Author’s program note. Religious fervor, religious metaphors, religious language, religious dispute, religious assertiveness, religious iconography, religious music all pulsate through every aspect of the Great Republic, its life and affairs. And that is why the Founding Fathers as their first order of business and to establish the tone and substance for all that followed, wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution. In sparse, incisive, resolute, unequivocal language they rendered their bold and well considered opinion thus:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

These sentiments were the more necessary because of the very vibrancy of religion and all of its manifestations in the Great Republic… for every religion, (because of its adamant belief that its way to God is The way to God), is messianic, exclusive, intolerant, and so potentially divisive, disruptive, even dangerous.

And no one knew this better than the great and thoughtful Founding Fathers who had as their matter of high and abiding significance the preservation of the many great things rendered by religion… whilst avoiding the imperial tendencies of all religions, to uplift themselves, even unto the seizure of the Great Republic, whilst denigrating the rest.

The great problem set, these same Founding Fathers commenced their high business of solving it. For make no mistake about it, the objective of the Founding Fathers was not the crippling control and suppression of religion so much as it was creating an atmosphere and civic establishment in which religions — all religions — might flourish to the glory and benefit of the Great Republic they were crafting and meant to have.

Thus I give you the occasional music for this article, and a better tune one could hardly have for this subject: “Give Me That Old-Time Religion.”  It’s a traditional Gospel song dating from 1873. Charles David Tillman took this song, which may have originated as a black folk song, and by his publishing and enthusiasm for its adamant, uplifting message turned it into a staple of white congregations and so it has abided, a joyful manifestation of the Good News.

To get it, go now to any search engine. You’ll  find many fine renditions of this song; I prefer the get-up-and-praise Him version belted out by Mahalia Jackson, Hallelujah… for if it was good enough for my father… good enough for my mother… then it’s good enough for me!

The background to the First Amendment.

To a person, the men who constituted the Founding Fathers, were men knowledgeable about religion, its history, uses, practices, and tendencies. As a result, they were  haunted, almost to a person, by the damages religion could deliver, as well as its comforts. And they knew, none better, that left to its own devices religion could chill individual inquiry rather than encourage it, could become the harsh means of fettering the human mind, not advancing it. And what they wanted, to the point of obsession, was a land of liberty, not a land where uniformity of view was the order of the day, and  was enforced by priests, pastors, and pontiffs; different in their views, the same in their devices for achieving them; working each to control with bell, book, and candle.

They, too, were aware that such a land, so unfettered in its thoughts, a paradise for every believer not just one, had never existed in the history of mankind where uniformity of outlook reigned as the desired objective. As a result the Founding Fathers, here as elsewhere, found themselves on the cutting-edge of this crucial matter of statecraft and belief…. and they gave the matter their utmost consideration… for no question exercised them more that what they could do to place the people of the new republic into a proper, sustained relationship with their common Creator.

They selected a solution Erastian, latitudinarian, tolerant.

Tolerance for all, hegemony and control for none. This became their guiding light , and they found vital sustenance for it amongst the works of Thomas Erastus, (1524-1583), a 16th century German physician and theologian. He held that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power and that holy communion was open to all. Thus should the church and its ministers be made subservient to the officials of the government, rather than these officials of the government made subservient  to the church and its ministers.

They looked, too, to the cool reason of John Locke (1632-1704), who advocated, first and foremost, a tolerance which had, perhaps, never been seen before… a latitudinarian whose profound thoughts once glimpsed became the abiding vision of all sensible people, and the basis for civil peace, not internecine strife.

From such beginnings did the idea of religious tolerance grow, until at last it was written and proclaimed in the First Amendment, as the very essence of what we stood for as a Great Republic and who we wanted to be. Thus as the Founding Fathers surveyed it, they saw their work whole… and knew it to be a great resolution to a great problem, a great policy indeed for the Great Republic.

.. and from the moment of its inception it has done its work…

JFK, admirable in Houston.

Then John Fitzgerald  Kennedy ran for president… and many people worried that as a Roman Catholic he would sabotage this verity, pledging instead fealty to the Bishop of Rome, rather than the Great Republic. And so, he went to Houston where before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association he presented himself and his views. The date was September 12, 1960… and it was perhaps his most admirable day on Earth; for on this day he stated with vehemence and resolution these words:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” And if, perhaps, he did not persuade all the reverend doctors present (for some were not to be persuaded) he did persuade the people of the Great Republic, who in their turn elected him…thus proving with their ballots the kind of inclusive, tolerant, pacific society they desired and affirmed.

It is this society, this vision, the most profound ever imagined that one little man has challenged, in a way at once crude, graphic and alarming.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute.” Rick Santorum, (College of Saint Mary Magdalen, Warner, New Hampshire, October 2011 and reaffirmed thereafter).

“The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and visions of our country… to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up.”

This is the statement of a zealot, a demagogue, a radical… and thus a danger to the community, the comity, the country… and to the Great Republic itself.

The firewall called Michigan held… but barely.

The results are now counted in Michigan which Tuesday, February 28, 2012 held one of the most important presidential primaries ever, and by just the smallest of margins denied Santorum and his radical views, views that would roil the essential verities of the Great Republic and divide the people.

Is this the end of the war then? Alas, no. For this battle, which sensible citizens thought was settled centuries ago by the expansive vision of the Founding Fathers, is under attack by incendiaries like Santorum who mean to light their way to the God they arrogantly suppose they know with autos-da-fe, a ghastly light unto eternity.

That is why the rest of us must remain vigilant, for a right undefended is a right at risk… and this right has been too hard won to be threatened, much less eviscerated and destroyed, by a man like Santorum, for all that he fancies himself the agent of God and his Holy Will.

** What do you think? We invite your comments below.

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Gregory F King  http://www.homebizsupportnow.com

Today I shall not merely report on the news in all  its many aspects, at home and universally, but I shall, in a small but not insignificant way, make history… which is what Citizens do when they consider their nation, its affairs and directions, its  misadventures and glorious achievements and report their opinions, feelings, complaints, concerns and admonitions to the individual who is, for the moment, the chief magistrate of the Great Republic, a position granted by the people who remain the ultimate repository of all power… and who, therefore, are, in such reporting doing what they have the right and indeed the obligation and responsibility to do… for all that their language may, from time to time, become choleric, injudicious, and intemperate.

