Second Marathon bombing suspect captured

In the waning moments of daylight, police descended Friday on a shrouded boat in a Watertown backyard to capture the suspected terrorist who had eluded their enormous dragnet for a tumultuous day, ending a dark week in Boston that ­began with the bombing of the world’s most prestigious road race.

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Boston locked down after manhunt for Marathon bombers

• Interactive map: Timeline of the manhunt
• Interactive map: Timeline of Marathon attack suspects
• Manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspects ends
• Coverage of the Marathon bombings

The arrest of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of Cambridge ended an unprecedented daylong siege of Greater Boston, after a frantic night of violence that left one MIT police officer dead, an MBTA Transit Police officer wounded, and an embattled public — rattled again by the touch of terrorism — huddled inside homes.

Tsarnaev’s elder brother and ­alleged accom­plice — 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the second suspect in Monday’s Boston Marathon attack — was pronounced dead early Friday morning at Beth Israel ­Deaconess Medical Center, ­after suffering shrapnel and bullet wounds in a gunfight with police.
“It’s a proud day to be a Boston police officer,” Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis told his force over the radio moments after the arrest. “Thank you all.”
President Obama, addressing the nation from the White House, ­applauded Boston for not allowing the terrorists to prevail.
“They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated,” the president said.
Friday will be remembered as the day the city stood still, after Governor Deval Patrick asked the people of Boston and the nearby communities of Watertown, Waltham, ­Newton, Belmont, and Cambridge to “shelter in place” — stay inside, lock the door, and don’t open it for anyone except police in uniform — while the younger ­Tsarnaev was on the loose.
A city of some 625,000, in a ­metropolis of 2 million, screeched to a halt. Heavily armed officers patrolled eerily empty streets that looked like the set of an apocalyptic movie. The MBTA halted its trains, buses, and subways. Taxi service was temporarily frozen. Amtrak stopped service between Boston and Providence. Officials asked businesses across the region not to open. The Red Sox and Bruins games were postponed. And the campus of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where ­Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a student, was evacuated and closed.
The day began with bomb blasts and gunshots on a street in Watertown, where police said more than 200 rounds were fired in the battle.
While his brother was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev survived and escaped on foot. Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers — includ­ing the Secret Service, K-9 teams, ­explosives experts, and SWAT officers — searched door to door for the suspect throughout Friday. Police in ­helicopters scoured the streetscape from above. More than 1,000 officers participated in the hunt.
By 6 p.m., frustrated officials relaxed the rule and allowed residents to leave their homes. The people of Watertown began to venture outside.
But within an hour, the crack of gunshots again blasted through the neighborhood. ­Sirens blared, and officers on foot scrambled down Franklin Street.
Police found Dzhokhar ­Tsarnaev hiding on a boat stored in a backyard on ­Franklin Street. Police ­exchanged gunfire with him before capturing him alive. Spontaneous celebrations erupted across the region, from the ­Boston Common to the Back Bay streets near the bombing.
The boat’s owners, a couple, spent Friday hunkered down under the stay-at-home order. When it was lifted early in the evening, they ventured outside for some fresh air and the man noticed the tarp on his boat blowing in the wind, according to their his son, Robert Duffy.
The cords securing it had been cut and there was blood near the straps. Duffy’s father called police, who swarmed the yard and had the couple evacuated, Duffy said.

CJ GUNTHER/EPA

The ambulance carrying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left the Franklin Street area.

Residents, who had barricaded themselves in their homes for nearly 20 hours, were still deeply shaken. “I’m so happy they got these guys,” said Tom Sheridan, 35, an interior painter from Watertown, as he cheered police cruisers and ambulances as they drove by on Mount ­Auburn Street. “But I’m worried there are more people out there like that. It won’t be the same.”
Tsarnaev was wounded and taken to a hospital. In an interview late last night, Patrick said he is “hoping very deeply he survives those wounds, because I’ve got a lot of questions and I know investigators have a lot of questions for him.”
Investigators believe the Tsarnaev siblings, originally from the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, who came to the United States in the early 2000s, are responsible for the attack on the Marathon on Monday that killed three people and injured more than 170, many grievously.
The FBI-led investigation of the atrocity took a sudden and shocking turn Thursday afternoon after the FBI released photos and videos of the alleged Marathon bombers and asked the public for help identifying them. The images showed two young men casually lugging backpacks along Boylston Street Monday, shortly before two bombs exploded near the finish line.
Investigators said they ­believe the suspects carried crude but powerful bombs made from household pressure cookers in their backpacks, which they abandoned on the sidewalk.

Sean Collier, a 26-year-old MIT police officer, was killed in a late night confrontation with the two suspects behind the deadly Boston Marathon.

Upon release of the images, tips poured into the FBI. Within hours, the brothers ­allegedly killed again, shooting Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier in his cruiser, near ­Vassar and Main streets in Cambridge, at about 10:24 p.m. The 26-year-old officer later died.
Police say the siblings carjacked a motorist minutes later on Memorial Drive. They released the unidentified motorist in Cambridge about 30 minutes later, police said. He was not hurt. Later that evening — the timing is unclear — an ­MBTA police officer spotted the stolen car, and a cavalcade of police cruisers chased the suspects into Watertown. The brothers threw explosives at the pursuing officers, police said.
The brothers stopped near Dexter and Laurel streets, got out of the car, and traded gunfire with police for several minutes. MBTA Transit Police Officer Richard H. Donohue Jr., 33, was wounded. He was in stable condition Friday at Mount ­Auburn Hospital.
The elder brother was shot in the battle and collapsed.As his brother lay on the street, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev jumped into the car and took off, plowing past a line of police officers who fired furiously. As he drove, he ran over his brother’s body. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev abandoned the car nearby and fled on foot, triggering an enormous search and setting the region on edge.
Police took Tamerlan ­Tsarnaev to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center about 1:10 a.m. Friday. He was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. Dr. Richard Wolfe said the suspect had been hit by shrapnel from an explosion and that he had died from “a combination of blasts” and “multiple gunshot wounds.”
The question that remains is why the siblings would attack their adoptive nation. But a picture began to emerge Friday of Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggres­sive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ­ensnared his younger brother — described almost universally as smart and sweet — into an act of terror.

