by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Today is Sunday, May 29, 2011. I shall celebrate it like millions of people worldwide by going to work, leaving me at the end of the day with only a tiny sliver of the leisure time my grandparents had every Sunday for their long lives. This continuing labor is not necessarily entirely beneficial... although many good things do in fact come from the Sunday tasks performed by its workers worldwide.
Today, therefore, I examine Sunday, its uses and, some suggested better uses. The objective, which I set for myself as clearly as for you, is to examine a problem that grows larger for more people every year: cannibalizing Sunday for the time that should be used for your necessary refreshment and revitalization; sadly each year less of it is. In our frenetic times, we no longer, like Ponce de Leon (1474-1521), search for eternal youth. But we, who are prone to think Don Ponce a bit of a fool, are engaged in our version of his odyssey. We know we need more time, and we are engaged in the never-ending pursuit of ways to get it.
We are victims of work creep and leisure drain, two insidious, inter-related conditions that threaten to turn us into drones who use improving their economic condition as their reason for changing Sunday from free time to work time. "We have to," they insist.
When I hear this, I think of how monkeys are captured, by a very clever and inexpensive method. The hunter uses no guns or bullets; he wants his monkeys in good condition. Instead, he uses a narrow-lipped jar packed with cookies and other primate delights. This jar is placed in an area frequented by the curious creatures; when they see piles of the sweet things they love best they thrust a paw down the jar... and are trapped.
Now here's the ironic thing: to regain their freedom, all the monkeys must do is open their paw and let the delicious but dangerous goodie fall to the bottom of the jar. Their clenched paw and the goodie inside have made them prisoners; merely opening their paw will free them. But the monkeys will not unclench their paws, for that would cost them the dainties. And so they are well and truly captured by their own avarice and their desire for more.
And so we, too, are well and truly trapped and captured by the work we must do every day, work we call completely urgent and necessary so as to preserve our life style. But at what cost? We are as trapped and baffled as the monkeys, and like them we might have chosen a less perilous way; one above all else preserving our own freedom.
How the concept of Sunday has evolved over the last 200 years.
Since the sweeping success of both the British and American evangelical movements at the end of the 18th century, three distinctly different Sundays have existed.
First was the evangelical Sunday, strictly reserved for God's Sabbath with absolutely no work of any kind permitted. England's Lord's Day Observance Society (founded 1831) epitomized the thinking that lead to strict Sabbatarianism. God had rested on the seventh day; you would therefore rest, and humbly so, whether you wanted to or not.
As the widely believed verities of the evangelicals began to wane at the end of the nineteenth century (later in America) Sunday changed, too. Progressive humanists argued that strict Sabbartarianism discriminated against the poor and laboring classes who had just Sunday and Sunday only to enjoy all the educational and other amenities. Criticism now centered on the people who advocated a strict and unyielding Sabbath, spent extolling God's virtues, to the neglect of everything else.This new view saw Sunday as desirable and deserved leisure time, not merely the occasion for weary strictness and total biblical focus.
This trend produced what came to be known as the "Continental Sunday", where leisure, all kinds of leisure, was wanted and indulged, the general sentiment being that the common folks worked hard for this day and deserved its delights and amenities. And delights and amenities they got as the golden days of the Continental Sunday with its laissez fair ways and relaxed conditions freed the nation from stringent rules and restrictions, mostly emanating from churches of an evangelical persuasion.
So matters might have stayed if matters of this kind are ever unchanging. But the leisured, recreational, family-centered delights of Continental Sundays were changed and challenged by such cultural factors as the desire to make more money to acquire the things money can buy. In periods of economic difficulty this factor changed again; in such periods people had to take Sunday and turn it into additional income, never mind the leisure that was thereby sacrificed -- and was so desirable and needed.
Now the nibbling process is at work on the grand, happy, burden-lifting Continental Sunday, an institution so needed by the hard-working folk on Planet Earth you might be excused for thinking this new, third phase had to be an improvement on what we already had.
But is it?
It is a sign of the times that otherwise sensible earthlings swap leisure and necessary recreation for money, money, and more money... and mountains of things we (for I include myself) do not need... but must acquire notwithstanding.
This is a deal made with the devil.... and you are one of the prime signatories... as I am.
It is time, here and now, to launch our bid for freedom... our July 4, Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day... for we are as oppressed, burdened and weary of abuse as they for all that we have done this to ourselves.
We, like our revolutionary brethren of yore, must strike now, not a moment later, whilst we still have the good sense and strong arm to bring back, to all who desire and need it, our beloved Continental Sunday and the necessary leisure and relief we must have to live a life of balance and equilibrium, not killing stress in all its destructiveness.
All this is no small thing, nothing to be considered casually, without your full attention and concern. We humans are so finely crafted that we need leisure to reach our full potential and maintain our health and splendid spirits which are now and will always be the foundation of our success.
So, now, take the pledge.
Pledge! To fight work creep and leisure drain. Pledge!
Pledge! To think whether the work and its emoluments are more important than the revitalizing leisure you give up. Pledge!
Pledge! To resolve to use leisure as a means of strengthening your life, increasing its span and its quality. Pledge!
Pledge! To keep sacrosanct your special time apart from work, your carefree zone. It is essential for life's highest quality. Pledge!
Now sign and date this manifesto of common sense and resolute purpose. Your life in all its aspects will improve as soon as you do... the very moment you 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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages -> http://spiritbank.ffpages.hop.clickbank.net/
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Joshua Bell: The most romantic man on earth.
Author's note. This is a story you will never understand until you hear Joshua Bell play. As he is an energetic, prolific artist this will not be difficult. .But what of his vast oeuvre to recommend?
Easy. Caprice No. 24 in A minor: Tema con Variazioni (Quasi Presto) by Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840). It was the last caprice (written 1817), the grandest, the most demanding, unyielding. Go to any search engine now to find it... and listen, enthralled.
This work, one of a bundle of caprices flowing fast from the facile pen of a grand master admired by Bell, must be played at the speed of love "quasi presto" -- "almost instantly" for nothing is more capricious than love...
... love can never be patient.... can never wait... is obsessive, thoughtless, bold, cruel and adamant. Love does not ask; it demands instant fulfillment. Love can never be rational, deliberate, cautious and sensible, and you cannot expect these from either Paganini -- or Bell either.
They are after you... They are about love, audacious love, a love of boundless energy and daring. They know you want it... and they mean to give you what you want... at the cost of your cozy, predictable, sensible, orderly life. That is the price great lovers, great romantics mean to exact from you for fulfillment... and Joshua Bell is a such a lover, agile, impetuous, practiced seducer of even the most grounded and careful.
And it all started in Indiana.
Joshua Bell, for all he is the wunderkind of the greatest concert halls in the greatest cities on earth, is in fact a boy of the prairies. I know something about that; I am one myself. He was born 9 December, 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana. If you are not familiar with this place it is a major research university, the intellectual heart of the nation's great heartland. It's a place of God, country, solid living, of people you like and trust; a true pastoral idyl that could well lead to humming about the moonlight on the Wabash, when you, now elsewhere, dream of your Indiana home.
The Bells were the kind of people you were glad to have as neighbors, not least because Joshua and his two sisters were so friendly and normal. Joshua was a boy's boy, handsome, smiling, polite, with a shock of hair falling over his forehead into his eyes, thereby causing local mothers, who could not help themselves to brush it back. Joshua was keen on video games... and sports. He once famously won fourth place in a national tennis competition without benefit of a single lesson.
But this was only part of the story... for there was genius in this family and genius will out, whether you like it or not. Fortunately Joshua's genius was noted early and by his two educated parents, both psychologists who gave Joshua the time his special situation necessitated, without slighting his sisters, as could so easily have happened. That was deft indeed, and praiseworthy.
Bell began taking violin lessons at the age of four after his mother discovered her son had taken rubber bands from around the house and stretched them across the handles of his dresser drawer to pluck out music he had heard her play on the piano. His parents got a scaled-to-size violin for their then five-year-old son and started to give him lessons.
Soon Bell studied under Donna Bricht, widow of Indiana University faculty member Walter Bricht. His second teacher was Mimi Szeig. Later still, he switched to the violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold after Bell's parents assured Gingold they were not interested in pushing their son but wanted him to have the best teacher for his abilities. Wolfie Mozard's father Leopold should have been as solicitous of his famous son's human needs. Here again Joshua Bell was lucky. Satisfied that the boy was living a normal life, Gingold took Bell on as his student. By age 12 Joshua was truly serious about the violin, which even as an adolescent he used to deliver magic.
Just 14.
At the age of 14, Bell appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. He studied the violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, while managing simultaneously to graduate from Bloomington High School North in 1984. In 1989, Bell received an Artist Diploma in Violin Performance from Indiana University.
