‘I want muscles.’ An Appreciation for the life of fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne, 1914-January 23, 2011.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
One of America’s enduring cultural icons is dead, at 96. Jack LaLanne, who preached the virtues and values of working out long before it was fashionable, has checked out, to the rhythm of Diana Ross’ jump-up classic, “I want muscles!” (Released, 1983.)
Born the of son of poor French immigrants,LaLanne was noted, first of all, as a sickly sugar addict with a prodigious sweet tooth. He just couldn’t get enough pop, cakes, candy, each one more destructive to his health and well-being than the last.
But for fate at the hands of pioneering nutritionist Paul Bragg, LaLanne’s might have turned into the garden variety tragedy: diabetes, its complications, debility, death. However, fate — and Bragg — intervened.
Bragg, like all nutritionists, was a person on a mission. When overweight, pimply LaLanne showed up in Bragg’s dressing room following the master’s standard program on the necessity for a nutritional wake-up call, Bragg slammed Lalanne with the tough love approach:
“Jack,” said his new guru, “you’re a walking garbage can.” So he was…. but LaLanne wanted more than sugar. Bragg , like all evangelists, knew that here was a man who was Ready to grasp his message — and life itself.
Sugar babies were out, the benefits of brown rice, whole wheat, and a vegetarian diet were in. LaLanne got the old time religion and never looked back.
This diet, now almost universally regarded as beneficial, in those days immediately established LaLanne as a kook.
Right from the get-go LaLanne knew that people needed a supportive environment, fellow travelers to help you stay focused. LaLanne’s first attempt to create this environment was a makeshift backyard gym and exercise “facility.” In short order he had a bevy of fire and policemen pumping iron. It was a beginning, just. But it was what this quintessential “get going and do it.” guy with the mega watt smile needed… a platform. Piddly though it was it was all his… and he ran with it.
He got what most zealots get… the back hand of the establishment. He was written off as a crackpot, a menace delivering hemorrhoids, male impotence, and women who looked like — men. Things looked grim… but LaLanne was nothing if not focused. What’s more he had the ultimate support center, his wife of 51 years, Elaine. In a statement she wrote, “I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for.” We should all be so lucky.
In 1936, in his native Oakland, California he made his move; he opened a health studio that included weight training for women and athletes. Now think for a minute. In those days of yore, there was not a fitness center on every corner; there was not a universal obsession with looking good and working out; there wasn’t a president of these United States whose workout sessions were covered by the media… and who had a supportive First Lady, adamant in her work against couch potatoes and obesity. There was hardly anything of this kind at all… but there was Jack LaLanne.
It was enough.
And, with the tireless energy that defines all evangelists, he got up and boogied. He did it for himself, of course, but he also did it for America.
Over 50 years ago, LaLanne on his ground-breaking television program made it clear what he was doing, and why. His message was important, stern, even grim, the message of a man who had thought long and hard about a subject of the greatest importance.
He walked over to the American flag, proudly displayed, not merely a prop… and he spoke deeply, sincerely. He said it was the “tremendous thought, the sacrifice, the lives lost, the toil, the fitness that went into” that flag.
“But now,” he continued, aroused, unstoppable, “that we have too much of everything in this great land of ours, too many things are being done for us, we have become soft mentally and physically.”
LaLanne’s solution… nutrition, diet, exercise… the tried and true formula of the ancient Greeks, though LaLanne may not have known it as such: mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body.
However, to leave this summary of LaLanne’s achievements on this grave note would be wrong. For it would leave out insightful details on LaLanne the indefatigable showman and pitchman; the man, mischievous and laughter-loving, who would do Anything, go Anywhere to draw attention to the core beliefs of his life.
Remember, then, at age 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1000 push-ups on television on the “You Asked For it” television program. America watched… and lapped it up.
At 60, he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. He was handcuffed, shackled, towing a boat.
Ten years later, a peppy 70, he repeated this feat in Long Beach harbor; the better because he was older — and still fit.
It was all in a day’s work for LaLanne, who by now got the deference and respect due to a Founding Father of America’s now obsessive focus on the verities LaLanne had devoted his life to promoting.
Now gone, LaLanne’s optimistic, empowering message lives on because we need it so very much, now more than ever. To LaLanne’s irritation and alarm came horrifying statistics about obesity, the lack of proper nutrition in the schools, the lack, indeed, of even basic recess for children who are thereby condemned to disability and death by open mouth, insert poison. In 1985, there was no US state above 14 percent in obesity. Today, nine states are 30 percent obese, or more. Only Colorado and the District of Columbia are under 20 percent, but just barely.
It is a national disgrace, and no one knew it better than LaLanne who knew that God shed his grace on we… who needed too shed excess pounds and poor habits, too. Still, LaLanne was never a scold, though his soap box always traveled with him.
He had too much faith in America specifically and in people generally for that. And so, even unto the end, he could smile, he could laugh, as when he said “I can’t afford to die. It would wreck my image.”
The man had nothing to worry about.
But the rest of us, giving lip service but little more to nutrition, exercise, and diet, most assuredly do.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
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‘Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.’ The Queen, (no ) freedom of information, and the Succession
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It was just the kind of event the Young Royals (Wills, Edward, and soon-to-be Princess Kate) could applaud and approve:
14 stylish students from England’s tony Royal College of Arts donned self-designed matching Kate Middleton engagement outfits (so cute) with accompanying (copies) of the famous engagement ring; the one, you know, the ghost of Diana, Princess of Wales gave Kate the day she took her to her heart.