Johannes Hirn/Landov

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is shown inside the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts center in Boston in 2009.

“I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good,” Zaur Tsarnaev, who identified himself as a 26-year-old cousin, said by phone Friday from Makhachkala, Russia. “[Tamerlan] was always getting into trouble. He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. He hurt her a few times. He was not a nice man.”
In a photo essay about boxing, Tamerlan said: “I don’t have a single American friend. I don’t understand them.”
In 2011, a foreign government asked the FBI for information about Tamerlan ­Tsarnaev, based on information that he was a follower of “radical Islam” who had changed drastically, the bureau said in a statement Friday. In response, the FBI investigated and interviewed Tamerlan and family members. “The FBI did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign,” the bureau said.
Dzhokhar, the suspect seen in FBI photos in a white cap worn backward, was a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. On Wednesday, two days after the Marathon ­attack, he spent the night at his dorm, according to a school ­official who declined to be named. He was an all-star wrestler and a member of the class of 2011 at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School; he won a Cambridge City Scholarship that year.

Yearbook photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

A Northeastern University sophomore who lived within blocks of Dzhokhar and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin with him described the younger bombing suspect as an honor student popular with classmates who enjoyed playing pickup basketball with a large circle of friends.
Gilberto Junior, 44, owner of Junior’s Auto body in Somerville, said the younger suspect dropped off a white Mercedes station wagon two weeks ago for repairs. Junior said he had not yet touched the car when the suspect came back demanding the car, the day after the bombing. The owner said Dzhokhar appeared nervous.
The family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who died in the blasts, thanked law enforcement officers for their work on the investigation. “None of this will bring our beloved Martin back, or reverse the injuries these men inflicted on our family and nearly two hundred others,” the Dorchester family said in a statement. “We continue to pray for healing and for comfort on the long road that lies ahead for every victim and their loved ones.”
William Campbell III, whose 29-year-old sister, Krystle M. Campbell, was killed when the bombs went off on Boylston Street Monday, said after ­Tsarnaev was captured: “I’m happy that nobody else is going to get hurt by these guys, but it’s not going to bring her back.”
As for the rest of the family, including Krystle’s father, William Campbell Jr., and mother, Patricia Campbell, “they’re happy they got the guys, but basically they feel the same,” he said. “You can only get so angry, and you then know she’s not ­going to be here anymore.”
James Vaznis, Andrea Estes, Shelley Murphy, Eric Moskowitz, Maria Cramer, Brian MacQuarrie, Milton J. Valencia, Meghan E. Irons, Matt Carroll, Michael Levenson, Noah Bierman, Scott Helman, Evan ­Allen, Akilah Johnson, Martine Powers, Bryan Marquard, and Brian Ballou of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Zachary T. Sampson, Derek J. Anderson, Matt Rocheleau, ­Jaclyn Reiss, and Todd Feathers contributed to this report. Mark Arsenault can be reached at marsenault@globe.com.

'Ma, I'm hurt real bad.' Boston. April 15, 2013. Boston Marathon Bombers Apprehended

Right On The Money. When will the Next Bomb go off??  Literally! Never in a million years did I figure I would be reading the first draft of this article, while in the presence of my Mentor and CEO, Dr. Lant, whom at this very moment, as I write this, has been ordered to not leave his home.  The terror that began at the Boston Marathon has come to Cambridge.It was only 30 or so hours ago that Dr. Lant was in the process of writing an article about the Boston Marathon.  He had a theory, which proved to be “right on the money”.  That this would not stop at one individual bombing, but the terrorism would continue.  And so it has.  Right in his neighbourhood.At this time, one of two brothers responsible for this, has been killed; one still at large. I can only pray that Dr. Lant, Mr. Joseph and his wife, Mercedes, and all the citizens stay safe, and God Bless!

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. To experience the joy of spring in New England and in its first and principal city since its inception in 1630 you must have faced and survived the very real rigors of the New England winter as only the genuine New Englander can do... resolute people... determined people... people for whom the very idea of tenacity was created.

These are the people who know the rancor in the bone rattling chill the old Atlantic has thrown at its stubborn inhabitants each wintry season since there were such inhabitants; daring them to spend yet another exacting season on this inauspicious pied-a-terre the Pilgrims audaciously decreed would be their Godly capital. And so fearing nothing but God they began, little knowing how many challenges there would be, but bolstered by the living God facing each one as it came, no matter what it was or how it seared us.

These are the kind of people who in this often grim, demanding geography built their Shining City on a Hill... these are the kind of people who sustain it. For we are a stern and rigorous people who have grown up sometimes daunted, sometimes misguided, sometimes stumbling, but always advancing... renewing... improving; even when our heart is breaking... as it most assuredly is breaking now.

For the musical accompaniment to this article, I have chosen one of the most soothing and uplifting compositions because I feel sure composer Aaron Copeland meant it especially for moments like now. This is "Appalachian Spring", and I recommend you go now to any search engine and listen to it carefully... for if your soul has no immediate need of it, there is sure to come the day when it will.