As one of these people, these Citizens, I am today writing for and immediately thereafter sending to my president my thoughts and observations at this moment in our history, for I sense a great sadness beginning to move across the land, which must give pause to every thoughtful member of the body politic.

I want you, Reader, to note the matter of how I have headed these remarks, for I am sending them not just to the President of the United States, but to “my president,” for first and foremost he is not just a quondam official, holding office from such a time to such a time. He is, instead, the lawful leader of my country, a nation in which my hopes and dreams, along with the hopes and dreams of unseen millions of my countrymen, reside. I therefore write because I must… for the stakes are far too great to be silent… and I trust that the first lesson to be drawn from this letter is that you, too, shall, with thought and high seriousness of purpose, send to your president the fruit of your wisdom and concern, for whatever divides us, we have everything to unite us…. the articles and means of governance, centuries of shared triumphs and adversities, the first fashioned, the second overcome by our united actions. We share hopes, dreams, visions, and the abiding knowledge that, of all peoples on this earth, we have created our realities… and so we must take action when our direction falters… and our vision is obscured.

… as it happening now, to the growing certainty, concern, lamentations and jeremiads of the people. And because all these are not the best of us… we call upon you, as we are in duty bound to do, to lead the people… exhort the people… lift up the people and return us intact, renewed to former greatness and greater greatness yet to come.

Mr. President, you came into office in a flood tide of exclamations, gratitudes, hosannahs… a man not merely of destiny but a man of reconciliation, joy, and healing purpose. You broke the stringent and oppressive color barrier, for every office and high position in the land, an invidious reality that too long oppressed a nation dedicated to eradicating the oppressions of others, yet for long unable to eradicate the oppressions we inflicted upon ourselves. You were a living symbol of all that is best in us. And we were glad of it… and thanked you for liberating all the people from the cancer of oppressing.

Now, however, the man who verily walked upon the water, is in danger of being swept out to sea, a victim of expectations too high, a man perhaps to be remembered and derided, for having peaked as president in his first hour on the job. What has caused this implosion, this great fall from grace and on high?

It is not the problems which assail us, for the Great Republic was conceived, born  and grew strong and proud because of great problems greatly engaged. Because we believed — and still I trust believe — that only from great problems solved can a great people evolve towards perfection.

It is not that the political climate is more divisive, harsh, noisome and belligerent than our Founding Fathers and their generations of descendants faced, for the political atmosphere and actions in this pantheon of strong opinions have often been incendiary, ad hominem, vulgar, and abusive. As a people we know the alchemy for turning such bile into unity. It is our particular genius.

Nor is it that we are less dedicated and committed to the usages of our great system of governance and life, for the blood and passions of our forefathers run strong in us, too.

What then is the cause for our disappointment, dismay, and of the incipience of despair and growing disillusion? And what then must we do?

There are many causes, profound, significant, challenging… and many are at work even now to bring solutions to the problems at hand. But your office, our customs and immemorial usage all dictate that you, our oathed and solemnly sworn leader take precedence in action and constructive purpose. And here you have faltered, and I wish to suggest why.

I am writing to you now from a neighborhood and institution you know well and loved, Cambridge and The Harvard Law School. There you learned and then mastered the principles and procedures of the law, one of the glories of our entire civilization. Here amongst the grassy precincts and serene buildings redolent of learning, judgement, and, above all, due process you found yourself and grew. You were happy here… but it did not prepare you for your current responsibilities, turbulences, conundra, attacks and altercations. As a result you are suffering… for lawyers learn how to divide pies… not how to make them. You are now the duly chosen Chief Baker… but without a recipe for sustaining and improving your aggrieved customers to be had.

These good people were at first confident, then patient, then exasperated, frustrated and irritated, now they have turned angry and exigent. They know what you should know: the casualties inflicted by global economic maelstroms and a host of related economic and social realities are greater than the greatest of wars. If a wreath was placed on the door of every individual adversely affected we should fall down in disbelief and horror. For the people know how great is the trouble in the land where God once shed His grace.

Your job, your only job, is to put America to work… for only an employed  America can be a happy land of serenity, security and sustained peace of mind. You are Commander- in-Chief. Thus declare war on America’s most pressing enemy, unemployment

Create a “war cabinet” and set up your headquarters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, already hallowed as a  place to secure and defend America’s interests. Make it known throughout the land that this is not an Obama initiative; it is an American initiative and therefore you call upon all Americans to do their bit, as their parents and grandparents did in World War II. And  if some oppose, let them. You have God’s work to do and cannot allow little men and their self-serving objections to hinder you. You are America’s leader, and you have America’s work to do.

Every time any business or organization adds a job, post a notice and laud the job creators. They are all heroes in a war we must fight and we must win. They deserve recognition. Set up a website where you list jobs created. Go live on the Internet at least one each day and show and tell the American people just what you are doing and results achieved. Our people  do not understand our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they will all understand this.   You are at a crossroads of your life and office. But there is a grand, honorable and necessary thing which you can do. Leave the many good things you would do if you had world enough and time. Focus on the one thing we must have now and without which we can achieve little else. Embrace your true calling, sir, and lead the endeavor to put America to work. It is what’s needed… a goal we can reach together and must start today.

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 Gregory F King HomeBizSupportNow.com

Not only have we disregarded the critical maintenance of the infrastructure that provides us safe transportation – we have similarly disregarded the underlying technology components and computing environment our business processes rely upon.  I’m talking about everything in the IT space ranging from servers, storage systems, networks, and critical third party business applications.  This is a widespread business condition which should be treated with equal emphasis as our transportation systems – perhaps even more.

What we have seen is basically a longstanding pattern of cost reduction starting for many companies as far back as the Y2K event.  Perhaps it was in reaction to the cost of Y2K remediation, at least initially.  Regardless of the instigator though, IT departments all across the U.S are now faced with a daily struggle to maintain both legacy hardware and software that provide critical business processes, such as point of sale systems, financial reporting systems, human relations systems, and even regulatory compliance systems and software.  The patterns include usage  of hardware well past its useful life, continued use of legacy software products well beyond supportability by vendors, and the dropping of support agreements and maintenance contracts across the board.

