'Tell mama... Tell mama all.' An appreciation for the life of Elizabeth Taylor, who did it her way.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
First you saw two of the most beautiful people you had ever seen, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. That was reason enough to pay attention.

Then, all of a sudden, the film made a quantum leap from eye-candy to the profound mysteries of sexuality, eroticism, desire. And Elizabeth Taylor was no longer merely the spoiled teenaged daughter of the country club set. She was a man's ultimate desire... because she understood that desire is not about who you are... it's about understanding what the other person needs, deep down inside... and making it, if only for an instant, temptingly available.

"Tell mama," she whispered, "Tell mama  all."

It was unexpected! It was erotic! It was kinky! This was the woman you'd kill for... as Montgomery Clift's character did... it couldn't be any other way.

This was Elizabeth Taylor... on the prowl, mesmerizing, entrancing, a woman who used her deep psychological insights to ensnare the man she wanted, the man who would ultimately bore her and so trigger another installment of the great game that was hers to play.

Was she just a character in "A Place In The Sun" (1951)... or was this the exciting, desirable woman herself? We didn't know... but we definitely wanted to find out, whatever the cost. And we knew there would be a cost, a terrible cost.

"Tell mama... tell mama all." We wanted the opportunity to do  just that.

And they say the 'fifties were dull....  Not when Elizabeth Taylor was around. She didn't know the meaning of the word and always chose mayhem over the placid and serene.

Now the woman is gone... but her great renown, her celebrity,  the legend all remain to titillate, captivate, thrill. All that will never be gone.

Elizabeth Rosamond Taylor, born February 27, 1932 in London.

Her father was an American art dealer, in London to open a gallery. Her mother,was an actress.  Although only 7 years old when her parents decided to remove her from war-threatened England and return to Los Angeles, there was always a faint hint of an English girl about her. But she was American through and through for all that Queen Elizabeth II in 1999 made her a Dame of the British Empire. And always remember this: at the supreme moment of American hegemony, Elizabeth Taylor was  the woman we  made one of our signature images. We were her co-conspirators every step of the way.

"National Velvet"  (1944).

Taylor's parents wanted her to be an actress.  They packaged her like laundry soap and made the rounds of the studios. She did a successful screen test for Universal Pictures with her eyes -- violet and soon to be world famous -- the subject of comment. They always were.

That contract was brief and undistinguished, although she was paired with Carl Switzer ("Alfalfa" from the "Our Gang" movies) in the comedy "Man or Mouse".  It was the last moment of her life when she would be unknown to the  world... although not the last where both the film and her performance were underwhelming. She got used that.

Her character, Velvet Brown, was a horse crazy adolescent. But what Hollywood and the discerning public saw was the way she talked about horses -- she visibly throbbed with emotion. Her eyes -- those famous eyes -- gleamed, and her whole body shook with passion. "National Velvet" was a great hit... and it made Taylor, the mistress of passion, one of the hottest people on earth. She was just 12 years old, a real life Lolita. People talked about her; people always would.

The real problem was finding the suitable vehicle for her undeniable talent. It took 7 years -- and a series of not-quite-right roles; (can you say "Conspirator" with Robert Taylor, 1949?)... but at last it all came together in "A Place In The  Sun." Velvet Brown no longer was passionate about ponies; now she wanted men... when she wanted them, even if they had to kill so she could have them.

In that moment of profound psychological insight, Taylor realized that power and satisfaction grew out of the ability to be what every person needed. As she leaned into Monty Clift's ear she was telling him she understood him and his needs and was ready to deliver. No wonder audiences thrilled. Women wanted to be her, so they could profit from this insight.

And men?

They would tell mama all; knowing that she would give them just want they wanted... and they would give her the world.

This role, this insight lead to everything that followed. Her motto now was "Let them come to you." And they did... a worldwide caravan of admirers, followers, fans... including the men she selected to share her journey, then discard. Of her 7 husbands (if you count Richard Burton twice), Michael Todd, showman, dynamo, impresario, was the most important. She might not have stayed with him, either. However he would have known how to fight for her... and she would admire that. She understood the crucial difference between men who desired her... and men who knew what she needed: a fighter. Tragically, he died in 1958, in a plane  crash. It was the year of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", where she elevated insistent sensuality and the demands of desire to an art form. What "Maggie" wanted, Maggie got. Good women called her a "slut." But, when  honest, women cheered her for doing what they could only dream of doing, with male management on top of the list. Elizabeth Taylor was never a hypocrite, something the hypocrites could never forgive. Her boldness affronted them, irritated them, infuriated them. It made the rest of us admire.

