis winced. And so as the number of participants grew into the millions, Jarvis who should have been the happiest of all became the most miserable. This isn’t at all what she had in mind formothers… or the memory of her mother.So began the sad decline of Anna Jarvis, the woman who now proceeded to burn every bridge and sunder her intimate connection to Mother’s Day until with the death of her sister, she was entirely alone… having nothing but memories and the assurance of her mother’s love. And so she went on,bitter, alone, forgotten, neglected until at last she died, November 24, 1948,her mother’s zealous defender until the end…… but too much so. I like to think that Anna’s mother would have been glad for the card (even if store-bought), for the flowers (even if not picked from your own garden), and the candy you didn’t have time or talent to make… because each is a token of a love which cannot be celebrated too often… the love of mother.And so if your mother is alive today, do something, anything, indicating you care.And as you are lavishing these gifts on your one and only mother, give a thought to Anna Jarvis and her troubled spirit. She is the reason you have the happy task of turning this otherwise ordinary day into the reassurance your mother requires that yes, resoundingly yes, she was and yet is a good mother,the best of all whatever her faults or limitations.
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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Easy Quick Profits ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=fx8jUl6w

Wondering how to make a difference with your life? Then dig into this appreciation of Boston’s Henry Lee and his Friends of the Public Garden.

To put you in the mood here is the Massachusetts Anthem
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Ever complain that today’s media are filled with nothing but bad news and new things to worry about? Ever wish that the media published more good news?
Well today is your lucky day. There isn’t a single word of bad news here… and everything you read will make you feel good. I guarantee it.
How can I proclaim all this and every good thing that follows? It’s because I have the honor and high privilege of telling you the uplifting story of one of Boston’s citizens…Henry Lee, a man who made not just a difference but all the difference to the enhancement of one of the great cities of the world — Boston, Massachusetts.
Never heard of Henry Lee… no matter. If you’ve ever been to Boston (and, if not, you should visit as soon as you can) you have seen his handiwork… in the Public Garden and its sister parks, the Boston Common and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall. These are amongst the glories of this place… and they are such glories because of Henry Lee, the man who decided to make a difference… and did.
Born with a sterling silver spoon.
Henry Lee is a Boston Brahmin, the kind of person this iconoclastic ditty was written about:
“I’m from the city of Boston. the land of the bean and the cod where Cabots speak only to the Lowells and the Lowells speak only to God.”
From “All Hail to Massachusetts”, with words and music by Arthur J. Marsh, made the official state song of Massachusetts on September 3, 1966, and codified by an act of the General Court in 1981.
Born in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (a place chock-a-block with a plethora of Brahmins including plenty of Cabots and Lowells), Henry Lee was born into a privileged world charted for him from conception.
His relations include former Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargent; Elliot Lee Richardson, the U.S. attorney general who stood up to the shenanigans of Richard Nixon, and Henry Lee Shattuck, a state legislator and a Boston city councilor who founded the Boston Municipal Research Bureau. All these people knew who they were… and what they must do, including the maintenance and preservation of the unique heritage of Massachusetts which was, after all, a heritage their families had originated in the first place.
Lee matriculated at Harvard (the right young men always did)… then (rather audaciously) went on to Stanford University. California, for Brahmins venturing West was the equivalent of Christopher Columbus discovering America; wills were written before embarkation and parents embraced as if for the last time. For such people Boston would always be their city, truly “the hub of the universe.” (Of course, in due time the relentless waves of Irish emigrants — including the Kennedys — changed all that forever.)
Following Stanford Lee went into the Foreign Service serving as a diplomat in Washington and Europe. This too was a bastion for many Brahmins who required a respectable but not overly taxing career. He moved to Beacon Hill in 1958 and taught at the toney Dexter School in Brookline. Then at age 55 (he is now 86), he decided to branch out to the congenial work Brahmins do best, improving the city they will always secretly believe is theirs and must never cease to be. He had only to glance out the window and down the street from his home on Mount Vernon Street, byway of Brahmins, to see what must be done.
The degradation and dilapidation of Boston, the inglorious reality.
The proud city of Boston, fomenter of Revolution, had by the 1970s hit bottom. It looked what it was: a city decayed, disillusioned, devastated… a brutalized example of everything that was wrong with urban America. Nowhere was this distressing blight more evident than in the very parks and open spaces Lee could walk to from his house in just minutes.
What he saw was deeply distressing to the man of culture and breeding he was. Graffiti stained the statues, including the celebrated statue of Washington; the bridge over the lagoon was crumbling, and sections of the iron fence were missing. Drugs and crime were constant occurrences.
Henry Lee was persuaded to become the first chairman for the new Friends of the Public Garden and invited some friends to attend the first meeting at his home. He thought, he was told, the project wouldn’t take much time… but in fact the man was now at the commencement of his 41 year career.
Tenacious, diplomatic, successful.
Lee set to work with a will; he understood that the city’s financial circumstances were such that he and his organization would have to raise the necessary funds. Brahmins are excellent fund raisers for the projects they endorse and believe in; Lee was superb at the “begging” game. And at never losing sight not only of the green spaces… but of the overall environment. As such he lead the successful campaign to scale back the Park Plaza development, which would have menaced the parks. This was perhaps the single achievement he was most proud of.
Never a dime’s salary.
And so, for 41 years, until just the other day in May, 2011, Henry Lee did his important work, always a gentleman, the perpetrator of an avalanche of personal notes, pertinacious, focused, the master of both grand designs and all the myriad details of his cause. He literally changed the face of Boston, now wreathed with greenery, flowers, open spaces, refreshing to the spirit, signature elements in the city’s magnificent panorama.
And it all started with just one man, Henry Lee, who could have remained set in the past… but chose instead to position a notable metropolis and its first-in-the- nation green spaces for generations yet to come.
You could do something as important too.
Henry Lee, upon his retirement, left an organization of $17 million and 2,500 members.
When next you are wondering how you can make a difference in your community, look around you and select an important task, something truly important. Then invite them to your home… and commence your own journey to shaping a better world… the way this great and good man did and which you may also 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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Traffic Travis -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ni8UEiR5

May marks 50 years since Freedom Rides in South

Today Marks the Anniversary of something so called the Freedom Rides!!!
Please feel free to comment on this articles!!!
To get  you in the mood he is some of the songs from Freedom Rides: www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Freedom-Riders-Jail-Songs-in-Parchman-Prison-Video
In 1961 CORE undertook a new tactic aimed at desegregating public transportation throughout the south. These tactics became know as the “Freedom Rides”.
The first Freedom Ride took place on May 4, 1961 when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional.