This radiant achievement was first recorded October 7, 1945. It caught the sound of the Great Republic as she moved out of the massive burden of war and took her great place on the world stage as the one certain hope of every person who loved freedom and all its works.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U7hPHSkNJo

One of the first recordings was made in Boston, the uneasy, restless, aspiring city where every corner, every location, every crooked, narrow lane revealed another aspect of what this place and its people had done for themselves as they forged revolution here in order to secure liberty everywhere. The world took note of Boston and knew that here important things had been done... things which might benefit them.

And so the unyielding land of New England and its principal city changed the world while admonishing the good people everywhere to see what they had done to shape the better life, urging them to do as much for themselves and to do it as well.

Into this great city of liberty came people determined to use that liberty to confound that liberty, wreak grievous havoc, and inflict mayhem and pain on a perfect April day when spirits were high and joyous and all New England was garlanded by the flowers of springtime we had all been waiting for. These people came to kill... and they did kill. Came to maim... and they did maim. Came to show what purposeful menace might do... and they did show.

Thus a mother heard in disbelief and horror what her son called on this April day to say, "Ma, I'm hurt real bad." He had lost both legs to the people of purposeful menace. Then shortly after she learned a second son had lost both his legs, too, her dismay now complete. In this way the bright promise and happiness of the day died... to be replaced by disbelief, lamentation, and wonder that the work of so few could disrupt so many, so completely, and create so much pain. The universal question was 'How could this happen?"

Martin Richard.

Of those killed, I felt an immediate affinity for Martin Richard. Why? Because he was a boy who wrote improving messages on poster board. What's so important about that? Just this: I was such a boy myself and spent happy world-changing hours crafting my posters with Magic Markers like Martin, just so: school election posters, powerful lines taken from a well-thumbed "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations", the ones designed to decorate my room (often featuring the strongest possible warnings to a younger brother who wanted in when I was determined he should stay out) and, of course, the pieces de resistance, master works laboriously created, to be displayed in presidential elections, then kept proudly for years in my clothes closet, until they, tattered, still venerated and profoundly admired, were in shreds.

He was just 8 and his latest beauty, hand-lettered as usual, said a mouthful, "No more hurting people. Peace." It was festooned with those hard-to-make symmetrical hearts beloved of the very young and the very young in spirit. The peace symbol anchored the bottom standing alone in majesty, the better to make sure people knew it was a thing of the utmost significance and Martin's credo.

Of course, as many different colors as the young inventive mind could conceive , were riotously used to create this baby. He reckoned that such an important message called for such an abundance of color as the world had never seen. Thus he applied his choices with verve, lavishly, restraint unthinkable.

In perhaps the last picture of Martin he stands before the world, a wisp of a lad, no heavier than a sack of potatoes as my grandfather used to say, his smile a tad sheepish, proudly showing the message that was the heart of his endeavor.

He died in an instant, his mother and sister were severely injured. And so the youthful advocate for what the world needs now became a mangled thing of blood, disfigurement, and death.

Thus he touched the world and became the very symbol for what we so desperately need and can never have enough: peace. One hopes for the existence of God, if only so that Martin Richard can abide through eternity in serenity with the peace he urged upon us all... the peace he had for himself such a little time.

4:21 p.m. Eastern. "Are you alright?"

The voice at the other end was the best of friends. "Turn on NPR at once. Are you alright?" And so the great matter was brought with urgency to my attention, by someone who watches out for me. By that time, the cell phones of the world were overwhelmed by the calls of the near, dear and concerned, all having but a single refrain: are you okay?

In such ways does love work... and if there was malice that day on the part of a handful, millions demonstrated love.  And as these calls were made, so numerous that even the most sophisticated systems were overburdened and crashed, the people of Boston did what they have done since 1630 in the face of every calamity: they said a little prayer, dusted themselves off, and helped the sore afflicted as best they could until the great resources of the great city could be summoned and brought to bear.

For this is the city of the living God, as eternal as the Eternal City itself, the city the Pilgrims wrought from the inhospitable and daunting terrain, the very definition of fortitude, endurance, courage and unflinching resolution. This is the city which gave the men of '75 the ideas that changed the course of world events and the lives of millions, including generations yet unborn.

We are the people of Boston, current custodians of her universal renown. And if our pain today is sharp, deep, and acute, we have not bowed before the unfolding tragedy. That is not the way of this place and its people even under the greatest duress. There have been great tragedies in these hallowed precincts before; there will be great tragedies again. We shall rise to every occasion, just as we have risen to this one. In this way we honor our ancestors and provide the righteous example for those who, in the fullness of time, will take on this essential burden of our greatness and humanity. 

Envoi

Tragedies like this one must be remembered. Yet remembrance is difficult in a society where tragic incidents come thick and fast. We want to remember, we try to remember, but all too soon we cannot remember... and something essential is lost to us and our posterity.

Let us learn from London, a city of important incidents, people and events, all memorialized by blue historical plaques reminding us of what transpired in these critical places, each a thing which might well be forgotten if no conscious effort was made to remember. Yet remember we must for the consequences of negligence put all our crucial memories at risk... and this is unacceptable.

The past is prologue, and we must do everything to ensure that its significance is never lost. Otherwise, the senseless deaths of Martin Richard and his companions for eternity will be unmitigated, their oblivion making a great tragedy more tragic still; thereby further blighting these once perfect spring days in the city of godliness, revolution, and unceasing incident. 



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 Elizabeth English  http://LizsWorldprofit.com

'How shall we extol thee...?' Thoughts on Margaret Thatcher, dead at 87, April 8, 2013, her irremovable place in History.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. If you want to know where someone is going, then look at where they have been. We are all the product of our experiences but rarely do these events alter the course of a great nation. However, in the case of' The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC and FRS they did.

