Income Faucet

If you are sad or depressed around the holiday, read this article.  Dr. Lant puts it into perspective.  Gotta love it!

… in all the old familiar places.’ The insistence of memory…  any time, any place, in an instant,  there, never alone or unaffecting.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note.  I was ruminating about my next article this morning when it happened. I was thinking of doing a piece on the bookstores we all grew up with… inviting places you could go to get out of the storm, and sit and read for a bit, even if you had no money that day to purchase. That was my intention but things got away from me, as they often do these days… and I was remembering. No, not merely remembering… but being there… on Clark Street, Chicago, where special stores for second-hand books catered to the bibliophiles of the Windy City… folks who discovered these stores like an archeologist the layers of ancient Troy or Babylon, eureka!

But then, fleet-footed memory ran fast ahead… and it was not just the place I was recalling but why I was there and who I was with. Then, there she was. It was my mother; I was 13 or 14 or so and she was young and beautiful. She was telling me, and I did not just remember the words; I heard them, just as she said them…

… an admonition she had told me every time we visited such a place of leather bound and folio’ed addiction that I could have as many books as I could carry, but not one more. I would nod sagely, signifying agreement… then run rampant through the shelves, brainstorming strategies to break the treaty and emerge into the late afternoon light with more than I had agreed to. Sometimes, if a title moved her, she’d even concur… while making it clear this was no precedent.

And then there were tears in my eyes… and I missed her and that smile which was as vibrant this early morning as it was those long years ago… Songstress Vera Lynn knew this feeling and made it the signature of an entire generation, the World War II generation. The minute “I’ll be seeing you” (music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Irving Kahal) was released (1938), it was clear this was not just or even mostly a song about the people you would indeed see again… but, as war engulfed Europe, far more poignantly about the people, literally here today, gone tomorrow — that you would only see again in your mind’s eye… with fond recollections, love, tears, all ingredients of memory which works its potent alchemy so sharply in “all the old familiar places.”

Thus, go now to any search engine to find this well-loved number; there are many fine renditions, but Vera Lynn’s is my own constant selection.

Around the corner, memory awaits…

I often think that remembrance is unrelenting, unremitting, unfair. It means us to remember and ensures, through pangs that can grip you with unbearable force and urgency, that you will remember… whether you like it or not. And most of us don’t like it… at least the fact that memory has the unrivalled power to stop us from what we are doing and demand instant obeisance. And this can happen anywhere, at any time.

Old familiar places of course make us aware of the sovereign powers of memory… old familiar objects do, too; photographs, prized possessions, and especially clothes which retain scents. Oh, yes, scents.  A whiff of Chanel no. 5 makes me reel, pulled from whatever I am doing… to right where memory wants me to be. This was my mother’s scent, and I see myself buying some for her at Mr. Mackey’s general store one Christmas when I was a boy. I had no idea the sustaining power of that fragrance or that gift…

Scents you once detested, memory changes to gifts of great value. A friend told me not so long ago that she hated the pipe smoke her husband insisted in generating, to the gags and disgust of his wife and others. Those “others” may have felt relief when his passing removed the menace; she did not. She searched their well-appointed home, his drawers, his closet sniffing the air until she sniffed just what she wanted and was looking for: the pipe scent, pungent, masculine, unmistakable that signified in her grieving mind… him. She told me, too, hesitant at first, that she had found some of his special mixture tobacco, smoked it herself (to near nausea) until the bedroom resembled the back room of a political convention… then lay down… closed her eyes…. and remembered. It was the night she felt nearest to him. Before she said another word, I embraced her… before she said so much, so intimate. That was for her alone.

Even rulers of great lands…

No one, however powerful and well placed, is immune from the powers of memory and its connivances. It means to have you… and it will. As Queen Victoria, ruler of half the planet, learned and relearned every day of her long life. She was just 42 years old when her obsessively beloved consort Prince Albert succumbed; he was just 42, too. Her world dissolved… and she spent a lifetime and the patience of a great nation, doing whatever it took to assuage the memories and escape the madness of her ancestors.

His pajamas, his soap, even his toothpaste (with new paste applied daily) were all summoned to assist in the process of at once keeping the memories from overpowering while simultaneously holding them close. Queens are not alone in discovering that this formula is hard, perhaps impossible, to render just so… just so you can continue.

And these memories become most potent at Christmas… for this holiday of the greatest joy becomes a minefield of the greatest pain… not something you look forward to, but something you dread and fear…

This is wrong.

What you should fear and dread is not the unrelenting grip of your memories, their proven power to discommode you, their potency and unbridled force… for these are the good things, the necessary things you should move heaven and earth to protect, conserve, and maintain. Instead, fear and dread the steady diminution of these memories, time that brings not precise, enhanced remembrance but oblivion, well-minded people telling you over and over again (out of kindness, mind, however misdirected) to get “closure” on the matter and so diminish what you should be greatly striving to keep intact, close and forever.

“This too shall pass”, the Bible says. But beware of what you wish for, for you may get it. And is oblivion and eternal loss truly what you aim for?  Thus hold every memory close and give way when memory seizes you… for what you have is precious and irreplaceable.

Thus approach this holiday season with a fresh new attitude and embrace the memories, every one of them no matter how painful. Remember, you are the curator of your memories… the person responsible for tending them, ensuring their vibrancy… charged with their complete and total extent. This is one of the duties of every adult; in fact, the proper realization of what memory is and its intrinsic significance in our lives is one of the proofs that you have lived, have loved, that you are an adult, with an adult’s insight.

None of this is easy, obvious or the work of an instant, not least because as you mature and grow sensitive to their interpretation and significance your understanding shifts, improves, ripens. And you see why sustaining these memories, in their total completeness is so very important.

Now let’s listen again, with a different ear, to Vera Lynn’s song  and, for the first time understand that it is not Vera Lynn singing to us, bringing the balm of peace, serenity and comfort. It is immemorial memory itself… resonating through your life through the ages.