If Elizabeth Taylor cared, she never showed it or complained. It all worked to make her Larger than Life, the world riveted by every little move she made, with new husband in tow, or between "I do's."

Her last role was her finest, using the death of friend Rock Hudson from AIDS (1985) not as something to be ashamed of and forgotten, but as what it was: a  medical challenge to be confronted directly, honestly. If there were any justice, the Vatican would make her a saint. Predictably they vilified her for "erotic vagrancy." It never said that about men and their amatory gyrations...

Dead at 79, March 23, 2011.

Now the lady is dead, a figure of history and lore... a creature of astonishing beauty with those violet eyes and talent, too, though not always seen in her films. Reports said she died of congestive heart failure, but that cannot be right, for she had nothing if not heart. It's what defined her.

That's why we believed her when she said,"Tell mama. Tell mamma all." We knew she meant it and had the heart to carry through, even unto our most secret needs. We had to have such a person in our lives... and would do anything to keep her there. Now she abides with each of us alone, forever.

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 Sylvia Kinzie 

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It's official. There is finally a real GOP candidate for 2012: ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty. Did anybody notice?

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Let me tell  you something about presidential candidates: the day they announce for the highest office in the land, they figure they'll be the top story... their mug on the front page of America's great dailies, their story featured on the three major commercial networks... and, of course, the object of endless glib commentary on Fox News and CNN.

For Pawlenty, the first announced Republican candidate, it just didn't happen.

To be sure, there were really major stories being covered  March 21, 2011. Can you say nuclear reactors in Japan? That military dust-up in Libya? But even so, you would have thought Pawlenty would have gotten something.

And what's got to irk Pawlenty good and plenty is that he has at least some credibility, not least that he was a moderately conservative governor (twice!) of a reliably Democratic state. When Pawlenty looks in the mirror, mirror on the wall... who's the one he sees most of all? Can you say Ronald Reagan?

But Pawlenty got skunked... his Hollywood style introduction video ignored...  his message to America undelivered. What a revoltin' development this is. If it had been Tim's predecessor in the Minnesota governor's office -- colorful ex-wrestler and mouth man Jesse Ventura -- you can bet there would have been coverage, lots of coverage.

Tim's gotta wonder...

"Gentlemen prefer blondes" (1926),  Anita Loos said. In the sequel, she told us "But Gentlemen marry brunettes" (1928). Tim can only hope that he's seen as the man America wants to marry. If only he can figure out how to get a date to strut his (good boy) stuff...

Minnesota... always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

Pity the state of Minnesota. It has had a respectable number of presidential candidates... but nary even a one-term president amongst them.

Harold Stassen was the hot stuff in 1938 when he was America's youngest governor. He got a really bad case of Potomac Fever right away (1944) and never did get rid of it. He became a national  joke running for president over and over again, a (bad) joke. Minnesota cringed.

Then there was Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr., who actually got the Democrat's nomination in 1968... and came within a hair of winning the presidency. "Tricky Dick" Nixon's most important trick was getting the presidency that year. A profoundly decent man, Humphrey learned the hard way that loyalty (to Lyndon Johnson and his Vietnam policy) isn't what gets you elected; hard headed realism is. Nixon had it... Hubert didn't.

The next presidential candidate from Minnesota, Jimmy Carter's vice president Walter Mondale had this fundamental decency and honesty, too, and it killed him.

Right out of the box Mondale, the very essence of the Minnesota boy next door, you know, the one who carries in your groceries with a smile and declines the tip, slaughtered himself. He told America the truth -- that the deficit was unsustainable and there would have to be new taxes. (Deja vu all over again....)

I had to admire the man's guts...  but you knew, right then, he was a goner. Ronald Reagan crushed him... and went on to GOP sainthood, the prototype of how to finesse the truth and become the Big Winner.

Get the picture?

Now there's Timmy Pawlenty, and here's what you need to know about him. His original career choice was... dentist.  I kid you not... and once you know it you can see him in white coat, dazzling smile, personable, confiding manner; the man who says "open wide", "little pinch", "spit here."

He'd have been a cinch for president of the Minnesota Dental Association... and a lifetime achievement award from the Kiwanis.