The pictures in the London papers, instantly beamed worldwide, were quite simply too, too…
This little photo opportunity was everything it should be: engagingly young, peppy, uncontroversial.
Graver matters involving the Royals, especially Her Majesty and the full panoply of lesser majesties were afoot elsewhere.
Freedom from information . January 19, 2011, a brand-new information law went into effect in the United Kingdom. It is best to style it a freedom from information act. Why? Because, quite simply, it exempts Her Majesty, Prince Charles, and Prince William from their kingdom’s liberal freedom of information laws. This means that most of their activities will not be known for years, if ever; until that is long epochs pass after the slowest of bureaucrats can vet, deliberate, deny.
It is thought that the queen herself, known to her near and dear as “Betty Windsor,” hoisted a festive glass (with impressive provenance) to celebrate the event, but we cannot be sure for this royal toast is classified, Top Secret.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Busybodies throughout the realm are, predictably, up at arms after this development which, per usual, treats the Royals as different from you and me. These inquiring minds, after the fashion of English revolutionaries throughout the ages, want to diminish, restrict, even abolish all semblance of royal specialness and privilege. They carry a portable stocks everywhere they go…. just in case an errant prince or erring princess happens by and needs immediate chastisement.
These people, and their number is legion in the increasingly egalitarian Britannia, are asking how such an act of inequality could possible be thought, must less implemented and even dignified as Law.
That’s no poser at all. Cherchez le prince.
It is generally known and even more generally deprecated, that le Prince des Galles, Charles of that name and the Blood Royal, is a man with a bee in his (royal Stuart) tartan bonnet, indeed more than one. This new law will protect him (and the public, too, it’s reckoned) from the never-ending effusions of his majestical pen.
Unhappily, we shall not know for years (if at all) just how insightful his constant jeremiads, commentaries, and elegantly pointed observations really are because they are now and lawfully so verboten to hoi polloi, like you and me.
Fortunately we do have some clues. Charles, to say nothing more, is a veritable whirlwind of activity on matters Green and his innumerable (sometimes distinctly odd) pet projects. Cabinet ministers are inured to powdered flunkies arriving at all hours whispering “From his royal highness, sir….”
Now these ministers are forbidden to publicize or even publicly mention or even acknowledge the existence of such correspondence. Charles’ protective staff is said (unofficially) to be “relieved.”
“The Sovereign is dead, long live her first-born child, King or Queen, whichever applies.”
Monarchies, by definition, are conservative institutions, if not impervious to change then radically opposed to it. “We are already”, they say “the top of the tree; we cannot see a future better for ourselves than the present; so we shall oppose and obstruct the unpromising future. It’s what we do best.”
But Britain, royal realm of many kings, is different from other monarchies. Their sovereigns are no less conservative than the rest… but they have a long proven ability to accept change just in the nick of time. However, they want it to be known that any change, any change at all, is their idea… not Parliament’s.
That is why Her Imperial Majesty is fuming and fretting at Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East and now royal bete noir.
Vaz has distinguished himself by proposing legislation that would make the first child of the impending marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton heir to the throne, whether boy…. or girl.
Now this — the “Swedish option” so called because it’s the way they do things at the shabby, infra dig Court of Stockholm — this pipsqueek, this legislative non entity, this parliamentary embarrassment (for he has chagrined his colleagues before) — has had the brass, the unmitigated gall to propose a change to the Succession… the very heart of the institution.
So fundamental a change would transform the thousand year old British Monarchy into a genetics contest, rather than the ultimate gift to the most privileged little boy on earth. Thus a (still unconceived) little boy would be transformed from the petted child of fortune… into an also-ran, a situation that causes royal heretics to remind: “So what else is new?” Princesses have known this particular humiliation from Day I.”
Even the suggestion of such legislation makes Betty Windsor fume. She just won’t have it, exhibiting an adamancy worthy of Queen Victoria.
Prime Minister David Cameron to the rescue.
What Mr. Vaz, MP proposes is probably as near to a certainty as these things ever get. But not at his suggestion; his time will never come, though his idea may. The time is not nigh. Not least, Cameron has reminded all that such a fundamental change could not be effected without the full support of the 16 British Commonwealth countries where Queen Elizabeth II is head of state. And there is no chance for this notion there… even if many want it and see the equity of the idea.
For this more than equity is about the entire fate of the monarchy itself, what that monarch can — and more importantly — cannot do. And here the stakes could hardly be higher… which is why Ms. Windsor will dig in on this issue, insisting that this matter for all, for the very fate of the dynasty is a matter primarily and of right — for her and the males of her house. She will win now… but only for now.
Which is why, of an evening, she listens and listens again to Fleetwood Mac and its pounding admonition: “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Yesterday’s gone… yesterday’s gone.” Indeed it is.About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant’s is the author of 18 best-selling business books, as well as “Insubstantial Pageant: ceremony and confusion at Queen Victoria’s Court.” Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
‘With your shield, or on it.’ Why America won’t get and doesn’t really want civic comity and civility.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Imagine, if you will, that you are a candidate for the United States Senate, the most exclusive club on earth.
You have wanted to be a member, you have dreamed of it for your entire life.
You have sacrificed over and over again to get this office of the people’s trust. You have neglected your spouse… your children… because there are only 24 hours a day and something’s got to give. But your dream cannot be compromised… for that is the sine qua non of your entire existence.
You have spent long hours of every day raising the millions of dollars you must have to be competitive.
Now it is just 8 days before the election… and you, the golden boy or girl that you are, you are down by just 4 points in the latest poll.