An even more alarming trend is the radical off shoring of the IT staffs and other white collar workers that stood up much of this now legacy environment – for which little offshore expertise exists.  Ultimately we are faced with just one more blatant example of the pursuit of profitability not by virtue of product or service improvement, but by virtue of acute cost cutting.  This chronic focus on short term economic performance has had a profound impact on our economy that will likely continue unless and until we take a longer view of both business profitability as well as national economic health.

A popular sentiment is that government regulation is an inhibitor of progress.  If we accept that transportation safety is of social consequence such that it is worthy of our attention and budgets – why then wouldn’t we apply the same logic to U.S. computing environments?  Old systems have un-addressed security issues.  Old hardware breaks down frequently, runs more slowly, and represents a support cost burden in excess of the cost to replace – due mostly to performance gains achieved over the past 8-10 years.

Should key financial reporting systems be allowed to run on unsupported software or hardware?  Should human relations environments be allowed to contain personal and confidential information while running on unsupported, insecure, and dilapidated hardware environments?  Left alone we have well seen what business will allow such environment to deteriorate to.  It is not at all unlike our roads and bridges.  It’s time to turn things around on both fronts.  Can you imagine the economic activity this will stimulate globally were we to require such environments to use current technology?

My point in all of this is to bring some focus to the state of technology in the U.S. business community.  Most have followed the example of their competitors by radically reducing costs rather than innovate or improve their product or service.  This has resulted in putting at risk their very ability to conduct business each day.  We need to exert a similar emphasis on their technological safety as well as our physical safety.

The old mindset that holds ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ is not an acceptable way for businesses to treat their IT environments.  IT is too critical to operations and continuity.  Business has an obligation to its owners, its employees, and the city and state it operates within.  It is even more so for globally traded international ones.  Ignoring your IT department is inherently risky, and the risks go beyond our roads and bridges.

There is genuine opportunity for many U.S. businesses to reverse the trend of turning over their IT workforce to outsourcers.  They should be using IT for competitive advantage through implementing newer technologies.  We’ve systematically ignored those things that are long term smart, in favor of short term cash management.  We leave our children a completely mortgaged future with little chance of turning it around.

It shouldn’t stop with roads, bridges, and IT infrastructures either. We ought to be retrofitting state and government buildings with solar technologies to lead the private sector to practical universal adoption.  Doing smart things now will have long term benefits beyond providing jobs, which we desperately need.

About the author:

Gregory King is the President & CEO of BYS Marketing LLC in Oklahoma CIty, OK.  BYS Marketing owns and operates numerous web sites besides CleanYourHomesAir.com, including:

http://www.greensolarmall.com
http://www.homebizsupportnow.com
http://www.kingmerchantservices.com

It’s time she either confirm that these declarations of hate and ignorance are still her views… or make clear she has changed her mind (very much her prerogative) as she has matured as a politician and human being.

America must know, for a candidacy based at least partly on disdain, condescension, and repeated statements advocating discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian citizens is unacceptable in 2011 and must be protested and vigorously attacked. Whatever previous presidents may have thought, believed, and said about homosexual citizens, their civil rights, including their right to marry whomsoever they wish in the exact way anyone can do, we have now reached a new chapter in this struggle; where the rights of gay citizens should be viewed as a beneficial inevitability and that the hurtful, ignorant, bigoted views of any presidential candidate immediately mark that candidate as unacceptable, threatening to the fundamental beliefs of the nation, where the granting and maintenance of rights is what we are about… not blocking those rights, thereby creating a two-tier, fundamentally inequitable society, where some get rights and benefits withheld to others.

“It’s part of Satan I think to say that this is ‘gay’. It’s anything but gay.” Minnesota state senator Michele Bachmann speaking at EdWatch National Education Conference, November 6, 2004. Does Bachmann still believe this, or not?

Bachmann’s insistent bigotry against homosexuals began when she adopted evangelical Christianity. Such people, obsessed with sexuality, particularly homosexuality keep a constant focus on a topic they know nothing about. But knowing about the subject is not required. It is enough that they use it to “prove” their superiority, for without designated whipping boys they would have no one to lord it over. Hatred towards designated people, their livestyles and beliefs, is an essential element of being “born again”. God in their pinched view is a God of vengeance… and they are quite prepared to tell you that God has made it clear who should be scourged and berated… and who should be exalted and sanctified. Let me make this point abundantly clear; the evangelicals of the United States demand scapegoats; homosexuals are  absolutely crucial to their well being.

Thus on the Sunday before the straw poll, Bachmann attended the Point of Grace Church, an evangelical megachurch with a 2,000 strong congregation in Waukee, Iowa. The program began when the lights were dimmed for a video testimonial from a “straight man who used to be gay.” The man is married now, his wife pregnant. Gays deserve to be in hell, he emphasized. He claimed to be living proof that the homosexual disease and affliction could be cured through liberal doses of prayer.

Bachmann listened to this standard bigoted attack and, through her smiling presence, indicated that she believed these sentiments, sentiments which she has advocated for years… and clearly still believes today.

“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” Further comments from the EdWatch National Education Conference, cited above. Does she still adhere to this opinion, or not?

“You have a teacher talking about his gayness. /The elementary school student/ goes home and says, ‘Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.’ The mother says, ‘Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.’ The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, ‘Hmmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.’ And you think, ‘Oh, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.’ Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.” Further comments from the EdWatch National Educational Conference, cited above. Does Bachmann still adhere to this opinion, or not?

Does Bachmann still believe homosexuals are “sexually dysfunctional”?

At the same EdWatch National Educational Conference cited above, Bachmann also said, “Don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgender. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life and sexual identity disorders.”

The weight of opinion in this nation has been shifting steadily for years toward a complete, overall acceptance of homosexuals and rightly so. Bachmann’s view is wrong in every particular, and she is already being called upon to explain her current position on the matter.