In the first few days, the riders encountered only minor hostility, but in the second week the riders were severely beaten. Outside Anniston, Alabama, one of their buses was burned, and in Birmingham several dozen whites attacked the  riders only two blocks from the sheriff’s office. With the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department, most of CORE’s Freedom Riders were evacuated from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans. John Lewis, a former seminary student who would later lead SNCC and become a US congressman, stayed in Birmingham.

CORE Leaders decided that letting violence end the trip would send the wrong signal to the country. They reinforced the pair of remaining riders with volunteers, and the trip continued. The group traveled from Birmingham to Montgomery without incident, but on their arrival in Montgomery they were savagely attacked by a mob of more than 1000 whites. The extreme violence and the indifference of local police prompted a national outcry of support for the riders, putting pressure on President Kennedy to end the violence.

The riders continued to Mississippi, where they endured further brutality and jail terms but generated more publicity and inspired dozens more Freedom Rides. By the end of the summer, the protests had spread to train stations and airports across the South, and in November, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting segregated transportation facilities.
About the Author:
by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Job Crusher 2 ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=qt4GFHKF

Osama bin Laden has been killed and we say Hallelujah!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

I am not a violent man but I have waited, with all Americans, for the violent end to one man of consummate evil, Osama bin Laden… and now — at long last — his end has come and my heart beats quicker and in gratitude to the people who have done this worthy deed and rid the world of the man whose face was the face of death.
The facts.
For years, the CIA had been monitoring an al-Qaida courier. They knew he was important because detainees told investigators he was profoundly trusted by bin Laden and might very well be living with bin Laden. Last August, as a result of monitoring this courier, intelligence officials got a break. The courier arrived at a highly fortified compound nestled in an affluent neighborhood of an affluent Pakistani town two hours outside Islamabad.
Everything about this compound suggested some nefarious purpose. It was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security posts were the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials came to believe that this highly distinctive compound was built about 5 years ago at a cost of about one million dollars for a person of consequence in al-Qaida.. The question now was who that person of consequence might be.
Increasingly, after innumerable reviews of the compound and everything known about it, intelligence officials came to believe that the compound was bin Laden’s… but for this most important of covert operations there could not be any error of any kind. Americans, they knew, had to have success, total success from this mission… and that’s precisely what these officials aimed to give an aggrieved, long-suffering, and patient nation.
And so they did their important work, their painstaking work, their essential work so that when they did what they must do they would be completely successful, and Osama bin Laden would not escape yet again.
Absolute certainty required.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough to enable President Obama to “pursue an aggressive course of action.” During the next two and a half months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him.
Everyone was agreed from the President on down: this time there must be complete success…
And so, first of all, just who had access to this growing body of intelligence was drastically limited. Our closest allies — Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. — are ordinarily in the loop… but not this time. Too, the United States does not normally carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration from Pakistani intelligence. But this was the ultimate covert operation and what was “normal” in such matters was not good enough.
There had to be total success; everything had to be done right… the first time.
April 29, 2011. The President approved the operation to kill Osama bin Laden and the countdown to vengeance began.
For this most important of missions, Obama went with real people instead of our sophisticated Predator drones. President Obama entrusted the honor of America to some of America’s finest, the elite Navy SEAL Team Six under the command of CIA Director Leon Panetta. The names of team members have not (so far) been released… but they have well and truly earned the gratitude of the nation.
A fiery end, a bullet to the head.
In the dead of night, helicopters descended out of darkness to deliver Armageddon. One can imagine the event.
The inhabitants of the compound would have awakened, drowsy and disoriented, to their worst nightmare. Coming for them, every one of them, were the deliverers of promised retribution… the representatives of a great nation delivering at last what every citizen of that nation wanted: Revenge! Retaliation! Justice!
Unimaginable horror scarred the night skies as, one by one, the representatives of al-Qaida fell… the courier who lead the CIA to this place… bin Laden’s brother… his son… and the man of practised and unfathomable evil Osama bin Laden himself… one blessed bullet into the brain that brought so much undeserved pain to so many.
This was the man whose hatred created, on the fateful day of September 11, profound misery; a man who turned happy children from happy homes into orphans… a wicked man who tore wives from husbands and husbands from wives… a man who turned doting grandparents into crazed people mad with despair… asking a single question over and over again: “Why?” What had so many innocent people done to deserve so much….
And so, even as the Twin Towers fell, even as a great nation reeled and wept… the sentiment took root that the perpetrator of this great evil must be found and punished.
And that day of righteous punishment came — May 1, 2011.
Buried according to Islamic practice and tradition.
The bodies of Osama’s victims were buried in the burning debris of the once majestic towers, the very symbols of our greatest city. The bravest of the brave found these bodies and gave them the most reverential burials. We gave the remains of bin Laden the same high respect… burying him with decency and full honors, so that no one could say we treated him with the deep contempt with which he treated us. Here, as so often, we rose above… to behave with the deep decency which is the core of who we are.
An incident, not the end.
I am not, as I said, a violent man; I often wonder why we humans seem to need, even crave, so much of it. But of this I am sure: the total eradication of this man was needed, warranted, and beneficial. His misguided followers, now disoriented and dismayed, will turn the man into a martyr, but they will be wrong to do so. His twisted perspective hurts them, too, and can deliver nothing more than more infernos and more pain.
That is why we must continue to be vigilant. One bullet is not the end… but that bullet surely marks the end of the chapter which began September 11, 2001.
It is a beautiful day here in Cambridge, Massachusetts… the kind of day that makes one glad to be alive. I intend to go, in a minute, into the sparkling air and the brilliant sunshine… to say a little prayer for the victims, our honored dead… and hope their spirits may now rest more easily, abiding forever in the Peace of God they came to know too soon.
?About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Job Crusher 2 -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=qt4GFHKF

