Despairing feds say 50 percent of the U.S. population at risk unless salt intake is drastically reduced. This means YOU!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
I'm from one of those boisterous, far extended midwestern families... one that likes to eat, drink, and be merry... and has decades of experience perfecting these skills.
I can see them all now, in the kitchen, at the cooler, at picnics, and most of all at Grannie Vic's sumptuous, over abundant meals, in the pigs feet tradition... every item luscious, every item over salted.
Today the feds tell me they have put sweet Grannie Vic's picture on the post office wall as Public Enemy Number One.
It's because of the salt, the whole salt, and nothing but the salt and Grannie's known proclivities for salting heavy, thereby producing the taste we craved. Apparently there is a salt toting, law breaking Grannie Vic at your house, too.
Why the feds despair so...
Here are the facts. Every five years, the U.S. Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments  issue updated dietary guidelines to consumers -- and the all-important food industry. These recommendations become the basis for the popular food pyramid which can be found in virtually every school and other life changing, educational organizations. It also constitutes the curriculum for all nutritionists and dietary professionals. In short, It Matters.
The new guidelines were released January 31, 2011. What you notice right away is that the language this time round is stark, sobering, less advice than warning... and that even the authors of the report are in despair... because the problem is getting worse and worse. The plain fact is that the people at risk are just not paying attention, preferring to "hold the health" and pour, pour, pour the salt.
Moving from "should" to "must".
Government agencies shutter at the use of imperative verbs. Bureaucrats live in a world where deniability is crucial, CYA being the job-ensuring policy of every civil servant, bar none. Such people cringe when their recommendations go unread and ignored, and it becomes necessary to escalate the language.
But these departments have escalated the language... because The Problem is demonstrably worse this time round than it was five years ago, when the last such report was released...  into oblivion and ho-hum... Miss Peggy Lee's classic "Is That All There Is?" (released 1969) playing in the background. "Then let's keep dancing." Pass the salt, please.
Who's particularly at risk.
The guidelines, in the most stark language on this subject to date, make it absolutely clear who's at risk... and the chances are very good  indeed that that's you... and/or someone near and dear to you,  including
* people 51 and older * all African Americans * anyone already suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.
These folks must cut the amount of sodium they eat and cut it NOW, the desired objective reducing intake to just a little more than half a tea-spoon -- or 1,500 milligrams.
Now here's the kicker. The Pollyannas who  produced the diet guidelines 5 years ago made it clear that the problem was solvable. The report positively radiated Optimism! Good Cheer! "God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!"
But the reality, then as now, was dramatically different... and the petty bureaucrats of these departments, more caring for self rather than national preservation, diluted, diminished and minimized the problem. For shame! If Senator Sam Ervin were alive today, he might well ask as he did of President Nixon, "What did he know? When did he know it?"  The Senator got results with these questions then... and they need to be resurrected now for immediate use.
Half the population of these United States now at risk and clearly so.
The groups mentioned above are the at risk populations. They are the ones, and remember this means you and yours, with higher blood pressure due to the amount of salt they eat.
For the rest of the population (many of them trending to the at risk category), the government continues to recommend about a teaspoon a day -- 2,300 miligrams, or about one-third less than the average person consumes.
Salt, a tasty killer.
Here the results are arresting, sobering, even frightening. Too much sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, stroke and other problems. All this is known, clear... and largely ignored.
What you can do.
Still, we must do what we can. We are, after all, Americans, the original  "can-do" nation and somewhere in our bag of angst, we still have (I hope) the necessary resolve and tenacity to confront the crisis of  a great people (mis)eating themselves to death.  The solution? Keep your mouth shut and think before you salt, every single time. And follow these government guidelines:
* Read nutrition labels. Buy low sodium products.
* Consume more fresh or home-prepared foods and fewer processed foods.
* Ask that salt not be added to your restaurant meals.
* Decrease sodium over time so that you're not jolted and put off by the different taste of your foods.
The tragedy, however, is that even if these constructive acts became the custom of the land today at the wave of a wand, they would still be insufficient to solve the problem. The reason? We are at the mercy of a food industry which must be a crucial player in the solution of a problem they helped to both create and exacerbate. And these folks are not yet sufficiently involved. Eldridge Cleaver was right: "You're either part of the problem... or you're part of the solution."