We must, therefore, look carefully at the early Thatcher, the strict Non-Conformist tradition into which she was born, her hard-working, God-fearing parents (and particularly her father), how they made their living, how and where she secured her extensive education that moved her out and up, for her personal and professional experiences did not merely influence just herself, but also the lives of all of us.

Thus, to a singular degree, to look at her past is to see our present and that makes Margaret Thatcher one of the most important of our leaders and one of the most readily understandable. We always knew where she stood, like it or not. Her clarity of thought and expression became a byword, not least in the corridors of power where such clarity is often the first casualty. But not with Mrs.Thatcher. We understood her because she understood us... and her deep understanding was readily apparent whenever she spoke and whatever she spoke about. Her opponents were stymied on the rock of her unflinching plain spoken common sense. We knew she was right because we knew whereof she spoke. "Her nonsense," they grumbled, "was their nonsense."

Of course the liberal elite delighted in such clever put-downs, first because her sureness about what was right and wrong infuriated their relativism, making them appear (what they so often were) weak and ineffectual; second because they both scorned and envied her bond with real people and their everyday concerns.  Liberals, you see, too often concentrate on fomenting outrage about the affronting and unconscionable aspects of our human reality when instead they must move beyond mere outrage, should instead be constantly at the task of exploring and implementing practical solutions, one step at a time.

Too often they feel that mere outrage is sufficient, thereby putting them on the high road to Heaven. But they forget, if they ever knew at all, it is everyday people who must understand every change, accept every change, and implement every change or there can be no change. Or to put this another way liberals might decry the lack of inside water and toilet facilities, using the most persuasive and eloquent of language to make their case for dignity, sanitation, and health. Such exquisite outrage touches our hearts.... but nothing else.

However real people have to fill the heavy pails to the brim and engage in the hard business of carrying them upstairs and down until practical entrepreneurs find a way (with their own time and money, mind) to cut the burden, reduce human work and improve the human condition... and make money where there was no money before. Liberals then peruse the situation, urging that the enterprise, its works and of course its profits be taxed as a matter of "fairness". In due course, Margaret Thatcher became the strongest possible opponent of such cockamamie  "fairness". We knew she was right and supported her accordingly. Thus "her sense was our sense".

Margaret Thatcher remembered this salient aspect of leadership more often than any of the prime or other cabinet ministers of her era. She was always at her greatest when she not only remembered and represented these "common" people and their pressing concerns, but made sure these people were not excluded from planning and shaping the future in which they must live. Consider this: her maiden speech after she was finally elected to Parliament in 1959 after a typically hard-fought battle was in support of her private member's bill (Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960). It required local authorities to hold their council meetings in public. And so she began as she was to go on: the people's friend, and none better. It was the way, the only way, to build a land of hope and glory.

It begins...

To understand the magnitude of her epochal achievement, you have only to consider the right honorable gentlemen (for they were all men) who were the Conservative Party prime ministers of the realm before she ascended to their ranks and changed the reality of political generations forever: Sir Winston Churchill, grandson of a duke, heir to a gilded place at the acme of the peerage; followed by the Earl of Avon (Anthony Eden); the Earl of Stockton (my distant cousin Harold Macmillan); the Earl of Hume with the consummate noble pedigree, a plethora of titles and the hauteur it takes generations to perfect. Finally, her immediate predecessor, Edward Heath, who, too, was a member of the Establishment. Margaret Thatcher was not... broad acres, liveried servants, a safe seat in the House of Commons, followed by the nirvana of the hereditary House of Lords were as remote from her reality as they were from ours. See for yourself...

Born in the village of Grantham, England on October 13, 1925, just a few years after British women gained the suffrage, Margaret Hilda Roberts was the second daughter of Alfred Roberts, a small-time grocer and lay Methodist minister, and Beatrice Roberts, a dressmaker. Throughout her career, Thatcher never tired of reminding the everyday people that she was one of them, growing up "above the shop" in an apartment that lacked indoor plumbing and running water. She thus knew first-hand and over and over again the drudgery of filling, carrying and emptying pails... that was her present, unending reality. She knew it was also ours. She was determined to go beyond it. Her greatness comes from the fact she was determined to help all of us go beyond it, too.

Fortunately she started with the best possible help: a strong sense of self and personal responsibility; a father with the strongest possible work ethic, long experience in and love for politics (a town councilor, he later became Grantham's mayor) and (again through her father, a long-time lay Methodist minister) a sense, direct, personal and profound that God was on her side.

Perhaps because the tenets of Methodism are not now as widely known as they once were, this essential aspect has gone insufficiently noted, if noted at all. But those who are early imbued with a love of God do not shirk the fight or the terrible odds they might face, for the Lord of Hosts sustains them. And if Margaret Thatcher did not wear her redeemer or her belief on her sleeve, it does not mean the woman did not value what the girl had learned at her father's knee, grateful for it her entire life.

One more point: born as she was, a member of the great conscience of Non-Conformity, she understood that she could expect no assistance from the prevailing Establishment, overwhelmingly members of the Church of England. She would have to make her own way .. and so she did, her biography packed with applying for such-and-such a thing, being rejected because she was a woman and, so fortified, applying again... and again until her fortitude, endurance, and commitment wore down the prejudiced so she, the model for the advancement of women, could make another step forward, inspiring and empowering all women, everywhere.

It was grueling, often depressing, always demanding... but it was God's work, something that must be done, and wonderful in His eyes. In this way, she harked back to one of the greatest and most significant British statesmen, but it was not a Conservative; rather William Ewart Gladstone, 4 times Liberal Prime Minister between 1868 and 1894, adored by Non-Conformists, including her Liberal father. Thus, with the thickest of irony, the Grand Old Man of British politics saw his mantel of consequence descend to the Grand New Woman.