Admonition to myself: 11-hour workdays boost heart disease risk.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Actung! I am writing this article for myself… and for the legions of ultra-busy people who work 11 hours a day or more. We are the people who keep the world going… but to be able to do so, we need to stay healthy and alive.
On April 6, 2011 Bloomberg News reported that we’re at risk and need to take immediate action to minimize the problem.
The facts.
Adults who worked 11 hours a day or more had a 67 percent higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than those who worked eight hours, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported (April 5, 2011). The researchers also found that by adding working hours to a standard heart attack risk assessment model, they could increase the accuracy of heart disease predictions by 5 percent.
Heart disease, the nation’s leading killer.
According to the National Institutes of Health, heart disease is the nation’s leading killer. More and more people succumb to it because more and more people are working more and more hours, making ours the least leisured generation ever, the one with the greatest challenges and risks.
Remarks by Mike Kivimaki, project lead researcher.
Current evidence on coronary heart disease prevention emphasizes the importance of focusing on the total risk rather than single risk factors. “People who work long hours should be particularly careful in following healthy diets, exercising sufficiently, and keeping their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood glucose within healthy limits,” said project director Kivimaki.
Srihari Naidu, director of the Cardiac Catheteriization Laboratory at Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, New York, said these data show that how people live — their stress levels, sleeping, eating, and exercise habits — can affect their risks for heart disease. “The choices we make in our lifestyle may have consequences,” Naidu said.
Study details.
The research followed 7,095 civil service workers in London who were ages 39 to 62 at the start of the trial. They were screened for heart disease every five years. The study found that 192 people developed heart disease over 12.3 years of follow up. Those who worked 10 hours a day had a 45 percent higher risk of heart disease than those who worked seven to eight hours.
Self-Talk for myself.
If you’re one of those people who work 10 hours plus a day, listen up. I’m one of you…. and like you I need to take such warnings with more seriousness. So, for me, for you, I’ve created a list which I intend to keep right next to my computer. You should, too….
1) Don’t ignore this warning, the way you’ve ignored previous warnings.
You’re no spring chicken; you’re getting older… and if you want to get older still, don’t just read these survey results… LIVE THEM!
The plain fact is, researchers have known for a long while the risk factors causing heart disease. You’ve seen, what, a few dozen warnings… and managed to ignore most of them, not the least of which comes from your physician as he urges you for the umteenth time to stop smoking.
Personal note: I don’t smoke cigarettes, never have. That’s a must for all those who value life over nicotine.
2) Get up and boogie.
I spend my entire, extended work day at the computer. To force myself to get up, I keep a list of peppy, jump-up music readily at hand. Who doesn’t want to get up and boogie when the song is Michael Jackson’s “Don’t stop ’til you get enough”…. or any other lively number that gets more than your feet moving.
Music on… jump up… and move that body.
Okay, so you’re not Fred Astaire. So what? Exercise and its benefits are for the do-er, not the watcher… and it’s your heart we want to keep in tip-top shape.
3) Walk.
Make it a point to walk, briskly too, at least 40 minutes a day.
Walk, too, every other chance you can… to the post office, the barber, to the local cinema. You know the advantages of walking; you’ve known them all your life. Now decide to do something. Leave the car at home… and walk.
4) Eat small portions more often.
The obesity phenomenon which was once pretty much an American affair has gone universal with a vengeance. Heart disease and excess pounds are, we know, related. But you can start solving this problem… today… by eating more often throughout the day but eating less.
Here, too, I bet you already know what to do…. you just aren’t doing it. So, vow to make changes now, exchanging those high sugar, high salt, high fat foods for celery and company.
Get over the “giving up” mentality. Replace with the “here’s what I’m getting” mentality. What you get here is plain: more of the distinctly limited time which is the most important thing you can get. Getting more time is the absolutely essential thing, and you have it within your power to get more of it.
Now for strictly work-related observations.
There are many reasons for working 10 hours a day or more. You might have hefty bills to pay and need the extra bucks. You might like the finer things of life. You might think yourself, and actually be, indispensable to your business. You might even be one of those who works hard to avoid the turbulence of unceasing family problems. Whatever your reason… enough is enough.
1) Review what you do, everything you do. What is essential and what merely desirable? It’s time to find and jettison what you can. Put your daily work life and activities under a microscope and scrutinize closely.
2) Got people who can help? Learn to delegate. No, these people will NEVER be as good at what you do as you are… but they’re there and good enough to assist. Besides, they can learn. Cutting back on one task or another may give them the chance to show what they can do to help you even more.
3) Ask yourself how much good you really do in your 10th or 11th hour on the job, where the principle of diminishing returns applies.
Can you legitimately postpone a task until tomorrow? Is the physical price you pay, the extra fatigue, not to mention cumulative health risks worth overworking today… when it could easily be done, and freshly so, tomorrow?
You determine your fate.
The ancient Greeks believed that Clotho spun the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle; Lachesis measured the thread of life with her rod, and Athropos cut of the thread of life and chose the manner of a person’s death.
Now you have replaced them all… how much of life, even the matter of your death, is at the very least influenced by you. I want more of it… and I now vow to do everything to lengthen my thread, not curtail it. Will you join me? Lach haim.
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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Mass Traffic Leak -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=zv3unWbc

Opening night of Mozart’s ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ in thepresence of His Imperial Majesty Joseph II. 16 July 1782. Burgtheater, Vienna.