These companies, including many of the largest and best known, have another culprit in mind: our craving for foods with salt (and sugar). In short, the food industry is at the mercy of our (jaded) taste buds. And that industry is clear: we cannot afford to produce what people will not buy... and eat.
This being the problem, it is little wonder that the dietary professionals despair.  This is not a problem effortless to solve.  Thus, while glacial progress is being made, we as a nation and people eat ourselves into hazard.
My suggestion: En boca cerrada no entran moscas. Or salt either.  Try it. It works.
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 Ray Wisniewski         
 http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

5:19 a.m., 40 degrees Farenheit, warming winds.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
A thing of some significance happened overnight: the warming winds came well accompanied by great thundered mayhem and its chorus of audacious, startling colors. Cacophonous, they woke me up, fast, disorienting.
Yes, the winds came, and the snow which this year of grace hit monumental, head-scratching proportions was gone as if so many geese worried by a dog, now present, now gone.
The countryside rejoiced for it has yearned so for the warming winds and their promise of better days to come.
Because these winds so cause the people to rejoice, what with present benefits and happy contemplations of the warm pleasure days, now no longer merely rumored but en route... the very gods have decreed an entry more than suitable, monumental, the stuff of awe and nature's gaudy touch. . And so these winds never sojourn alone but always with those lavish supporters, stentorian thunder paired with the wild magnificence of swift lighting.
It was a thrill to lay in bed, alert and warm, to hear thunder and lighting and to know bone deep that with them came the real harbinger of spring, the warming winds. It was a release from brutal winter and its frigid regime... and lights went on in most every house as the denizens more than heard the news felt the  warming winds... intelligence which made desponding nervous folk take heart, shake each other's hands, and kiss a passer by... and not regretting, proper like... the gesture as perfectly appropriate and rightly given.
Ah, yes, these winds, surprising joy their felicitous legacy.
6:04 a.m.
It is still quite dark this February day... but it is worth standing silent at the window, being forthrightly told... "Stand, reverencing mortal being, for we are the eternalities gracing you. If you value the warming winds, honor us as well as they do."
What is wind anyway?
All people worldwide live surrounded by, threatened by, helped by things they know little or even absolutely nothing about.
Wind is such a subject. We all know about wind, and we have felt, rather than thought about, its nature and substance. Wind is wind. It was here before I was and will be here long after I have gone, a symbol of the transience of all, particularly me. What is wind anyway?...
Wind is 1) moving air across the surface of the planet or through the atmosphere at a speed fast enough to be noticed; 2) moving air, especially a natural and perceptible movement of air parallel to or along the ground.
This serviceable definition instructs but does not satisfy. For that we must go to writers, for it is their task to describe feelingly an invisible movement, sometimes beneficial, sometimes destructive, always changing. Writers, driven to accepting challenges, took up this one con brio.
Christina Rossetti (d. 1894) , a "stunner" of the Pre-Raphaelites,  scrutinized winds well, warming and otherwise.
Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.
Here are words more descriptive of this ever moving presence now here, now there, now seeming gone, mischievous recurring. No dictionary can compete with words so evocative and complete.
H.R.R. Tolkien  (d. 1973) in his "Lament for Boromir" wrote this:
Ask of the North Wind news of them the North Wind sends to me!' 'O Boromir! Beyond the gate the seaward road runs south, But you came not with the wailing gulls from the grey sea's mouth.
Tolkien, with his fixation on the obsequies and ceremonies surrounding dead heroes of youth and stalwart demeanor too early curtailed, turns one of the winds into a messenger, an unmistakable lament, with overtones of Rams horns and Gotterdammerumg, very much in the Master's archaic lexicon.
I'd best return to the Pre-Raphaelites. They, in their amplitude, are as fantastical as Tolkien. However, while death stalks them, too, their obsequies are of beauty lost forever soon and ruby lips now still, unkissed into the eternal. Morbid, these are yet more blissful and festive than Tolkien's hauntings.
Here are more windy words, a poem by William Morris (d. 1896), the British writer beloved by Pre-Raphaelites:
Ah! no, no, it is nothing, surely nothing at all, Only the wild-going wind round by the garden-wall, For the dawn just now is breaking, the wind beginning to fall.
_Wind, wind! thou art sad, art thou kind? Wind, wind, unhappy! thou art blind, Yet still thou wanderest the lily-seed to find._
So I will sit, and think and think of the days gone by, Never moving my chair for fear the dogs should cry, Making no noise at all while the flambeau burns awry.