Now he was ready to take his place on stage as one of the world's notable sounds.
In 1985, age 18, Joshua Bell, carefully, thoughtfully tutored, was ready to face the world. His Carnegie Hall debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra was the result. The young man who had been given so much love by so many... was now ready to give love... to the multitudes who needed the healing balm he could so artfully coax from his instrument. This was his truest talent: turning music into solace, empathy, and always love. For such a man just one thing was needed, the proper instrument... and in due course the instrument appeared.
Stradivarious, the master who accompanies every great violinist.
To a violinist there is only one human being who made violins capable of touching the deepest part of every human heart and showcasing their talent. That person was Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). It is thought that this master crafted 1100 instruments (violins, violas, cellos); of these some 600 remain, many bearing the names of one or more owners so immortalized. Bell was now amongst them; he owned the "Tom Tyler" Stradivarious... but he desired the 300-year-old instrument called the "Gibson ex Huberman", made in 1713. It had been lent him, one memorable day, for a concert; thus Bell knew first hand how extraordinary it was, how desirable.
The owner who lent Bell this instrument jokingly told him the sale price, $4 million. But it was not for sale -- yet, and when Bell found out it was, it had already been sold to a German collector. In what can only be described as an act of rare, even unique, generosity amongst owners of these instruments, the new German owner allowed himself to be persuaded to give up what he, too, ardently desired... and so for $4 million the Stradivarious was Bell's... and the genius of Joshua Bell and Antonio Stradivarious were brought together, enriching lives worldwide from the mingled talents of two musical geniuses,a match truly made in heaven to create the richest and most poignant of sounds.
It was a sound that took the world by storm in films like Oscar-winning "The Red Violin" (1998), "Music of the Heart" (1999), and "Ladies in Lavender (2004). And in one recording after another, especially "Romance of the Violin" (under SONY Classical) which in 2003 sold more than 5 million copies and placed Joshua Bell, his boyish smile and colossal talent, among the true masters of his craft.
But amongst all his many honors, his wealth, and celebrity one gift especially touched the heart of the man for whom touching hearts was all in a day's work. It was a rare silhouette of Paganini autographed by the master. It was now owned by Bell's teacher Josef Gingold. Two days before he died, in 1995, this uncommon man of musical knowledge and common sense, called Bell to his bedside and gave it to the pupil he had not released to the world too soon, thereby helping to shape Bell into that most uncommon man of genius, well grounded and equitable, the better able to uplift mankind with his talent.
You can hear all this in Joshua Bell, above all the love that has formed from so many over so long and which now he pours out, strong and constant, to a world that so loves him.
Program note: End this article by searching for Joshua Bell's rendition of Vincenzo Bellini's "Casta diva" from"Norma" (1831). Keep a handkerchief at the ready...
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit,, 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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages -> http://spiritbank.ffpages.hop.clickbank.net/
Easy. Caprice No. 24 in A minor: Tema con Variazioni (Quasi Presto) by Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840). It was the last caprice (written 1817), the grandest, the most demanding, unyielding. Go to any search engine now to find it... and listen, enthralled.
This work, one of a bundle of caprices flowing fast from the facile pen of a grand master admired by Bell, must be played at the speed of love "quasi presto" -- "almost instantly" for nothing is more capricious than love...
... love can never be patient.... can never wait... is obsessive, thoughtless, bold, cruel and adamant. Love does not ask; it demands instant fulfillment. Love can never be rational, deliberate, cautious and sensible, and you cannot expect these from either Paganini -- or Bell either.
They are after you... They are about love, audacious love, a love of boundless energy and daring. They know you want it... and they mean to give you what you want... at the cost of your cozy, predictable, sensible, orderly life. That is the price great lovers, great romantics mean to exact from you for fulfillment... and Joshua Bell is a such a lover, agile, impetuous, practiced seducer of even the most grounded and careful.
And it all started in Indiana.
Joshua Bell, for all he is the wunderkind of the greatest concert halls in the greatest cities on earth, is in fact a boy of the prairies. I know something about that; I am one myself. He was born 9 December, 1967 in Bloomington, Indiana. If you are not familiar with this place it is a major research university, the intellectual heart of the nation's great heartland. It's a place of God, country, solid living, of people you like and trust; a true pastoral idyl that could well lead to humming about the moonlight on the Wabash, when you, now elsewhere, dream of your Indiana home.
The Bells were the kind of people you were glad to have as neighbors, not least because Joshua and his two sisters were so friendly and normal. Joshua was a boy's boy, handsome, smiling, polite, with a shock of hair falling over his forehead into his eyes, thereby causing local mothers, who could not help themselves to brush it back. Joshua was keen on video games... and sports. He once famously won fourth place in a national tennis competition without benefit of a single lesson.
But this was only part of the story... for there was genius in this family and genius will out, whether you like it or not. Fortunately Joshua's genius was noted early and by his two educated parents, both psychologists who gave Joshua the time his special situation necessitated, without slighting his sisters, as could so easily have happened. That was deft indeed, and praiseworthy.
Bell began taking violin lessons at the age of four after his mother discovered her son had taken rubber bands from around the house and stretched them across the handles of his dresser drawer to pluck out music he had heard her play on the piano. His parents got a scaled-to-size violin for their then five-year-old son and started to give him lessons.
Soon Bell studied under Donna Bricht, widow of Indiana University faculty member Walter Bricht. His second teacher was Mimi Szeig. Later still, he switched to the violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold after Bell's parents assured Gingold they were not interested in pushing their son but wanted him to have the best teacher for his abilities. Wolfie Mozard's father Leopold should have been as solicitous of his famous son's human needs. Here again Joshua Bell was lucky. Satisfied that the boy was living a normal life, Gingold took Bell on as his student. By age 12 Joshua was truly serious about the violin, which even as an adolescent he used to deliver magic.
Just 14.
At the age of 14, Bell appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. He studied the violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, while managing simultaneously to graduate from Bloomington High School North in 1984. In 1989, Bell received an Artist Diploma in Violin Performance from Indiana University.
Now he was ready to take his place on stage as one of the world's notable sounds.
In 1985, age 18, Joshua Bell, carefully, thoughtfully tutored, was ready to face the world. His Carnegie Hall debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra was the result. The young man who had been given so much love by so many... was now ready to give love... to the multitudes who needed the healing balm he could so artfully coax from his instrument. This was his truest talent: turning music into solace, empathy, and always love. For such a man just one thing was needed, the proper instrument... and in due course the instrument appeared.
Stradivarious, the master who accompanies every great violinist.
To a violinist there is only one human being who made violins capable of touching the deepest part of every human heart and showcasing their talent. That person was Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). It is thought that this master crafted 1100 instruments (violins, violas, cellos); of these some 600 remain, many bearing the names of one or more owners so immortalized. Bell was now amongst them; he owned the "Tom Tyler" Stradivarious... but he desired the 300-year-old instrument called the "Gibson ex Huberman", made in 1713. It had been lent him, one memorable day, for a concert; thus Bell knew first hand how extraordinary it was, how desirable.
The owner who lent Bell this instrument jokingly told him the sale price, $4 million. But it was not for sale -- yet, and when Bell found out it was, it had already been sold to a German collector. In what can only be described as an act of rare, even unique, generosity amongst owners of these instruments, the new German owner allowed himself to be persuaded to give up what he, too, ardently desired... and so for $4 million the Stradivarious was Bell's... and the genius of Joshua Bell and Antonio Stradivarious were brought together, enriching lives worldwide from the mingled talents of two musical geniuses,a match truly made in heaven to create the richest and most poignant of sounds.
It was a sound that took the world by storm in films like Oscar-winning "The Red Violin" (1998), "Music of the Heart" (1999), and "Ladies in Lavender (2004). And in one recording after another, especially "Romance of the Violin" (under SONY Classical) which in 2003 sold more than 5 million copies and placed Joshua Bell, his boyish smile and colossal talent, among the true masters of his craft.
But amongst all his many honors, his wealth, and celebrity one gift especially touched the heart of the man for whom touching hearts was all in a day's work. It was a rare silhouette of Paganini autographed by the master. It was now owned by Bell's teacher Josef Gingold. Two days before he died, in 1995, this uncommon man of musical knowledge and common sense, called Bell to his bedside and gave it to the pupil he had not released to the world too soon, thereby helping to shape Bell into that most uncommon man of genius, well grounded and equitable, the better able to uplift mankind with his talent.
You can hear all this in Joshua Bell, above all the love that has formed from so many over so long and which now he pours out, strong and constant, to a world that so loves him.
Program note: End this article by searching for Joshua Bell's rendition of Vincenzo Bellini's "Casta diva" from"Norma" (1831). Keep a handkerchief at the ready...