Here is the music that Dr. Lant recommends below. This is another artice in his series. I bring you these for many reasons but mostly because they are extremely informative and wll wriiten. Dr. Lant is CEO of an internet marketing company. If you want 50,000 visitors to the website of your choice FREE, check us out at www.24hourhomebusiness.com. Now….enjoy the read!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Important note: To get into the mood for this article and, more importantly, this event, use any search engine and find the overture to “The:Abduction from the Seraglio”. There are many fine recordings to choose from.
Readers: you are about to be ushered into one of the signature cultural events of human history: the opening night of “The Abduction from the Seraglio”. You have arrived at the Burgtheater in Vienna, the cultural capital of Europe… You are in a state of high excitement and nervous, too. You are afraid that you will not be in your seat before the Emperor arrives; (why had the coachman not checked that wheel before?)… and that will never do.
Yes, His Imperial and Apostolic Majesty is even now on his way… for he, like you, has heard the buzz: this is Mozart, wonderful Mozart, sublime Mozart at his best. And the emperor, though an amateur, is a gifted musician, too.  Is he aware that history is being made that night?  Probably. But then wherever the Vicegerent of God Himself goes… history goes, too. That is what being a Hapsburg is all about… and a Mozart, too.
Some background.
The man, Joseph Benedikt August Johannes Anton Michael Adam, who became Emperor Joseph II in 1764, had a pedigree even longer than his name. Unfortunately, that did not prevent him being born under a cloud. For at the very moment of his birth (13 March 1741), the patrimony of his mother, Maria Theresa, was being sundered, pillaged, plundered by Prussia’s King Frederick II who made the creation of mayhem his special talent. As a result, Joseph’s inheritance shrank significantly. becoming less German, more Italian for his empire was both. He wanted vengeance… and Wolferl Mozart was the unlikely device. Just 25, he was, Joseph II was sure, precisely what was needed to show the world that Berlin was nothing more than an outpost of thieves and marauders whilst Vienna was… exalted, lofty. This was music as statecraft… and it was played andante non troppo.
For his weapon of choice, Joseph II was patron of the Nationalsingspiel, his pet project from 1778-1783. Its task was to perform works in the German language and make every German speaking person on earth realize that Vienna, magnificent Vienna, culture-loving Vienna was their true capital, never that cultural backwater, Berlin.
The messy beginning.
Mozart, a young man always in a hurray, wanted Vienna for his capital as much as the emperor did. And so, ever upward aspiring, Mozart befriended Gottlieb Stephanie,  inspector of the Nationalsingspiel and set about the business of turning them into a means of glorifying… Mozart… whatever was necessary.
Relentlessly Mozart lobbied, ultimately impressing Count Rosenberg-Orsini, manager of the opera. The count was impressed enough to ask Steiphanie to find appropriate material for Mozart… and he did: pirating and then altering an earlier work by Bretzner. Bretzner complained long and loud. No one cared. The honor of the nation… the reputation of the emperor was at stake.  Mozart got his libretto, and (so it happened) immortality.
But, first, came the work which even the most gifted must do; something the less gifted never quite understand. Most assuredly work precedes its benefits.
Mozart received the libretto (which he immediately started changing) in July, 1781. At his usual, how-can-he-do-it-so-fast breakneck pace, he wrote three major numbers in just two days. He thought he’d finish the entire opera, the first to be written in German (the job, remember, of Nationsingspiel) in just two months. But even sublime genius often needs more time…
As Mozart wrote, so he thought about just what he was doing. This letter to his father (13 October 1781) gives us an aperture to the creative process at work:
“I would say that in an opera the poetry must be altogether the obedient daughter of the music. Why are Italian comic operas popular everywhere — in spite of miserable llibretti?… Because the music reigns supreme, and when one listens to it all else is forgotten.” But he hadn’t finished…
“An opera is sure of success when the plot is well worked out, the words written solely for the music and not shoved in here and there to suit some miserable rhyme… The best thing of all is when a good composer, who understands the stage and is talented enough to make sound suggestions, meets an able poet, that true phoenix; in that case, no fears need to be entertained as to the applause — even of the ignorant.”
Mozart, the supreme egotist, was of course writing about himself… for by now he had taken on all the necessary roles… the better to create a work of undiluted brilliance. Now the way was clear for Mozart to create a work that would take Vienna by storm and establish him as the ultimate artist of his age… and all the ages to come.
The man and his moment were ready… “The Abduction from the Seraglio” now began to emerge.
It is light hearted and frequently comic, inspired by contemporary interest in the Ottoman Empire,  once Austria’s menace, now the “sick man of Europe” ripe for the taking. The plot takes place in a seraglio, the harem where every delight and debauchery could be found; in short the very symbol of the irresponsible good life we all want.
Mozart delivered it… the action carried forward by spoken dialogue, punctuated by set numbers, including several of the most spectacular and difficult arias he would ever write. He was dazzling… innovative… and cheeky.
Joseph II came to check on the progress of his project. Mozart, of course, asked him how he liked it. The emperor supposedly said, “That is too fine for my ears — there are too many notes.” Mozart, protecting his baby, supposedly responded, “There are just as many notes as there should be.”  But the key word here is “supposedly” for the anecdote may be ben trovato, not truth. Joseph II, after all, was a musician himself; he knew how good Mozart really was.
And now he was on his imperial way to the premier of the work he threw down as a challenge, a gauntlet to his bete noir in Berlin, Frederick II. “We have Mozart as an ornament of our Court!” It was an insult, from one sovereign to another, certified by the raucous applause and huzzahs which resonated  through the ornate Burgtheater the night of 16 July 1782. That applause has never stopped… nor will it ever.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also a noted historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com. Check out Commission Maniac -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=rb14eOHk

Want to trigger memories past? Read this now!

By reading this article, you will remember many childhood memories, some good , some not so much.
It  is amazing what we carry with us and how we were shaped. Many things we do and how we do them can be traced back to an event, forever memorable, in our past.
And who generates more memories than our dear sweet Grannies?
Oh…and here is the song for today ….click here!  A classic for sure.
Rhubarb… of my grandmother, her pies, and this ancient vegetable (or in New York State, fruit).
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Some of my grandmother’s possessions arrived here the other day. They have been in storage a long, long time and, at last, my brother and sister decided (no surprise this) that I, as an historian, should store these things until they (or my sister’s 2 children) should be ready to take on the task of dealing with items that are valuable but which no one really wants… the trouble with “heirlooms”.
Anyway, one box of the many boxes received here contained my grandmother’s best china.It’s Lusterware, made in Japan, highly decorative, but very thin and fragile. Irritatingly, two cups were broken, thanks to UPS; that is, however, another story…
What is the story (as you’ll see) is that grammie’s desert plates all arrived intact… carrying with them a host of memories which seized me the minute my helper Mr. Joseph opened the box.
This china, you see, was only used on the Most Important Occasions. And children were not allowed to use it, or even touch it, for Any Reason. I wasn’t allowed to eat off it until I was in college, and even then the idea seemed unduly fast, even heretical. Where china was concerned, no rushing was the way it was; other things, too.
I don’t remember how many times I was allowed to eat off one of these honored desert plates; not often. But one of those rare occasions was when grammie, Victoria Burgess Lauing, served one of her entirely memorable, joy to behold, more joy to devour, pies you never forget. And if (as was common)  the conversation was all the usual family-get-together type (dull as dishwater) until someone (could have been me) “mistakenly” mentioned one of the (numerous) forbidden subjects which even when whispered was sure to lead to the desired altercation, hot words, family entertainment…
but I digress.
With grammie (we never thought of her as “Vic” though that was what her friends called her… we were shocked by this… but never said so)… with grammie I want to make perfectly clear,  it was always about the pie, the whole pie, and nothing but the pie… and when the Lusterware was added, it was,quite simply, the stuff of family lore.
Grammie was a renowned cook, so renowned that all her children (including my mother) could hardly boil water; I like to think they were in awe of her abilities and never ventured to outdo her. That was inconceivable.  Or perhaps, like the children of so many celebrated people the talent couldn’t be passed on.