Under the circumstances, Mrs. Thatcher in her time became the great polarizing figure that he had been. If the abuse, the censure, the ridicule and cruel commentary bothered her, she took it all in stride, proud of the enemies she made, bidding them to do their worst for she was ready.

"In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."

Thus, Prime Ministers came to rely on Mrs. Thatcher. It is a measure of family pride that cousin Harold Macmillan, premier from 1957-1963, first appointed her to office, in 1961, as Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. It was the lowest rung on the ladder, but she had achieved it against all odds. But far greater odds with far greater risks and far greater challenges now confronted her. The issue was nothing less than the future of England, of Europe, of what we believed in, how we lived, and every right and freedom we so wrongly took for granted.

Her opponents, voluble, numerous, boisterous and condescending, belittled, despised, and excoriated her. Her response? In remarks made at the Conservative Party conference the day she was elected leader in February, 1975 she threw down the gauntlet, "I am not a consensus politician," she said. "I am a conviction politician." She meant every word of it and spent the rest of her long political life showing the world what conviction could deliver.

Her achievements were staggering... because she was clear what she wanted... not peace and quiet and hours wasted in persiflage and platitudes... but results, results, results.

State-run enterprises like British Airways and Rolls-Royce? Privatize to see immediate improvements.

Deregulate to the maximum extent? Absolutely. That's far more productive and efficient.

Reduce the power and influence of trade unions? To be sure. Those autocratic dinosaurs were well past their usefulness, every incendiary word testament to just how ineffectual they were.

Home and stock ownership? Of course. Citizens should be owners and benefit accordingly.

And what should be done to other nations intent on stealing what was left of the empire on which the sun never sets? Strike back, early, resolutely, proudly. And so in 1982 she did the necessary to remove covetous Argentina from the British-controlled Falkland Islands. And so bit by bit Great Britain became great again... and we all were better for it and her many electoral victories which made her the longest serving Prime Minister of modern times.

Now Margaret Thatcher is dead. Her journey over. Her place of greatness secure forever However, I can hear her now, reminding us that everything she stood for and achieved can so easily be threatened, diminished, lost if we do not do what is necessary to preserve it. Thus her legacy must be one of unceasing vigilance and prompt action to ensure that we maintain the freedom necessary for the well lived life, the life we are free to live, shape and improve to our heart's content.This she would bluntly say is the only way to make not just England but the entire world mighty, then mightier yet and every land the land of hope and glory.

Envoi

For the musical accompaniment to this article, I have selected Sir Edward Elgar's  well- known 1902 song "Land of Hope and Glory," with its deeply affecting lyrics by A.C. Benson. Go now to any search engine. You will find many fine versions. The best make you feel the mystic bond that unites people with homelands, especially if that land is England, a place inspiring the deepest bonds of loyalty, affection and gratitude. As such I can never hear this composition's words and music working so well together without a tear, glad to extol a nation I loved long before I went, just as I admired Margaret Thatcher long before I met her. My fervent wish is that this article is worthy of its subject, the lady who made England mightier yet and will always be an example of what is possible when one is willing to do the necessary work, hard, arduous, daunting though it may be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tW0QqiT2LU


About the Author:

Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of 15 books, several ebooks and over one thousand articles. 

Republished with author's permission by Elizabeth English http://LizsWorldprofit.com

'Riders on the storm.' A nor'easter wallops New England. Its aftermath, Sunday, February 10, 2013. The landscape of our mind changed.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. Whatever you were doing, whatever you thought important a moment before. Whatever your plans, schemes, intentions, wishes and desires, each alone and all together are trumped by the hauteur of wintry weather... a force of Nature, a creation of God which goes where it would and cavorts as it pleases with no thought whatsoever about us, puny beings consigned to cower on the sidelines by a force pure majesty, unimaginable energy... breathtaking beauty... certain killer... covering all corruption in white, just long enough for us to imagine our world pure and pristine again.

All hail such power... not least because it reminds us of our true place in the Cosmos and how little we count.

For such a time, the music is "Riders on the Storm," recorded in December, 1970. As things turned out, it was Jim Morrison's last recorded song. It entered the Top 100 on 3 July, 1971, the day  Morrison in all his unmatched beauty died, removing a troubled man from this Earth, leaving behind a legend which causes fervent pilgrims to break off stones from his defaced monument in the cemetery Pere Lachaise, his final resting place, where there is still no rest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCJm0kNm-2Y

Or for us, either.


Portents, Friday afternoon.

Even the fiercest of blizzards begins with a single frail flake, exquisite, poetry from ice, so lovely in its decent from heaven we must stop and wonder. We have seen it before, but no matter how rushed we may be, we pause to see it carry its celestial luster to a habitat which all of a sudden seems dreary without its allure. This is not snow; it is cool alchemy, turning commonplace elements into joy that dances before your eyes, kissed by wind, beckoning you from every responsibility, joy, pure  joy...  thus do even the greatest storms begin, as small bits of magic held in hand, and if you're lucky, captured on tongue, an agile result which no age eschews, even the oldest for whom the subtle taste is a passport to years gone by and people long gone and cherished.

"Blown away".

But, of course, the first snow flake is but the precursor of millions. And so while we scrutinize the first with eagerness and scrupulous attention, we prepare for all the rest, if not expecting the worst, at least readying for it. This time it came, in all its rampant ferocity, voracious, inexorable, inimical to everything in its path, no matter how hallowed or substantial. All of us, each thing, held hostage, no succor handy or soon expected. Thus were we humbled by a thing we had held in our hands just hours before, welcomed and extolled.

"Meterological bomb"

What had happened? Gleeful meteorologists, with too little to do this winter until now, tripped over themselves to educate a public suddenly desirous to know all -- and assess their peril accordingly. Thus we learned every worrisome and anxious aspect of the storm galloping to the very heart of our seaboard civilization, now a target, not just a desirable destination.