What's he bring to the table?

The problem with those Boy Scout types, the nice guys, is that nice is what they've got, all they've got. Timmie's got likability all right but anything else?

His ascent.

He was born November 17, 1960, of German and Polish ancestry. You'll hear about his teamster father; his mother who died of cancer when he was 15. And about his meat packing neighborhood with that all-pervasive dead meat smell. (Don't mention that bit too much, Tim; it definitely puts people off. Ask not for whom the smell tolls... it tolls for thee.)

Born Roman Catholic, Pawlenty became an evangelical Christian... a fact he will leverage to the max, to get those all important conservative Republican and Tea Party supporters.  Powerful, they'll demand  a hefty price.

Pawlenty's political career shows what nice guys are capable of achieving. He was elected to the Egan, Minnesota city council in 1989, age 28. Elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1992, he was re-elected five times and was chosen House Majority Leader when Republicans became the majority party in the State Legislature in 1998.

He won a hard fought victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2002... then beat aggressive candidates from the Minnesota Democratic- Farmer-Labor Party and the Independence Party. He was re-elected in 2006. Impressive yes. Memorable no! And the high point of his rhetoric was: "We need to be a party of Sam's Club, not just the country club." Churchillian, he isn't. And America likes its presidents to be masters of soaring speech.

Now the nicest guy aims at the highest office. Everyone will like him. Almost no one with think him the Great White Hope of America, and his poll numbers will always be anemic. Just as they are now.

You see Tim suffers from  Minnesotitis... the disease that takes boys next door and turns them into likable cogs in the wheel... always on the team, hardly ever the captain and never ever champion.  Leo Durocher summed up their plight in 1939 with his immortal line, "Nice guys finish last." Tim Pawlenty is about to discover just how deflatingly true that is, as he joins the list of nice guys from Minnesota who couldn't wow America.

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. He is also the author of 18 best-selling business books.  Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com
Check out Local Mobile Monopoly  =>Check Here

On the vernal equinox and the advent of spring. All poets need apply.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
An event occurred just the other day which impacts each and every one of us on Spaceship Earth, but which hardly one of us knows anything about and mentions, if at all, quite casually. Yet so momentous is this occurrence,  coming with clock like precision, that our very existences depend upon it; nothing could be less prosaic, nothing more significant.

It is the vernal equinox...

Hereabouts in old New England, the vernal equinox took place at 7:21 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, March 20, 2011. The spring we have all been awaiting, the spring that delivers the relief from the oppression of cold and damp and short dull days, the spring that blows soft winds, as so many unexpected kisses -- and flowers, too --  that spring, right on the dot, arrived...

but we were heavy laden and may have been distracted when it came as our new reality.

Good citizens of this galaxy, give an ear now to this great event, which next occurs September 22, 2011 at 10:49 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

There is nothing that concerns you more than these great celestial movements, the unheard but momentous, unearthly music of the spheres, awesome, terrible,  the very stuff of grandeur, eternal, too.

Put aside mundane concerns and remember, for an  instant,  who you are,  a one-way passenger on the greatest of galleons, and wither it goes, you go.

What is an equinox anyway?

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens.

The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin "aequus" (equal) and "nox" (night) because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length. Each are, then, about 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in  the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox.) The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

But of all  this, we need remember only one thing: the vernal equinox, and the unending adjustments we make to the matter of human time, are all about light and the Sun at the center of our universe. Sol Invictus.

While the celestial movements, now this way, now that, are liable to confuse; we all know the crucial significance of our Sun; even the youngest amongst us looks up, involuntarily to admire, rejoice, and be glad of it. Our Sun, of an immensity and heat unimaginable, is brought nearer to us, and happily so, with the vernal equinox.

We are, all of us, Sun worshippers... for without it there would be nothing here for us, or of us either.

The vernal equinox brings that Sun closer.

Tinkerings with time.

Because of its unexcelled desirability, we humans have long been beguiled with the notion of how to get more of the Sun we crave. All ancient peoples, particularly the Greeks and Persians, the sophisticates of antiquity, gave serious attention to the matter. Sadly, much of their findings are lost; what remains from the works of Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus (ca. 190- ca.120 BC)  and Aristarchus of Samos (around 280 BC) is suggestive of their expertise and insights. But we cannot tell more.

However, we do know about Benjamin Franklin, jack of all trades, master of all.