Grammie and Dr. Lant

In any event I feel bound to tell you that every single pie grammie ever produced was delicious; it was a matter of pride, as I daresay it was with every other Illinois housewife of the period. But the plain, irrefutable truth is that grammie never baked a mediocre, second-rate pie with any deformity whatsoever. We’d all rather have a hand cut off than say otherwise. So her cherry pies, her blueberry pies, her show-stopping pumpkin pies, her peach pies… but you get the idea… were, each and every crumb of them, astonishing.
But the pie that took the cake was her rhubarb pie… and as her “helper” from an early age with this important project,  I feel it only fitting and proper to tell you about my pivotal role… and about the rhubarb, too, which always rose to the occasion whenever my magic grannie summoned its potential and turned its bitterness into poetry.
A minute’s walk from her kitchen, always spruce and never out of control, was the kitchen garden, mostly vegetables, some fruits, always flowers, too, for grammie had an eye for color and arrangement; here, too, I was her “little helper” because I liked vegetables and adored flowers. Those were sufficient passport into the significant zones of her influence. My grandfather was per force allowed in; he loved using his tractor in the largish garden; it was his special task. I was a card-carrying adult before I realized that the apple-pie ordered garden was not only testament to his very Teutonic traits… but also to the fact that he loved her so and took this entirely personal, and useful, too, way to show it. Young people, as we know when we aren’t one, see much but the meaning often follows years behind.
As the designated “helper” (interestingly enough and to their complete irritation not another of her numerous grand children received this high accolade); it was mine and mine alone. These things can happen when you are the first born son and grandson, you know what I mean if you are one and probably take umbrage if you’re not.
As helper, I say,  I was given the task of selecting  just the right rhubarb stalks, for you may very well imagine grammie was precise and unyielding about ingredients. They must be just so.
I may imagine, for I can no longer recall, how she took me by the hand (for she believed in education and knew when to do her part) and showed me the rhubarb patch.  She would have shown me, daughter of England that she was, sharing the great queen’s name, too, how a garden is fashioned and what must be done; in this case regarding the all-important rhubarb stalks. If they were poorly chosen, they might get into and threaten perfection. (She never told me, but I know now, that would never have happened; she had a keen eye for such things and she never overlooked the crucial fundamentals. Substandard stalks, or anything else inferior and not quite good enough for her cuisine and her family, they would have been promptly removed and sent to the compost heap.
In due course, I learned the key facts about rhubarb. First, the leaves are toxic and could quickly and forever end your pie-eating career. She made it plain that testing her on this matter would result in any number of demerits.
She made it clear just which stalks were desirable; which  ones might be down the road apiece (but not yet); which ones were too old and past consideration, which ones needed to be picked, and picked at once. It was rhubarb 101 and in my mind’s eye, I still see us as we were these 60 years and the high importance of the task in time I did alone, without supervision, knowledgeable myself and reliable. She had selected, as she knew,  just the right “helper”.
Once the stalks were brought inside (with the poisonous leaves removed), she perused my work and made appropriate comments, with a courtesy that was all her own. Then she said I could run along, and it was seldom, if ever, that I left without a tip, for she knew, too, having had such days herself, that no child should ever feel impoverished or neglected when so very little could make such a difference.
I doubt that she kept up with the latest news about rhubarb and its uses; she had a system that met the needs and garnered unceasing, universal approbation. Who could improve on perfection?
But perhaps in 1947, the year that brought her in February, her first grand child, and a son to boot, she saw this bit of news about the plant she knew so very well, its secrets, uses, deficiencies, and the way to wend them all to her will… Perhaps in 1947, she noticed that a court in New York State made a significant ruling about rhubarb. The court noted that rhubarb is not a fruit but a vegetable. However, it also noted that Americans in common usage regarded rhubarb as a fruit. And so the court ruled that rhubarb for purposes of regulation and duties must be regarded as a fruit. A side effect was an immediate reduction in taxes paid.
Her comment might well have been of the down-home common sense variety, thinking the court had done the right thing, recognizing the reality and using their noggins. Then, with the certainty that she was sharing a masterpiece, she would have offered you some pie; rhubarb
About The Author
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. ,
Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Commission Maniac ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=rb14eOHk
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OK so…spring is now here, again.