However, Bachmann is playing the standard political game around these outspoken, prejudiced positions. On the one hand, she wants her right-wing adherents to know, and in no uncertain terms, that she has not changed her position one iota. However, she also wants these folks, who constitute her essential core constituency, to know that she cannot be as outspoken on these matters as previously… because her ultra conservative supporters are insufficient to hand her the nomination. She must expand her base, to folks who are far more moderate on the homosexual question, especially gay marriage, and would not only feel uncomfortable with Bachmann’s views on the subject but would oppose her outrageous language and unnecessary malevolence towards fellow law-abiding, tax- paying citizens of the United States.

Thus Bachmann, famous for her uncompromising views on any subject she takes up, is now doing some fancy footwork that will (wink, wink) reassure her most ideological followers that she is still the old Michele they love… while reaching out to moderates with a very different rendition.

And now the cherry on the cake..

On March 6, 2004, Bachmann was a guest on “Prophetic Views Behind the News” on KKMS 980-AM hosted by Jan Markell. She said, “It isn’t that some gay will get some rights.  It’s that everyone else in our state will lose rights. For instance, parents will lose the right to protect and direct the upbringing of their children. Because our K-12 public school system, of which ninety percent of all youth are in the public school system, they will be required to learn that homosexuality is normal, equal, and perhaps you should try it. And that will occur immediately, that all schools will begin teaching homosexuality.” Does Bachmann still adhere to this grab-bag of intolerance, misinformation, ignorance, and malignity? America demands and deserves a straight answer.

Last words

Michele Bachmann has served in her state’s senate and in the Congress of the United States. From this combined public service she can point to absolutely no legislation of her sponsorship that benefited anyone except her own political agenda. She has no foreign policy experience, she knows nothing of national defence, she has no immigration policy and has no economic, financial or job-creation experience. She is a poorly educated woman who would need home schooling in the White House. Her strong suit is religious mummery, a smug certainty that she knows God and understands His will, and how to create sound bites which get the attention of a slothful nation, wanting quick fixes to endemic problems.

But above all else, we cannot afford the luxury of a candidate, much less a president who carries the burden of such hostility, spite, rancor and aversion to so many of our best and most productive citizens, whose mere presence on this planet she finds unsettling and unacceptable. Challenged though we are, we have not yet sunk so low in America as that, to see in Michele Bachmann a president, a woman who would divide rather than unify us. In conclusion, I refer her to the greatest man her party has yet produced, a man who spoke of “malice towards none, with charity for all.” Thus Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address… the man who died bringing together the great nation this misguided woman would rend.

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 Gregory F King <a href=”http://HomeBizSupportNow.com”>http://HomeBizSupportNow.com</a>.

Author’s program note. If you are lucky in the blog which sent you this article, a well oiled and eye-catching picture of bodybuilder Albert Arroyo accompanies the text. If you don’t have it, go to any search engine to find pictures of this now notorious x-Boston, Massachusetts fire fighter. You will have no trouble finding plenty; for Albert was a man born for the camera… and pumping iron videos, too. You’ll find that the photographic and video documentation is substantial… our Albert loved the lime light and applause… Now he’s bombarded with more of it than he ever dreamed of or bargained for. Sadly it’s all negative. As for the title of this article, “Why was he born so beautiful?…” this is a tune sung by raucous soccer lads. I have been unable to find a reference to it in search engines; composer and date of composition are likewise unknown. That’s unfortunate for it’s a very peppy little number, equal portions of condescension, bombast, and insult.  Matey Brits love it… and so do university students who drop into this song at a moment’s notice.

Here’s how it happened…

For Boston firefighter Albert Arroyo, March and April  2008 were ostensibly rough months. He reported falling on March 21 and suffering a back injury so severe that, a few weeks later, his doctor wrote that Arroyo should be granted an accidental disability retirement because he is “totally and permanently disabled”.

Yet, on May 3, after being out of work for six weeks and collecting his full salary tax- free, Arroyo achieved a significant feat. He finished eighth in a men’s bodybuilding competition, the 2008 Pro Natural American Championships.

By late May, Boston fire commissioner Roderick J. Fraser, Jr. learned of Arroyo’s strict training regimen and his record as a competitive bodybuilder. Fraser urged the Boston Retirement Board to deny the application.Then in July, 2008, the Boston Fire Department shifted Arroyo, then 46, from injured leave to regular sick leave, which is taxable, after its chief medical officer determined that any injury was not work-related.

A very public black eye for Boston and its pampered firefighters.

The story about Albert Arroyo could scarcely have come at a less felicitous time for Boston firefighters.  In mid-April 2008, a federal grand jury issued scores of subpoenas to Boston firefighters as part of a criminal investigation into years of questionable disability injury claims by retired and active firefighters of all ranks. Arthur Arroyo became the poster child of a sleaze-ridden system that over and over again granted pension disability payments to those who by no means qualified for them. It was a Boston scandal; one which seemed to be endemic to every mayoral administration, business as usual for all. This was especially true of Local 718, Boston Firefighters. It was a union marked by fraud, chronic cheating, and flagrant favoritism and mismanagement. The citizens of Boston, already hard-pressed by the great recession of those years, erupted in an avalanche of anger, outrage and (because of Arroyo’s bodybuilding, wearing little more than a smile) caustic humor, deadly and accurate. Long overdue reforms were a must and the Arroyo case helped insure they were started.

Fire commissioner Roderick J. Fraser, Jr., the man in the middle.

Fraser was relatively new (2006) to his important job. Fraser, a former naval officer, met fierce resistance from the Boston Firefighters Union in his strenuous effort to change the culture in a department long dominated by the union. Firefighters of every rank, except the commissioner, belong to the same union, and until Fraser arrived, commissioners had always risen through the ranks.

Arroyo’s application for a disability pension came as the department was roiled by embarrassing disclosures about questionable injury claims.