“I’ll be seeing you In all the old familiar places…

I’ll find you in the morning sun And when the night is new. I’ll be looking at the moon But I’ll be seeing you.”

This article is dedicated to my colleague Lance Sumner, in friendship, and in recognition of his good heart, vigilant keeper of profound memories.

### Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.

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. Now in it’s 18th year, Worldprofit’s Home Business Bootcamp has earned popular status as the #1 Earn-At-Home Training program. Republished with author’s permission by Alan Schmitt http://24HourHomeBusiness.com. Check out Fast Cash Commissions -> http://www.24HourHomeBusiness.com/?rd=mn8xpq8P

You can go here to help save the Polar Bear

If you want a free guide on short sales and avoiding foreclosure, visit my website at ShortSaleDignity.com. If you want the best home search for San Diego, visit AtHomeInSanDiego.com.

Fight Foreclosure – learn all of your options – get your free book.

 

Sometimes rules getin the way.  rules (and laws for that matter) are meant to be utilized by us all but…common sense must prevail. who all here wouldsit at a broken red light all night waiting fora green? Some common sense PLEASE!

Rhodes block. A Harvard man comes to the assistance of a Yalie…. and glad to do it.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. You are about to read a story that will, if you have a particle of gallantry about you, make you see red…

It is the story of a Yale grid iron hero, quarterback Patrick Witt, and how a bunch of pettifogging bureaucrats forced him to make an invidious choice instead of solving the problem at hand to the benefit of all.

This is a story about a man of grace and speed and a story of those who blocked him and forced him to make a life-changing choice he should never have had to make.

It is the story of a man who gave his all for the team and his alma mater; a man who should have been given his chance… and was instead given the back of their hands by adults who forgot their calling.

It is the story of a glaring wrong that must be made right…. and the pedestrian folk who comforted themselves with the thought that the deep error they made was justified because they followed the rules.

And, not least, this is the story of how one Harvard man — me — came to the defence of a Yalie and was glad to do it, no more Crimson v. Bulldog, but Crimson v. injustice!

To get you in the mood to protest, I’ve selected (what else?) the famous Yale fight song… a rousing tune that has aroused Elis through the years and today will arouse you, too. You’ll find it in any search engine.  About Patrick Witt

At 6-foot-4-inches, 230 pound Patrick Witt stands out in a crowd… but the impact he makes as Number 11 on the Yale foot ball team is not nearly as significant as the fact that here is a hard-working, team-playing, altogether gifted son of Yale… a man who can lead, inspire, enthuse, and motivate… the kind of man America needs for more than throwing a ball, no matter how far.

Witt reminds us about what leaders must do to become leaders. They must be dedicated, disciplined, going beyond the merely adequate. They must be motivated… and so, through their own hard-working example, motivate others. They must work early and late to sharpen their edge… minimize imperfections… maximize skills. They never say die because that is not what champions do. Champions persist… improve… always driving themselves to be better, better, always better. Because “better” is what champions do, win, lose, or draw. And while they do this… they help others. And gladly so, because no one is a champion whose vision does not include assisting others.

The great, the glittering prizes.

The brightest undergraduates in America all have options, even in recessionary years like 2011. Many go on to the great universities, there to sharpen their already impressive skills by post graduate study. Thus does America and the world replenish its supply of talented professionals and renew itself.

But the brightest of the bright look higher. They aspire to the great prizes… the Marshalls, named after my distant cousin General George C. Marshall, the great man who saved Europe after World War II and whom grateful England chose to memorialize by providing scholarships for America’s most gifted to study at its greatest universities….

…. the Wilsons… named for President Woodrow Wilson… fellowships for America’s next generation of university scholars, teachers, and administrators (I won mine in 1969)…. and

…. the jewel in the crown…. the Rhodes.

There are many criteria which determine who gets this golden prize. Successful candidates must be devoted to duty…  demonstrate unselfishness and fellowship… and evince “moral force of character and instincts to lead.” In short, they exist to honor the best and the brightest… and to make them better and brighter still.

These awards were created by a man of universal vision, titanic energy, and grit, a man so gifted, so determined, so focused that an entire country — Rhodesia — was carved out and named for him. He knew the greatest challenges, the greatest successes, the greatest heights and greatest depths. He was Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902)… and he was entrepreneur, empire builder, visionary at the highest level. But of all the gifts he made, the most important, the most impacting, the most beneficial was the Rhodes Scholarship for study at Oxford University. And it was and is arguably the most important, influential and prestigious scholarship given… its regulations and traditions guarded by well-meaning people like Elliot Gerson, Americian secretary of the Rhodes Trust, one of the unlikely villains of this story, the man who lost the forest for the trees and helped create an entirely avoidable injustice.

Here are the facts.

Saturday, November 19, 2011 was destined to be the most important day in the short life of Patrick Witt… he was scheduled to be the Yale quarterback at the 128th edition of The Game, the yearly encounter for Ivy supremacy between Harvard and Yale, this year held in New Haven…

… at the same time, the very same time, he was scheduled to be in Atlanta, Georgia being interviewed, as a semi-finalist, for a Rhodes.

It was — or at least should have been — an easy problem to solve, especially in this day of advanced telecommunications. The solution process would have gone something like this: The foot ball game couldn’t be rescheduled. That’s obvious, but the Rhodes interview could be. Okay, that would have inconvenienced some of the out-of-town interviewers, thus perhaps not ideal. But they could have been asked

And here’s where brain storming and problem-solving come in. The interviewers could have put Witt on a speaker phone or (even better) got him on webcam or giant screen at the hotel where the interviews were being held. It might have cost a couple bucks. However, the interviewers could have stiffed Witt with the bill, if they thought such meanness “fair”.

 But instead of solving the problem, as he could so obviously have done, Gerson, clearly a stickler for silly rules instead of an advocate of equitable solutions, told Witt to choose… to give up one or the other. This was Gerson et al playing God, instead of using their noggins to solve the problem. Outrageous.