Your financial backers are telling you they didn’t invest their hard-earned money to cheer an also-ran. They make it clear what they think of such people. You know they are right, for you know America’s Success Mantra.
Respected senior members of your party, some direct from Washington, D.C., have told you that the party’s agenda (by which, of course, they mean, America’s agenda) is on the line. They need your vote, and they need it now. They make it plain that high posts of honor and deference await if you win… but nothing except scorn and execration if you do not.
Good earnest supporters, the people of Main Street, are telling you, like Princess Leia to Obi-wan Kenobi, that “you’re our only hope.” You cannot let these folks down… they would despise you if you did. And they’d be right.
The financial backers demand victory!
The party big-wigs insist on victory!
The people on Main Street tell you their storm-tossed lives depend on victory — on you!
And your handlers, the people you hired at great, almost unimaginable cost (they did, after all, manage to defeat three sitting senators, one thought impregnable in the last election), these handlers are saying… and their reasons are crystal clear… that your opponent’s strongest suit is the integrity with which the voters regard him. Even you, the white hope of the opposition, have a sneaking regard for his old-time morality and squeaky clean service.
But the handlers, your brains trust, is also telling you that after all your opponent is vulnerable. Yes, after all, you are only 4 points behind. They are also telling you with insistence how to eradicate this trifling deficit, grab the seat, and move up to your rightful destiny in the Senate of these United State and in the History of America.
All you have to do is ratchet up the attacks, just another notch or two…. just ratchet up the attack. Insinuate… besmirch…. belittle… distort… demean… degrade…
Then, in the final three days, blanket the airwaves with total, complete, shock and awe belligerence, nothing, absolutely nothing held back, everything on the line, do or die, take no prisoners.
Yes, it will cost millions… yes it will shred the reputation of an opponent whose virtues and service even you can see… but it is what all elements of your campaign want, indeed absolutely insist upon.
“Victory,” Vince Lombardi wrote, “isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
And so you win your Senate seat… and it is sweet. As sweet as you always knew it would be.
Whereupon the Leader of your party in the Senate comes to visit and remarks, almost as an afterthought, that there’s a certain important vote coming up, next Thursday he thinks it is… and that he is hoping for the favor of your support.
From such a man on such a subject at such a time, such words, almost gentle, are the sternest of commands.You have really not had a chance to read the bill… you know precious little about it, but you have heard whispers that your biggest financial backer is….. opposed to it.
From such a man on such a subject at such a time, such words, not so gentle, are, too, the sternest of commands.
And so, while understanding that no man can serve two masters, you attempt to do just that. Your maiden speech on the issue falls flat. The Leader is not happy. Your financial backer is not happy. Your constituents, too, let you know they are not happy.
And you are the least happy of all. However, you learn and next time you are ready.
You make a calculated decision based on public policy and private gain. You make a deal with the Devil and the Devil tells you to demonize your opponent before your opponent demonizes you.
So you do, with no qualms whatsoever because your opponents on this issue gained a march by demonizing — you.
You learn two sets of words: the words for defending your side. and the ones for stigmatizing opponents. On the one hand is patriotism, what is good for America, lowering taxes, transparency in government, protecting the Middle Class.
On the other are words like disloyal, perfidious, selfish, short- sighted, special interests.
All you have to do is throw these words, and dozens like them, into a hat and pull them out one at a time, and, voila, instant speech.
A quick study, you see early on that the more moderate the speech, the more reasonable the views, the less attention you get… and attention in Washington is how you play the game, increase your visibility, and win the glittering prizes. You get this message Loud and Clear.
And so you up the ante, seeing your opponents no longer as good men and women like you (perhaps blighted by party affiliation) but as minions of an Evil Empire and the darkest of views and aspirations. Moderation doesn’t work and, moreover, it isn’t justified. Your opponents represent Everything Wrong With America. You learn it is your sacred duty to say so, to expose the culprits and Save The Nation and its beseeching members.
And so you do… and as you deliver the red meat, the media delivers you…. to the attention of other media, movers and shakers nationwide, and to the unlimited financial resources of this great nation, a nation yearning for Leadership; now knowing that leader can be — you.
You are ready to answer this clarion call. Thus at last you understand, deep in your soul, the unanswerable validity of ancient Greek historian Plutarch’s telling tale of the Spartan mothers. They said, they meant “Come home with your shield, or on it.” You have heard…. and you are ready. You know just what to do. 31 bullets, 6 tragic deaths in Tucson, Arizona, , innumerable jeremiads and the most profound lamentations right up to the White House won’t change things a whit. We’re all sure of that, right?
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also a noted US historican and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
‘History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.’ Inconvenient truths the Kennedys cannot abide, wish to control, but cannot.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
“History,” the great French 18th century writer Voltaire wrote, “is a pack of lies we play on the dead.” He should know… he altered history to his satisfaction and purposes often enough.
Now Voltaire has apparently gone to work for the Kennedys. For they, so they think, have a pressing need for someone to help them suppress a bevy of inconvenient facts and protect their carefully honed version of events. History has become, for these Kennedys, not a matter of truth… but a matter of arranging, sorting, suppressing, in so doing transforming history from inconvenient truths to self-satisfied distortions.
That is, you see, what ex-dynasties do… for all such dynasties, late and soon, have inconvenient skeletons in their royal closets… and people being people, it is these skeletons we wish to know about most of all.