***
Morris' effusion, like Morris himself, is overdone, overwrought, always, unhappily a woman in the case.  Indeed, many have compared the wind to la donna mobile... Morris knew. He had waited while she eluded him;  her capers for others, not for him.
7:38 a.m.  I wish to see the land different today, and so go out.
The sun is up, the snow is gone, the warming winds, too, all gone, merely leaving muds of every kind, the apt symbol of every day reality. Untouched by magic, the housewife's busy broom sweeps out the bits of land moving too, but only on the feet of men. "Henry," she says, "wipe your feet before you come in!" Women know this, early, and many other prosy things with which they maintain this orb. Not men. They overlook.
Yes, the romance of the warming winds is gone, but they have surely kissed this earth and from it now waking spring arises. Thus, winds frequent but so little known: We thank you for your good service... your exuberant, ostentatious rites. Good voyage to you... as millions worldwide wait for you, impatient, restive, expectant, as they have always been.
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 Ray Wisniewski     <a href="http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

Four things successful business people will do today...that you won't!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Friend, let's get one thing straight from the get-go. Successful people are  going to do things today that you won't. Read this, and you'll discover what they are.
1) Successful people don't just let today happen.... they plan for today... yesterday!
What did you do before you left your office yesterday? If you're successful, you planned your success for today, determining your clear objectives and laying out the documents, materials, and other things you need.
In other words, you knew what you'd need, and you had it readily at hand so you could, without special effort,  pick up first thing today what you so carefully planned.... yesterday.
Organization, a constant focus on time management and efficiency, not caffeine , are what the successful bring to the table. They cannot and do not consider yesterday concluded... until it is organized as the spring board to a successful today.
2) Email a stupendous offer just before you leave your work.
Want to walk in tomorrow to sales? To lots of great  prospect  leads?
Then email a terrific offer BEFORE you leave.
Most people, bushed, fatigued, tired, upon leaving  their offices are contemplating the pleasures of the rest of today. But not the successful.
Successful people are mad keen on organization and efficiency... and constant bank account pleasing cash flow. They know that  today's dollars are the result of yesterday's offers. Successful business people force themselves to stay, no matter how tired they are,  no matter how pleasurable the day's forthcoming events, until they have crafted the stunning offer that ensures cash flow throughout the hours they are not present.
This offer must be a lollapalooza... the best yet.
As I write, much of the United States, much of the rest of the world is mired in an anaemic economic recovery that is, at best, just limping along.
Yet, by staying focused at all times on the main event, successful business people will flourish and achieve even the most ambitious of business and financial goals.
The key is having cash readily at hand.... and the means to generate more.... at will.
This means offers, better offers, the best offers, never-ending offers.
Because you will be tired at the end of the day, craft your end-of-day offers earlier. To ensure that it  delivers the big success you insist upon, shape that offer when your mind is fresh and  your abilities keen. Aim to make your offer better than you have ever made before; aim to make it a stunner, head turning, a cash gusher.
What the most successful business people know is that cash is king, especially when other people, people who do not have and do not use such offers, don't have it. If you focus as on your #1 Priority the shaping and constant sending of eye-popping offers you will have the cash, and thus the freedom, your less focused and clever colleagues lack and will always lack.
3) Call three prospects who have been hanging on the fence, uncertain about buying, and tell them you have the talking turkey offer of all times... if they will act now.
Offers come in many shapes and sizes... but one thing they all have in common is the "act now" factor. Offers to work must have deadlines... and the very best offers mean prompt, immediate response... no dithering allowed.
Most people, you see, even most business people, dither, offering excuses when decisive action is called for. In fact most people are not decision makers; rather, they are decision avoiders. The offer is made for such people, for only a truly superior offer will get these torpid ones to act at all, much less act on your speedy schedule.
Now, be honest. Did you, before leaving  your office yesterday, call at least three people with a special, once-in-a-lifetime, knock 'em, sock 'em offer?
Or did you just turn off the lights and lock the door?
Want money?Then outline a "for my best customers" offer... and call them to discuss it. (You may also use email to send the offer... but never expect such an email to close the deal. For that the phone is the key).