And so Witt, to absolutely no one’s surprise at Yale, sent a letter to Gerson withdrawing as a  Rhodes candidate, the burden of responsibility wrongly on him, when it should have been on the hidebound Gerson and company who clearly know nothing about Founder Rhodes… who was one of the greatest problem solvers of all time. HE would have found a way.

As a result, Witt played his final game at Yale, where Harvard (I must be partisan for a moment) crushed him and his team, giving Harvard not merely victory but a perfect 7-0 season. But the real hero of The Game was Witt… a man who served the honor of proud Yale and its great traditions.

Fortunately for Witt, the rules for the Rhodes enable him to reapply until he is 24 years old… what’s more pro teams have been scouting him… which could mean he’d soon be able to buy and sell Gerson and whatever other boneheads helped make this punishing decision. Witt, in short, cannot lose. I’m glad for him on all counts, but most of all I honor him for selecting his brothers over his future and for showing us all what gallantry, fellowship and the team really mean… and to reminding the folks at the Rhodes Trust, who have clearly lost their way, where their duty really lies.

*** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.

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. Now in it’s 18th year, Worldprofit’s Home Business Bootcamp has earned popular status as the #1 Earn-At-Home Training program. Republished with author’s permission by Alan Schmitt http://24HourHomeBusiness.com. Check out Fast Cash Commissions -> http://www.24HourHomeBusiness.com/?rd=mn8xpq8P

You can go here to help save the Polar Bear

If you want a free guide on short sales and avoiding foreclosure, visit my website at ShortSaleDignity.com. If you want the best home search for San Diego, visit AtHomeInSanDiego.com.

Fight Foreclosure – learn all of your options – get your free book.

On the value and necessity for persistence if you expect to be successful.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Winston Churchill who left the world so many memorable lines, said this one, too: “No young man should ever take no for an answer.” Allowing for the fact that these days “young man” would need to be changed to “young person”, what he said is as relevant today as it ever was, not least because of the challenging and seemingly unending dismal state of the economy, USA, Europe, the world.

Sadly, though I sound like an old fogey for saying it, today’s young people take no for an answer all the time, seeming to expect it, and certainly having little or no inkling of what to do when it hits them in the face. And this is a problem indeed, calling for immediate scrutiny and action.

To set the scene for this article, which can (kept and used)  change your life for the better over and over again, go to any search engine and find the tune “True Grit”, composed by Elmer Bernstein for John Wayne’s 1969 film. Persistence, unwavering determination, in the face of obstacles big and small, is what true grit means. And that’s why, even in our adulterated days, it is in such short supply.

London, Summer 1977, your author, in a single day, learns the unalloyed value and usefulness of persistence.

It was 1977. London was packed with folks from everywhere who had come to find the England of their dreams and memories, and to see H.M. the Queen, celebrating (along with her husband, “always a step behind” Philip of Edinburgh),her Silver Jubilee, 25 years of her (mostly) happy and glorious reign. I was there, too, but not to gawk. I had serious business I meant  to transact… if I could find anyone willing to transact it with me, young, green, determined.

The situation.

In 1977, I was a newly minted Ph.D. of well under 1000 days. My credentials — including that Ph.D. from Harvard — were impeccable. “That and fifty cents,” said my ever-practical and deflating father, “gets you a cup of coffee.” I took his point, not least because 1977 was a year of recession, where would be junior professors, from even the best universities, were having a very difficult time getting jobs, much less jobs they liked. I knew that only too well. Employers, academic or otherwise, did what employers always do in such situations if left unobserved: they raise the level of qualifications required… and slash the salary as much as possible.

That was why I was in London, to turn myself into the kind of gilt-edge property even the most supercilious of institutions would rush to recruit. My strategy went something like this:

* take my Harvard doctoral dissertation and cannibalize it for articles that could be sold to appropriate popular publications as well as published by appropriate academic journals.

* once the articles were published, use these to convince an appropriate publisher of my dreams (and I knew who they were) that I as a first-time book author was worth the money they’d have to invest to launch me and my book publishing career.

*  Use the published articles and first book (remember, the first of many) to leverage a suitable position at a suitable (read “condescending and renowned”) institution.

Short, sweet, piece of cake — not.

The first challenge requiring persistence involved the cannibalization of my dissertation, mined for two very different kinds of publication: popular (newspapers and magazines) and academic. I wanted to publish at least 10-15 popular articles from what some (with consummate snobbery) called “ephemeral” publications… and an equal number for academic journals bearing lofty names and high credentials but few readers. By pursuing this two-pronged strategy I got maximum value from the dissertation and paved the way for its ultimate use as the launching pad for my publishing career and the Nobel Prize for Literature, which must, in due time, be granted. (Still waiting.)

Writing the articles, researching where to send them, organizing an efficient production process.

“Well begun is half done”, we say in New England, and fortunately for me the dissertation (entitled “Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee 1887″, covering the creation and perfection of English royal pageantry) covered events known, attended, and loved by millions of people. This apt selection of subject made the achievement of my objective the more likely than those who has selected more recondite (read “dull”) subjects. I wanted fame, acclaim, and all the trimmings therefrom and selected my subject accordingly.

I confess now (but never would then, insouciance being an essential part of a Harvard degree) that this was demanding… and needed discipline, focus, and persistence. It also required at least a one-way ticket from Boston, Massachusetts to London, for you see the overwhelming majority of these publications were there. Money being tight I worked hard to get it. I won’t say I resorted to cutting grass and baby sitting… but it was close.

And this is why on a sweltering Summer day, so hot English mates stripped thereby exposing the whitest of flesh, that is why, I say, I was standing on Fleet Street, my lengthy list of publications in hand, poised to enter the Daily Telegraph and  ascendant celebrity.