The jet stream that flows from west to east, 18,000 feet above the surface of the Earth, has two branches: a polar stream that takes a northerly route and a second, more southerly stream. When those branches converge (which is not infrequent during the winter), snow falls, as the frigid air from the north mingles with the humid air from the south. This winter there was very little of this mingling.

Until Friday.

And then we all became riders on the storm as we raced to the security of homes and families now in the face of threat more precious than ever.  Would we be in time? Thus little by little as we fled prayers were sent aloft; first a handful, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands, heartfelt, sent up from even the least believing, while in the background dead Morrison's incantation became insistent, "Riders on the storm... riders on the storm... riders on the storm." Suddenly the God we usually bury deep in the recesses of our mind, was apparent, puissant and vital... our true shield and bulwark, not just a word we use in vain. "O God, our hope in ages past..."

Just how at risk we were, how right to worry, how right to prepare the statistics tell:

190,000 power outages reported 2,000 utility crews mobilized to respond to power outages 4,000 pieces of snow-clearing equipment on the road 5,000 National Guard members activated 416 flights from Logan Airport canceled... the air now belonging to the dangerous weather, more powerful and more beautiful than ever.

"Killer on the road, yeah."

Then from the Corner Office under Bullfinch's great golden dome came the final indication, if one were needed, that the situation was bad and likely to get worse. His Excellency Governor Patrick, no alarmist, startled the Commonwealth by banning almost all traffic from Massachusetts roads. And so we all found ourselves marooned, cut  off, alone, as the storm grew and excited weather experts found themselves in urgent demand, glad to inform us just how bad things really were and hint at records over the Great Blizzard  of '78, records sure to fall before the impressive matter of our own troubles.

One such fact might truly beguile the Governor, namely that the last governor to apply such bold remedies was Michael Dukakis. No one knows better than Patrick that this predecessor secured the Democratic presidential nomination one year after he ruled the blizzard-stuck state, a sweater-clad executive ruling by media. How awfully clear that picture, that possibility must be to His Current Excellency, perhaps potent enough to obscure the fact Michael Dukakis lost resoundingly. So I remind him this: snow makes head-aches, not presidents.

Close but no cigar.

And then, bit by bit, the whole shebang begins to change. The snow falters. The skies open, light blue beneath dark gray, and Sol Invictus shines through as if Little Orphan Annie, that unquenchable optimist, had finally got her wish...

... best of all those obnoxious weather people, filled with helium, seem to deflate before our eyes. We have survived... the evidence is everywhere. And so I decide to go out early Sunday morning, for I like to see for myself.

The roads are passable, the snow piled efficiently and high, brick sidewalks with a coating of snow; so much better than the dangerous black ice that will come with melting. Crooked paths abound; I see I am no pathfinder though it is early. And I am glad for my legs can be unsteady, and I am too proud to use a cane, though I am wavering.

I carefully walk the two blocks to the Sheraton Commander, where hot buttered toast and storm tales are to be had, the egregious waiter (never condescending to a smile) orders me away from a table for four (for I have newspapers to spread and spill on); saying I must use an inconvenient table for just two. There are just 4 people in the entire restaurant but the waiter is inflexible. It is a sure sign the blizzard and its aura of comrades and fellow travelers is over.

This feeling is reinforced when one of my new neighbors (going away) is forced to pass me (going home) on a trail as narrow as a celery stalk. I stop to let him by and wish him a good morning. He glowers, looks at the ground and rushes on, making sure he never catches my eye. Yes, we are back to normal while the storm named "Nemo" ("no one") blows North into other anxious lives waiting for it now, praying for deliverance.


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. 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 Elizabeth English http://LizsWorldprofit.com


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'Don't change a hair for me. Not if you care for me'. Your Extreme Valentine, 2012.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Men, it's time for your annual Valentine's Day update and reminder. For, as you will recall, Valentine's Day  (along with her dog  Pookie's birthday) is the most important event of her year. If you get it right (or as right as any man can get this minefield) you're in like Flynn for another year; your right to nookie safe and secure for another 365 glorious days.

But...

if you muff this, like you did last year and the year before that, you are in for another prolonged rough patch... and you know very well how rough that will be. To avoid this fate worse than death, extreme measures are required, and these extreme measures must be taken NOW! Men, have I got your full attention? Your Love Doctor is here for you... and OMG, you know you need it.

The Facts.

As we have discussed in prior years (and many of you have attended this critical training year after year, with, sad to say, spotty results) Valentine's Day is a world-wide conspiracy. It first began as the brainchild of a highly paid consultant who was charged with the task of selling a particularly noxious chocolate with a vile, disgusting taste... That didn't bother the consultant at all; it was the kind of challenge he lived for.

Even the fact that the chocolatier couldn't pay him even a token amount up front didn't bother our fearless consultant one iota. He still inked a contract that said he'd receive 25% of the gross on all new business stimulated by his best ideas. In other words, he would (in the best macho consultant tradition) forgo certain (albeit lower) payment in return for a whopping share of the gross... and so long as he could move the obnoxious chocolate that everybody loathed.... he'd be a big winner.

Frankly, the folks at the chocolate company (who pretty much loathed their product, too, and banned it from the company candy machine) thought they'd made the perfect deal. After all, they got the consultant to work for them for free... and gave away revenues that didn't exist, would probably never exist. But before claiming a huge write-off and throwing the offending chocs in the garbage, they needed -- so their accountant said -- to gve it the Good Ol' College Try.

His name was Valentine...