Pick up the phone, I say, and, upon reaching these prime (if delaying) prospects, verbally embrace them, "Mary, you and I have been in contact for many years. I was thinking of you and wanted to make you a spectacular offer. Have you got a minute?"  Then deliver the offer of offers, tellingly delivered, resoundingly delivered, convincingly delivered. This is a Special Offer.... for a Special Person. Deliver it accordingly.
4) Select 5 customers and give them a special unexpected gift.
People have always liked and will always like to get presents. It makes us feel wanted, warm inside. The most important people in your business are your customers; we all know that. However, what have you done lately to warm the cockles of their hearts? Not much, right?  Change that today.
Pick a few customers, 5 is a good number, and give them a special gift, report, some free product, any kind of emolument... something that says simply, honestly, "I value  you!"  Then send it out.
Your customers will be pleased, gratified, impressed. No wonder. In our busy world, too few take even a little time to do the right thing; that thing that identifies you as a quality individual, well deserving of such customers. Out of the enhanced good will such valued offerings engender will come business, lots of business. You deserve it.
Are you going to be the business success you say you want?
You now know what to do. The question, therefore, is whether you will do it,and when.
24 hours from now, as you reflect upon this day, you will know just how successful you will be, based on what you have (or have not) done. It won't take any longer than that to see how well you're going to do. You see, now as always, the success you get (or forego) will be upon the actions you take and how well you do them. In short, it's all about you.
Bon voyage.
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Dr. Lant's is also the author of best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ray Wisniewski <a href="http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

Just released. Expert says Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was a man...and his lover to boot. Kinky!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Unarguably, the most famous picture in the world, bar none, is the famed Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Generations of art fanciers and scholars of repute (and otherwise) have looked long and hard at this masterwork... all wondering, and then pontificating, about who "she" was... and what that provoking, enigmatic half smile could mean.
Now in the latest news from Rome, researcher Silvano Vinceti has his say. After prolonged research, Vinceti says, with the ringing assurance of every da Vinci investigator, that the Mona Lisa is not in fact the wife of Francesco di Bartolommeo di Zanobi del Giocondo (whew!) but his male lover Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known as Salai.
Salai, who was a bit of a dish, worked for da Vinci for more than two decades, starting in 1490 when da Vinci was 38. During this time the master no doubt relied on his helper for many things; being a male model masquerading as a lady of quality was no doubt just one.
Salai also appears in such da Vinci masterpieces as "St. John the Baptist" (painted 1514) and a lesser-known drawing called "Angel Incarnate."
It's easy to see why da Vinci, with his predilections and trained connoisseur's eye, dallied with Salai.  In the drawing of St. John the Baptist, Salai's youthful charms appear to full advantage. The flesh is radiant. Salai's body is young, firm, ripe; the muscles (which the master must have known so well) swell. The image pulsates with sensuality.  Here was a most desirable hunk indeed. And the picture? Was it perhaps a souvenir, designed to remind? Or did it torment da Vinci after his young lover was gone?  If so, it could have been called "Mi Ricordo", "I remember." Old men so recall the lovers of their lives, often painfully, especially when those lovers are young, slender, alluring... once at hand, now gone.
"The Angel Incarnate" (dated by experts between 1513-1515)  is even more revealing, bluntly sexual (not merely sensual as the St. John) with engorged, thrusting member. Salai was proud, preening, sure of his power over the aging da Vinci. Perhaps the master liked it so. Others found it less enthralling; some outraged Puritan along the way tried vigorously to efface the bulging genitalia. No doubt da Vinci would, as a lover, have found the attempt amusing; as an artist he would have been outraged, and rightly so. Genius has its privileges.
Was this Salai? Was Salai da Vinci's lover? Or was he just a favorite, oggled and desired? Only the principal parties know for sure...  just as only they know about the true identity of the Mona Lisa.
Researcher Vinceti is sure he has the answer... but then generations of devoted da Vinci admirers and researchers have been equally confident. Still...
Vicenti points to the similarities between Salai's nose and mouth in the three pictures; they are "striking" he asserts. No doubt in real life there were also worthy of note.  One wonders whether da Vinci lingered over that mouth...  and what he thought as he shaped this most enigmatic feature on his signature work.
Commenced in 1503, scrutinized and debated ever since.