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit,, 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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages -> http://spiritbank.ffpages.hop.clickbank.net/
Friday, May 27, 2011
'.... there's nothing so good for a pobble's toes.' The comfort and friendshipof amiable lavender.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's note. To set the mood for this article, be sure to search any search engine for "Ladies in Lavender", composer Nigel Hess, violinist Joshua Bell, recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 2004. It is based on a short story by William Locke (1916), filmed in 2004.
Before starting this music, put aside all the cares of your day, make yourself comfortable, and allow yourself the shear bliss of indulgence in this most lyric and evocative of scores.
There is a famous quotation that one always finds the particular England one goes in search of. Today we are en route, via the unrelenting power of remembrance, to the most loved England of all...
You are walking in the springtime of May through a woodland dappled with sunlight, repository of ancient secrets and long-ago laughter. Everything about this wood sings of a special place, a place of beauty and serenity, a place where there is peace, and to spare, for the weary traveler... without knowing why, you feel at home here, at once... every step taking you in a direction you now know you have always wanted to go... you cannot say why, but this is home... the home you have always wanted and cherish.
Every fibre of your being is happy... such is your joy in this place, a world apart where you are expected, as if everything about this place knows you and has been waiting, forever and patiently, for you.... and now rejoices at your arrival.
You are walking up a hillock... and in a moment you are at the top and then you know, no one needs tell you, why you are happy, at ease, serene...
On every side, you see -- and then inhale -- the sweet lavender. Fields of beauty! Acres so rich in flower you catch your breath... for there is such abundance that you are sure there is comfort enough here for the world burdened by its dismays and distractions.
You are glad that on such a day as this, glorious in every way, this last glory, too, has been vouch-safed you, to live forever in your heart..
Lavender has done its healing work again, certain balm for the troubled soul, your soul.
"We shall find a cleanly room lavender in the windows and twenty ballads stuck about the wall."
Izaak Walton, "The Compleat Angler". 1653-55.
Facts about lavender.
The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family. An Old World genus, distributed from Cape Verde and Canary Islands and Madeira, across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South- East India. There is some reason for thinking the genus originated in India.
The leaves are long and narrow in most species. In other species they are pinnately toothed, or pinnate, sometimes multiple pinnate and dissected. Flowers are borne in whorls, held on spikes rising above the foliage. Flowers may be blue, violet, or lilac.The calyx is tubular, with five lobes. The corolla is often asymmetric. All this readies us for the most beloved lavender of all....
Lavandula angustifolia, English lavender.
Those without a drop of poetry in their veins call it "common" lavender, but wiser folk know there is nothing common about our relationship to lavender and the many ways it eases our lives.
Culinary uses.
Flowers yield abundant nectar from which bees, insightful and industrious, make a high-quality honey. Flowers can be candied and are sometimes used as cake decorations. Lavender flavors baked goods and desserts; it pairs especially well with chocolate and is also used to make "lavender sugar". Lavender flowers are occasionally blended with black, green, or herbal tea, adding a fresh, relaxing scent and flavor.
Lavender lends a floral and slightly sweet flavor to most dishes, and is sometimes paired with sheep's-milk and goat's-milk cheeses. For most cooking applications the dried buds (also referred to as flowers) are used, though some chefs experiment with the leaves as well. Only the buds contain the essential oil of lavender, from which the scent and flavor of lavender are best derived.
The French are also known for their lavender soup, most commonly made from an extract of lavender. In the United States, both French lavender syrup and dried lavender buds are used to make lavender scones and marshmallows.
Medicinal uses.
Lavender is used extensively with herbs and aromatherapy.
English lavender yields an essential oil with sweet overtones, and can be used in balms, salves, perfumes, cosmetics, and topical applications. Essential oil of lavender has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. It was used in hospitals during World War I to disinfect floors and walls. These extracts are also used as fragrances by bath products.
According to folk wisdom, lavender has many uses. Infusions of lavender soothe and heal insect bites and burns. Bunches of lavender repel insects. If applied to the temples, lavender oil soothes headaches. In pillows lavender seeds and flowers aid sleep and relaxation. An infusion of three flowerheads added to a cup of boiling water soothes and relaxes at bedtime. Lavender oil (or extract of lavender) heals acne when used diluted 1:10 with water, rosewater or witch hazel; it also treats burns and inflammatory conditions.
More uses.
Flower spikes are used for dried flower arrangements. The fragrant, pale purple flowers and flower buds are used in potpourris. Lavender is also used extensively as herbal filler inside sachets used to freshen linens. Dried and sealed in pouches, lavender flowers are placed among stored items of clothing to give a fresh fragrance and to deter moths. Dried lavender flowers have become recently popular for wedding confetti.
Our constant friend and solace, humble despite such great gifts.
Ancient peoples were well aware of lavender's bounty and succor. So well regarded, it was one of the holy herbs used in the biblical Temple to prepare the holy essence. It was a plant, a scent that never intruded. It lifted! Soothed! Gave respite and release! As such it helped deliver the peace of God.
The magnificent English poet Edward Lear (1812-1888), partaker of lavender's solace, wrote characteristic nonsense more revealing than lucid prose:
"... his aunt jobiska made him drink lavender water tinged with pink, for she said, 'the world in general knows there's nothing so good for a pobble's toes!'"
This is why when you are weary, sore oppressed, make your way, if only in memory, to the place of these amiable and most hospitable of flowers. Sit down and drink in their beauty, given to you at the moment you most need it, for these are the good Samaritans, offering you in all humility what they most embody -- the enduring comfort of God Himself.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Clickbank Traffic Warrior -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=zh6a9T3Q
Author's note. To set the mood for this article, be sure to search any search engine for "Ladies in Lavender", composer Nigel Hess, violinist Joshua Bell, recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 2004. It is based on a short story by William Locke (1916), filmed in 2004.
Before starting this music, put aside all the cares of your day, make yourself comfortable, and allow yourself the shear bliss of indulgence in this most lyric and evocative of scores.
There is a famous quotation that one always finds the particular England one goes in search of. Today we are en route, via the unrelenting power of remembrance, to the most loved England of all...
You are walking in the springtime of May through a woodland dappled with sunlight, repository of ancient secrets and long-ago laughter. Everything about this wood sings of a special place, a place of beauty and serenity, a place where there is peace, and to spare, for the weary traveler... without knowing why, you feel at home here, at once... every step taking you in a direction you now know you have always wanted to go... you cannot say why, but this is home... the home you have always wanted and cherish.
Every fibre of your being is happy... such is your joy in this place, a world apart where you are expected, as if everything about this place knows you and has been waiting, forever and patiently, for you.... and now rejoices at your arrival.
You are walking up a hillock... and in a moment you are at the top and then you know, no one needs tell you, why you are happy, at ease, serene...
On every side, you see -- and then inhale -- the sweet lavender. Fields of beauty! Acres so rich in flower you catch your breath... for there is such abundance that you are sure there is comfort enough here for the world burdened by its dismays and distractions.
You are glad that on such a day as this, glorious in every way, this last glory, too, has been vouch-safed you, to live forever in your heart..
Lavender has done its healing work again, certain balm for the troubled soul, your soul.
"We shall find a cleanly room lavender in the windows and twenty ballads stuck about the wall."
Izaak Walton, "The Compleat Angler". 1653-55.
Facts about lavender.
The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family. An Old World genus, distributed from Cape Verde and Canary Islands and Madeira, across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South- East India. There is some reason for thinking the genus originated in India.
The leaves are long and narrow in most species. In other species they are pinnately toothed, or pinnate, sometimes multiple pinnate and dissected. Flowers are borne in whorls, held on spikes rising above the foliage. Flowers may be blue, violet, or lilac.The calyx is tubular, with five lobes. The corolla is often asymmetric. All this readies us for the most beloved lavender of all....
Lavandula angustifolia, English lavender.
Those without a drop of poetry in their veins call it "common" lavender, but wiser folk know there is nothing common about our relationship to lavender and the many ways it eases our lives.
Culinary uses.
Flowers yield abundant nectar from which bees, insightful and industrious, make a high-quality honey. Flowers can be candied and are sometimes used as cake decorations. Lavender flavors baked goods and desserts; it pairs especially well with chocolate and is also used to make "lavender sugar". Lavender flowers are occasionally blended with black, green, or herbal tea, adding a fresh, relaxing scent and flavor.
Lavender lends a floral and slightly sweet flavor to most dishes, and is sometimes paired with sheep's-milk and goat's-milk cheeses. For most cooking applications the dried buds (also referred to as flowers) are used, though some chefs experiment with the leaves as well. Only the buds contain the essential oil of lavender, from which the scent and flavor of lavender are best derived.