Franklin, with his unstoppable curiosity, wanted what only God could deliver: more time. It is easy to see why he desired it so: he, long before Edna St. Vincent Millay, burnt the candle at both ends, and not in purely scientific endeavors, either. At the Court of the Bourbons of France there were any number of elegantes who found Franklin, American minister, worthy of closer study. There was never enough time to gratify them all...

And so Franklin advanced the suggestion that became daylight savings. It was a quintessentially American proposal -- bold, audacious, practical, based on science, not theology. Sadly, it is still not clear that it actually works... and each American state, every single one, is by law entitled to adopt it, or not. For God and His equinox time is simple, majestic; humans muddle the matter, to general grumbling and consternation.

But not poets...

All poets worth their salt weigh in with a will on one of their signature topics: the advent of light, of Sun, of spring. So excited are they by this topic, that they are severely prone to skip over the residue of winter that comes in the first spring days of March, concentrating on the riotous, unrestrained days of April and May. This is wrong, and Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) rightly noted in "Fisherman's Luck" (1899).

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is as great as a month."

Having said  this, I confess I, too, want immediate egress from the grim, cold, muddy days of March spring.  I am impatient, like Walt Whiteman:

"Give me the splendid silent sun   with all his beams full-dazzling."

(1819-1892) From "Leaves of Grass" (1855; 1891-92.)

Patient through long, drear winters we can be but as we see relief near at hand, we can be patient no longer, for we know, we all know, what is coming and we cannot longer wait. Still liable to be tripped up by winter... we are adamant that the spring is coming.

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March."

Robert Frost (1874-1963) "Two Tramps in Mud Time" (1936).

But I cannot better end than by urging you to find in any search engine your favorite recording of Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" (premiered 1944).... It will seize you, uplift you, refresh you... and perfectly position you, in reverence,  as you walk into this springtime of your life, whatever your age or circumstances. We are all young again in springtime... such is the magic of the vernal equinox.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

An event occurred just the other day which impacts each and every one of us on Spaceship Earth, but which hardly one of us knows anything about and mentions, if at all, quite casually. Yet so momentous is this occurrence,  coming with clock like precision, that our very existences depend upon it; nothing could be less prosaic, nothing more significant.

It is the vernal equinox...

Hereabouts in old New England, the vernal equinox took place at 7:21 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, March 20, 2011. The spring we have all been awaiting, the spring that delivers the relief from the oppression of cold and damp and short dull days, the spring that blows soft winds, as so many unexpected kisses -- and flowers, too --  that spring, right on the dot, arrived...

but we were heavy laden and may have been distracted when it came as our new reality.

Good citizens of this galaxy, give an ear now to this great event, which next occurs September 22, 2011 at 10:49 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

There is nothing that concerns you more than these great celestial movements, the unheard but momentous, unearthly music of the spheres, awesome, terrible,  the very stuff of grandeur, eternal, too.

Put aside mundane concerns and remember, for an  instant,  who you are,  a one-way passenger on the greatest of galleons, and wither it goes, you go.

What is an equinox anyway?

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens.

The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin "aequus" (equal) and "nox" (night) because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length. Each are, then, about 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in  the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox.) The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

But of all  this, we need remember only one thing: the vernal equinox, and the unending adjustments we make to the matter of human time, are all about light and the Sun at the center of our universe. Sol Invictus.

While the celestial movements, now this way, now that, are liable to confuse; we all know the crucial significance of our Sun; even the youngest amongst us looks up, involuntarily to admire, rejoice, and be glad of it. Our Sun, of an immensity and heat unimaginable, is brought nearer to us, and happily so, with the vernal equinox.

We are, all of us, Sun worshippers... for without it there would be nothing here for us, or of us either.

The vernal equinox brings that Sun closer.

Tinkerings with time.

Because of its unexcelled desirability, we humans have long been beguiled with the notion of how to get more of the Sun we crave. All ancient peoples, particularly the Greeks and Persians, the sophisticates of antiquity, gave serious attention to the matter. Sadly, much of their findings are lost; what remains from the works of Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus (ca. 190- ca.120 BC)  and Aristarchus of Samos (around 280 BC) is suggestive of their expertise and insights. But we cannot tell more.

However, we do know about Benjamin Franklin, jack of all trades, master of all.