Everything about the Mona Lisa has fascinated the cognoscenti since da Vinci first put brush to surface in Florence.  For instance, it took the master 4 years to paint. It's painted on poplar wood, 77 x 53 cm. This wood now shows evidence of warping and was stabilized in 1951 with the addition of an oak frame and in 1970 with four vertical braces. Dovetails also were added, to prevent the widening of a small visible crack. These facts are not in dispute.
What is also indisputable are these facts:
Item: Mona Lisa has neither price nor insurance. It belongs to the French state and, priceless, has no assigned worth.
Item: It has hung in the private quarters of kings and emperors. Specifically, Mona Lisa was sold to French King Francis I (reigned 1515-1547) and was kept in the Louvre until Napoleon moved it to his state bedroom in the Tuileries. Hitler wanted to move it to Berlin... but was persuaded that that act of pillage would rouse the French like nothing else. They liked to pillage, too, but thought that capturing artistic trophies and moving them to Paris increased their value and eclat. How very French.
Item: It has been stolen. August 21, 1911, Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian carpenter, made the classic error of confusing fame with salability. He seized the painting from the Salon Carrre of the Louvre, only to be arrested when he put this icon up for sale 2 years later to a Florence antiques dealer. If "Antiques Road Show" had existed then, he no doubt would have claimed to have found it at a yard sale.
Item: It has been defaced. On December 30, 1956, a Bolivian named Ugo Ungaza Villegas, stared at the picture for a time;  then, having seen enough, threw a rock at it, damaging a speck of pigment near her left elbow, and thereby entering history.
Item:  It has been damaged by chemicals. In 1956, an acid attempt damaged the lower half of the picture. The restoration took several, very expensive years.
These are the facts... all the rest is the stuff of pleasurable speculation and debates, for drawing rooms and international conferences.
The grand thing about the Mona Lisa, perhaps the very grandest, is that everything else except the price of her habitation in the Louvre ($7.5 million) cannot be known for sure. Even the attribution to da Vinci (while unchallenged) might be questioned since there is no signature. This is why your guess about such matters might be as good as the experts, and makes it inevitable you will go to Paris to see it, no doubt having to elbow your way through a legion of Japanese school children to get the best possible view.
Next time you go, while considering that the Mona Lisa may well be a lady of the early 16th century, also ponder the likelihood that the image may be of the master himself (some experts do say so).... or that it a fanciful, deliberately perplexing image of his young lover, the kind of boy who beguiled, entranced, disappointed and broke your heart... but who knew (at last)  that that lover had given him the gift of eternity, a fact which no doubt delighted him... and which cheered his lonely old age, when he was neither young nor beautiful, but merely immortal.
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 historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ray Wisniewski     <a href="http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

We must remember... because to forget would obliterate the crimes and suffering. The pressing need to restore and preserve Auschwitz.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
You think, before you go, that you are prepared.
But you are not prepared.
You think you understand what happened at this place and why it happened.
But you do not understand.
You think you can visit the museum and its artifacts as you would visit any other museum.
But you cannot so visit.
This is Auschwitz and it changes your life, starkly, profoundly, forever.
It forces you to think... to dig deep in your soul... it demands your attention... your reverence...
You came to see for yourself... and it demands that you see it all and clearly. It is almost unbearably painful... and the tears come involuntarily,  providing release.  You begin to fathom the unfathomable.
This is Auschwitz and it compels, as if by right, your complete concentration, that you see it all, confront it all, avoiding nothing.
Here a great evil was perpetrated.
Here people just like you and me, people who once laughed, studied, married, worshipped found an untimely end they could not comprehend even at the moment of death.
What  had they done to bring them to this place of dedicated evil and inexplicable horrors?
This is Auschwitz where human minds were put to the business of destroying humans, systematically, categorically, efficiently, proudly.
From the moment you arrive at the entrance dubbed the "Gate of Hell", you sense an atmosphere compounded of fear, terror, anger, confusion.  Upon arrival,  people just like you walked through this gate,  little comprehending that their fate was about to be sealed at the hands of guards who, with a nod or flick of a swagger stick, directed you to immediate perdition... or to a more lingering death as a laboring slave. "The angel of death" himself, Josef Mengele, immaculate in shiny boots, gloves, and a whip was often seen... evaluating,calculating, deciding fates without compunction, a man of destiny, ensuring the desirable exterminations demanded from Berlin.
The world, burdened with many problems in May, 1940 when Auschwitz was created, took little note of this one... until Soviet troops liberated it January 27, 1945, exposing step by horrifying step the true dimensions of human cruelty one object, one item, one artifact at a time.