The Kennedys are, of course, on the wrong side of this battle of hide and seek. They ought to bite the bullet and release, release, release… and suffer the discomforts (to say no more) that will inevitably follow the publication of this information. Alas, they cannot forget what they insist we all must remember: they were, once upon a time, the vigorous, the glamorous, the prancing, dancing, magnificent, reigning and ruling Kennedys… and so they demand what the rest of us have never known: the privilege of arranging events to their satisfaction by controlling their rich sources of information … sources revealing everything the Kennedys are adamant we will not see for epochs yet to come.
In such a way, do Kennedys alter facts and manufacture better fictions.
This battle, between the truths of history and the suppression of facts, is currently raging at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts. There there are 54 crates of records individually sealed and labeled, with contents so hot and juicy even the director of the library is prohibited from taking a peek.
Which is no doubt what he, and certainly what we, are so keen to do.
Why?
Here is one reason. The papers are thought to contain the “smoking gun” details on President John’s and Attorney General brother Bobby’s determination to assassinate that pesky perennial irritate Cuba’s Fidel Castro. It was called “Operation Mongoose” and concerns our boys’ inept, ham-fisted attempts to take out Fidel. It was an inglorious, if completely instructive and riveting, opera buffa.
Obsessed with snuffing Fidel, the boys had a field day with James Bond style machinations, every one of which perfectly proved just how unready for prime time these guys really were… as Fidel learned to his complete satisfaction. Tellingly, he is still here, still in power.
The world wants to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… but the Kennedys respond, “No, no, Nanette.”
But there is more, much more, none of which conduces to the greater glory of our home-grown, increasingly tattered ex-royal family.
The diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, and other documents of the brothers are a true treasure trove of the raw stuff of History, every page of which the Kennedys are adamant that historians cannot see and which we, the public, must never know.
There are, too, it is thought, in these inconvenient boxes loaded with pure dynamite details on the 1961 Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the trade embargo and more… truths demonstrating how the boys, desperate to prove their machismo, bungled and bungled again… even in their backstairs 1963 attempt to find a peaceful solution, any peaceful solution, to the Cuban situation…. so they could get this most vexing and abashing of subjects off their plate. They failed here, too, but inquiring minds want to know why, want the details and want them now.
The man in the hot seat on this issue of whether such documents should be released…. how many, when, how is Max Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s ninth child. Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, a lawyer, was appointed by his mother, Ethel, to take the responsibility and field the untimely, insistent questions.
He waffles, of course. It is inevitable in these circumstances that he does so… for his is a completely unenviable task: to suppress untimely truths… while making historians and the media believe he will, in due course, release the information, oh yes he will.
But we know, don’t we, that that means he is not merely reluctant to release… in his uncensored soul we know he thinks it a Very Bad Idea, bad for the country (he must say)… but worse for the dynasty (which is where his total loyalty lies.)
In an email to the Boston Globe (published January 23, 2011) Max Kennedy had his say:
“There are many requests to see them, and frankly, many of those requests come from people with poorly-conceived projects. It is my responsibility, as custodian of the papers, to grant use responsibly.”
“That does not mean that every book must be cloyingly positive; I do not think that for a moment, and I would be doing a disservice to my father if I acted that way. But I do believe that historians and journalists must do their homework, and observe the correct procedures for seeking permission to consult the papers, and explain their projects.”
This is how the Kennedys and their attorney say “not until hell freezes over, if then.”
The Kennedys vs History
This position, no matter how finely written or how seemingly responsible, even generous is untenable, and surely there are some Kennedys who know it.
You cannot stand before the media and professional historians and journalists and say, “yes, yes, you will get what you want but not yet” when there are important documents at hand, merely because such documents make clear the possible illegalities (what was an Attorney General doing in covert operations to kill a foreign head of state anyway?) and certain poor judgements of esteemed family members.
Just because one is born a Kennedy, doesn’t mean that you secured a pass for life for suppressing embarrassing information of interest to the nation on what these members were actually doing, when, why, and how.
The bar of History summons even you, privileged members of the defunct dynasty, and make what deal with the Devil you will, these facts will out… the sooner the better.
And so I remind you of what you have reminded others: the truth shall set you free. Instead of defending the indefensible, release these papers, all these papers. And in so releasing them release yourself and your family from the terrible burdens of suppression, half truths, prevarications, and distortions.
You now stand uncomfortably against history, for censorship. As Voltaire knew, this is a losing hand. Stop playing tricks on the dead and let them live again through their own communications. Let them have their say, their whole say… it is what they deserve… and what we all deserve, too.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is a noted US historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>. Check out Rapid Cash Tactics -> http://taz111.agough.hop.clickbank.net
‘In short, there’s simply not a more congenial spot….’ The 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, January 20, 1961.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Washington, D.C. loves commemorations, not least because every one who is anyone expects to have one for herself.
Thus, it was inevitable that the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of America’s 35th president should be celebrated with suitable doings and, of course, well honed and well considered words. And so they were.
In the grand rotunda of the Capitol, congressional officials, aides, and Kennedy family members listened in silence to the 14-minute, 1,355 word inaugural address which set the tone for the day and for the just installed administration, Camelot on the Potomac.
One of a handful of justifiably famous and influential presidential speeches.
Like all sentient Americans, I watched the original proceedings closely. I was just about to be 14, but the memories of this event are etched in my mind, whether because I truly recall them… or I have seen the various news clips played over and over again, images which now seem not so much historical, as legendary. Just as the Kennedys, as embodied in the wire-pulling patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy, who had long schemed for this day, wanted.
The speech itself was a gem… and can and should be ready carefully and recited frequently by all people in politics, government, non profit organizations, the military and for all wanting to know the secret to inciting words to move multitudes. Like it or not (and some did not), the world knew it was hearing a brand new voice.