Now our audacious consultant sat down to business, and because he was a very clever fellow, the ideas flowed fast and furious. Thus after just a few days, the consultant was ready to see the CEO and present the all-important concept. As it turned out not only was this meeting important for the chocolate company; it was a crucial turning point in the relations of all men with their women... it thereby launched a movement creating millions of jobs and huge corporate profits worldwide.

The consultant's name was Valentinos Kariotes... known as Val... and he is the man who set the high standards for Valentine's Day...

Yes, it is because of this single man and his insight that the conjugal rights and ecstasies of millions of hapless guys are put at risk every single friggin' year, to be reaffirmed by shelling out for chocolate, making ever richer the corporate smarty pants who dreamed up this baby.

Down to business.

Val, a straight talking, no nonsense, "let's stick to business" kind of guy got right to the point. To sell the  chocs everyone acknowledged as disgusting, they'd have to have a bigger idea, something huge, clever, larger than life.... here Val paused.... because he knew that his next words would not only sell chocolates nobody could abide, but get men by the millions to line up in front of the company's packed stores to plunk down big bucks for a product they despised.

Before stating what would become his abiding claim to fame, Val paused, looked around the room, the better to get their attention and keep the memory of this supreme moment forever green in his mind. Then he said

"To sell chocolates you must get women to tell men that the purchase of these chocolates and the size of the box will be construed by every gal on earth as an indication of how ardently they are desired, loved, and wanted. In short, the target for their advertising campaign would not be the men who would actually buy the chocolates... but the women who would 'motivate' them to do so, in EVERY way at their command. Yes, in EVERY way."

Val then unveiled his first ad, a classic soon destined for the Advertising Hall of Fame. It went like this:

"The size of the box", it read, "indicates how much he loves you."

The image showed two boxes of chocolate. The five-pound box had a big black X through it. The 20-pound box was circled in a bright, bright red heart with exclamation point.

Just awesome!

Val's incredible idea at last gave women what they have always wanted, for thousands of years: a way to know, to measure, even weigh just how much their menfolk REALLY love them; the proof to be as easy to acquire as the simple purchase of chocolates.

"Brilliant" was the least of it.

In the lives of each of us, there come but a handful of moments of transcendence, moments of destiny, moments you are surpassingly glad to be alive. Our man Val knew such a moment this day... and as the astonished executives surged around him with their most ardent congratulations, they knew it, too. And immediately increased the box size and weight of their obnoxious product... for they knew at once that Val, their boy, was a genius. And so unanimously voted to create a day named for him -- St. Valentine's Day -- a day worth billions to love capitalists worldwide. It was the least they could do

And so Val got filthy rich.

Every time a woman got a two-pound box of chocs from her beloved, she knew that the donor was dead meat, a cheap, two-timin' low-life... who had then to go out and at once to get the 20 pound box... thereby passing the loved test... and making Val richer and richer still. Eureka!

Of course, other companies watched this phenomenon, this cornucopia of riches with the closest conceivable attention; Val ensured they did, for in due course, he made sweet deals with florists, pastry companies, every diamond purveyor in the land... always with the same awesome results.

Which is why you'll live today like a cat on a hot tin roof, spending good money you don't have to appease the little woman who controls your life. Be sure, too, to sing "My Funny Valentine" the right way, the feminist way, with the words about you, not her, for women have always hated this tune and its cock-eyed sentiment.

Thus, "my looks are laughable, unphotographable...." because that's what she wants you to say, just after she's looked at the size of the box.

(You'll find the inimitable "My Funny Valentine", released 1940, in any search engine; music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart. I prefer the original version -- and the original words -- by Frank Sinatra.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i8vJ0tNDLA


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. 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 Elizabeth English http://LizsWorldprofit.com

->Check out Syndication Rockstar ->  http://www.LizsWorldprofit.com/?rd=mr7LdU2O

Marketing Online Success

In order to achieve the highest level of marketing online success, you need a few basics. These "tools" will make it possible for you to make money and build a real business online. It isn't a high cost, but it will take some time to find all the tools you need and to learn the skills.

I sometimes fear that I sound like a broken record, but I truly do hate to see people work hard only to fail because they simply don't know what to do or are being misled by others who are only trying to make money.

So in order to ensure your own marketing online success, please heed the tips I'm about to give you. I have been doing this for many years and I know what I'm talking about. Most of this information I learned the hard way - by making the very mistakes I'm trying to get you to avoid.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Get an education. It doesn't have to be at your local college, there are many training resources available right online for minimal cost. Also, since these online courses can be accessed any time of the day or night, it is easier for working adults to find the time to complete them. You don't have to accommodate someone else's schedule.

Many of these courses can be completed in just a few weeks, and you may be able to actually start making some money while you are going through the course.

Whatever options you choose just make sure you get educated on how the various parts of marketing online fit together.

2. Check your delusion at the door. Hype seems to be rampant online and if you really want to have any success, you must get, and keep, your expectations in line. If you believe the hype, you will waste a lot of time and money chasing some new "sure thing" after another.

To be honest, that is exactly what I did. I was so convinced that my success would happen virtually overnight that when it didn't I thought I was just doing the wrong thing. It never occurred to me, in the early days at least, that it wasn't what I was doing that was the problem it was my unrealistic expectations that was causing me so  much trouble.

Once I accepted that building a business online would require time and attention from me and I started investing those things in my business I started having success.

3. Be consistent in your time. Even if you can only put a few hours a week to working on your business, you can make it work just as long as you invest that few hours a week every single week.

Of course, the more time you can put into building your business the sooner you may be able to start earning consistent money, but even with small amounts of time you can still build a business as long as you do it on a consistent basis.

Marketing online success hinges on these things. Follow them and you will greatly increase your odds of success.


Elizabeth English is the Owner of http://LizsWorldprofit.com Check us out anytime for marketing tips and a free subscription to our cutting edge newsletter.