That confident pipe dream lasted for 5 minutes, maybe less. No, the features editor wasn’t in; what’s more if she were, she wouldn’t see you anyway, Harvard man that you claim to be. Yes, this mere receptionist all but kicked me out shouting “Get out maggot.” I was shocked…  and it was but the prelude to a very, very long day of being turned down by newspapers great, mediocre, and provincial, many of which I had thought (only that morning too) beneath my superior notice  Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

And so it went, with only fellow countryman Johnny Apple of the New York Times agreeing to see me. He was a true gentleman, he was, the late Johnny, for all that he told me (in the nicest possible way) that hell would freeze over… not least because some of my article subjects the revered New York Times was paying him to render.  And that was that.

The “luck” that is persistence.

And so it went until at last I was at the end of my day, my tether, and my list… just two more places left to reject me and my once vibrant ideas. I was bushed, crestfallen, irked, with a dollop of self-pity (I’m sure) in the mix.

And so I entered the offices of  the Associated Press, London, one of the most important journalistic operatives on earth. And there I commenced to tell my story to a bored clerk, the clerk who had the power to crush 1/2 of my available prospects… a giant to a fly. And then, then, a disembodied voice bouncing off the wall divider… “Did you say your name is Jeffrey and that you’re from Massachusetts?”

It was as if the voice of God.

And in less time than it takes me to tell you, there was a chipper person before me with an American smile and directness. “You look terrible” my benefactor said, “Come in and tell me what’s on your mind.” And I did, to a length which only his good nature and courtesy would have excused. But from this encounter, which so easily might not have occurred, everything else, everything else ensued… for Reporter Jeffrey, whose surname I to my everlasting chagrin long ago misplaced… published a story titled “A Massachusetts Yankee in Queen Victoria’s Court”… a marvelous story, a story of intelligence and timeliness, well written too. And this story ran everywhere on this planet thanks to the giant reach of the Associated Press.

But I had one more place to go, The Times, the paper Charles Dickens dubbed “The Thunderer”. And here again, nirvana for the Features Editor saw me, knew AP reporter Jeffrey who was indeed from Massachusetts, and told me to prepare one article for her perusal. It was on her desk the next day… and accepted at once; the first of five articles bought by The Times and syndicated to the world; articles which my soon-to-be editor Roger Machell read in his office at Hamish Hamilton, that exquisite house I so longed to be part of and thanks to my AP benefactor now was. How I would like to see that man again and shake his hand, for he — and my own persistence — were decisive in shaping my life.

*** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.

Here is the link to the recommended song to accompany this article.I am unclear myself as to the goals of the movement. Maybe they just want to confirm that if they did want something , this could be the path. Let’s see what Dr. Lant from Harvard has to say.

‘Now is the winter of our discontent….’ The millennial movement in mud that claims to Occupy America and the world.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. For two months now, bemused citizens of the Great Republic and lesser lands beyond the seas, have watched, first, with cursory interest, then curiosity, then with bafflement and exasperation as growing numbers of their fellow humans took over one public space after another. “That,” said the most perspicacious amongst us, “will never last. Just wait until the first touch of winter hits ‘em. They’ll go back to where they came from plenty fast.” But winter (including one unseasonable whopper storm that buried all the pumpkins this Halloween) has come and the disaffected have worked hard and assiduously to make themselves comfortable amidst debris for a longer term. And so perplexity has begun to change to sarcasm, irritation and a rage, now incipient, but certain to grow with their duration. To reverse Shakespeare’s famous line from Richard III: “Merry meetings changed to our stern alarums.”

It is time to peruse what is happening, and so I have unearthed my lorgnette, the better to scrutinize, perceive, and understand.

But, first, since the movement has no stirring tune of its own, I shall suggest one: Woody Guthrie’s rendition of “This land is your land….” (1956).  It is something this movement without petitions, platforms or pronunciamentos can easily take to heart…

They are saying something… but we have trouble comprehending what.

The great revolutions of the modern age, the American, the French, the Russian, the Chinese, the Indian were all epochal events of literate men… men who possessed language, who were motivated by great ideals and legions of ideas; men who wrote and spoke well, often sublimely, thought hard, studied, researched, communicated, persuaded. As such we, their political and cultural descendants, find what we wish to know, to venerate, and to revere in their articles, books, constitutions, bills of right and proclamations of wrong. And so these men and what they stood for revive us, rekindle us, resurrect us, and we rejoice to be the beneficiaries of such men and their living legacies.

But things are very different with movements such as Occupy America where there are few words and none limpid, clear, practical or precise. That is why we cannot compare this almost voiceless movement with the great revolutions with their stark and stirring words shot round the world. We must seek our clues elsewhere… thus I give you The Children’s Crusade of 1212 A.D.

It came to pass in May 1212 that a shepherd-boy named Stephen of Cloyes from the fertile Orleannais boldly entered the Court of King Philip of France. He was just 12 years old… and the King made it clear he had seen more than his share of the unworthy and that the boy should leave at once. But this boy claimed to have a letter that Christ himself had given him, a letter which he had been ordered to present to his sovereign in person. “Plus ca change…” thought the Majesty of France… but Stephen, fueled by his God-given vision, persisted…  forcing the reluctant monarch and his disdainful courtiers to listen and heed this God-favored boy. And as they listened, they began to hear… that God himself had directed that all the children of France must go to the Holy Land in a great Crusade, fueled by their innocence, purity, and the unwavering support of God, unmatched weapons with which they must triumph and purge the infidels from the Holy City.

Did the King really believe all this? Or did he just concur for safety’s sake? Of course we shall never know. But one thing King Philip knew better than anyone: all that eloquence agitated the people… and had to stop. And so the King became an advocate of the Crusade, if only because he wanted Stephen, his message, and unrivaled ability to stir up the people and disrupt royal control out of his kingdom and just as fast as possible.

Battalions of Crusaders, all under 12 years old.

There was no question about it: boy Stephen’s message, at once illogical, ill-developed, unlikely, improbable but always exciting, touched the people, particularly the young people like him. These in their thousands, then their tens of thousands, flocked to his banner, the sacred Oriflamme of France.