Franklin, with his unstoppable curiosity, wanted what only God could deliver: more time. It is easy to see why he desired it so: he, long before Edna St. Vincent Millay, burnt the candle at both ends, and not in purely scientific endeavors, either. At the Court of the Bourbons of France there were any number of elegantes who found Franklin, American minister, worthy of closer study. There was never enough time to gratify them all...

And so Franklin advanced the suggestion that became daylight savings. It was a quintessentially American proposal -- bold, audacious, practical, based on science, not theology. Sadly, it is still not clear that it actually works... and each American state, every single one, is by law entitled to adopt it, or not. For God and His equinox time is simple, majestic; humans muddle the matter, to general grumbling and consternation.

But not poets...

All poets worth their salt weigh in with a will on one of their signature topics: the advent of light, of Sun, of spring. So excited are they by this topic, that they are severely prone to skip over the residue of winter that comes in the first spring days of March, concentrating on the riotous, unrestrained days of April and May. This is wrong, and Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) rightly noted in "Fisherman's Luck" (1899).

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is as great as a month."

Having said  this, I confess I, too, want immediate egress from the grim, cold, muddy days of March spring.  I am impatient, like Walt Whiteman:

"Give me the splendid silent sun   with all his beams full-dazzling."

(1819-1892) From "Leaves of Grass" (1855; 1891-92.)

Patient through long, drear winters we can be but as we see relief near at hand, we can be patient no longer, for we know, we all know, what is coming and we cannot longer wait. Still liable to be tripped up by winter... we are adamant that the spring is coming.

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March."

Robert Frost (1874-1963) "Two Tramps in Mud Time" (1936).

But I cannot better end than by urging you to find in any search engine your favorite recording of Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" (premiered 1944).... It will seize you, uplift you, refresh you... and perfectly position you, in reverence,  as you walk into this springtime of your life, whatever your age or circumstances. We are all young again in springtime... such is the magic of the vernal equinox.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

An event occurred just the other day which impacts each and every one of us on Spaceship Earth, but which hardly one of us knows anything about and mentions, if at all, quite casually. Yet so momentous is this occurrence,  coming with clock like precision, that our very existences depend upon it; nothing could be less prosaic, nothing more significant.

It is the vernal equinox...

Hereabouts in old New England, the vernal equinox took place at 7:21 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, March 20, 2011. The spring we have all been awaiting, the spring that delivers the relief from the oppression of cold and damp and short dull days, the spring that blows soft winds, as so many unexpected kisses -- and flowers, too --  that spring, right on the dot, arrived...

but we were heavy laden and may have been distracted when it came as our new reality.

Good citizens of this galaxy, give an ear now to this great event, which next occurs September 22, 2011 at 10:49 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

There is nothing that concerns you more than these great celestial movements, the unheard but momentous, unearthly music of the spheres, awesome, terrible,  the very stuff of grandeur, eternal, too.

Put aside mundane concerns and remember, for an  instant,  who you are,  a one-way passenger on the greatest of galleons, and wither it goes, you go.

What is an equinox anyway?

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens.

The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin "aequus" (equal) and "nox" (night) because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length. Each are, then, about 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in  the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox.) The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.

But of all  this, we need remember only one thing: the vernal equinox, and the unending adjustments we make to the matter of human time, are all about light and the Sun at the center of our universe. Sol Invictus.

While the celestial movements, now this way, now that, are liable to confuse; we all know the crucial significance of our Sun; even the youngest amongst us looks up, involuntarily to admire, rejoice, and be glad of it. Our Sun, of an immensity and heat unimaginable, is brought nearer to us, and happily so, with the vernal equinox.

We are, all of us, Sun worshippers... for without it there would be nothing here for us, or of us either.

The vernal equinox brings that Sun closer.

Tinkerings with time.

Because of its unexcelled desirability, we humans have long been beguiled with the notion of how to get more of the Sun we crave. All ancient peoples, particularly the Greeks and Persians, the sophisticates of antiquity, gave serious attention to the matter. Sadly, much of their findings are lost; what remains from the works of Greek astronomer and mathematician Hipparchus (ca. 190- ca.120 BC)  and Aristarchus of Samos (around 280 BC) is suggestive of their expertise and insights. But we cannot tell more.

However, we do know about Benjamin Franklin, jack of all trades, master of all.

Franklin, with his unstoppable curiosity, wanted what only God could deliver: more time. It is easy to see why he desired it so: he, long before Edna St. Vincent Millay, burnt the candle at both ends, and not in purely scientific endeavors, either. At the Court of the Bourbons of France there were any number of elegantes who found Franklin, American minister, worthy of closer study. There was never enough time to gratify them all...