The French are also known for their lavender soup, most commonly made from an extract of lavender. In the United States, both French lavender syrup and dried lavender buds are used to make lavender scones and marshmallows.
Medicinal uses.
Lavender is used extensively with herbs and aromatherapy.
English lavender yields an essential oil with sweet overtones, and can be used in balms, salves, perfumes, cosmetics, and topical applications. Essential oil of lavender has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. It was used in hospitals during World War I to disinfect floors and walls. These extracts are also used as fragrances by bath products.
According to folk wisdom, lavender has many uses. Infusions of lavender soothe and heal insect bites and burns. Bunches of lavender repel insects. If applied to the temples, lavender oil soothes headaches. In pillows lavender seeds and flowers aid sleep and relaxation. An infusion of three flowerheads added to a cup of boiling water soothes and relaxes at bedtime. Lavender oil (or extract of lavender) heals acne when used diluted 1:10 with water, rosewater or witch hazel; it also treats burns and inflammatory conditions.
More uses.
Flower spikes are used for dried flower arrangements. The fragrant, pale purple flowers and flower buds are used in potpourris. Lavender is also used extensively as herbal filler inside sachets used to freshen linens. Dried and sealed in pouches, lavender flowers are placed among stored items of clothing to give a fresh fragrance and to deter moths. Dried lavender flowers have become recently popular for wedding confetti.
Our constant friend and solace, humble despite such great gifts.
Ancient peoples were well aware of lavender's bounty and succor. So well regarded, it was one of the holy herbs used in the biblical Temple to prepare the holy essence. It was a plant, a scent that never intruded. It lifted! Soothed! Gave respite and release! As such it helped deliver the peace of God.
The magnificent English poet Edward Lear (1812-1888), partaker of lavender's solace, wrote characteristic nonsense more revealing than lucid prose:
"... his aunt jobiska made him drink lavender water tinged with pink, for she said, 'the world in general knows there's nothing so good for a pobble's toes!'"
This is why when you are weary, sore oppressed, make your way, if only in memory, to the place of these amiable and most hospitable of flowers. Sit down and drink in their beauty, given to you at the moment you most need it, for these are the good Samaritans, offering you in all humility what they most embody -- the enduring comfort of God Himself.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Clickbank Traffic Warrior -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=zh6a9T3Q
Kids in your life? The Life Letter is for them -- and for you. Start yours today.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I knew the late Mrs. John (Elizabeth) Edwards was particularly devoted to her children and family... but when I learned from her funeral coverage that she had left behind a long letter which she had been writing for them over the course of many years, my admiration for the lady rose still more.
In my family we call such a letter, the Life Letter and encourage particularly parents and grandparents to start one as soon as you know a little one is on the way. It will quickly become one of your own most valued possessions... as it will become, in due time, valuable for the kids you leave it to. This article will help you get started with your own Life Letter, the gift of generations, assisting you to create a masterwork.
What is a Life Letter?
A Life Letter is a letter written by you to your children and/or (in due course) your grand children. It is "one-sided" in the sense that you are writing it for your dearly beloved without any expectation that they will either respond to it or even see during your life time. A Life Letter has a specific mission. It is to let the recipient into both your own life... and into theirs from your unique standpoint as parent or grandparent.
A Life Letter is neither a personal journal nor a regular posted letter. Nor is it either an email or random jottings and particular information as found in a baby book. It partakes of certain elements from these genres and types. However, it is very much its own thing, sui generis, as you come to see and enjoy as your Life Letter takes shape over time.
Get going, keep going
For a thing destined to rank amongst the most important possessions of your life, a treasured heirloom, surprisingly little is needed for its creation except for two must have features: the willingness to start creating your Life Letter at once... and an iron-clad determination to keep working at it for the duration of your life. A labor of love it may be... but the work involved is real nonetheless and must be properly organized.
What you need to start today
Before writing a word of your Life Letter, gather what you'll need:
fountain pen a ream of lined paper a folder with pockets a "writing place".
A quick word about these items:
fountain pen. Remember, your objective is to reveal yourself through your Life Letter and create a thing of beauty and insight for your family. For this a fountain pen is desirable. However, in recommending this essential tool, I know full well that today copperplate writing is as rare as a hen's tooth. As such, if you cannot rise to the elegance and style of a fountain pen... make sure you have a typewriter (my IBM Selectric II is a gem) or email.
There are trade-offs here. Your handwriting (execrable though it may be, like my own) is a better indicator of who you are than typed words. Moreover, your Life Letter must be spontaneous and "of the moment." Typing and email smack too much of deliberation -- and business. Unfortunately, too many people today have my problem of illegible scrawling. Thus, for us, while our Life Letter may be less personal if not hand written, it will be infinitely more readable. So, how about a compromise?
If your poor handwriting warrants, write the headings and special notes and salutations in ink. Type the rest. Thus you retain the special bond with recipient that comes with words handwritten.
Proper storage is crucial.
That's where the folder with pockets comes in. As you write, number the pages and put them away in folders. Each folder must be dated for the time covered... and always kept in the safest place in the house. (Unsurprisingly people who have spent decades on their Life Letters keep them in a safety deposit box, thereby indicating their value.)
Your warm, confiding "writing place".
When you sit down to "talk" to your children and grandchildren via your Life Letter, you need a warm, inviting, confiding place in which to do it. In such a place you are completely and entirely at home. It should be comfortable... with a family pictures, books, mementoes, a room redolent of cherished memories and always of cherished people.
Here favorite foods and liquids are de rigueur, with stains and spots proving use and personal title. Here shoes are kicked off and shirt collars opened. Here there is always a place for you... and as such the words flow thick and fast as you tell your posterity and record for yourself your journey on this planet... a journey that has brought you to this time and place and which you, no matter how imperfectly, want to share. Such a place is for you and the very carefully selected only, the people you value most and profoundly. They deserve your best... and you must give it to them, for their good and for your own soul's sake.
Begin today
Most people leave nothing on this globe but their genetic footprints implanted in their successors. You have chosen to leave more, a record of tales and occurrences, of items significant, hilarious, mundane, heart rending.
Start today.
Ready your writing place. Place before you the most challenging item in any writer's kit... the blank page. Then begin your Life Letter.
Write the date you have commenced on your folder. Write your salutation... and begin. Where? It doesn't matter for this is a letter. It has a place for everything... and tolerates random disclosures as well as lapses in communication, just as we do with old and valued friends who, loving us, abide our infirmities and inefficiencies, too.
And if such lapses occur, don't blame yourself, no matter how long it has been since you have written in this lifelong epistle. Simply pick up your pen and begin again. Your reader, your flesh and blood, will be fascinated by whatever you share, for in sharing yourself so you not only fill gaps in their personal intelligence... you illuminate and reveal their own lives. Begin this voyage now for you have much to tell:
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. -- Joachim du Bellay.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant's is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out SEO Business Box -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=ak6GZeVp
I knew the late Mrs. John (Elizabeth) Edwards was particularly devoted to her children and family... but when I learned from her funeral coverage that she had left behind a long letter which she had been writing for them over the course of many years, my admiration for the lady rose still more.
In my family we call such a letter, the Life Letter and encourage particularly parents and grandparents to start one as soon as you know a little one is on the way. It will quickly become one of your own most valued possessions... as it will become, in due time, valuable for the kids you leave it to. This article will help you get started with your own Life Letter, the gift of generations, assisting you to create a masterwork.
What is a Life Letter?
A Life Letter is a letter written by you to your children and/or (in due course) your grand children. It is "one-sided" in the sense that you are writing it for your dearly beloved without any expectation that they will either respond to it or even see during your life time. A Life Letter has a specific mission. It is to let the recipient into both your own life... and into theirs from your unique standpoint as parent or grandparent.
A Life Letter is neither a personal journal nor a regular posted letter. Nor is it either an email or random jottings and particular information as found in a baby book. It partakes of certain elements from these genres and types. However, it is very much its own thing, sui generis, as you come to see and enjoy as your Life Letter takes shape over time.
Get going, keep going
For a thing destined to rank amongst the most important possessions of your life, a treasured heirloom, surprisingly little is needed for its creation except for two must have features: the willingness to start creating your Life Letter at once... and an iron-clad determination to keep working at it for the duration of your life. A labor of love it may be... but the work involved is real nonetheless and must be properly organized.
What you need to start today
Before writing a word of your Life Letter, gather what you'll need:
fountain pen a ream of lined paper a folder with pockets a "writing place".
A quick word about these items:
fountain pen. Remember, your objective is to reveal yourself through your Life Letter and create a thing of beauty and insight for your family. For this a fountain pen is desirable. However, in recommending this essential tool, I know full well that today copperplate writing is as rare as a hen's tooth. As such, if you cannot rise to the elegance and style of a fountain pen... make sure you have a typewriter (my IBM Selectric II is a gem) or email.