155 buildings 300 ruins 4 gas chambers and crematoria 27 guard towers 460 artificial limbs 80,000 pairs of shoes 40,000 pairs of spectacles 260 prayer garments 3,800 suitcases.
Now these and all the other remnants of systematic horror are threatened by aging, the elements, neglect, lack of funds, and by the steady increase in visitors who come to learn... and to ponder. In 2010, 1.4 million of these pilgrims came... and thought deeply of what they saw. Each was touched in his own way, and so remembers.
To preserve all this so we never forget what is so painful to remember, $200 million is now required. Germany, to date, has pledged $60 million; the USA $15 million, other governments, like Austria, less.
But what of the British government...and the French, two of the great allies of the World War that gave the Nazis their cover for the "Final Solution"? Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, having visited Auschwitz, pledged funds, but no amount. And, so far, the succeeding Cameron government has been silent on the matter, facing as it does riots for budget cuts that touch his fellow citizens more urgently.  The French are even less committed than the British... the needs of their own war memorials and the crosses of Flanders fields call for upkeep and restoration, too.
And yet this matter presses... as the artifacts of horror crumble, disintegrate, decay. Each one gone aids oblivion, out of sight, out of mind, which after all would suit some people who deny the importance or even the existence of the  Holocaust.
The job that has to be done is immense... and time is pressing as the last of the Holocaust survivors passes into eternity, anxious that the unspeakable reality they knew remain vivid, a necessary reminder to generations yet to come of what we humans are capable of doing to each other. The people of Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda , to name but a few, already know. Holocaust, you see, is not merely history; it is present day reality, lethal, savage, always near at hand.
This is why Auschwitz must continue to exist, not merely as a museum but as a living example of the dark side of our species. For we are now what the masters of Auschwitz were then... beings capable of the unspeakable, not just in those damp and pestilential Polish fields and forests where the death camp grew... but everywhere on this seething planet that knows all the varieties of hatred so well.
To find out how you can help preserve and restore Auschwitz and related projects, contact:
Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston
126 High St.
Boston, MA 02110
At: 617.457.8600 | f: 617.988.6255

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 historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ray Wisniewski <a href="http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

'Do not go gentle into that good night.' Hosni Mubarak toughs it out as Barrak Obama pleads with him to get out!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Could it be that Egyptian president Hosni Mobarak has been spending his leisure time these days reading Welsh poet Dylan Thomas? It certainly looks that way.  After all what Thomas wrote in 1951 must speak to the soul of 82- year old Mubarak today:
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right.
For the last week or so Mubarak was like an aging champ, past his prime, being beaten down and down again. The world saw, but could not quite believe, that this octogenarian tyrant,  with more power than the pharaohs before him, would go without a fight.
The revolutionaries, the children of Egypt who had grabbed the attention of the world and were about to evict the dictator, could not believe their good luck. As they gained momentum every day, it seemed that changing regimes was child's play indeed.
But, it was all rope-a-dope, with Muhammad Ali the model. Rope-a-dope is performed by a boxer assuming a protected stance, in Ali's classic pose, lying against the ropes; allowing his opponent to hit him and hit him and hit him again. The opponent thinks he's winning.... but he's actually tiring himself, while his opponent "rests". The attacker, hoodwinked, is being readied for the counter attack.
In due course, predictably, the attacker flags, thereby creating an opening which can be exploited by the old fox, the real champ... and so to victory, again.
Mr. Mubarak knows this trick, and several others, and he now means to show us each and every one of them. The world has written him off... but that, he knows, is not the end of the story.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night.
Mr. Mubarak has now let it be known, especially to one time friends who have fast deserted, so many rats, that he will not go, gentle or otherwise; that he will stay until September, 2011 when his term ends.
And so the next phase of the Egyptian revolution begins.
For the last week or so, the initiative was entirely, completely with the revolutionaries. These youngsters, for they are, most of them, still wet behind the ears, seized the world's attention and admiration from the unlikely platform of Facebook. There they called upon all the disaffected of Egypt to rally in Cairo, to rally for change... for an end to Mubarak's increasingly ramshackle administration, contemptible but still lethal.
The response was immediate, electric, overwhelming, as Facebook showed Mubarak and every other unsavory despot on earth that you can challenge regimes the electronic way, that Facebook was good for far more than picking up chicks. Now it could uplift an entire population and topple imperial thrones.