And so Franklin advanced the suggestion that became daylight savings. It was a quintessentially American proposal -- bold, audacious, practical, based on science, not theology. Sadly, it is still not clear that it actually works... and each American state, every single one, is by law entitled to adopt it, or not. For God and His equinox time is simple, majestic; humans muddle the matter, to general grumbling and consternation.

But not poets...

All poets worth their salt weigh in with a will on one of their signature topics: the advent of light, of Sun, of spring. So excited are they by this topic, that they are severely prone to skip over the residue of winter that comes in the first spring days of March, concentrating on the riotous, unrestrained days of April and May. This is wrong, and Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) rightly noted in "Fisherman's Luck" (1899).

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is as great as a month."

Having said  this, I confess I, too, want immediate egress from the grim, cold, muddy days of March spring.  I am impatient, like Walt Whiteman:

"Give me the splendid silent sun   with all his beams full-dazzling."

(1819-1892) From "Leaves of Grass" (1855; 1891-92.)

Patient through long, drear winters we can be but as we see relief near at hand, we can be patient no longer, for we know, we all know, what is coming and we cannot longer wait. Still liable to be tripped up by winter... we are adamant that the spring is coming.

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You're one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you're two months back in the middle of March."

Robert Frost (1874-1963) "Two Tramps in Mud Time" (1936).

But I cannot better end than by urging you to find in any search engine your favorite recording of Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring" (premiered 1944).... It will seize you, uplift you, refresh you... and perfectly position you, in reverence,  as you walk into this springtime of your life, whatever your age or circumstances. We are all young again in springtime... such is the magic of the vernal equinox.

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. He is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie

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Tufts University president ends Naked Quad run, naked students protest.

Shenanigans at school....

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Pity the president, any president, of Tufts University. Based in Medford, Massachusetts, just a few miles from Harvard  and M.I.T., Tufts is engaged in an ongoing struggle to get out of their shadows and breathe free, a distinguished institution of undergraduate education and research, justifying the Really Big Bucks they charge dazed parents to educate their "not quite Ivy quality" children.

But it just ain't happenin'.

Whatever good things, whatever great things are going on there, today people worldwide want to know only one thing about Tufts: what's the Naked Quad Run and why has it been cancelled?

My research reveals all.

No one seems the know the exact year the Naked Quad Run commenced but authorities agree that it's been going on since the 1970s. It started, as many undergraduate events do, on a dare. You can see sophomore Herbie egging on freshman Bobby in, say, 1970. "Come on, Bobby boy. I dare you." "Gee, Herbie, I don't know. I'm a good boy and what if my mother ever found out?"

"Just as I thought Bobby boy. You're a weenie."

And to prove that he wasn't... Bobby downed a quick one, doffed his clothes and became the first Naked Quad runner, cold (it was December after all), blue, a champion. Herbie, irked, spent the rest of his life pointing out that it was Really His Idea.

Bobby, who went on to being president of a Really Big Bank and a trustee of the university, got all the credit. It made for a great story every once in a while in the Tufts alumni bulletin. And it was no surprise when Bobby,  age 65, recreated his original Naked Quad Run, to whoops of joy from hundreds of naked undergrads; they had to admit Bobby was an inspiration to all and, all unclad, gathered to cheer on their hero, the man who started it all.

Yep, the story had to go something like that. Anyway...

Over the years, the Naked Quad Run became a firmly rooted Tufts tradition. The boys, sheepish, milled aimlessly about, blue and cold (it was December, remember). Of course there was alcohol (there always is at most every collegiate event) and of course some of those boys were underage and over indulged... but boys will be boys...

And so the run went on, gathering adherents and notoriety as it went. Ok, it wasn't exactly the Pulitzer or Nobel prize... but it did generate a bucket of PR and good vibrations for Tufts; when you're firmly planted at #3, you've got to take what you can get.

Cherchez la femme.

Some scholars, with a notably feminist perspective, have a decidedly different view on the subject; (they would). The Naked Quad Run (and they put on a learned symposium to prove it) was not held to celebrate the joys of "Gaudeamus igitur" in the great classical tradition of "mens sana in corpore sano". Rather, and one learned lady was quite adamant about this, rather it was designed for two purposes: to make newly arrived Tufts undergraduate women uncomfortable while at the same time showing off their hot bods, the better to get dates. A poll taken at the symposium registered deep disgust and disapprobation with this male only Naked Quad Run...