There are trade-offs here. Your handwriting (execrable though it may be, like my own) is a better indicator of who you are than typed words. Moreover, your Life Letter must be spontaneous and "of the moment." Typing and email smack too much of deliberation -- and business. Unfortunately, too many people today have my problem of illegible scrawling. Thus, for us, while our Life Letter may be less personal if not hand written, it will be infinitely more readable. So, how about a compromise?
If your poor handwriting warrants, write the headings and special notes and salutations in ink. Type the rest. Thus you retain the special bond with recipient that comes with words handwritten.
Proper storage is crucial.
That's where the folder with pockets comes in. As you write, number the pages and put them away in folders. Each folder must be dated for the time covered... and always kept in the safest place in the house. (Unsurprisingly people who have spent decades on their Life Letters keep them in a safety deposit box, thereby indicating their value.)
Your warm, confiding "writing place".
When you sit down to "talk" to your children and grandchildren via your Life Letter, you need a warm, inviting, confiding place in which to do it. In such a place you are completely and entirely at home. It should be comfortable... with a family pictures, books, mementoes, a room redolent of cherished memories and always of cherished people.
Here favorite foods and liquids are de rigueur, with stains and spots proving use and personal title. Here shoes are kicked off and shirt collars opened. Here there is always a place for you... and as such the words flow thick and fast as you tell your posterity and record for yourself your journey on this planet... a journey that has brought you to this time and place and which you, no matter how imperfectly, want to share. Such a place is for you and the very carefully selected only, the people you value most and profoundly. They deserve your best... and you must give it to them, for their good and for your own soul's sake.
Begin today
Most people leave nothing on this globe but their genetic footprints implanted in their successors. You have chosen to leave more, a record of tales and occurrences, of items significant, hilarious, mundane, heart rending.
Start today.
Ready your writing place. Place before you the most challenging item in any writer's kit... the blank page. Then begin your Life Letter.
Write the date you have commenced on your folder. Write your salutation... and begin. Where? It doesn't matter for this is a letter. It has a place for everything... and tolerates random disclosures as well as lapses in communication, just as we do with old and valued friends who, loving us, abide our infirmities and inefficiencies, too.
And if such lapses occur, don't blame yourself, no matter how long it has been since you have written in this lifelong epistle. Simply pick up your pen and begin again. Your reader, your flesh and blood, will be fascinated by whatever you share, for in sharing yourself so you not only fill gaps in their personal intelligence... you illuminate and reveal their own lives. Begin this voyage now for you have much to tell:
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. -- Joachim du Bellay.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant's is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out SEO Business Box -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=ak6GZeVp
Thoughts on storage: needed, frustrating, a treasure trove... but not for the kids.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Over the course of the last several months, I have been engaged in one of life's unappealing necessities, sorting through dozens and dozens of boxes packed (often years and years ago) with an array of things dubbed too valuable to be thrown away, or at the very least items which deserved another look, later.
Well, "later" has now arrived, and I am engaged in the business of well and truly sorting through each and every one of these stored items, deciding which can now be thrown away, which will be donated to places like Goodwill Industries and The Salvation Army, which ones will be kept... and (here we go again)... which ones will remain in storage,
Today I intend to share with you all my thoughts on this inevitability of life... partly because no one I know will listen to what I have to say on the matter. My friends are tired of providing a willing ear. They are polite but firm: say no more on this matter, or we shall bore you, too, with the ups and downs of our own storage problems... and the garage sales we've had to organize. This threat is sufficient. I shut up.
But you, I hope, will indulge me; at least this once. There is that about sorting things in storage which craves a congenial ear. May I have yours for a bit?
What went into storage.
The plain fact of the matter is that we all, every last one of us, has far too many things. What's worse, since we all have elements of the pack rat about us, not only do we acquire things; we are loathe to sacrifice anything on the off chance that we will need it one day. That's the first problem; we're deluding ourselves. We should all be tougher with ourselves on the matter of what we save. But we cannot. You see, things are evidence that we have passed this way, and we want as many tell-tale markers as possible. Still, the sorting process should begin the day you first think that you require storage.
In my case, I had the usual "good" reasons for resorting to commercial storage facilities. There was, first of all, my mother's possessions. Some of these had a substantial value; others, the sentimental ones, were even more important. These things have been stored for years in California; three thousand miles away from me.
A good friend, probably a saint, helped me pack these items. I was depressed that day; my mother was failing and I just couldn't deal right then with the thought of losing her. Packing boxes was something necessary; it was also therapeutic. But it only postponed the inevitable problem of sorting the items and making irrevocable decisions.
My friend offered to keep these boxes, each one filled with memories, until I decided what to do with all the items. I told my brother and sister what I had and that we should early decide who gets what. But they have mountains of their own things. It wasn't that they didn't want maternal mementoes; they just didn't want them then and trusted me to share when they were ready. I mentioned the matter to my sister the other day and she said, "Not yet".
In the way of these things, the favor my dear friend gave me went from a few weeks.... to years. It was scandalous, I know, to take advantage of her that way; even the frequent presents I sent were inadequate. But she said she didn't mind; she had them in her attic.
Finally I ran out of excuses and said the many boxes could be shipped to me. And so they were. My assistant Aime Joseph and I opened the boxes; he with care, I with trepidation soon confirmed. There was so much... all "important"... every piece needing attention and clarity. The books were the most difficult of all. My mother was an avid reader as I am. Often we read the same book at the same time, a continent between us which meant nothing when we discussed our findings.
I found her volumes of Robert Browning the hardest to deal with. She loved him so... "That's my last duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive." I put this book and many others amongst my working library. I can see the cherished Browning from here.
Unpacked, too, was all her jewelry. I had given much of it, one Christmas, one birthday after another. These items are being kept for my niece Chelsea and nephew Kyle and his wife, when he has one. Chelsea asked if she could take one of the pieces, a jewelled dragonfly, to college. My official reason for declining was the number of light fingered folk in the dormitory and her tendency to be over trusting. But in truth, I wasn't ready to let even that go -- yet.
In fact, as each box was opened, Mr. Joseph would cluck and ask me just where I would put what was in it. Miraculously, we found a home for everything... until the others want some for themselves.
The other, bigger storage project.
The second storage project was arguably even more difficult, for it involved 4 large rooms packed to the ceiling with stuff which I had obviously found significant enough to pay thousands of dollars each year to keep. But enough was enough...
Mr. Joseph and I have been working on this project for months now. There are, after all, thousands of objects to be sorted, including items from every epoch of my life. Each week Mr. Joseph goes to the storage facility and, with his cell phone, he lets me know what's left in the first room, now nearly emptied. Then he brings me the boxes... each one filled with one conundrum after another.
What does one do with one's first suit, worn at age 3, well over half a century again? I can't get rid of it... I just can't. It's hanging in my closet, safe for now.
And the teddy bear that soothed me 6 decades ago? No one, including me I am ashamed to admit, remembers his name; I call him now "The Old Gentleman" and he seems content. Some people no doubt think it odd to see him here, but he and I go back a lifetime, and such bonds must be respected and ensured.
I am more ruthless with my things than with my mother's. Mr. Joseph makes regular deliveries of my books; ten thousand books, perhaps more, given away without a pang.
In the middle of this unceasing project, it occurs to me that, even with great disposals, there is far too much remaining. And if the point of keeping them seems clear to me, it will surely perplex and baffle the folks getting all this. What can "The Old Gentleman" mean to them? I have advised them, in my will, to be ruthless, but I know my flesh and blood. They will be unable to do so, try though they might.
"I can't give away the chairs Uncle Jeffrey wrote his books in... or the typewriter... or the pewter mug his friends engraved for him on his 21 birthday, in Scotland. I just can't."
And so, in due course, I, with the best intentions, will become a puzzle for them... a puzzle which they will defer, postponing resolution, by storing. Thus one generation succeeds another, overwhelmed by things, too much stored, grand resolutions for dispersal, but guilty whatever we do. You know what I mean.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages -> http://spiritbank.ffpages.hop.clickbank.net/
Over the course of the last several months, I have been engaged in one of life's unappealing necessities, sorting through dozens and dozens of boxes packed (often years and years ago) with an array of things dubbed too valuable to be thrown away, or at the very least items which deserved another look, later.
Well, "later" has now arrived, and I am engaged in the business of well and truly sorting through each and every one of these stored items, deciding which can now be thrown away, which will be donated to places like Goodwill Industries and The Salvation Army, which ones will be kept... and (here we go again)... which ones will remain in storage,
Today I intend to share with you all my thoughts on this inevitability of life... partly because no one I know will listen to what I have to say on the matter. My friends are tired of providing a willing ear. They are polite but firm: say no more on this matter, or we shall bore you, too, with the ups and downs of our own storage problems... and the garage sales we've had to organize. This threat is sufficient. I shut up.