Every word of this inaugural address reads as if it were written to be chiseled in stone, and so they are a few blocks from me where one of the famous lines after another is found in the most durable of stones, so that sun-bathing students and fatigued tourists (and perhaps others) can be well and truly reminded of this day, this man, these remarks… and of what America then was and can never be again.
But we must not assume, even in this most famous of speeches, that the multitudes and their text-messaging descendents remember these lines well and truly… so I shall take it upon myself to remind my fellow citizens of these; they are but a few of all the verbal diamonds revealed that day.
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
“So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
“All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps on our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
The words were few, simple, ample to arrest the attention of the world. It was so very different from the Eisenhower administration and its dowdy, word-challenged leader now departing. That administration, whatever its achievements, suddenly seemed so very dated indeed.
Theodore Sorensen, the necessary craftsman, behind the scenes, his ideas and discretion front and center.
Sorensen (deceased 2010) was just the kind of helper every ambitious individual needs, for he was bright, a man who understood just how great speeches and their important messages must be done… and self-effacing to a degree. He was content to be an unsung part of History… and so he loved and served, never revealing the many shattering confidences he knew… and which went to the grave with him.
Thus, Sorensen proved his allegiance to the Kennedys and their images was always more important than mere historical accuracy. His speech was designed to be Important, Memorable, the stuff of great dreams and greater glories. How pleased Sorensen must have been as he sat and listened, invisible, as his words seized the nation and the world. He was where history was made… for he composed it.
That night another legendary event took place, the new President’s inaugural ball… but the cynosure of every eye was the new, dazzling, alluring 31-year old First Lady, Jacqueline.
She knew a thing or two about style and presentation; so much so that she designed her ball ensemble herself with the help of Bergdorf Goodman’s Ethan Frankau. It was the beginning of the “Jackie Look”…. and it took hold like wild-fire, demanding of women (and their men) glamor, high style, sophistication, everything the Eisenhowers and their worn out officials conspicuously lacked.
And so, as Jack and Jackie made their rounds, ball by ball, as the worst winter in Washington in memory snarled traffic and tempers, the high spirited, triumphant Kennedys came; Camelot on the Potomac was born… and it stuck.
Camelot, of course, was the Broadway musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music). It was based on one of the loveliest and most compelling of books, “The Once and Future King” by Theodore H. White, who seemed expressly invented for his role in legend making. In 1960 the much lauded musical hit Broadway; January 20, 1961 it hit the world, as this regal figure set up shop in the White House, with her exquisite taste and frosty hauteur.
Now it was 50 years later. Most of the great figures of this day and age are dead; brother-in-law Sargent Shriver leaving the stage aged 95, January 18, 2011, for perhaps the first time gaining a march on his famous relation.
The rest now look aged, infirm, burdened perhaps by their connection to events now fading and imperfectly remembered which have long held them hostage.
These are the Kennedys and perhaps it is significant that on the date of this 50th anniversary there was, for the first time in over 60 years, no Kennedy in the Congress. Boasts were made about how long that unnatural condition for them and for America would last… but it was harsh reality for now, as the New Frontier recedes and the dynasty shows the ravishments of time, which they once assaulted and shaped.About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is a noted US historian and the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant “History,” the great French 18th century writer Voltaire wrote, “is a pack of lies we play on the dead.” He should know… he altered history to his satisfaction and purposes often enough. Now Voltaire has apparently gone to work for the Kennedys. For they, so they think, have a pressing need for someone to help them suppress a bevy of inconvenient facts and protect their carefully honed version of events. History has become, for these Kennedys, not a matter of truth… but a matter of arranging, sorting, suppressing, in so doing transforming history from inconvenient truths to self-satisfied distortions. That is, you see, what ex-dynasties do… for all such dynasties, late and soon, have inconvenient skeletons in their royal closets… and people being people, it is these skeletons we wish to know about most of all. The Kennedys are, of course, on the wrong side of this battle of hide and seek. They ought to bite the bullet and release, release, release… and suffer the discomforts (to say no more) that will inevitably follow the publication of this information. Alas, they cannot forget what they insist we all must remember: they were, once upon a time, the vigorous, the glamorous, the prancing, dancing, magnificent, reigning and ruling Kennedys… and so they demand what the rest of us have never known: the privilege of arranging events to their satisfaction by controlling their rich sources of information … sources revealing everything the Kennedys are adamant we will not see for epochs yet to come. In such a way, do Kennedys alter facts and manufacture better fictions. This battle, between the truths of history and the suppression of facts, is currently raging at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester, Massachusetts. There there are 54 crates of records individually sealed and labeled, with contents so hot and juicy even the director of the library is prohibited from taking a peek. Which is no doubt what he, and certainly what we, are so keen to do. Why? Here is one reason. The papers are thought to contain the “smoking gun” details on President John’s and Attorney General brother Bobby’s determination to assassinate that pesky perennial irritate Cuba’s Fidel Castro. It was called “Operation Mongoose” and concerns our boys’ inept, ham-fisted attempts to take out Fidel. It was an inglorious, if completely instructive and riveting, opera buffa. Obsessed with snuffing Fidel, the boys had a field day with James Bond style machinations, every one of which perfectly proved just how unready for prime time these guys really were… as Fidel learned to his complete satisfaction. Tellingly, he is still here, still in power. The world wants to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… but the Kennedys respond, “No, no, Nanette.” But there is more, much more, none of which conduces to the greater glory of our home-grown, increasingly tattered ex-royal family. The diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, and other documents of the brothers are a true treasure trove of the raw stuff of History, every page of which the Kennedys are adamant that historians cannot see and which we, the public, must never know. There are, too, it is thought, in these inconvenient boxes loaded with pure dynamite details on the 1961 Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the trade embargo and more… truths demonstrating how the boys, desperate to prove their machismo, bungled and bungled again… even in their backstairs 1963 attempt to find a peaceful solution, any peaceful solution, to the Cuban situation…. so they could get this most vexing and abashing of subjects off their plate. They failed here, too, but inquiring minds want to know why, want the details and want them now. The man in the hot seat on this issue of whether such documents should be released…. how many, when, how is Max Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s ninth child. Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy, a lawyer, was appointed by his mother, Ethel, to take the responsibility and field the untimely, insistent questions. He waffles, of course. It is inevitable in these circumstances that he does so… for his is a completely unenviable task: to suppress untimely truths… while making historians and the media believe he will, in due course, release the information, oh yes he will. But we know, don’t we, that that means he is not merely reluctant to release… in his uncensored soul we know he thinks it a Very Bad Idea, bad for the country (he must say)… but worse for the dynasty (which is where his total loyalty lies.) In an email to the Boston Globe (published January 23, 2011) Max Kennedy had his say: “There are many requests to see them, and frankly, many of those requests come from people with poorly-conceived projects. It is my responsibility, as custodian of the papers, to grant use responsibly.” “That does not mean that every book must be cloyingly positive; I do not think that for a moment, and I would be doing a disservice to my father if I acted that way. But I do believe that historians and journalists must do their homework, and observe the correct procedures for seeking permission to consult the papers, and explain their projects.” This is how the Kennedys and their attorney say “not until hell freezes over, if then.” The Kennedys vs History This position, no matter how finely written or how seemingly responsible, even generous is untenable, and surely there are some Kennedys who know it. You cannot stand before the media and professional historians and journalists and say, “yes, yes, you will get what you want but not yet” when there are important documents at hand, merely because such documents make clear the possible illegalities (what was an Attorney General doing in covert operations to kill a foreign head of state anyway?) and certain poor judgements of esteemed family members. Just because one is born a Kennedy, doesn’t mean that you secured a pass for life for suppressing embarrassing information of interest to the nation on what these members were actually doing, when, why, and how. The bar of History summons even you, privileged members of the defunct dynasty, and make what deal with the Devil you will, these facts will out… the sooner the better. And so I remind you of what you have reminded others: the truth shall set you free. Instead of defending the indefensible, release these papers, all these papers. And in so releasing them release yourself and your family from the terrible burdens of suppression, half truths, prevarications, and distortions. You now stand uncomfortably against history, for censorship. As Voltaire knew, this is a losing hand. Stop playing tricks on the dead and let them live again through their own communications. Let them have their say, their whole say… it is what they deserve… and what we all deserve, too.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Dear Sir:
I do not have the honor of knowing you personally, but that won’t stop me from issuing the most candid advice on how to succeed in your brand new job — Chairman of the Republican National Committee, to make your sojourn both pleasant and productive and avoid the pratfalls and gaffes of your predecessor, the bumptious and unlamented Michael Steele.
You were, it seems, a good friend of Michael Steele. but somewhere along the line you decided that his complete misunderstanding of his role at the RNC necessitated his removal. And you decided that no one was better qualified to lead the putsch than — you. No problem. Ambition in Washington, D.C., especially when it involves changing your alliance, is not a sin. Quite the reverse. That you knew when to strike and how is a sign that you are already better qualified for the job than Steele ever was.
Good.
Now for the things you must know and do to succeed.
1) Realize that you have the 4th or 5th grandest title in Washington… and are absolutely a person of no significance or public stature whatsoever.
Can you name, say, 6 out of 10 of your predecessors? If you can, no one else is able. Why is that? Because the office is designed to function at the beck and call of the president of the ruling party (Obama)… and with the advice and consent of the last (defeated) presidential candidate (McCain), until such time as the next presidential candidate is well and duly nominated, whereupon he (or she) makes his (or her) choice.
In other words, you are there for a very short time, to keep the office going and to Make No Embarrassing Mistakes.
2) You are a low level bureaucrat without the one essential thing every truly significant person in Washington has: elected office. That is what distinguishes the men… from the chairmen.
Given this fact, no one wants or will even tolerate you taking positions on public issues. You do not have any standing for that. Instead, refer folks to Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner for he is (just now) the highest ranking official in the Republican Party and, as such, is admirably situated for position taking. Indeed, clearing important statements with him seems sensible, CYA.
3) Avoid the media like the plague.
Your predecessor never met a media person or program that he didn’t like. As a result, the number and seriousness of his errors grew calamitous, thereby diminishing the (never great) respect in which he was held and the embarrassments of his colleagues.
You, mild mannered man that you are (as must be the case for one from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin), should have a plaque made for your desk reading “Chairman Priebus did not return frequent calls from our paper (radio, television, etc.)” It will constantly remind you to shut up and stay out of public view.
4) Bill Clinton, garrulous and diffuse to a degree, was elected President of the United States because his entirely focused staff concocted a very simple way of keeping their candidate on track. When he digressed (often), one held up a sign reading “It’s the economy, stupid!”; the stupid in question being Mr. Clinton. It helped him remember.
A similar sign for you, sir, is in order. Yours should read “it’s about fund raising, stupid!”
As I write, the Republican National Committee is $21 million in debt. State GOP committees are also deep in red ink. This is not an auspicious situation for a party bidding to retake the White House they think of as their own real estate.