Stephen was asked a host of questions:

How would he feed the children? God would provide.

How would the children get past the sea? God would provide.

How would the children defeat the greatest soldiers of the day? Here above all God would provide because infidels affronted Him most grievously in His holy places.

And because he said everything with resounding resolution and complete assurance, the thirty thousand children who gathered round him, not one more than 12 years old, exuded the kind of complete confidence and total assurance that can only come when God himself is your Captain-General.

And so the King (now thoroughly alarmed at the masses of expectant children, seized by certainty and exaltation) moved heaven and earth (for he was the Elect of God, too) to get Stephen and his cohorts what they needed to leave France… and with dispatch. One legend says that Philip rode with Stephen to the royal boundary, there having his courtiers throw handfuls of gold as far as they could… knowing the cheering children would run ahead to get it and so leave the relieved King to his devices. A few children were trampled to death, of course,… but what of that? God had taken them unto himself… for he had need of their innocence, too.

But the seas did not part for the children of France…. as they had for the children of Israel.

The first great challenge appeared after the weary children had walked to Marseilles. Stephen, now bloated with honors and arrogance, had said… and thrilling, too… that they would need no ships to transport them… just to walk, safe and dry, through the parted waters, and so to Jerusalem.

But of course the waters did not part. And now the citizens of Marseilles grew alarmed, as well they might with thousands of restive, disappointed, needy children on their very doorsteps.

Seeing this mass of unhappy children, two good citizens, Hugh the Iron and William the Pig, offered on bended knee the free use of ships to transport the petite Crusaders. And so (perhaps with the complete assistance of King Philip) transported the children into the very hands of their enemies where there was imprisonment, the lash, long years of slavery and early death… And so this millennial Crusade ended… achieving nothing but disappointment, disillusion and despair. What’s more it took 18 years to communicate this disaster to Europe which saw hardly a participant return, children no longer.

Of course with their cell phones, text messages and Internet, today’s wired Crusaders are never disconnected. But this difference does not obscure the similarities between The Children’s Crusade and Occupy America, millennial movements both. Both movements have been maddeningly imprecise, vague, and unspecific about their objectives and how to achieve them. So it has ever been with causes millennial and their participants, who do not worry about how their exasperatingly unclear objectives will be met. For Stephen of Cloyes and his following that was of no concern for they knew the God of Abraham and Moses would provide.

And the adherents of Occupy America believe that, too, which is why they are so calm and patient in the face of so much discomfort, scalding skepticism, and muddle. They know they will triumph… in due course and inevitably… for all they are sitting in the mud today, chilled by the descending temperatures of inclement November. How do they know? God told them so, just as He told young Stephen in long-ago France. The only thing missing is the language of God, the casualty of time and changing fashions. But make no mistake Occupy Americans will tell you if asked that they are well and truly the Children of God, doing God’s work and doing it well until one day, when God signifies his approval, they will melt away as unexpectedly as they came, “our brows bound with victorious wreaths.” (Richard III, Shakespeare.)

*** What do you think about the Occupy Movement? Let us know by posting your comments below.

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. Now in it’s 18th year, Worldprofit’s Home Business Bootcamp has earned popular status as the #1 Earn-At-Home Training program. Republished with author’s permission by Alan Schmitt http://24HourHomeBusiness.com. Check out Fast Cash Commissions -> http://www.24HourHomeBusiness.com/?rd=mn8xpq8P

You can go here to help save the Polar Bear

If you want a free guide on short sales and avoiding foreclosure, visit my website at ShortSaleDignity.com. If you want the best home search for San Diego, visit AtHomeInSanDiego.com.

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by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Quick can you name your favorite Thanksgiving song? Unless it’s “Over the river and through the woods” (1844), you probably don’t have one. But I do. It’s called “Turkey in the straw”, and it is a traditional American folk song from the 1820s. And though strictly speaking it was not written for Thanksgiving, you’ll have to forego its strict history in favor of the elastic meaning I shall give the tune and its use. I am sure, in due time, you will forgive me. In any event, start by going to any search engine, find the tune, and put on your dancing shoes… because this Thanksgiving you’ll be dancing, not just filling out your embonpoint, and belching.

What my family usually did for Thanksgiving… celebrated, sanctified, dull.

I was brought up in an Illinois family which, like all our neighbors, believed in the verities of God, country, and family. These were the bedrocks on which we built our homes, our communities and our nation. And these three essential parts of American life came sharply together at Thanksgiving, an event which had to be arranged and celebrated in the grand manner… best china, best crystal, best silver and food that was quite simply awesome, no stinting contemplated, allowed, or accepted. We were Americans, part of the great heartland of the nation, and if we didn’t have much to be thankful for, then who did?

Still, this holiday (and Christmas, too) always raised the issue of where to celebrate, for we were part of  large extended families with matriarchs in various branches who made it clear their feelings would be hurt if we didn’t grace their Thanksgiving Day tables, though why they wanted my sister with her tendency to scream while eating (admittedly she was only in pre-school) and my brother (but that is another story), I as eldest son and eldest grandson (on both sides) could never understand. I knew why they wanted me… “let me count the ways….”

The solution to this problem of venue was solved in most years by the simple expedient of appearing at two (or even more) holiday tables groaning under the weight of families who had done well… and stuffing ourselves to sickness accordingly. It is no wonder they felt queasy by day’s end. Personally I always saved room (if at all possible) for the desserts… for here amidst so many culinary achievements… was sweet perfection in so many alluring ways. Pies of every kind (pumpkin de rigueur of course), cobblers, cookies with holiday themes… strudel (we were of Germanic stock and proud)… and the cakes… but enough. Suffice it to say there was no thought of mere sufficiency. It was all about excess… in so many ways so that no one could ever say anything else, or even suggest it.

Time — and holiday arrangements — marches on.