But you, I hope, will indulge me; at least this once. There is that about sorting things in storage which craves a congenial ear. May I have yours for a bit?
What went into storage.
The plain fact of the matter is that we all, every last one of us, has far too many things. What's worse, since we all have elements of the pack rat about us, not only do we acquire things; we are loathe to sacrifice anything on the off chance that we will need it one day. That's the first problem; we're deluding ourselves. We should all be tougher with ourselves on the matter of what we save. But we cannot. You see, things are evidence that we have passed this way, and we want as many tell-tale markers as possible. Still, the sorting process should begin the day you first think that you require storage.
In my case, I had the usual "good" reasons for resorting to commercial storage facilities. There was, first of all, my mother's possessions. Some of these had a substantial value; others, the sentimental ones, were even more important. These things have been stored for years in California; three thousand miles away from me.
A good friend, probably a saint, helped me pack these items. I was depressed that day; my mother was failing and I just couldn't deal right then with the thought of losing her. Packing boxes was something necessary; it was also therapeutic. But it only postponed the inevitable problem of sorting the items and making irrevocable decisions.
My friend offered to keep these boxes, each one filled with memories, until I decided what to do with all the items. I told my brother and sister what I had and that we should early decide who gets what. But they have mountains of their own things. It wasn't that they didn't want maternal mementoes; they just didn't want them then and trusted me to share when they were ready. I mentioned the matter to my sister the other day and she said, "Not yet".
In the way of these things, the favor my dear friend gave me went from a few weeks.... to years. It was scandalous, I know, to take advantage of her that way; even the frequent presents I sent were inadequate. But she said she didn't mind; she had them in her attic.
Finally I ran out of excuses and said the many boxes could be shipped to me. And so they were. My assistant Aime Joseph and I opened the boxes; he with care, I with trepidation soon confirmed. There was so much... all "important"... every piece needing attention and clarity. The books were the most difficult of all. My mother was an avid reader as I am. Often we read the same book at the same time, a continent between us which meant nothing when we discussed our findings.
I found her volumes of Robert Browning the hardest to deal with. She loved him so... "That's my last duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive." I put this book and many others amongst my working library. I can see the cherished Browning from here.
Unpacked, too, was all her jewelry. I had given much of it, one Christmas, one birthday after another. These items are being kept for my niece Chelsea and nephew Kyle and his wife, when he has one. Chelsea asked if she could take one of the pieces, a jewelled dragonfly, to college. My official reason for declining was the number of light fingered folk in the dormitory and her tendency to be over trusting. But in truth, I wasn't ready to let even that go -- yet.
In fact, as each box was opened, Mr. Joseph would cluck and ask me just where I would put what was in it. Miraculously, we found a home for everything... until the others want some for themselves.
The other, bigger storage project.
The second storage project was arguably even more difficult, for it involved 4 large rooms packed to the ceiling with stuff which I had obviously found significant enough to pay thousands of dollars each year to keep. But enough was enough...
Mr. Joseph and I have been working on this project for months now. There are, after all, thousands of objects to be sorted, including items from every epoch of my life. Each week Mr. Joseph goes to the storage facility and, with his cell phone, he lets me know what's left in the first room, now nearly emptied. Then he brings me the boxes... each one filled with one conundrum after another.
What does one do with one's first suit, worn at age 3, well over half a century again? I can't get rid of it... I just can't. It's hanging in my closet, safe for now.
And the teddy bear that soothed me 6 decades ago? No one, including me I am ashamed to admit, remembers his name; I call him now "The Old Gentleman" and he seems content. Some people no doubt think it odd to see him here, but he and I go back a lifetime, and such bonds must be respected and ensured.
I am more ruthless with my things than with my mother's. Mr. Joseph makes regular deliveries of my books; ten thousand books, perhaps more, given away without a pang.
In the middle of this unceasing project, it occurs to me that, even with great disposals, there is far too much remaining. And if the point of keeping them seems clear to me, it will surely perplex and baffle the folks getting all this. What can "The Old Gentleman" mean to them? I have advised them, in my will, to be ruthless, but I know my flesh and blood. They will be unable to do so, try though they might.
"I can't give away the chairs Uncle Jeffrey wrote his books in... or the typewriter... or the pewter mug his friends engraved for him on his 21 birthday, in Scotland. I just can't."
And so, in due course, I, with the best intentions, will become a puzzle for them... a puzzle which they will defer, postponing resolution, by storing. Thus one generation succeeds another, overwhelmed by things, too much stored, grand resolutions for dispersal, but guilty whatever we do. You know what I mean.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Fast Fan Pages -> http://spiritbank.ffpages.hop.clickbank.net/
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Reflections on Harvard's 360th Commencement, May 26, 2011.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Today, for the 360th time in its exalted history, a history far older than the republic itself, Harvard will, with all the colorful paraphernalia of the Academy, send a goodly percentage of the brightest young people on earth on their way to kismet.
Some of these people will become heads of state, women too; that is why the address of Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of the Republic of Liberia is so important. It proves that even in territories inclement towards women, women may rise high indeed.
Some of these people will head corporations and reap billions, some of which will undoubtedly be given to Harvard in the form of very public generosities.
Some of these people will buck the capitalist trend and found worthy causes of every kind. The world has need for every one of them and the people who give up much, the better able to give more.
Others will rise high in the military, in governments of every nation on earth, in education, science, medicine, the arts... there will even be a movie star or two but, perhaps, no rap musician. Not, however, because Harvard would not welcome one; it would. Rappers, however, may demur; it's a matter of image.... and no people on earth are as stringent about image as they are.
One more category may well appear: terrorist, revolutionary. Harvard does not go out seeking such people, but Harvard has helped shape many such. Red John Reed, Bolshevik, (class of 1910 ) is buried in the Kremlin wall... a signal honor for a gentleman of Crimson. Like so many Harvard graduates he rose high, though this time for a cause most every other Harvard graduate loathed and disdained. John Reed wouldn't have cared about that; Harvard graduates are above such trivia. They know that what they do is important, even if no one else on this planet agrees. This profound conviction is part of what the graduates take away today... you can be sure of it. It is one of the best reasons for the very existence of Harvard.
Many of today's graduates will write about their Harvard experiences; I am one of them. Most will cherish happy memories and say so, fudging the truth on which Harvard prides itself and pruning things not quite happy enough. In truth, their classmates were probably never as bright as they will remember, as bright or as dedicated. The faculty never as welcoming and helpful as they will recall. And the university overall not as profoundly influential. But embroidering your Harvard past is winked at since happy memories beget handsome legacies. And there is no need to remind so many, and in print, too, that their time here was not as sun-kissed as they ardently desire it to be. You were young, vibrant, surrounded by possibilities, and you'd been marked with the most winning brand of all. Under the circumstances, the utmost joy and contentment are understandable; indeed mandatory.
There will be some of course, but just a handful who will write otherwise, telling, years from now, of painful isolation, alienation and the persistent thought that they never were, not for a moment, good enough to have gone to Harvard in the first place, that they were a fluke, a sport of nature. Perhaps. But they will write such sentiments in a ringing style, lyric, too, that shows in its careful refinement and clarity another benefit of a Harvard education.
This day, the most important day in the life of virtually every graduate, save only the day on which they were born, will start early; the ceremony commences in Harvard Yard at 9:45 a.m., but Harvard Square is awash with the camera-totting hours before, even from first light. A sign of the times: persons unable to be present can see it all, and clearer, on the Web. There is not a one who so watches that does not wish to be in Cambridge instead... for all that they see more and better than the audience shaded by the great trees in Tercentenary Theater.
Graduates, at once shy and proud, will move today surrounded by their personal claques, the lucky ones invited to see and venerate. Proud parents, who often dipped deep to make this happen, have been admonished, several times, to be prompt and organized. Graduates have conflicting feelings about these folks. They are grateful, of course, though never as grateful perhaps as they should be. It would not do to slight them, but, this is the last day, the very last day, they can see their classmates and friends, similarly burdened, as they will never be again: present, accounted for, resoundingly young; friends, colleagues, lovers, too. This recognition, this sadness is palpable. The pull of the golden past, slipping away forever, against the dawning future, ardently desired... but not this day. This is why the tears fall today for this must be a bittersweet moment for all. In these precincts the past and future truly collide today, to roil emotions. Parting is indeed such sweet sorrow... and now they truly know it.