Every day, in every way, yes in every waking moment and in your dreams, too, you must have just two words in mind: fund raising.
This, dear sir, is the reason you were elected and what will determine whether you leave office with the blessings and congratulations of your colleagues… or their ample and unyielding execration. It will also determine whether you get a respectable job in the next Republican administration which, I suspect is often on your mind.
5) Keep your expense account to the bare minimum.
Mr. Steele was seduced by the high life of Washington and took to it like a duck to water. Inevitably he was seen dining at the “best restaurants”, where he ate prodigiously and knew his wines well. Nothing but the best for Mr. Steele as his (notably incomplete) expense accounts testify. He reckoned that he, as a Person of Consequence, was entitled.
My advice, sir, is simply this: find a good delicatessen in your neighborhood and learn what an (inexpensive and thoroughly justifiable) gourmet treat tuna on rye (with kosher pickles) can be. And never forget to turn in complete expense accounts, with nothing missing. You are a midwesterner; frugality becomes you.
6) Return all phone calls, except those from the media. (See above.)
Washington is a town perpetually engaged in the most exciting and intricate of games: who is up, who is down, and why.
Avoid this game… for it is all-consuming and insidious.
Players of this game start shedding their civility and good manners as soon as possible. Calls from certain people get returned at once; calls from others, the lesser folk, are never returned.
Dear sir, playing this game is ill-advised and in the poorest of judgements. Treat all with the general courtesy which has always distinguished the citizens of Wisconsin, your home state. All that is except presidential candidates and their staffs, for they must always and forever have their calls returned and wishes granted at once, if not sooner. After all, you need friends in the next GOP administration… and this is a superb way to get them.
Last admonition (for now).
Next year, at a place and time to be announced, your party will engage in the ancient and honorable rite of nominating the person they think most likely to defeat the president and reclaim the glories of the Executive Mansion.
A word in your ear about your role. Even before your candidate is nominated, you will be informed that he (or she) has a new chairman in mind. Be prepared.
And be prepared, too, for the stark reality that a few days later, perhaps a week, no one, absolutely no one, will remember your name, and all the good you’re sure to do in your brand- new office upon which I congratulate you.About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
What you can learn from the great Napoleon’s catastrophic failure to plan his work and work his plan!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
When you think of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, you probably think of
* military genius
* conqueror of Europe
* creator of the Code Napoleon.
All this is true.
But what is also true is that Napoleon was a gambler, not a planner; a man who lost an empire because he was unwilling to set a practical, achievable objective and do what was necessary to get and hold it.
1813
By the spring of 1813, the Napoleonic empire, so very new, was already on its last legs. Napoleon should have been planning how to keep what he had which, after all, included la belle France. His chaotic finances, military weaknesses, and the national desire for peace provided reason enough to consolidate his possessions and plan for another day.
The whole of Europe, including the Allies who opposed him (Russia, Prussia, Austria, England) wanted peace, and they were willing to accept Napoleon’s continuance in power (with certain conditions) to get it.
However, Napoleon was a gambler, not a planner. He was simply unable to set a realistic goal and work towards it, even if he could as a result, have his dynasty endure in France.
Oh, how he needed to listen and adhere to the sage counsel the Shakespearian Duke of Burgundy gave to King Henry V:
“Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?”
But Napoleon would have none of it. When his military talents procured a victory (as they did in May, 1813 at Lutzen) he insisted on more. When these talents failed him (as they did at Leipzig in October, 1813) he would not accept less. This was not statecraft… it was mayhem.
The whole of Europe except one man yearned for peace… but this one supremely selfish, disorganized and myopic individual… insisted on war, exasperating all, while ensuring ultimate failure for himself.
Had he, in the turbulent days of 1813, planned for the continuance and stability of his dynasty, he could have had it to the general joy and jubilation of Continental Europe. He simply needed to say “J’y suis. J’y reste”, as Field Marshal MacMahon did at the siege of Sebastopol in 1855; then set about making it happen.
Are YOU a business gambler? Or do you plan your work and work your plan?
You KNOW the value of business planning. You know the planners get more and keep more. However, like most people planning is something you just can’t seem to get around to doing. Instead, like Napoleon, you proceed without a clear objective and relentless focus. In short, you muddle through.
This was catastrophic for Napoleon… and it’s not smart for you either, especially in an economy as weak and uncertain as we have now.
So, today resolve that you will do something the great Napoleon couldn’t do: plan your work, work your plan, and emerge as more successful than the emperor himself. Here’s what you need to do:
1) Set a clear objective.
You need to know where you’re going and when you plan to be there. If you don’t know where you’re going and when you plan to arrive, just how do you expect to succeed? A clear objective is a must.
2) Write this objective. Don’t just keep it in your head.
Written objectives are the ones that get achieved; the rest are forgotten. I bet you don’t have such a written plan now. Change that at once!
3) Write down precisely how you intend to reach this goal.
Again, specificity is key. You must say how many units you plan to sell… and keep to this specific schedule each and every day you wish to reach your goal!
Note: if you miss a day or two, don’t give up and throw the baby out with the bath water. Humans fail… but we can get focused again and succeed.
4) Make sensible revisions in your planning and execution.
Business conditions change. You must change with them. For instance, when circumstances are bad, you must improve your offers to improve your cash flow. When circumstances have improved, you should consider price increases. The key is realizing that changing circumstances necessitate changes in your goal and the way to achieve it.