... and so supported by vehement feminists, women undergrads were permitted to doff their clothes, too, along with their male undergrad colleagues.

Thus, the ecstatic men of Tufts achieved , with the blessing of the Founding Mothers, a goal of young men everywhere and in all places: official permission to check out naked chicks.

Score another one for Tufts!

What a place!

And all officially sanctioned!

Predictably applications to Tufts soared. It was no doubt the enticing curriculum....

So things might have gone on forever... but all was not roses in this collegiate Eden.

There was more alcohol.

There were (I blush to tell) gropings... not just of young men to young women, but young women to young men; young men to young men... and young women to... but you get the point.

Too, the campus police say they were harassed.

What was going on here anyway?

In time-honored American tradition, the thing had morphed from a youthful, uncomplicated celebration of the end of examinations into an Event, where undergrads from other colleges came to participate (if they were cute so much the better) and where Japanese tourists arrived with their guide and video cams.

The university started to keep -- and release -- the findings of mayhem and dissipation. December, 2010 figures were the worst yet; 12 students were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning.

Tufts University president Lawrence Bacow (no doubt opposed by the admissions department every inch of the way) took action and banned the Naked Quad Run.

Bacow, clearly anguished by his decision, acknowledged (according to an editorial in The Boston Globe (March 16, 2011) that he has "long been uncomfortable with the run, but chose to work with students and  public safety staff to 'manage the run rather than end it'." Food was available... barriers were erected... the course was sanded, etc.

As a result the crowds got worse, drank more, groped with impunity and acted out. When Medford and Somerville police (always irked by hordes of insouciant undergrad nudists) refused to provide security details, the end had at last arrived.

That's why they pay those Big Bucks to Bacow, to make the really tough decisions.

There were student protests, of course. This was Something Really Important, and the creme de la creme at Tufts came out to signify their opposition to this edict and the diminution of the quality of life at Tufts. After all, the right to check out the naked bodies of their friends and colleagues was worth fighting for...

On March 14, 2011 dozens of students engaged in a partially nude run around the Res Quad in a peaceful, sober protect against Bacow's decision. They were not about to go silent into that good night. Text messages, e-mails, Facebook events brought them together, and they vowed, naked, to continue the good fight. And perhaps they will.

For now, however,  the naked paradise that was Tufts on the nights of the run is closed, no more happily ever afterings in Medford. Thus Tufts sinks back into sober, clothed obscurity, while the student affairs office brainstorms alternatives. One of them, as reported by the Tufts Daily newspaper, is a Winter Carnival. Another, a concert.

Hold it!  Kids, the carnival's already done. At Dartmouth.  As for the concert idea... old hat. If I were you, I'd hold out for reviving the Naked Quad Run. It's got eye-popping appeal, and it IS a bona fide Tufts tradition. They are few and far between.

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 Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com

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Easter Eggs.

So what is Easter?
Shocking Easter Truth

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

The older I get, the less current holidays mean to me... and the more those from years, even decades ago. I see the vivid Easter displays; (these days pharmacies seem to have the most and largest.) But these festive aisles and windows, the bags of candy, and, of course, the seasonal cuddlies do not speak to me. They merely mark the calendar as just another day.

That was not always the case, but years and unrelenting death have so thinned the ranks of the significant players in these annual rites that the dead now significantly outnumber the living, of whom, graying, I am yet one.

I do not mind giving up this present holiday; there is little enough to lose.

But I would mind relinquishing my memories of Easter Days gone by, for there are my beloved ghosts, each and every one as vital in my mind's eye as quick, not long defunct.

And because these folks are even more precious to me now than then, I wish this Easter to remember them through the medium of eggs, colored eggs, hidden eggs, Easter eggs.

My mother's Easter eggs.

Without any effort whatsoever, I see her in the way the narrator in Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town"  (1938) saw his characters and Granite state denizens.  She was young and beautiful then, far, far younger than I am now. She worried, as so many women before and since, about whether she was a "good mother" because she had outside work responsibilities. When I was much older, she would ask me if I minded her being away when I came home from school. I was too young to know just what I should have said. .So, I stumbled through an answer I hope gave comfort, but must doubt.  Perhaps it was some scintilla of this guilt (I cannot be sure) that drove the yearly Easter Egg Project, or perhaps it was simply that this messy business was sure to make her laugh.  I was there but perceived little; today I see much more, all impressions secure in my mind's eye.