It is now just 5 a.m., the dawn of this day of days is nigh. It is a day of memories, memories retrieved, memories born. Parents will recall memories unbeckoned of their beloved graduates and their brief lives. They will have, for themselves alone, moments poignant and keenly felt, the more so if they had, once upon a time, a Harvard Commencement of their own. Then Cambridge becomes the best it can be: an ever- renewing place of reverie and remembrance, a place where you are always welcome, for you are part of what has shaped this special place.
The trickle of early comers, seeking parking spaces more valued than gold, will soon grow into serious traffic. Ladies in hats otherwise known only at weddings and gentlemen in ties they will later shake off as gladly as a noose begin to appear as do the marked men of the day... the sheriff of the county who will ride in on white horse to declare the proceedings open; officials in their always ill-fitting cuttaways and top hats... and of course and always the brightly garbed graduates in mortar boards they never wear quite right. With their gowns a Rosetta Stone clearly indicating just where the graduates have been and where they are going, these players gather together, together to march into the ceremonies where they shall become, so the University's president will pronounce, members of the company of educated men and women.
This is what every graduate has earned... and everyone has come to hear. And it is a marvelous thing, not just for those present but for the entire world, soon to benefit from the skills, dedications,and hard work of this renewed company, the company we all rely upon so much.
Think of these new members of this company today. They have much to accomplish and many lives to touch and improve. We must all be glad they have such a day as this to start them on their way, for they go forward for us all.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Auto Click Profits -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=jf9jhWO1
Today, for the 360th time in its exalted history, a history far older than the republic itself, Harvard will, with all the colorful paraphernalia of the Academy, send a goodly percentage of the brightest young people on earth on their way to kismet.
Some of these people will become heads of state, women too; that is why the address of Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of the Republic of Liberia is so important. It proves that even in territories inclement towards women, women may rise high indeed.
Some of these people will head corporations and reap billions, some of which will undoubtedly be given to Harvard in the form of very public generosities.
Some of these people will buck the capitalist trend and found worthy causes of every kind. The world has need for every one of them and the people who give up much, the better able to give more.
Others will rise high in the military, in governments of every nation on earth, in education, science, medicine, the arts... there will even be a movie star or two but, perhaps, no rap musician. Not, however, because Harvard would not welcome one; it would. Rappers, however, may demur; it's a matter of image.... and no people on earth are as stringent about image as they are.
One more category may well appear: terrorist, revolutionary. Harvard does not go out seeking such people, but Harvard has helped shape many such. Red John Reed, Bolshevik, (class of 1910 ) is buried in the Kremlin wall... a signal honor for a gentleman of Crimson. Like so many Harvard graduates he rose high, though this time for a cause most every other Harvard graduate loathed and disdained. John Reed wouldn't have cared about that; Harvard graduates are above such trivia. They know that what they do is important, even if no one else on this planet agrees. This profound conviction is part of what the graduates take away today... you can be sure of it. It is one of the best reasons for the very existence of Harvard.
Many of today's graduates will write about their Harvard experiences; I am one of them. Most will cherish happy memories and say so, fudging the truth on which Harvard prides itself and pruning things not quite happy enough. In truth, their classmates were probably never as bright as they will remember, as bright or as dedicated. The faculty never as welcoming and helpful as they will recall. And the university overall not as profoundly influential. But embroidering your Harvard past is winked at since happy memories beget handsome legacies. And there is no need to remind so many, and in print, too, that their time here was not as sun-kissed as they ardently desire it to be. You were young, vibrant, surrounded by possibilities, and you'd been marked with the most winning brand of all. Under the circumstances, the utmost joy and contentment are understandable; indeed mandatory.
There will be some of course, but just a handful who will write otherwise, telling, years from now, of painful isolation, alienation and the persistent thought that they never were, not for a moment, good enough to have gone to Harvard in the first place, that they were a fluke, a sport of nature. Perhaps. But they will write such sentiments in a ringing style, lyric, too, that shows in its careful refinement and clarity another benefit of a Harvard education.
This day, the most important day in the life of virtually every graduate, save only the day on which they were born, will start early; the ceremony commences in Harvard Yard at 9:45 a.m., but Harvard Square is awash with the camera-totting hours before, even from first light. A sign of the times: persons unable to be present can see it all, and clearer, on the Web. There is not a one who so watches that does not wish to be in Cambridge instead... for all that they see more and better than the audience shaded by the great trees in Tercentenary Theater.
Graduates, at once shy and proud, will move today surrounded by their personal claques, the lucky ones invited to see and venerate. Proud parents, who often dipped deep to make this happen, have been admonished, several times, to be prompt and organized. Graduates have conflicting feelings about these folks. They are grateful, of course, though never as grateful perhaps as they should be. It would not do to slight them, but, this is the last day, the very last day, they can see their classmates and friends, similarly burdened, as they will never be again: present, accounted for, resoundingly young; friends, colleagues, lovers, too. This recognition, this sadness is palpable. The pull of the golden past, slipping away forever, against the dawning future, ardently desired... but not this day. This is why the tears fall today for this must be a bittersweet moment for all. In these precincts the past and future truly collide today, to roil emotions. Parting is indeed such sweet sorrow... and now they truly know it.
It is now just 5 a.m., the dawn of this day of days is nigh. It is a day of memories, memories retrieved, memories born. Parents will recall memories unbeckoned of their beloved graduates and their brief lives. They will have, for themselves alone, moments poignant and keenly felt, the more so if they had, once upon a time, a Harvard Commencement of their own. Then Cambridge becomes the best it can be: an ever- renewing place of reverie and remembrance, a place where you are always welcome, for you are part of what has shaped this special place.
The trickle of early comers, seeking parking spaces more valued than gold, will soon grow into serious traffic. Ladies in hats otherwise known only at weddings and gentlemen in ties they will later shake off as gladly as a noose begin to appear as do the marked men of the day... the sheriff of the county who will ride in on white horse to declare the proceedings open; officials in their always ill-fitting cuttaways and top hats... and of course and always the brightly garbed graduates in mortar boards they never wear quite right. With their gowns a Rosetta Stone clearly indicating just where the graduates have been and where they are going, these players gather together, together to march into the ceremonies where they shall become, so the University's president will pronounce, members of the company of educated men and women.
This is what every graduate has earned... and everyone has come to hear. And it is a marvelous thing, not just for those present but for the entire world, soon to benefit from the skills, dedications,and hard work of this renewed company, the company we all rely upon so much.
Think of these new members of this company today. They have much to accomplish and many lives to touch and improve. We must all be glad they have such a day as this to start them on their way, for they go forward for us all.
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 David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out Auto Click Profits -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=jf9jhWO1
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Thoughts on Princeton professor Cornel West and his egregious attack on the president. Does the intellectual really have any ideas?
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
First, the facts.
Just the other day, April 11, 2011, Princeton professor of African-American studies and religion Cornel West managed, in one fast-moving interview with the political blog Truthdig to
* make a series of outrageous, unsubstantiated remarks about his now former friend Barrack Obama, president of these United States,
* act like anything besides the Ivy League social scientist and truth seeker he claims and is supposed to be,
* show that just because you have a fancy title at a fancy institution doesn't necessarily mean you're any better informed than the guys on the street who mouth off without one scintilla of fact,
* prove conclusively that West has aged from being an enfant terrible to being a thin-skinned cry baby, petulant, spoiled, coddled, and an embarrassment to himself and the great institution which, in getting West, clearly got a pig in a poke and may well wonder why they didn't scrutinize longer and better and what it says about their selection process.
Because he is a professionally angry black man, he must always have a Cause (and because causes need to be photogenic and a fountainhead of publicity), these days West has massaged himself into advocate of the poor, clothing himself in moral hauteur and cheap outrage. Yes, when he sees himself in the mirror (no doubt frequently) he sees -- vox populi, and very much, vox dei.
Yes, to listen to West, he's morphed into a protege of Emma Lazarus, maybe la Lazarus herself whose iconic words (written 1883) grace the Statue of Liberty...
"Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me".
West seems to think and certainly acts as if that last word, "me", meant him, their self-appointed, self-aggrandizing, tenacious (for now), unyielding (until something better comes along) but never get your hands dirty advocate, thank you very much.
Well-known 18th century British author Dr. Samuel Johnson one April day in 1775, pronounced in his magisterial fashion that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Boswell hurriedly wrote it down. I'll update that aphorism here and now for West's benefit: "the poor are the last refuge of the demagogue". ( Remember born-again populist Al Gore and that other glib Southern boy who belatedly discovered the poor, former North Carolina senator John Edwards? Gore ditched his populist mode in favor of things green; Edwards is seeking a berth as a Trappist monk... or any locale that makes women difficult to access while keeping a photograph of wronged ex-wife Elizabeth always at hand.)