In January 2008, the (Boston) Globe reported that in the 6 previous years, 102 Boston firefighters has been granted enhanced disability pensions because their career-ending injuries occurred while they were temporarily filling in for superiors and being paid at the higher pay grade The additional cost to the city from paying those pensions at the higher grades will be about $25 million. When this figure was disclosed, citizens screamed again — and this time hitherto timorous political leaders decided to act. Again the (nearly naked) figure of Arroyo, now universally known throughout the metropolis, was a factor… he and his case were completely understandable… and when they understood citizens screamed bloody murder at the previously recalcitrant and hesitant city officials. This time these officials acted… and one of their first captures was Albert Arroyo. The man who  previously could waste a day or two deciding just how small his posing strap should be, highlighting by judicious selection,  now had real problems… the feds charged him with applying for a $65,000 a year fraudulent tax-free, accidental-disability retirement benefits package. If proven, the charge could send Arroyo away for up to twenty years, ironically the very length of his service as a firefighter.

Trial underway now.

The trial is now underway in Bean Town.

Having a good basic knowledge of how the law works is important for every citizen of the great Republic. Every citizen is in this sense a repository of what the law is and how it functions. If you’re such a citizen, congratulations. You are doing your great task as a citizen. Such people, now jurors,  are even now reviewing Arroyo’s robust, healthy lifestyle since he claimed to be disabled of playing baseball, shopping, dining out, visiting a tanning salon and taking out-of-state trips. They will seek to show by pointing to each thing he did which as a disabled person he should not have done; that his disability was bogus, a fraud from first to last.

The defense has a more difficult task. They must show that while Arroyo was disabled  for certain things (like inspecting buildings for the Fire Department) he was most assuredly not disabled for others (like playing baseball… and competing in high stress, high stakes male bodybuilding competitions). Their’s then will be a defense of slicing carefully and hoping they can get the jury to buy into what could be a defense that does not defend.

Good and lasting effects of this fraudulent Boston firefighter pension business.

1) Local 718 Boston Firefighters Union got a wake-up call. Your job is not to protect people who lie, deceive, make-up in order to get a significant pension. Your job is to protect the public by making sure only the best firefighters are selected… and bad firemen are not rewarded but sacked.

2) If you’re the doctor Arroyo went to first to certify his disability (that would be Dr. John  F. Mahoney, Dorchester neurologist) ask yourself why you didn’t see anything odd in the perfectly buff, symmetrical and sculpted patient before you that was requesting disability. Some think you never met Albert Arroyo at all… or if, when  you did, you didn’t bother to actually look at him. Of course now you’re scrambling to show that  you really did examine the man, really.

3) If you’re Fire Commissioner Roderick J. Fraser, Jr., watch out…. In Boston if you’re on the right side of the wrong issue the long knives await you… and for gouging  this sacred cow,they definitely want to snuff you. Beware.

And as for Arthur Arroyo, you most assuredly will never get that $65,000 tax-free each year… and a trip to the pokey is likely. There you can practice your posing to your heart’s content. Just don’t drop any soap in the shower.

The Republican strategy of doing whatever it takes to ruin Barak Obama’s Whitehouse residency is amazing.  Were the roles reversed – the Democrats would be accused of treason.  These people want bad things to happen to everyone – including the world – just for the joy of eviscerating Barak’s rule.  Yes, even worse than that they choose to ignore the millions of people struggling to find jobs right now.

Let us analyze their current position on just about everything and how it fares with the current problems in the world – and more noteworthy its effect on the country they swore to serve.

Obama-Care: Term coined by the right wing to somehow anoint our president with a noble if not underpowered attempt to bring more people into the insured category.  Sad part here is that it simply didn’t get what most people and employers would benefit from – a single payer system.  It fell miserably short of its potential – thanks predominantly to the right wing and the insurance industry enormous influence in Washington.  FACT:  The overwhelming majority of voters want a single payer system.  One of the most prominent runaway cost items for American families is health care.  The ‘for profit’ insurance industry is zapping our economy at double digit inflation rates – needlessly.

Tax-cuts: Right wing is religious about taxes to the point of ostracizing any of their own members who don’t sign a pledge to adhere to their no new taxes pledge.    This is an unbalanced equation for the Republicans right now.  In their current view, we could solve all our problems permanently and forever were we to not have any taxes.  This is a purely false and artificial premise that is not supported by the voters and fails to take into account all the myriad social programs that people are willing to pay for and have come to expect.  FACT:  The overwhelming majority of voters want higher taxes for the wealthy. Taxes do redistribute wealth – and that’s their issue.  They firmly believe that accumulated wealth is to be protected at all costs.  Its irrational at best when one considers the next step, once all wealth is accumulated?  We’ve seen that for the last ten years – economic stagnation.

Organized Labor: This may be the undoing of the Republican Party in the end.  Organized labor was born in this country.  It helped build an amazing infrastructure that has served our nation incredibly well and won a couple of wars along the way.  Why the push from Republicans to do away with organized labor?  To eliminate any form of collective bargaining between employers and laborers, that’s why.  Companies will be free to drive down wages, reduce or eliminate benefits, and further divide our country into the haves and have nots.   FACT:  The overwhelming majorities of voters are sympathetic to organized labor and are against the recent hostile actions by the Republican Party. What’s amazing here is the boldness of their outright desire to strip away what took decades to establish – based simply on budget rationale.  A budget crisis of their own making, not surprisingly.

The National Debt:  Republicans successfully clouded the minds of, well themselves, by confusing the establishment of a debt ceiling with the process of approving the expenditures that make upward adjustments necessary.  It should come as no surprise that 2/3s the national debt was incurred at the hands of a Republican controlled Whitehouse.  Republicans somehow refuse to stomach the 1/3 that Barak Obama feebly spent in an effort to bail out the unregulated banks, automobile industry, and horribly underfunded economic stimulus package.  The expenditures were undermined by continued tax relief to the extremely wealthy, and refusal of the right wing to seriously address health care costs and the economic recession they fostered. FACT:  The overwhelming majority of voters agree that tax increases for the wealthy is a preferable alternative to drastic cuts in medicare, social security, or any other social programs that benefit larger numbers of people.