Sadly, over time things changed and my father and mother were significant reasons why the multi-mealed Thanksgiving came to an end. Specifically, we moved from Illinois when I was just 16 to California, where family (as Charles Manson and hippies from Haight-Ashbury proved) had an altogether different meaning. And so, unless my father decided (and my mother concurred), for father’s sister and his wife did not love each other, unless, that is, we were going to our Carter cousins’ ranch in Bakersfield, we stayed home… and invited people we liked, who were never related. In short, we went from the traditional Thanksgiving of too much of this, too much of that, people we “had” to like because we were related, to Thanksgivings we  invented… and, as we discovered later when sociologists explored American migrations, most other people were doing the same thing. And that’s why my mother, Shirley de Lauing Lant Phelps de Barlais y de Kesoun, and I were in the port of San Pedro, California en route to Baja California for Thanksgiving, 1985.

Fourth book, second Thanksgiving out of America.

I have always been of an industrious nature and my breakneck pace through 1985 made clear that I was a man on a mission, going places, meeting people. I had my fourth book underway, a publishing company to oversee, an international consulting business, a multitude of lectures nationwide, and a nationally syndicated program on the Business Radio Network. Managing time was of the essence.. and this precluded vacations and other ways of wasting time, including voyaging to a part of the world in which I had absolutely no interest. But, then, my mother did… and she was a very formidable woman. She named the destination, I ponied up for the tickets, and so we boarded one of  the floating restaurants and bars they call cruise ships, where eating and lassitude are the order of the day, every day.

We were booked as Dr. and Mrs. Lant, which while absolutely accurate was also the seed for a memorable (and oh so wrong) deduction… because, you see, on this ship, as on all such vessels, the ladies of a certain age always out number the gents… and so the hopefulness which always accompanies these ladies on board always quickly wilts.

My mother was a stylish and youthful looking woman and made a point of so appearing, to best advantage. I was, as usual, slovenly, a demolisher of clothes, even those from the best shops in Boston and England. Still, as Agatha Christie once observed, old clothes properly cut are always suitable attire for a gentleman. My mother strenuously disagreed, but here her jeremiads fell on deaf ears.

Still…one memorable evening, a woman of the purple-haired ilk sidled up to POM (Poor Old Mother) and asked how long we’d been married… and how she’d managed it; (no doubt wanting instructions on how to secure as willing mate one as young, winsome, and obviously God-favored as I.) Freud must have had a conniption.

And that was just the beginning of the memorable holiday voyage.

My mother and I worked as a team; she was admiral, I cadet. The moment after we arrived on board, she took a page of her cream colored stationary as Baroness de Barlais y de Kesoun, gold coronet ablaze at the top, and sent a charming message (of which she was past mistress) to the Captain, advising him a celebrated author was on board whom she’d like to present. That “celebrated author” would have been me. That note she delivered post haste to the purser along with a First Edition of my book “Our Harvard,” suitably autographed by that self-same author. She always traveled with a few copies…

The next day I sat in a deck chair, enveloped in a plaid blanket, hands chilled, writing the current book, “The Unabashed Self-Promoter’s Guide: What every man, woman, child and organization in America needs to know about getting ahead by exploiting the media.” For all that I had to be thawed out each evening, I was making lickety-split progress… and could still dance attendance on Her Ladyship, my mother. It was a model that worked…

The Captain requests…

In due course, of course, the Captain responded… not just with an invitation to the table at dinner where he held court but to cocktails in his luxurious private quarters. We dressed accordingly; (my Harvard blazer was wrinkled but its insignia buttons were solid gold.)  When we discovered he was Greek, we should have recalled the old maxim “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts…”

He was a man of charm, information, and  what we Midwesterners call schmaltz. As such he was very good company, paying every courtesy to the Double B (as we termed the double Baroness, in her own right, too). But there was something not quite right… which became instantly apparent when, in paying my mother an exaggerated farewell he tickled the inside of my hand, in a manner which could not possibly have been misconstrued. I meant to tell her…  she would have roared with laugher and indignation. Which brings us to our unique Thanksgiving on the high seas.

On board, one ate and participated in activities which could never quite obscure their purpose: to let air out of bloated stomachs. One of these activities was the time-honored “talent show” which would have been anything but… except for POM. She had an idea to sweep the boards… she always did… and with her vision, energy, imagination and unparalleled ability to shame people into doing things, she generally succeeded.   “The First Thanksgiving”.

POM dragooned one passenger after another into taking part in what was certain to be the winning entry: a sure-to-please musical rendition of the first Thanksgiving, with dialog by me and direction by… but you can guess who. Despite frequent (ever escalating) reminders that the script needed to be written, yours truly did not write the script; instead falling victim to Demon Rum… and so when POM came to get me for dress rehearsal (a bare hour before the opening curtain) she found her boy drunk as the lord he was. No script. No excuse. No hope.

But still the show went on, though I had to ad-lib every word, including musical cues to the band, which gamely played our game. Pilgrims said the silly things they would say… Indians (face-paint perfect) acted aboriginal… and “Turkey in the straw” rang out frequently as passenger Pilgrims and Indians ran about the stage capturing passenger turkeys. Then le tout ensemble sang “God Bless America”. Of course we were cheered to the echo, and I got the kind of hugs and kudos I expected… and she had deserved.

My Thanksgiving this year will be dull indeed without her… for she is making friends and raising cane in a better place, where she will know, for certain, I would write this article and remember….

***** What are your favourite Thanksgiving memories? Let us know by posting your comments below.
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc.,  providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.

Republished with author’s permission by Alan Schmitt <a href=”http://24HourHomeBusiness.com”>http://24HourHomeBusiness.com</a>. Check out Fast Cash Commissions ->  http://www.24HourHomeBusiness.com/?rd=mn8xpq8P

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Have you heard of a citrus company called Hale Groves of Vero Beach, Florida? If not, you must be living in a cave. Their marketing is everywhere and in all places, online and off. They’re spending the ransoms of two or three kings on it.