It was in this mode of unassailable moral superiority, as one of America's overfed collegiate intellectuals, and a pampered black intellectual at that, that Cornel West mounted his high horse... and made one thing shockingly clear: the intellectual has no ideas, just pettiness, bile, self- pity, and now a social calendar which will no longer feature cozy chats with the president chez 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Oh, my!
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." Euripedes. (485-406 bc)
One may imagine West's state before this now infamous interview. Like a colossus he strode forward, resolute, confident, his mere name a progressive statement, and much beloved too, of callow undergraduates. He would take his bro' Barrack to task in no uncertain terms and so reframe the whole debate on the poor... and keep the president where West wanted him, under his thumb, to be let loose only at the professor's dictate and whim and following a long course of Professor West's approved bromides and idiosyncracies. The gods had, as usual, done their work well...
This then is what esteemed Professor West outrageously said, each word an arrow into himself and any claim he could make, not just to truth, but to common sense and common civility.
Obama is a "black mascot of Wall Street oligarchy and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats". There was more of this red meat, much more:
"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men... It's understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation."
And still more...
Obama, he said, is "most comfortable with upper middle-class and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want."
Then, after much more of the same, a glimmer of why this is all happening now: our pampered house intellectual has been disrespected:
"I couldn't get a ticket (to the inauguration) with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration... We had to watch the thing in the hotel."
Of course, lese majeste', not what the majestic West is accustomed to and perhaps the reason for his astonishing words and equally astonishing foolishness. Political sage Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) knew that if you intend to kill the king, make sure you do not just wound the king, for then of a certainty, the king will kill -- you!
This is why, so long as former buddy Barck Obama, remains president, Cornel West will learn why Machiavelli, long dead, is smarter than West, long on words and short on sense. For West is now not only intellectually irrelevant but a dead man, too, by his own hand.
One who no doubt saw this coming is Larry Summers. When he was president of Harvard, he had a celebrated run-in with West, (then on the Harvard faculty) whose friendships and professional relationships are prone to fray as folks come to know the man. Summers, a man of brilliance with his own propensities for self-destruction, rebuked West in 2000 for missing classes and other misdemeanors. But his major criticism was just: West needed to do a major book in keeping with his rank, giving tv talk shows and other trivial pursuits a pass, to concentrate on the really important.
Diva that he is, at this revolting development, West complained high and low; he ranted, he raved, he took umbrage, he played for sympathy. And in due course, he took his leave of Harvard where, to his surprise, a great research institution demanded -- great research, not trite opinions masquerading as undisputed fact.
To the surprise of cognoscenti of such games, Princeton University took West; no doubt they needed his brand of glib inconsequence. Or maybe it's just, as Cambridge folks suspected, that Princeton is a backwater, out of touch with neo-realities. West, from his new tenured perch, did what West always does... he lashed out at Harvard... the hand that had fed him so well for so long. Such ingratitude being one of the things he does best, as in due course Princeton will no doubt discover.
In any event, this tempest in a tea-cup proved at least one thing: Cornel West is irrelevant as he has been for a long time. The black community has grown up; they wanted -- and got -- a president. Such men as West, with only rants and cants became, at the inauguration he wasn't invited to attend, obsolete in an instant. For all his high titles and purported intelligence, it took him a while to figure that out. I suspect he knows it now.
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 a historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out 20 Minute PayDay -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=sy1EiUf6
First, the facts.
Just the other day, April 11, 2011, Princeton professor of African-American studies and religion Cornel West managed, in one fast-moving interview with the political blog Truthdig to
* make a series of outrageous, unsubstantiated remarks about his now former friend Barrack Obama, president of these United States,
* act like anything besides the Ivy League social scientist and truth seeker he claims and is supposed to be,
* show that just because you have a fancy title at a fancy institution doesn't necessarily mean you're any better informed than the guys on the street who mouth off without one scintilla of fact,
* prove conclusively that West has aged from being an enfant terrible to being a thin-skinned cry baby, petulant, spoiled, coddled, and an embarrassment to himself and the great institution which, in getting West, clearly got a pig in a poke and may well wonder why they didn't scrutinize longer and better and what it says about their selection process.
Because he is a professionally angry black man, he must always have a Cause (and because causes need to be photogenic and a fountainhead of publicity), these days West has massaged himself into advocate of the poor, clothing himself in moral hauteur and cheap outrage. Yes, when he sees himself in the mirror (no doubt frequently) he sees -- vox populi, and very much, vox dei.
Yes, to listen to West, he's morphed into a protege of Emma Lazarus, maybe la Lazarus herself whose iconic words (written 1883) grace the Statue of Liberty...
"Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me".
West seems to think and certainly acts as if that last word, "me", meant him, their self-appointed, self-aggrandizing, tenacious (for now), unyielding (until something better comes along) but never get your hands dirty advocate, thank you very much.
Well-known 18th century British author Dr. Samuel Johnson one April day in 1775, pronounced in his magisterial fashion that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Boswell hurriedly wrote it down. I'll update that aphorism here and now for West's benefit: "the poor are the last refuge of the demagogue". ( Remember born-again populist Al Gore and that other glib Southern boy who belatedly discovered the poor, former North Carolina senator John Edwards? Gore ditched his populist mode in favor of things green; Edwards is seeking a berth as a Trappist monk... or any locale that makes women difficult to access while keeping a photograph of wronged ex-wife Elizabeth always at hand.)
It was in this mode of unassailable moral superiority, as one of America's overfed collegiate intellectuals, and a pampered black intellectual at that, that Cornel West mounted his high horse... and made one thing shockingly clear: the intellectual has no ideas, just pettiness, bile, self- pity, and now a social calendar which will no longer feature cozy chats with the president chez 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Oh, my!
"Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad." Euripedes. (485-406 bc)
One may imagine West's state before this now infamous interview. Like a colossus he strode forward, resolute, confident, his mere name a progressive statement, and much beloved too, of callow undergraduates. He would take his bro' Barrack to task in no uncertain terms and so reframe the whole debate on the poor... and keep the president where West wanted him, under his thumb, to be let loose only at the professor's dictate and whim and following a long course of Professor West's approved bromides and idiosyncracies. The gods had, as usual, done their work well...
This then is what esteemed Professor West outrageously said, each word an arrow into himself and any claim he could make, not just to truth, but to common sense and common civility.
Obama is a "black mascot of Wall Street oligarchy and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats". There was more of this red meat, much more:
"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men... It's understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation."
And still more...
Obama, he said, is "most comfortable with upper middle-class and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want."
Then, after much more of the same, a glimmer of why this is all happening now: our pampered house intellectual has been disrespected:
"I couldn't get a ticket (to the inauguration) with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration... We had to watch the thing in the hotel."
Of course, lese majeste', not what the majestic West is accustomed to and perhaps the reason for his astonishing words and equally astonishing foolishness. Political sage Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) knew that if you intend to kill the king, make sure you do not just wound the king, for then of a certainty, the king will kill -- you!
This is why, so long as former buddy Barck Obama, remains president, Cornel West will learn why Machiavelli, long dead, is smarter than West, long on words and short on sense. For West is now not only intellectually irrelevant but a dead man, too, by his own hand.
One who no doubt saw this coming is Larry Summers. When he was president of Harvard, he had a celebrated run-in with West, (then on the Harvard faculty) whose friendships and professional relationships are prone to fray as folks come to know the man. Summers, a man of brilliance with his own propensities for self-destruction, rebuked West in 2000 for missing classes and other misdemeanors. But his major criticism was just: West needed to do a major book in keeping with his rank, giving tv talk shows and other trivial pursuits a pass, to concentrate on the really important.
Diva that he is, at this revolting development, West complained high and low; he ranted, he raved, he took umbrage, he played for sympathy. And in due course, he took his leave of Harvard where, to his surprise, a great research institution demanded -- great research, not trite opinions masquerading as undisputed fact.
To the surprise of cognoscenti of such games, Princeton University took West; no doubt they needed his brand of glib inconsequence. Or maybe it's just, as Cambridge folks suspected, that Princeton is a backwater, out of touch with neo-realities. West, from his new tenured perch, did what West always does... he lashed out at Harvard... the hand that had fed him so well for so long. Such ingratitude being one of the things he does best, as in due course Princeton will no doubt discover.
In any event, this tempest in a tea-cup proved at least one thing: Cornel West is irrelevant as he has been for a long time. The black community has grown up; they wanted -- and got -- a president. Such men as West, with only rants and cants became, at the inauguration he wasn't invited to attend, obsolete in an instant. For all his high titles and purported intelligence, it took him a while to figure that out. I suspect he knows it now.
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 a historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by David Lockwood <a href="http://mysmarthomebusiness.com%22%3ehttp//MySmartHomeBusiness.com%3C/a>. Check out 20 Minute PayDay -> http://www.MySmartHomeBusiness.com/?rd=sy1EiUf6
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