It was crazy, man. The stuff of legend and made-for- television movies.
Mubarak, his back against the ropes, his back against the wall, Mubarak bided his time... and worked furiously behind the scenes, the most active and focused octogenarian on earth.
He had not accepted the "inevitable." He did not mean to go. He would not make it easy, would not gratify fair weather friends and waxing revolutionaries.
They did not know Mubarak and, come what may, he was fully determined that they should.
Mubarak, born May 4, 1928, came from the Egyptian lower middle class.  Amenities were few; evidence of scrimping was everywhere. There was too little at hand, too long to wait to get it. And Mubarak, even in his early days, was nothing if not determined, ambitious, never content to make do with less.
Such a man gravitated naturally into the military... for, as always in the history of Egypt... military men knew the better life, the secret to a good life with little work. And if that comfy, privileged life began to pall, they had, one way and another, the means to improve it. Bit by bit, Mubarak mastered these ways, in approved Dale Carnegie fashion making friends, influencing people, especially powerful people, like Anwar Sadat (in power 1970-1981).
Mubarak let it be known to such people that he would do anything, anything at all, to ascend. Powerful people know the value of such limitless assistance, for such people need clean hands and deniability. Helpful people like Mubarak provide both.
And so he moved up, from merely valuable to indispensable, a man of action... a man of destiny.
Of course along the way, he coarsened, as Lord Acton admonished so many years ago. Power did corrupt and absolute power did corrupt absolutely. But Mubarak, having made his deals with the devil, was content... most of the time, at least.
"It is a very tough job," he once told a television interviewer. "All you seem to do is wake up to trouble and sleep to trouble."
Whatever troubles he has had in the past, he well and surely has troubles now and to spare. However, he who made a fetish of unprincipled advancement is yet the Mubarak of old. He has resources, the resources of Egypt, at his disposal. What, then, matter the  jeremiads, exhortations and self-serving advice from Washington if that advice does not keep Egypt in his pocket? Make no mistake,  Egypt, so hard to possess, having possessed he means to keep.
That is why in these early February days, Mubarak is hard at work.  He has discarded members of his government who cannot help him maintain his ascendency. He has summoned his thousands to march in his favor in Cairo and so demonstrate how vibrant and alive his regime remains.  And he has informed President Obama and his emissaries, no doubt politely, to pipe down and get out of the way. He is not, after all, dead meat yet.
Mubarak knows, of course, that the odds are against him. After all, the army he once thought was his to command, has now made clear that they will not fire on Egyptians peacefully seeking change. That was a signal indeed about what they thought of Mubarak's chances to remain in power.
Mubarak says he simply wants to serve out his term. But, we all know and Mubarak knows we know, that he is angling for time... time to make a new deal with the devil, a deal that will enable him to keep the power he has given up everything to grasp.
Thus,  while other men his age and even younger putter around the golf course today chasing a little white ball, Mubarak is convening all the resources of his diminished but still potent hegemony.
And, at night, he reads his Dylan Thomas and girds his loins, in Biblical fashion, for the last, great fight. For he is Mubarak still and will not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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 an American historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ray Wisniewski     http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/

'How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm...' An appreciation for the life of Milton Levine, inventor of the ant farm, dead at 97... and the denizens therein.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Like over 20,000,000 kids nationwide and not a few adults, I had an ant farm. My brother Kevin had one, too; being intensely competitive we couldn't share just one. In the next generation, my discerning nephew Kyle also got one. Being so bright, he managed to get his at age 4 or so. He used the simple expedient of grabbing one in a variety store and refused to put it back on the shelf, threatening total mayhem and general ear-piercing shrieks if denied. He loved it even more than we did.
The fellow all  of us had to thank for countless hours of absorbing fun,  hands-on instruction, and unabashed admiration was Milton Levine, a man who turned an incident at a 1946 California picnic into a multi-million dollar enterprise.
The incident in question was one we have all had. Levine was at his sister's, pool side, when he noticed a  conga-line of ants moving inexorably from their hill to Levine's 4th of July spread. Industrious to a fault, these critters were doing what they do best, engineering a take-over of supplies.
Levine had seen ants before, but he had never perceived ants before, never much thought of them except as pests; (that's the feeling that comes first). But, eureka, he had that "aha!" moment that all ant lovers have... and all entrepreneurs, too.