But the poobahs who run the place have made at least one crucial mistake: they haven’t tried to order their product…. and as I am here to tell you, the order takers they’ve got are most assuredly NOT in sync with the hot-shots in the marketing department. In other words, if it is not actually impossible to order some of their tasty product, it is very close to it.

That’s why I’m using as today’s incidental music The Supreme’s great tune “You keep me hanging on” because that’s what the folks at Hale Groves have done to me… each and every time I’ve ordered. You’ll find this1966 hit in any search engine. You can play it while you’re on hold…

Still, let’s get into the right mood for this situation… and what Hale Groves and every other dysfunctional marketing machine needs to do before they irritate too many more of the most important people on earth — good paying customers like me!

The facts.

My family has been buying from Hale Groves for decades… and no wonder. I grew up in the snow belt they call Illinois… I went to college in the snow belt they call Massachusetts… and when I graduated… having had insufficient punishment from snow, sleet, ice and attendant miseries, I stayed on in the very same snow belt that snuffed the Pilgrims.

One of the things that made it all bearable was Hale Groves and the utterly delectable citrus… and, of course, I love getting the free citrus spoons, too. I have a drawer full of them.

The Hale Groves shuffle.

I like to place my citrus orders, indeed all orders, by telephone. Like a good citizen, I have my credit card out… and the special offer I want; the offer I am sure the order taker will want to make sure I get. Like most Americans I order when deals are good and pass when deals are not. But the great thing about Hale Groves is that they always have an offer… and I am always pleased to consider it. I am a citrus freak…. and pink grapefruit are guaranteed to brighten any day or palate, especially when the temperature is below zero and I curse the day I heard of Harvard and a frigid place named Cambridge.

Order I would, if order I could.

The citrus season begins November 1, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Hale Groves will have a special offer in your hand, an offer so good you wouldn’t think of missing it. I want to see that offer… I want to take advantage of that offer IF Hale Groves will let me… for that is by no means a sure thing.

Because memory is imperfect, as I dial the number I find my last run-in with them is not the first thing in mind; instead I am tasting in my imagination their citrus perfection… but first I must pay my dues by holding.  It is a rule.

Like all good Americans I hate holding…. not just hate it but despise and disdain it. I’d like a choice… hold forever or allow them to call me back in (so many minutes); techies can easily tell them how many: “Your call will be returned in 7.5 minutes sharp.”

Okay, I’m on hold… and second by second I am working up a good head of steam, the better to craft a snide comment that they well and truly deserve. I mean, I don’t begin to have the available time I have to wait for a competent order taker to emerge and assist me. Who does?

But my torments have not even begun…

Codes. Colors. Confusion. Choler.

“I’d like to place an order from a mailing I just received.” These are the words I am hoping I don’t soon regret.

“Do you have the offer there in front of you?”

I do… and I say so proudly, even defiantly because I am hopeful history is not about to repeat itself.

But we are, the order taker and I, about to enter the twilight zone in which the order I want to place… is the order the order taker cannot seem to take. And so The Rigmarole of ordering from Hale Groves well and truly begins, to the growing irritation of both parties.

“Sir, please give me the special order code.”

Code, code, find the code.

I have an envelope full of Hale Groves propaganda… colorful brochures… a special letter from their president extolling their many virtues… I do not see and cannot find a code… and what’s worse the order taker cannot direct me by uttering such reassuring words as “you’ll find the code in big red letters at the top of page 1.” Such essential words, calming to both parties, neither of us can find… and this is what that means.

It means some bright folks in the marketing department have not tried to order the product themselves… and have certainly never bothered to train the hapless order takers who are about to feel the sharp lash of my tongue because no one knows who’s on first and where to find that flippin’ code.

And so we sink into muddle, mayhem, a disordered morass. If this were a dance it would be a tango… and that for an order process is completely unacceptable.

Finally, I say what I should have said at the first sign of trouble. “Why don’t you take down my telephone number and call me when you’ve discovered where the code is?’ But my tenacious order taker won’t let go, won’t do the sensible thing and will not proceed with the matter of doing what we both want: placing the order. In other words getting that code, no matter that neither she nor I could find it, had become more important than satisfying the customer. And that’s why this order “process” is such a mess.

But it got even worse…

The order taker, unable to direct me to the code, put me on extended hold while she quizzed her colleagues about the location of that code. No one knew, which meant no one had thought it useful to instruct them on this matter… and so while I smoldered they, with every passing minute, proved that the one hand in marketing didn’t know and hadn’t bothered to advise the other in the order department, thereby generating bad feelings instead of the satisfied customer both parties wanted.

Again, I advised the clueless order taker to take my number and call me back when she was organized and ready. But the poor woman had been instructed, perhaps with severity, to get the code upon pain of death. And she could not, would not get beyond this trifling matter… and so the matter ended in stand-off, no order, no business, and no future.

Hale Groves will now bombard me for years with sales messages and tempting offers, too, too little, too late. For I have now discovered an excellent product from Del Monte, Red Grapefruit, SunFresh. No hassle. No waiting. Already peeled. And no need to deal with the misnamed order takers at Hale who,  when needed, could not have been less ready. Which is why I suggest you try to order what you sell. It could well be your weakest link. Oh, yes, and call me to finish my order.

*** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. We shareholders of the United States of America, Inc. are deeply worried, perplexed, baffled and, yes, angry about our persistent unemployment rate, which continues to hover around 9%, with no end in sight. Experts, in fact, once so quick to offer their profound economic predictions based on their experience and study of past malaises are now gun shy, having been wrong so often; as a result their predictions are more opaque than ever, seeming to say much, but after explication saying absolutely nothing at all.

Into this breach the brightest and most well meaning folks have entered… unwilling to be patient a minute longer and anxious to show that American people can solve America’s problems, even this draining one of unemployment. And so today, we celebrate what our never-say-die countrymen are dreaming up for bona fide jobs in the hopes that you, too, will join the parade and keep those grand ideas coming, timely and in detail.