Ethics and Honesty:  This country is desperately reeling from the effects of a ethically impaired and chronically dishonest group of republicans, whose follow up act goes by the name of the ‘Tea Party’.   Consider the Iraq war (those weapons of mass destruction we never found), the ruined reputations of those who disagreed with the decision to go to Iraq.  It didn’t just cost us trillions of dollars – it cost American soldiers their lives!  When people get killed as a result of dishonesty – well that’s criminal negligence at minimum.  George Bush cannot travel the world incidentally.  He’s considered a war criminal in many places.

When the Republicans chose to deregulate the savings and loan industry – what happened?  Surely somebody remembers that scandal, don’t they?  So what did they do when next they came to power?  They deregulated the banking industry.  We all know what happened next.  The biggest money rip-off scam the world has ever known resulted.  It affected the entire world!  Everyone needs to get it in their head – that Republicans don’t know economics at all.  Ronald Reagan didn’t either, and that’s where many of today’s twisted economic ideologies come from.  Ask any college economics professor about our economic problems.  They are fundamental – and the result of poor decisions made over a good number of years – predominantly Republican years.

So here were are, August 2011, and fresh out of the most moronic political chicanery month we’ve seen in recent history.  House Speaker got 98% of what he was after… huge spending cuts and no tax increases on the wealthiest Americans (of which he just happens to be himself).  That action guarantees flat job growth.. continued wealth sitting on the sidelines, and now has incurred the negative specter of the world financial markets. It’s entirely possibly this will trigger global meltdowns of other fragile economies throughout the rest of the world.   At least they can say ‘it happened on Barak’s watch’, eh?

My vote is we put a few of their heads on sticks and plant them outside the Congress so future representatives know what is in store for them when they refuse to do the will of their constituents.  Maybe we could alternate their heads.  A wall street banker, then a Tea Partier, and so one..

I’d also vote to increase taxes on the wealthiest, as well as for a single payer health insurance system so we’re competitive with all those countries who are taking our middle class jobs away.   If those wealthy people don’t like it – they can move out, like our jobs did.  The country is for ALL the people, not just the moneyed interests.   The majority rules in a democracy too.  It’s not corralled like cattle by a radical few.

One last thing, I’d do too.  People could register to vote over the phone.  I want as many voters as we can in all our elections.  Anyone who doesn’t feel that way shouldn’t be allowed to serve in public office.  Voter fraud is statistically zero – no matter what those knuckleheads say!

The tea partiers don’t know fundamental economics.  You just can’t realistically compare our national government with a typical family budget.  A freshman macroeconomics course pretty much lays it out.  The government is the single largest consumer of good and services on earth.  When it contracts – the economy will contract.  When it expands the economy exponentially expands.   The operative word here is of course ‘exponentially’.    Money multiplies when it’s being used, not when it’s idle.

Millions of people come home each day from looking for jobs to a numbing diatribe on fundamental economics that is nothing short of very BIG LIES.  What makes no sense in all of this is to find the motivator for all of this.  Who wins if we give the tea partiers what they want?  The answer is absolutely nobody.  Businesses will lose big.  We will see more job losses.  We can expect interest rates to skyrocket.  We can expect the stock market to tumble.  Can anyone understand what these guys are after?  If they were airplanes I would swear they are trying to crash into the buildings down town.

It’s time to brand these people what that clearly are: wacko nutcases.  Our founding fathers owned slaves.  They didn’t free them.  Organized labor keeps business that are labor intensive more honest and fair.  The bail out of the banks was a net good thing for business and everyone else.  The fact that we’ve not regulated the banks to keep it from happening again is shameful.    You want a rich person to create a job?  Sorry, they are too busy outsourcing them – haven’t you heard?

Having complete confidence in private industry is a false premise.  Businesses are there to serve a purpose and make profits along the way – nothing else.  They either adapt and survive or become obsolete and fade away.  Banks that handle money – MUST be regulated.  Corporations must not be treated as human beings – because they aren’t human beings.

If we succumb to the tea party crowd the country and our economy will implode.  The far right has opposed some very historically significant social accomplishments.  For example:

-          Organized labor

-          Graduated tax tables

-          Reproductive rights of women

-          Voter Registration assistance

-          Unemployment assistance

-          Medicare

-          Social Security

Now ask yourself what is the position of the majority of us on these issues?   Overwhelming approval, of course.  To say we can’t afford such things now – but can bail out the banks, or go to war looking for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction?  Or provide unfunded tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of us?  These same conservatives also argued for liberating gun ownership.  Do they have a death wish as well?  Once the history books are written we’ll look back on these days and wince with shame and embarrassment for allowing such snake oil salesmen to garner our attention at all.

Don’t look now but we have presidential candidates who know neither history nor economics running for office.

I gathered up several of the Blockbuster holiday gift cards that had accumulated at the house over the holidays and took them in to rent a movie or two.  Imagine my surprise when the guy at the counter calmly announces to me ‘we don’t honor those any more.’

The look on my face begged him to go on, which he did.  He proceeded to tell me that the new owners had decided unilaterally not to honor the quarter of a million gift cards floating around out there in consumers hands.  My reaction them as it is now is a rather dumbfounded ‘huh?’.

For what it’s worth.  I’ve no idea how we got into the position where business can take money for nothing, an advance purchase in this case, and then subsequently refuse to honor the arrangement.  Isn’t that illegal?  If not it should be.

I rather suspect the cash that was gathered by the sale of gift cards went into the company’s balance sheet.  Question is as what?  I would think its a liability, rather than a donation to their cause, as it’s turned out to be.

How many others out there were similarly duped into buying these things.  I shall no longer buy gift cards as a result of this – as there appears to be no consumer recourse for the apparent fraud being perpetrated on consumers.

I would love to hear from similar victims.  Perhaps some starving pro-bono type of legal assistance might hear the call and grab at this splendid opportunity too.  They’re still in business in my neighborhood.  Let’s tie up their bankruptcy with a good old fashioned class action.

I welcome everyone’s thoughts..