Here is the musical accompaniment for today’s article.  Another in the series of spring time tales. I hope you were able to catch these others one on crocus, one on dafodils and one on the Red Red Robin. Anyway, enjoy the article on the Tulips and feel free to comment at the end.
‘And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight….’ The tulips are coming! April 5, 2011.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s note: You will get the most from this article by listening to “Tip Toe Thru’ The Tulips” before you start, or as you read. Search for the subject at any search engine. There are many renditions, both old and new. After all, not only is the tune perky and upbeat but tulips are the embodiment of springtime… and no one can get enough of that!
Spring on the calendar perhaps…
Yes, I know what the calendar says; that we’ve had spring in New England for 2 weeks now. But what do these folks know? I checked my calendar and discovered it was printed in Tennessee. What do they know about the fickle weather hereabouts?  So far ours has been a typical “spring”, a mixture of snow, mud, and exasperation for the fact that winter just won’t let go, ornery and tenacious as ever.
The crocuses came, of course, and lovely, too. I noticed a new shade of purple this year, or, more likely, I took the  trouble to stop, look and  finally see what those industrious croci had laid before me so often before. So determined are they that they would find a way to ascend, even if the  snow were rooftop. I love them…. but they don’t mean spring quite yet; what’s more the birds have had their way with them, per usual. They know just where the saffron is to be found… and they leave hardly any.
The daffodils hold sway right now, but they, too, while arriving just after spring has been declared do not necessarily mean spring is actually here. Like the students of the Harvard Law School across the street, the ones wearing short pants and playing frisbee in the mud, daffodils put on a brave show, none braver.
However, like the students with their visible shivers and white, white legs with veins picked out in unnatural blue, to see daffodils against the dirty snow causes one to check the calender again and verify that yes, it is spring, though we still are dubious.
Tulips mean spring, almost.
Now the first shoots of this year’s tulips are up; I have seen them for, what?, 3 days now. They are so small and tender; my heart goes out to them, as yours would, too, if you were here and took the time to see. Do they know how eagerly the world awaits them… and what a brief, brief life they’ll have? Or, like youth everywhere, are they oblivious, focused solely on the all-consuming business of being young, beautiful, exuberant and truly glad to greet every passerby with a joy whose secret is youth’s alone?
Tulips, you see, are not just harbingers of the real spring near at hand; they are a bridge to memory. When we see a tulip blowing proudly in the wind, we remember (and grateful too) springtimes long gone and smile as we recall how blissfully we spent those seasons in tulip time, glad to be alive! Tulips know their work, know how much we need their magic. They therefore stay a little longer with us than the flowers which precede.  And as our memories are sweet, we thank them…
Some facts.
The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, which comprises 109 species. The genus’s native range extends from as far west as Southern Europe, North Africa, Anatolia, and Iran to the Northwest of China. The tulip’s center of diversity is the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Tien Shan mountains.
Depending on the species, tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (10 cm) or as high as 28 inches (71 cm). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or subscapose stems. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes.
Origin of the name.
Although the Netherlands is the country most associated with tulips, commercial cultivation of the flower began in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip, or lale l(from the Persian) is indigenous to much of the area ruled by the Ottoman Sultans. The word tulip ultimately derives from the Persian “dulband”, meaning turban. Look closely at the shape of the tulip and you can see, if your eye is felicitous, the turbanned faithful answering the call from the minaret to prayer. Squint your eye and behold…
No one actually knows how, even where, the first tulips entered Europe. Some say they were first brought to and planted in Vienna, by 1573. Others opt for Holland. Experts like to quibble, and tulips, who know the facts historians seek, do not disclose them; they, like us, enjoy being the center of unceasing attention. The plain fact is, wherever people saw tulips, they wanted tulips. This lead, not long after tulips became known in Europe, to the mad phenomenon called “Tulip Mania.”
One bulb, valued at 10 times the annual wage of a skilled craftsman.
No event shows man at his most venal, greedy, and stupid than the Tulip Mania of 1637. It is generally regarded as the first recorded speculative bubble, where the rarest bulbs could fetch the price of a house in Amsterdam’s finest district — for an instant. Timing here, as with all economic events, was everything. Privately, tulips admit they enjoyed being the focus of such overwrought enthusiasm; they think it’s just what they deserve… and have memorized long passages about themselves from British journalist Charles Mackay’s book on the matter, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” (1841). Historians doubt some of his conclusions, but to the tulips his every word is sacrosanct.
A poem disapproved, a tune embraced.
Unsurprisingly, given their continuing popularity, tulips are frequently the focus of poets, authors, lyricists. They faithfully encode all this and are effusive in their thanks. Admittedly, they don’t like everything said about them. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Tulips” (posthumously published in 1965) at first gave general offense:
“The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.”
Tulips take their cheering task with grave seriousness.  Plath’s reaction to a gift whilst in hospital affronted. Like the rest of the literate world, by the time they knew of the lady’s many afflictions of heart and soul she was dead (1963). The general consensus is that if she’d had more tulips, she would have had less angst. I agree.
Tip toe…
The tulips tell me they adore a peppy little number called “Tip Toe Thru’ The Tulips” and are always ready to sing it as the warm breezes of spring waft. Written in 1926 by Joe Burke, with lyrics by Al Dubin. It brightened the 1929 hit “Gold Diggers of Broadway”. Years later, the calculated oddness of Tiny Tim (born 1932 as Herbert Khaury) brought it again to America’s attention:
“And if I kiss you in the garden, In the moonlight, will you pardon me? Come tiptoe through the tulips with me!?
Tiny Tim died too soon, in 1996. Every tulip remembers him fondly… a man who knew a likely lyric when he heard it and brought smiles to the faces of millions. “Knee deep in flowers he’ll stray…” The flowers will be tulips of course.

Self Made!

You are not ‘self made’.  No one is. Reflections on the need to admit, to acknowledge, and, above all, to thank.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I am, amongst other things, a professional speaker of many years experience. Such people are trained to read audiences; see what works… and run with it… while eschewing and abandoning any line that doesn’t arouse the audience and fails to seize their hearts and minds.
The other day I was delivering a lecture on the need, the absolute and unshakable necessity, to work as part of a team on the ‘net; to stop believing that you can succeed alone, all by yourself.
In an instant, I felt the connection with my audience strengthen; it was just as if I had  grabbed the hand of my beloved and felt, in prompt but unmistakable way, the slightest pressure in return; slight perhaps but there, there! It is an unforgettable moment, highly charged with rapture, bliss, and possibilities such is the deep- seated power of connection.  I now had that power at my command….
The noxious phrase: “self-made”.
It is time to take aim at one of the most inaccurate phrases in the English language, the one that allows (usually men) to preen and brag about the fact that are “self-made.”
When they say that you know you’re  in for a reverie composed of the achievements, great and small, of this fellow traveler, fueled by pomposity, egotism,  brash self-congratulation. One needs to be well fortified indeed to abide it… for the cascade is likely to be long, fulsome, and right from the start, excessive.
“Devotions upon Emergent Occasions”,  John Donne, 1624.
John Donne was an English poet preparing, as he wrote this work, to die. With eternity in mind, he was engaged in a sober, fully engaging business;  nothing was more important than to get it right. Out of this frame of mind came these words of profound insight:
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
The pressing task now, before the bell tolls.
One day, ready or not, the bell will toll for thee. Before that  occurs you need a moment like John Donne’s, a moment of pure insight into who you are, where you are, and how you got to be that way and here.
This is a process that calls for honesty, sincerity, integrity and the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For now is the time to see your life as a process aided and facilitated every step of the way by people who gave of themselves so that you might advance.
Too often you have been forgetful of these people; yet they are the engines who have vitally assisted in your development and prosperity.
John Dunne is right.  You are not the continent; you are but a part of the continent. You have surely worked hard and long for your success…. but you have not been the sole reason for your success. You are not “self-made”; you are “team made”, a part, but never the whole reason for advancement.
Now,  therefore, resolve to thank, thank often, thank lavishly, the greater your prosperity, the more to thank. They have all made you who you are.
Thank your parents.
It is easy, in fact the easiest of all, to take your parents for granted. I have myself been remiss here and am relieved to acknowledge it and commence correction.
Now that I am far, far older than my parents were when I was conceived, I am clear on what they did for me… and what I owe them. They were not only young and in love when I arrived; they had undertaken on my behalf a responsibility of unparalleled magnitude and life-changing, life challenging importance. My very life and well being depended on them getting it right from the very first thing they did… as well as everything thereafter.
Such people, and the claims are even greater if you had but one parent or were raised by people other than your parents, such people I say desire and must have more than a card on Mother’s or Father’s Day. They deserve and must have more than a bouquet belatedly thought of and hastily delivered. They need to know that you remember them, what they did… they need to be reassured, whatever your age, that you remember…. and are grateful; that you will never forget them as the tolling of their bell comes ever closer…
Today is the day for your parents.
Thank your teachers, too
We are all the product of the teachers who gave of themselves, not just for a pay check either, to mold, craft, transform and enhance us… day after day. We have, too often, taken them and their generosity of action and spirit for granted… and we must not do so.
First, understand and acknowledge there was nothing in what they did for us which justifies us taking them for granted. It must be our first task to expunge that dereliction …  to see what they did as a blessing, daily given, good people working on the never-ending work in progress who was you. You are the result of dozens of people and their continual attention.
First, remember them by name. You are older now… you are able to see what they did as a great responsibility, taken in seriousness, given beyond expectations… a true gift.
Remember them… and, whenever possible, contact the special teachers who went far beyond whatever could have been expected for you… for you. Send them the most memorable letter any teacher can receive: the one that thanks them, that remembers them, that renews their pride in their profession and what they did, its value and its importance.  Remember the many others, too.
Remember, too, the counselors… the clergy… the coaches. They, too, gave generously… and deserve your remembrance and acknowledgement. It is too easy to forget… and overlook. But they deserve much more than that from you. Will  you take the necessary action, the generous action and connect with them, yet again, and deliver the  pure bliss of gratitude? Take this action with joy in your heart, for it is the right thing to do.
Start today. Rejoice at the happiness you will bring the people who have helped make you… and the contentment you will give yourself and deserve, for such sentiments come from the heart, the very best and most important thing created by all, given by you.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.
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Marketing: A few answers for you from the pro himself!