YOU can be more successful than the Emperor himself
Napoleon failed. The man with the golden touch was lacking the one thing he needed for success and was so obviously lacking: judgement. He who had dazzled Europe… did not know how to contain his hubris and turn it into sensible, achievable policy. Thus, he lost all.
Learn from the great man’s titanic error.
Plan your work. Work your plan. Evaluate. Maintain what you have… always move ahead… but never gamble. In this way you ensure your success. What’s more, because of your planning and focus, YOU will enjoy the success the great emperor himself forfeited.
Napoleonic resource
For one of the best books (and the best written) on Napoleon and his family, consult “The Bonapartes” by David Stacton. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1966. It’s a very good read.
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 is the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>. Check out Copy Paste Traffic -> http://taz111.wincore.hop.clickbank.net
How many times can a man turn his head…? Tucson, Arizona and the murderous events of January 8, 2011
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
It was just an ordinary day at the La Toscana Village Safeway store on West Ina Road except that U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) with her mega-watt smile had dropped by to do a “Congress on Your Corner” meet and greet, answer some questions, pose for a few pictures. Maybe she was running for the U.S. Senate, or not. She was keeping her options open, and this was a good place to meet the folks and make a good impression.
While Giffords was doing her job, Jared Loughner was preparing to do his. He was in the parking lot, in a taxi, loaded down with a Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol. The magazine was full. He had another full magazine, too, that had about 30 bullets and two more that each held about 15 bullets. Just in case, Jared was also carrying a knife. But Jared had a problem. On his way to destiny he found he didn’t have enough change to pay his taxi fare. He and the driver stepped inside the store, sorting it out… Jared then walked back inside.
In just an instant, in a moment of unspeakable horror death descended, at the hand of the man now known as alleged gunman Jared Loughner, aged 22.
Murdered! 9 year old Christina Green, student council representative and A student.
Murdered! Judge John Roll, 63, his life dedicated to the law and due process.
Murdered! Dorwin Stoddard, 76, who gave his life shielding his wife.
Murdered! Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, an expert on constituent affairs in Gabby Gifford’s office.
Murdered! Phyllis Schneck, 79, affable church volunteer.
Murdered! Dorothy Morris, 76 good neighbor, enjoying a well-earned retirement.
Dead, all dead, with 12 more wounded, bleeding, writhing. But Jared, who delivered death, lived on, condemned to life, protected by the Constitution and the hBill of Rights he sneered at.
Why had this happened when so many knew so much for so long about the troubled mind and insistent presence of Jared Loughner?
The U.S. Army had clues. Jared had applied and been rejected for reasons officials would not disclose. What did they know, when did they know it, what did they do?
Officials at Tucson’s Pima Community College, where Jared was a disruptive, unsettling presence, had clues.
Campus police were called at least 5 times to deal with Jared and his out-of-control classroom antics. September 29, 2010 they had enough when Jared posted the latest of a string of vituperative, rambling, sense challenged videos, this one claiming the college was illegal, according to the U.S. Constitution, which doubtless he had never read and could not understand.
So frequently forced to deal with Jared, what did these officials know, when did they know it, what did they do, beyond having two uniformed police officers hand-deliver his suspension to his home? They knew enough for that.
Readers of Jared’s Facebook and YouTube rants had clues. Incoherent, violent, accusatory, Jared’s poorly written posts reeked of the pains he felt and the greater pains he aimed to inflict on someone, anyone.
There was one video titled “America: Your last memory in a terrorist country!”. There a figure in the dark clothing Jared habitually wore burned the American flag while wearing a smiley-face mask. Desecration of the flag is de rigueur for the unbalanced and country hating and Jared juiced up this evil sacrament with the soundtrack of a 2001 song by the band “Drowning Pool.”
“Let the bodies hit the floor!”
What did his readers know, when did they know it, what did they do? Or did they even notice Jared, who so desperately wanted to be noticed and understood.
Then Jared got serious.
He wrote the obligatory self-justifications. There were 3 of them, all found in a safe in Loughner’s home: “I planned ahead”, “my assassination,” and, tellingly, “Giffords.” There was even a flyer from one of Giffords’ 2007 “Congress on Your Corner” events. He had, we now know, attended this event, perhaps brainstorming the options that would deliver universal notice, even unto the President of these United States, the land he so reviled.
He purchased his weapon of choice at Sportsman’s Warehouse on November 30, 2010. Then he bought his portable arsenal of bullets, lots of bullets.
No one at the store noticed anything particular about this boy, already bursting with purpose and arrogant determination. Boys with odd ticks and rumpled clothes are a daily occurrence in the temple of weapons and the priesthood of the Second Amendment. No one cared. The sale, after all, went through. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it? What did that obligatory pre-purchase background check show about Loughner, who by now had left so very many clues? Or was it given the most cursory of notice? No one has yet said, but one may suppose.
Which brings us to the spruced up Jared, dressed for mayhem and eternity. He called the taxi and rode off, his driver apparently seeing nothing of the bulky paraphernalia of death toted by the alleged culprit and gunman. We all wonder how that could be.
Just as we wonder how so many could have seen so much and done so little, leaving Jared the initiative, always free to act while others watched and waited…. until the bodies hit the floor.
Fortunately, there are heroes here, two people who tackled Jared gun of death in hand, bringing him down. These (so far unnamed) people of courage did not hold back. They saw, they acted, saving many lives, even at the risk of their own.
As for the rest and all the soul baffling questions, the answer is blowing in the wind.
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 is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Daniel Beumel <a href=”http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com”>http://FirstChoiceHomeBiz.com</a>.