… Greg

P.S.  Blockbuster Inc, U.S. bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No 10-14997

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/blockbuster-auction-idUSN0416309520110404

Author’s program note: There was never any doubt about which music I’d recommend for this article… it was “The Little GTO”. It was first recorded by Ronny and the Daytonas in 1964; later it went cosmic with the rendition by the Beach Boys. Right from the first line — “Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine…” this tune moves. You’ll find it in any search engine. Watch out… when you play it you’re 18 all over again…

This is a story that every boy who was not cool in high school can relate to. It’s a story about that day you were down at the beach (if  you were in Beach Boys territory it had to be Zuma). You had gone with your best bud Herbie, but he was the president of the Chess Club. You couldn’t say a word to  him; all he knew was Harvey Mudd. He’d never understand… there was no point in telling him…

Then, there it was… first for just the shortest instant as it made the turn towards the beach… … you knew exactly where it was.

Then, the sun in your eyes, a burst of color — it was ice-cold metallic blue… something cool against the heat of the day…

Then the first glance, that mobile palace of an insouciant prince of the road… his eyes dead ahead. You knew he wasn’t looking at you… but he knew you…. and every other person on that oiled body packed beach — were looking at him…

… and at the girl lucky enough to have the privilege in being his prop du jour. She had been carefully chosen by the driver… right down to the way her lightly frosted hair blew in the wind (no detail too small)… but only the clueless missed the point: the focus was not the girl… but the girl in the car…

“… let ‘em know… that I’m the coolest thing around”.

And so it was….. as you ate your heart out… knowing you ached… for the car, the girl… and the profound satisfaction of being a prince in command of a certified muscle car. No wonder you barked at Herbie and told him to shut up already about Harvey Mudd, when everybody knew he couldn’t do any better than Santa Monica Junior College.  He looked hurt… maybe you’d make it up to him later…

Blu Sera 385 Spiders.

Every American boy cherished his own particular image of triumph and in every story there was a car… the car… the vehicle he not only wanted, but dreamed about, obsessive, in the places in the night only he could know.

For the subject of this article, let’s call him “Alt”, that object of acute, obsessive desire was the Ferrari 348 “Blu Sera” (Metallic Evening Blue)  Spider, made only in 1994 and 1995. Alt discovered through assiduous research that the other Spider colors, red, yellow, black, and white were common, hence instantly dismissed as inferior and infra dig.

Alt also discovered that the rarest interiors were grey (always spelled the English way, never “gray”). Like I said, NO detail was too small. We’re talking about The Dream and no one dreams of acquiring anything but perfection.

In due course Alt graduated from high school and put childish things behind him; only the “Blu Sera” wasn’t a childish thing… it was a part of him, something that tugged at his heart and wouldn’t go away.  Godlike though it was, it might have been sent by the Devil, so insistent was the thought reiterated over and over in his brain. He wanted it. He had to have it. He couldn’t live without it. It was just as simply complicated as that.

Oscar Wilde, who understood the nuances and depths of desire, would have told him, “The only way to overcome temptation is to yield to it.”

Enter The Wife…

As every boy learns as he grows into a man with a boy’s desires… girls, even the wife who adores you… don’t get the “car thing”. A car, for them, is nothing more than a gas-guzzling necessity designed for moving screaming kids from Point A to Point B. If there’s an attractive gray interior (the English spelling means nothing to them), that’s terrific, but what matter? They know the kids will be autographing it with their spills and sticky hands. No, few women (maybe none) understand that a man makes eternal vows to only one thing: his dream car… adored in “sickness and in health”, committed till “death do you part.”

Alt had a dream. Alt  had a wife. Alt  had a  problem.

There was no problem, of course, until his Dream became reality. And because of the rarity of this car,  every arcane detail enhancing its desirability and decreasing its likelihood, there was no problem… except the problem of a man thwarted by what he could not possess.  And this he could live with, just.

Then came the day, on Ebay, when the dream became reality, not something of paint and metal but a partner of power and sensuality. It was intoxicating… it was within your grasp… it was a lot of money.  But there was no problem — yet. First, he had to be sure that this car, seemingly so perfect, right down to its grey interior, was The Car, His Car. He dogged the Ebay site, sick at the thought his baby would get away, but like all lovers he wanted what he wanted on his terms and his terms only. He watched, biding his time… and waiting. The car, his car, remained unsold, available, closer to his grasp.

First visit to his beloved.

Alt arranged to visit what looked to be, what quite possibly might be, the car of his dreams. He didn’t tell his wife he was going; why upset her until he knew this one was The One. He rationalized that this was better so, for her own good.

And so he went, dressing up as if for a first date to someone he had long desired.

A wealthy collector owned the car,  by great good fortune so close to Alt, he could easily drive there without arousing comment. He went (perhaps too quick for strategy)… and the car, deftly arrayed to best advantage, met him. It was there… in ice-cold blue… waiting for him, just as he’d always imagined.

The owner, who had no doubt his own experience with temptations and obsessions, wisely stayed out of sight… until he saw Alt run a caressing hand over the metal morphed by a master into enticing flesh. The collector knew… Alt knew… it was a  done deal… but there were the niceties to go through and the thrill of acquisition to mask. The value of the object demanded complete compliance to the code. And so it went…

Now Alt remembered The Wife and made this bow in her direction. “I have to clear it with the old ball and chain,” he said, feeling stupid, belittled, diminished at saying  so. But the man who held the keys to Alt’s desire casually said “you should have brought her; we could have settled it now.”

But Alt couldn’t explain (though the collector knew) that bringing her was impossible, like bringing her to the boudoir of a more favored lover. Impossible.

But the acid in the response, the condescension, aroused Alt… and so  they went toe to toe, the discarding lover, the acquiring lover, to arrange the terms of transfer, soon acceptable to both. It had been done by gentlemen, now friends.

There was now  only one obstacle left, the biggest, the wife. He mulled over his options… arranging with the seller to make delivery in three days. Alt needed some time…

And on the third day, Alt arranged with the cooperative seller to meet him a block away from his house, there to take possession; the seller to exit in a car driven by his son.

Now, not as suitor testing a vehicle, but as owner of what he always wanted, Alt got behind the wheel and drove to his home…. there to surprise the old ball and chain.

He didn’t need to be told her Irish was up. He knew. She was about to say Something Disagreeable… but Alt knew his business.