For the appropriate music to accompany this article, I have selected the theme song of the film “9 to 5″ which was released in 1980. Dolly Parton knocked this one out of the park, the bounciest tune ever composed on the unjust, unfair, and unending tricks, twists, and turns of the world of work. Ironically, most of the over 9% of unemployed Americans would positively jump at these jobs today… no matter the drawbacks… such is the level of our national desperation, apprehension, fear, and anxiety and why we need a Grand Alliance of the private sector and the governments of the nation — local, state, and federal — to create jobs, jobs, jobs.

Let’s start with what some bright folks are doing in the great state of Florida where innovation and new ideas are sacrosanct and held in the highest regard. We must pause and here congratulate state Representative Brad Drake who at the beginning of October, 2011 filed a bill to stop letting convicted killers “get off that easy.” His job- creating idea: to use firing squads, or (his far second choice) the electric chair for all those on death row.

Way to go, Brad!

Drake’s bill would end the use of murderer-coddling lethal injection in Florida executions. Instead, those with a death sentence would get what every American craves, a choice; being entitled to choose between electrocution (remember, this is his personal second choice because it isn’t the expedient that creates the most jobs in this sector) and a firing squad. He prefers the squad, because as a patriotic, jobs-creating American, that would create more jobs for needy Floridians.

Drake, one of those highly valued forward looking Republicans, said the idea came to him after having a conversation with a constituent at a Waffle House over the legal battles associated with the September 28, 2011 execution of Manuel Valle. All that sugar must have gone straight to his brain.

Valle’s lawyers tried to stop the execution by arguing that a new lethal drug cocktail would cause him pain and therefore constitute cruel and unusual punishment. But courts rejected this argument and let the execution go forward. Why the coddling, Drake’s constituent asked? They’re murderers after all. And upon careful reflection this Tallahassee Solon agreed.

Drake is clear that the government is spending too much time listening to advocacy groups and instead should put in place a death sentence that forces convicted murderers to contemplate their fate. Now, Brad’s got the bit between his teeth. He wants to make it hard on those murderers; never mind that they are being snuffed by state order. Yeah, he wants them to think about their pending punishment “every morning,” as if they weren’t doing that already. Besides, this is a great chance for entrepreneurs to get into the act.

Although Drake hasn’t said so, I bet he’s already thought up the idea of training squads of executioners and renting them out to other states which will, he is sure, come aboard after the program gets started; it’s an idea, he reckons, whose time has come. And there’s another financial advantage, too; we could rent these squads to foreign governments, more squeamish than we are, and so fill the empty coffers of Florida. This’ll cinch the deal that ensures Rep. Drake’s civic achievement.

No idea too small!

Our next great jobs-creating idea is also from Flori-duh, the land of ideas, light years ahead of other, less with-it Americans. Eat your heart out North Carolina for not dreaming up this one… this time legalized dwarf tossing.

Clueless citizen that you are, you probably didn’t know that Florida’s dwarfs are in unemployment lines getting welfare, when they could — man, woman and child alike — be doing good service (and sparing hard-pressed tax-payers) by being tossed around like a beach ball during happy hours statewide. Wow! Where do they come up with these really great ideas! Here are the facts…

According to Florida state Representative Ritch Workman, another one of those sharp- witted Republicans who run Florida these days, dwarfs are being oppressed by antediluvian state laws prohibiting them from being flung around bar rooms to enhance the drinking and entertainment experience of playful patrons, now miserable without their exuberant sport. This is a disgrace says Rep. Workman (so aptly named)… and he aims to set things to right and create a bright-shining example to other states which are still in the Dark Ages as far as dwarf tossing is concerned.

Thus, “Retain Rep. Workman for the Working Man”, has introduced a bill that frees dwarfs for their destiny while likely shaving a bit off the state’s horrendous unemployment rate, a punishing 1.6 percent above the US average… and a disgrace to Florida which clearly needs all the help it can get.

It’s the double whammy of tough times for dwarfs getting jobs and the suppression of their God-given right to get tossed if and when they want to that fuels Workman’s passion, for he is at once a man of tax-cutting, dollar-saving propensities and libertarian freedoms. As such, liberation of dwarfs everywhere demands his attention. And so he is aiming for nothing less than the overturning of the 1989 Florida law banning dwarf tossing as dangerous and dehumanizing.

But now get this… in an interview with Rep. Workman, published by Bloomberg News and running nationwide October 8, 2011, Ritch Workman said he personally found dwarf tossing “offensive” and “stupid”. Still…. “If this is a job they want and people would pay to see it or participate in it, why in the world would we prohibit it?” Why indeed!

Democrats, of course, are irked beyond measure at this bill. They only want Floridians to have “real” jobs and wait patiently until their paladins create some; never mind that that might be years away. Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, dismisses the matter with a superior sniff. Of course she isn’t a dwarf and has a job, too, and is far above the indignity of being passed from hand to hand by ruffians who might, not to put too fine a point on the matter, pinch the lady as she passes. This is, she is sure, yet another instance where Republicans don’t get it. But most assuredly Rep. Workman does. He is after all a Man of Destiny, who sees clearly that less can be more.

Dolly was right!

I’m out of space for today, or I’d share with you more of these tales, for I have a ton of them. Suffice it to say people are not just waiting for Washington to wake up and focus on jobs. They’re helping themselves and using their brains to create jobs, and we all ought to be glad for that. Unemployment hurts, and wouldn’t you rather see folks in jobs they may not love than in no job at all? Maybe such a job wasn’t the best on earth, but it did bring home the bacon… and besides I like hearing Dolly Parton sing. She can complain at my house any time she likes and make us believe “Your ship’ll come in/ And the tide’s gonna turn/ An’ it’s all gonna roll your way.” We still believe this, don’t we? Well, don’t we?

******* What do you think? Let Dr. Lant know by posting your comments below.

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. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.

Republished with author’s permission by Alan Schmitt http://24HourHomeBusiness.com. Check out Consumer Wealth System -> http://www.24HourHomeBusiness.com/?rd=tf13pPaF

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