If you are doing some internet marketing, then  you must pay attention to the pro. Dr. Lant’s articles on blogging will have YOU blogging like an expert . this article on direct marketing also spells it out for you. Read on!

Does your dead dog smell? Reflections on marketing myths and realities from one who knows.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
In the days when I taught university level marketing, I set my eager-beaver students a task.
Write a classified or space ad… and report on how it draws and what you did to handle any responses  you received. In short, this project, like my teaching in general, was never merely theoretical, detached from reality. It was real! Vital! Truthful… and often, as a result, jolting. In other words, your class project either made money… or it didn’t. Much more than your grade depended on it.
The scene of the crime…
All my students were adult practitioners, that is people who were already employed in professional positions or worked in home-based businesses or on the Internet. These were people who had a strong and pressing interest in mastering marketing. These students came because they needed to learn the ins and outs of marketing… or else. To such people one had an obligation, a sacred responsibility, to speak honestly, speak candidly, and address their real world concerns.
And I did.
On one occasion, a bright professional woman (I had lots of them in my classes) had the task of presenting her classified ad to the class… explaining why she wrote the ad she wrote, where she ran it, what the results were, how she followed up the respondents, and (and it was the all-important and) how much money this ad generated.
In other words, it was all real-life stuff.
She wrote her ad, as instructed, on the chalk board, the better for us to see the words which would shortly be shown as either golden, or dross.  Then I became the Joe Friday (“facts, ma’am, just the facts”) of the marketing drag-net.
“When did you start running this ad?” (Specific date required.)
“Where do you run this ad?” (Specific publication or venue required.)
“How many responses did you get?” (Specific number required.)
And then the kicker…
“How much money did you make… after deducting all actual costs of running the ad and responding to respondents?” (Exact dollar figures required.)
The lady squirms…
Now the moment of high truth and full disclosure had arrived. What had started as merely a class project had become for the person reporting a matter of life and death. The ad copy, you see, would show whether she had mastered the marketing essentials that either produced bucks… and all that those bucks could buy… or not.
Everything was riding on what she reported.  And she knew it…
Bad, bad, tormentingly bad.
I an inveterate reader of body language, and this student’s was typical of those who wish they were in any other place on earth rather than here, the cynosure of every eye in this most unrelenting of classes. Of course I knew she was squirming, mulling over how to disclose and deliver facts which (from that all important body language) were sure to be uncongenial. So… along with every member of the class…. I waited to see what the lady would say and do.
And we waited….
Then, at last, she admitted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… and it wasn’t pretty. She had run her classified ad six times… had not had a single response… and, of course, and worst of all, hadn’t made a single penny.
Now, the lady, this aspiring marketer, stood before her classmates…. abashed, humiliated, at rock bottom, a total marketing failure.
Then I told her the first essential truth of marketing: does your dead dog smell? And does it, day by day, smell worse… until the nauseating stench overpowers everything else?
The ad copy you produce is like a dog. Its job is to go out, your servant, finding and bringing home what it captures; the quarry that sustains you and gives you comfort, even excess.
No dead dogs do this…  neither do ads which fail to produce responses.
The student began to get the picture.
Her ad hadn’t pulled and yet she continued to use it, paying good Yankee dollars  to do so.. despite the fact she KNEW the dog was dead, stinking.
Why had she done this?
First, because she was sure, absolutely sure, Her Ad Was Brilliant, the stuff of legend… she was invested in the words… certain that given a chance they would produce the desirable results; aged to perfection, like a fine vintage.
But that is a huge mistake… and now she was willing, and the entire class with her, to find the essential nubbin of truth, that made everything she had done worthwhile.
1) Marketing copy doesn’t improve with age. It either works at once, immediately, or it never works at all. Dead dogs never become quick and agile again… they just stink the more.
2) ALL marketing copy, at  ALL times  must be evaluated, starkly , by results and nothing but results.
3) You must never, ever re-run marketing copy without knowing its previous results.
4) The entire business of marketing is about writing copy, testing copy, evaluating the results produced by this copy, then tweaking the copy to improve it and your overall results.
Marketing is and always be an action sport… it is not for the slothful, lazy, or unassertive.
More tips
** Never, ever become invested in, beguiled by the marketing copy  you create. It either works (producing responses and money), or it doesn’t. Success isn’t everything here… it’s the ONLY thing.
** Never re-run ANY marketing copy until  you are certain it works; that is, until you have money in hand.
**  Trash your erroneous but deeply felt belief that you can find marketing copy which is so good, so responsive that you never have to change it, never have to do anything else with it than run it and reap perpetual rewards.
Such copy doesn’t exist, never existed, and will never exist.
Marketing is the most active sport in the world. Those who win at this sport, and the rewards can be staggering, are, to a person, people who are bold, active, engaged… not sleepy-heads hoping against hope that they will find and eternally profit from a few magic words artfully strung together. Those words have never been written.
Thus, energize yourself for the marketing you must do today, for if you want the rewards of marketing you must master and remain focused on and dedicated to the unrelenting truths of marketing.
Otherwise you are hunting with a dead dog… a dog that will never produce results. It will simply stink to high heaven. And that will never 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. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Mass Traffic Leak ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=zv3unWbc