He remembered how as a boy on his uncle's farm in  Pennsylvania he had collected ants in a jar. He thought that other children would find them as supremely fascinating as he did. He confided this insight to his brother-in-law E.J. Cossman and, as things developed, proposed a partnership.
It was a shrewd choice. Cossman was an incipient mail order wizard...
Uncle Milton's Ant Farm was the result.
It caught on at once which admittedly was a surprise to Uncle Milton and his brother-in-law, but not to the ants themselves. They knew just how fascinating and irresistible they are.
Although never surveyed on the matter, the ants recruited by Uncle Milton definitely liked the homey environment he created for them: a bucolic panorama of a farmhouse (the kind of place where  Levine had grown up). The farmhouse sat beside a winding path to a barn and windmill above a warren of ant tunnels, all encased in plastic. The whole package was just 6-by-9 inches. It was enough to showcase an entire civilization, a whole world.  Boys worldwide (for it was overwhelmingly a "boy thing") had it in their bedrooms... and stopping by to check it out would stay for hours, engrossed.
And the whole kit and caboodle set you back just $1.98.
Soon, very soon, the partners were selling thousands of farms a week. Clever, if folksy, television ads drove the sales as children just home from school discovered the ant's world was even more interesting than their previously favorite shows.
The star of this show was the California red ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus. This is an iconic ant of deserts and other arid habitats in North and South America. These conspicuous insects are normally granivorous, playing ecologically important roles as scavengers and seed dispersers. Pogonomyrmex is also known for having a uniquely painful sting. I wonder how many youths discovered this notable fact on their own...  Most members of the genus Pogonomyrmex have a basket-like structure on the underside of their head made from long hairs. Called the psammophore, it helps the ants carry loose sand in low-humidity climates where sand grains do not stick together easily.
But, as in all businesses, there were quite distinctive problems to overcome. Setting up was cumbersome. You purchased the farm, then sent a coupon to the company which got you a vial containing 25 worker ants. This took several weeks, and the ants occasionally arrived -- dead.
What about the all-important queen? Here was the real problem. Federal law prohibited shipments of queen ants across state lines, no mating ensued on the farms, so another vial of ants had to be ordered within a few months... unless the owner captured some in the backyard.
And what did the ants eat and drink? More work for you!  Here's what the company's website says:
Western Harvester ants enjoy small pieces of fruits and vegetables, the fresher the better. So, apples, lettuce, carrot, granola and celery will really please your ants. Don't overfeed the ants. They only need 1 or 2 small pieces every three days. Remove any uneaten food with tweezers to keep mold from growing in the ant farm that could harm your ants.
Now, just as important as the question, “What do ants eat?” is the question, “What do ants drink?” Just like pretty much every other creature – mammal, insect, reptile, amphibian, etc – on earth, ants need water to survive. However, they do not need very much. To give your ants water, you simply need to give them a few drops each day. The sand in the ant farm should not be saturated. In fact, you need to make sure that the water does not pool on top of the surface, otherwise your ants may drown. If you mix in a little sugar with their water once a week, your ants will love you. It will make them busy little beavers, so to speak  – you have not seen energy until you have seen some ants with a sugar buzz!
But, in the end, despite its onerous aspects, the ants carried the day and made the ant farm a huge success. Said Milton Levine, "Most novelties, if they last one season, it's a lot. If they last two years, it's a phenomenon. To last this long is unheard of." In 2010, Uncle Milton Industries, based in Westlake Village, California was sold to the Transom Capital Group for over $20,000,000.
Levine summed up his relationship to Pogonomyrmex californicus thus: "I found out their most amazing feat yet. They put three kids through college"... and gave the rest of us countless hours of congenial visiting and learning. They are, after all, highly attractive and entrancing creatures.
For lovers of ants, and they are legion, the books of Harvard professor E.O. Wilson are key. Check out "Lord of the Ants"  and (with Bert Holldobler) "The Ants." Years ago Prof. Wilson took time from his busy schedule to draw an ant for my 4 year old nephew Kyle and inserted it into an autographed copy of his book. He's a true gentleman and scholar. Check out this link...                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPvGmUMp60o&NR=1&feature=fvwp
 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 an American historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ray Wisniewski  http://cashgrowthunlimited.com/