I quite recall we'd go to Woolworths, first, and then our local general store and post office, run by Mr. and Mrs. Mackey (I never called them anything other); folks who knew all, but were most times (gratefully) discrete.

Both places would have had the Eastern egg coloring kit (by PAAS?) that was de rigueur for this annual kitchen table rite. This kit had the necessary color pellets, special "swirl" colors, too, for advanced egg coloring.... and a host of decals with seasonal themes. We only used the secular ones. Some of these were certain to be later found in my brother's hair and clothes; he tried to do as much to me, but I was older and wise to his tactics. He can hardly laugh about it even now...

At first. there was strict order and efficiency. Uncolored eggs here; table spoons for these eggs for dipping. Hot water (mind it needed vinegar) on the stove... pellets here... decals there. This sensible ordering of the event was gone in an instant, submerged in uncouth behaviors, reachings around and over, and of course clever sibling sabotages.

And always and again, laughter that firmly established more than any query ever could,  that yes she was the best of mothers, how could she even wonder? And so, some telltale signs of the battle still table top, the now colored eggs packed up (except a few)  and driven purposefully to Grammie's house, where we rambunctious and much loved, visited most every day. Grammie had a task for these eggs... and we knew partly what it was, for these rituals were yearly done.

Each year, Grammie and Grampie, their four adult children and their spouses, would mastermind the family Easter Egg Hunt. There was never any question where it would be held. And while it was not so grand as the nation's Egg Rolling at the White House, it was as meticulously arranged and punctiliously celebrated.

All aunts contributed the necessary elements -- colored eggs of course (always the subject of high scrutiny and devastating comments sotto voce); home-made cookies (the honor of their sex ensured we never had  others); and mountains of Easter candy that started with chocolate rabbits and ended with jelly beans. Then circled back to chocolate again. Excess was the order of the day.

Children were encouraged to play outside. Important doings were underway... in the kitchen and in the "rec" room below where the men had the task of determining the hiding places in and out... and carefully writing each location down. These men might grumble... but they never missed this crucial aspect of the affair. They would have been there anyway; we all ended each day in Grammie's house and kitchen perforce, no invitation ever needed.

At the appointed hour Easter Day, after church and a heavy, formal  luncheon which lost nothing of our solid living Hanoverian ancestors, the grandchildren (and that meant every last one of us) were gathered at the starting point in the garage, where on ordinary days Grampie was not above showing off his latest Oldsmobile and his automated garage door. His children, as yet, had neither.  The grandchildren's Easter eggs.

Grampie and his two sons and two sons-in-law including my father were in charge of Order and Efficiency. This year would surely not be a repeat of what happened last year. But it always was...

The children were all sternly and solemnly admonished to put what they found in their Easter basket and, Above All Else, to let one of the hovering adults know Where They Had Found It.

As always, the organizing theory was excellent... but the reality ensured the customary mass chaos (and much laughter).

The youngest grandchildren could never recall where they had found that chocolate bunny, which was already absent an ear. The oldest grandchildren (inspired by me, the oldest of all) were practised predators. We knew all the best hiding places and went to them like a bat from hell, erasing all order as we went.

Such  perhaps was the truest indication that we were a family, each and every one of us.

Unwilling to end this giant game of hide and seek, the grandchildren hid and re-hid the eggs (now mostly broken and inedible)  and candies, too. There were only to be found when one of the uncles was sure to find in humid July in the toe of his winter boots, a very jaundiced and pungent Easter egg artifact.  So, that's where that one went....

No Easter, however, would have been complete without my father taking us to the feed store and reviewing the new colored chicks and ducks (red, blue, purple, green). We were allowed a half a dozen or so; before we left Grammie's we got to show our less fortunate cousins What We Got... pets all, none ever to be eaten.

Now all this exists only in my mind's eye... but, because I've summoned this story, it is all quite clear, so many fond details not lost, but here after all and after all these years.

And so I say to every parent, grandparent and distant aunts and uncles, too: this day, live this day and hug every memory close.  Each one is yours... and precious, too; not one to lose. It all starts with a colored egg, my privilege too long forgot, to do this day, in remembrance of all , each one alive in me as I  in them.

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 Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com

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