The first woman politician of prominence – she paved the way: Geraldine Ferraro

Geraldine Ferraro was my Representative in the House back when I lived in Queens, New York.   It did seem out of place back then but I remember Bella Abzug as a representative around the same time. I recall thinking back then that these were “men’s” jobs. she had been a teacher. That was a woman’s job. And …there was nothing wrong with thinking that way.
Geraldine Ferraro may you rest in peace.
‘If we can do this, we can do anything.’ An appreciation for the life of Geraldine Ferraro,  ex-vice presidential candidate.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
In 1984 a streaked-blond, peanut-butter-and-jelly-making mom made history… before she became an object lesson in unwittingly hurting the candidate and political party she was there to help.
Her name was Geraldine A. Ferraro, and now she is dead at 75, March 26, 2011 of complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer she had doggedly battled for 12 years.
Her day of days, July 11, 1984.
Arguably the most important day in at least her public life occurred July 11, 1984 when Walter “Fritz” Mondale made history by selecting U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. At a stroke, she became the first major-ticket VP candidate… and the first national Italian-American candidate, two facts which proved to be critical in her startling ascent and the muddle, distractions, and stumblings which followed.
A presidential candidate’s first important act is the selection of a vice presidential nominee.
Americans look to their presidential candidates to demonstrate executive problem-solving skills and leadership. But such a candidate, unless he is president himself (when he and his record automatically become the focus of the campaign) have a big problem which must be handled early and without error.
While they might have the skills to be  president and even an impressive list of important accomplishments and decisions should they, say, have been governor of a major state (like Reagan and California), voters are still being asked to gamble that a person who has never made presidential- level decisions can, in fact, make them,  not surprise the nation (as has happened often enough) with ineptitude; (like Jimmy Carter, the master of Oval Office missteps and pratfalls.)
The only person immune from this aspect of any given campaign is an incumbent. If there is such an incumbent, he automatically becomes the virtual sole focus of the campaign, pro or con. (Obama take note).  But that problem, in 1984, was Reagan’s.
Mondale’s problem was the usual one of an out-of-power party… showing America it would be better off with a new president it didn’t know much about, instead of retaining  the incumbent they already knew, but who now stood before them no longer fresh, battle-scarred, and, of course, (whatever his achievements) with the usual legion of second-guessing detractors.
For the challengers the selection of the right VP candidate is crucial, couldn’t be more important. Yet candidates often (quick, can you say Senator John McCain?) muff this business… and help derail their own campaigns, by turning what should have been a plus into an unexpected minus. America always notes this with alarm, incredulity, disdain, and usually dismissal.
“Fritz” Mondale… the nicest guy in the world… except for Ronald Reagan.
Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s vice president, was by common repute a deeply honorable, good natured, well balanced man. He was the boy next door about, so the Democrats hoped, to get the prize ordinarily kept from the nice guys famously finishing last.
But he had a problem. “(Most) everybody loves Ronald” Ray-Gun. He needed a way to lay a finger on the guy and help America wise up. Because the Democrats thought Reagan unsympathetic to women’s issues… they needed a candidate who could help galvanize women. Abigail Adams, wife of the second president, had written him “don’t forget the ladies.” Democrats didn’t intend to. But how?
There she is… Mrs. America… Geraldine Ferraro.
She was pert, lively, credible, a real-life mom with real-life mom joys and dilemmas. She was also  a former Queens, New York prosecutor. There she battled the intractable problems of a great city which had them to spare; her daily diet rape, crimes against the elderly, child and wife abuse, so draining she later rote they caused her to develop an ulcer. And the liberal principles which, at her best, defined her.
At the urging of Mario M. Cuomo, then lieutenant governor of New York and another “Italo” wanting friends for his  own ambitions, suggested she run for Congress. She did, ultimately winning 3 terms, learning fast the tribal rituals of the House of Representatives and, most of all, learning to work with its chiefs. This included House Speaker Thomas O’Neill. He liked her and helped her advance within the establishment to chairwoman of the Democratic Platform Committee, a plum assignment for understanding the party and its players nationwide. In due course, it was O’Neill who urged Mondale to select her as his running mate. It goes without saying that all Democratic congresswomen (they called themselves the A Team)  were in her corner, saying that Geraldine was what they needed to wow the women, and the nation.
“Fritz” bit… and made the calculated decision to put a woman on the ticket. Whether she was the best available woman, or not, will always be argued. She was a gal, she was a great, tireless campaigner with a feisty, upbeat style people liked… all to the good. But… and these were big buts… she knew nothing of the world beyond Queens (a problem most of its denizens have); she had no executive experience at all… and absolutely no foreign policy experience or expertise.
But Mondale selected her anyway. This turned his dull nominating convention into a thrilling celebration of women in America, their inexorable, soul-stirring progress to the heights of the nation. As Ferraro said “If we can do this, we can do anything.” Millions felt uplifted, glasses raised, tears shed. It was a signature American event…
… And it began to fall apart within just hours as questions began to be raised about her husband’s financial and tax records. There were nasty innuendos, too, about organized crime, god fathers, the paraphernalia of ethnic hate. Mondale learned the hard way that behind every successful woman candidate is a husband… the man he didn’t select, but who could cause  an entire campaign to stumble. So it was with Ferraro and the man she loved. Thus, Ferraro and her connections became part of Mondale’s problem… instead of the solution she had once appeared to be.
In the end, of course, she probably wasn’t the ultimate cause for Mondale’s demise. Ronald Reagan was. America loved Reagan (despite lapses and errors). And he was becoming, right before their eyes not merely a president but a statesman, a man they liked, trusted and revered. Fritz never had a chance, and of course Ferraro went down with him.
Now the mom from Queens is gone, a footnote in history, not a chapter. But I prefer to remember the best moment of her busy life: “If we can do this, we can do anything.” She was absolutely right about that.
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.