He ushered her into the front seat (no prop du jour) and told her,as if in a Confessional, about his dream, that he could put the girl of his dreams in the car of his dreams. It was schmaltz… overdone… but there was something in his eyes that made the girl melt.

And there was something in his hand, serious bling in a magnificent box, to seal the deal.

“C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO.”

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 Gregory F King <a href=”http://HomeBizSupportNow.com”>http://HomeBizSupportNow.com</a>.

Author’s note. To get into the mood of this special Father’s Day article, go to any search engine and find “Cat’s in the Cradle” sung by Harry Chapin in 1974. Its refrain is haunting, and every boy-turned-father understands the bite in the words, often painfully so…

“A child arrived just the other day”, February 16, 1947.

It was my birth day but, as I couldn’t possibly have known, it was the end of their honeymoon and that special tea-for-two idyll that comes only once. My parents married February 16,1946; I teased them for years about the importance of that last digit.

Like all babies, I expected, demanded and  maneuvered to be the center of their lives. It’s what babies do.

But I can imagine now what was going on in the weeks prior to that mad-dash to the hospital that transformed my beautiful young mother from a wife with a constituency of one… into a multi-tasking mother.

I was the first born child, first child, first son, first grandson on both sides; every one of these designations pushed omniscient women forward and my father back. The process, you see, in those post-War years was not made for fathers, no matter how caring. And, upon arrival, I monopolized my mother. I’ve told you, it’s what babies do… and even then I was masterful at my craft.

There must have been times, though no one to this day has ever said so, when he missed the bright, laughing eyed girl he’d married. She was the essence of the “fun on a date” ‘forties girl who had the gift of joy with lots to spare.

She gave me a clue years later, telling me she didn’t like children, didn’t mean to have any, and thought they looked like frogs. (Queen Victoria thought so, too). But, she quickly added and  always emphasized that all that changed when the nurse handed me over for my first visit, textbook perfect infantile innocence.

I’d “come into the world in the usual way”. And I was determined to keep the full and undivided attention of the woman who didn’t yet know how her own instincts would conduce to my constant benefit; literally born yesterday I didn’t need Dr. Spock to tell me that.

Into this new, unstudied situation my father had to move and move delicately for now words like “shhhhhh, he’s sleeping” meant sacrifice, limitations, and even unwonted loneliness. It was a sea-change from the happy “you-for-me-and-me-for-you” days of such recent memory.

“He learned to walk while I was away.”

Like most children I don’t know what I actually remember or what I have, from pictures and family stories, been taught to remember. But there is hardly a memory either way that is not more her than him. He worked hard, long hours, lucky to have a job in the recession that promptly came with our unqualified war victory. She was the center of my universe. And, like Chapin, my first steps were probably taken when he was being a “good provider”. But there is a story that sums up the situation.

One hot, humid Illinois summer day (are there any other?) when I was about three, my mother and I screamed for ice cream. But there was not a dollar to be had… except for a dollar bill my father had circulated amongst his Navy buddies, to be autographed by each. Such a token was not to be surrendered lightly, but it was surrendered nonetheless, for the delicacy of an instant and later, poignant regrets. He must have loved us very much to do such a thing… it says volumes about the man.

“My son turned ten just the other day. He said, “Thanks for the ball, dad, come on let’s play.”

In the suburbs of Chicago in the early Eisenhower years, you needed to be good at handling the balls of several sports… or so bright that you could afford to ignore sports because you were destined for greater things. My brother filled the first category; I filled the second. I knew my brother was easier to handle; he fit in, particularly the year he made the state Little League team, and we all trooped down to Freeport to watch him, resplendent in a uniform that said “Moose”; this was lifetime certification that he was a boy’s boy…

I was different, always with my nose in a book, the one who when asked at age 10 or so what he wanted to be when he grew up, without dropping a beat, said “Harvard graduate; millionaire; writer of many books.” II wasn’t what prairie parents were accustomed to hearing… What’s more, it all came true in due course…

Another celebrated incident took place about this time. My parents and I went to some local swimming hole for a day of the kind of innocent amusements I couldn’t wait to escape from. At the end of the day, it was, I  think, my mother who said the  inevitable line about their guests, “Cute couple. Great relationship.” That sort of thing. What did I  think? Without missing a beat I said I thought they had problems… and seer-like, foretold splitsvillle. Of course, I was told I was wrong, but just weeks later they separated. My stock soared… and my father pressed me less to fire a gun, build superb back yard igloos, throw a ball, you get the picture. He had to wonder about this creature sui generis.. and what his role as father might mean or entail.

I was not an easy child, although I say it myself, an interesting one. He must have seen I was moving beyond his sphere into uncharted waters. I could hardly wait until it happened and my joy at crossing another day off the calendar, the sooner to commence my Great Journey, must have been palpable, even affronting. I did not want what his life epitomized and I was too green, unknowing how to say this without insult… and uncaring about the effect.

There was, in those years, more coexistence than empathy., not least because he tried hard to get me to  understand and adopt verities he saw as fundamental and essential… about which I had quite different ideas. I severely embarrassed him the day I refused to answer the pastor’s call for Communion, being unable to subscribe to the tenets. (I have never taken Communion sincen.)

There was, too, his desire that I should understand the farmer’s life practised by all  my cousins and should, as part, learn how to harvest oats and drive a tractor. The first scratched; the second bored. Neither oats nor tractor have played any role in my development.

“Well, he came from college just the other day…”

My launching pad to the vision I had long been shaping for my life came with a college acceptance letter. ….. and thereafter, too long, communications were as rushed and superficial as Harry Chapin sings.

“I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away…”

And so it might have stayed, both of us stubborn, obstinate, headstrong — proud men, unyielding. But, you see, the love that caused a prized war memento to be sacrificed had always been present, waiting for auspicious times. He told me the other day, cast down now and again by the tremors and afflictions of the way we age now, that he was ready to go whenever the good Lord wants him.  And neither he nor I fear that… for we have, at last, found each other and gladly so.

“And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, He’d grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.”

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.

Republished with author’s permission by Gregory F King <a href=”http://HomeBizSupportNow.com”>http://HomeBizSupportNow.com</a>.