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She's got the power! The lady with success tied around her little finger... Meet Linda Elze... force of nature, lovable champ, an example to us all. Worldprofit Sales Person of the Year, 2012.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

Author's program note. I am about to do you the biggest favor of your life. For right here, right now I am going to introduce you to a svelte California grandmother named Linda Elze... and I can assure you it's a contact you will cherish, the way so many all over this grand world already do.

Linda Elze! (Pronounced "El Zee").

Say it out loud.

Roll these two words on your tongue.

Say them as often as necessary until they are engrained in your brain... because she's about to become one of the most important people in your entire life and that's a fact.

To put you in the mood for what's coming, go to any search engine and call up a tune that turns the timid into tigers; wimps into winners; the cowering and terminally cautious into champs with attitude and energy to burn. I'm talking about the pulsating number called "The Power".

It's an electronic pop hit by the German music group Snap! from their January 1990 album "World Power". It's not a tune for sissies, and if you're the kind of person who's prone to throwing in the towel whenever the smallest obstacle intrudes, you'd better scram now because this tune, like Ms. Elzee herself, is raw energy and not for quitters, whatever the "reason". Capisce?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRv9wGf5pk

Thousands and thousands in debt. "Oh yeah, gettin' kinda heavy."

One fine day several years ago, Linda arrived at Worldprofit's Live Business Center at worldprofit.com. She was depressed, despondent, dazed and all but bleeding to death. She wanted to make money online, was willing to invest, was keen to work and work hard but so far her endeavors had generated nothing but anger, frustration, and a whole lot of unladylike verbiage. Linda was at the end of her tether, thousands and thousands in debt, good money thrown after bad. She was about to become one of the legion of also-rans whose bleached bones litter the Internet. It was not a pretty picture, and the prognosis was worse.

But then the lady got lucky...

She got an invitation to visit that interactive gem of the Internet, Worldprofit's Live Business Center, a place where generous experts donate their time 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to help people like Linda -- and you. When you enter, without waiting even a minute, you find the kind of mature, helpful, informed, good-natured folks your mother told you make the best friends and why didn't you bring a couple of them home after school, she'd like to meet them?

"Don't need the police to try to save them."

As her name was called out -- "Hi, Linda!" -- she felt -- right then -- that she'd come home. "They had me at 'hello' ", as she likes to say. And she meant it just as thousands of others have.

She joined that day, within the first hour she knew of this oh so special place... that reached out with technology made easy (per chief  technical officer George Kosch); ongoing instruction in how to create, develop, market, promote and maintain an online home-based business (also per George Kosch)... prompt, friendly, understandable answers (per director of website development Sandi Hunter) to the queries which inevitably pop up to even experienced marketers and need immediate attention. And over 1.5 million formatted words by that "lyrical Jesse James" (that would be me) ready for blogs, ebooks, videos and more.  It was Christmas, Valentine's Day and your birthday all rolled up together and presented on a solid silver plate engraved just for you.

Part-time to full-time."Quality. I possess something. I'm fresh."

Like so many Worldprofit members, Linda kept her day job while she mastered the ins-and-outs of online marketing. She played it cool; doing her home work, attending George  Kosch's supremely practical, do-able, and precise step-by-step training sessions which were both live and recorded.

She was champing at the bit to go full-time, especially after the money started rolling in; (just days after she joined and which she used to polish off that multi-K monkey on her back)... but took our advice: "Slow and steady wins the race." She's a smart lady, listened and moved ahead -- always ahead -- one certain step at a time. In short order she was a full-time online marketer, home-based, her favorite television programs crackling in the background as she soon exceeded the income from her old J.O.B., and that was just the beginning, for her objective was as infinite as the Internet itself.

"Maniac, brainiac, winning the game".

In quick-step time, by following a proven cash-producing system developed and perfected over nearly 20 years online and available in the Home Business Bootcamp, Linda Elze jumped up the ladder of success; first by mastering the basics. Then by implementing them EVERY SINGLE DAY. Her unyielding mantra went like this:

On sunny days, promote. On days that aren't, promote. On days you're hungry, promote. On days you're not, promote. On days you feel like it, promote. On days you don't, promote.

Get the picture? Promote every single day without fail. Never permit yourself the license or luxury to forego this absolutely essential activity.

By following George Kosch's system, for the improvement of which she made excellent suggestions from time to time, her goals were achieved with speed and efficiency.

Item: She made back the thousands in previously lost money. She had assumed such a loss was permanent, but Worldprofit's tested system returned the funds, an unexpected moment of pure joy.

Item: She was able to quit the J(ust) O(ver) B(roke) and work her ever burgeoning online business full time, with substantially improved financial returns. Her always cheerful disposition showed just how happy she was, how well she was doing.

Item: The business she built so well, so thoroughly, so happily produced not just funds for her but a substantial legacy for her family and that gave her peace of mind.

"I've got the power!"

Today Linda Elze stands before the world as testament to what happens when you are willing to invest in yourself, follow a proven system, and work within a life enhancing community where all work for themselves and each other.

On every level, in every way, on every day Linda has shown us what is possible when a great system, a great work ethic, and a great heart are united...

Envoi. Words from your CEO on behalf of the three Co-Founders of Worldprofit and all the Members.

Friend Linda. Here you are again in the Winner's Circle, as you have been so very many times before. You, who so avoid the lime light, are enduring it again... Not for yourself but because you know that people worldwide need to hear your inspiring story, need to know what you did and how you transformed long-standing defeat into continual victory. They need to know... so that they, too, can do. And for this we thank you as we thank you for the privilege of traveling this information highway with you.

Thus, on behalf of the three partners and Co-Founders of Worldprofit, Inc., George Kosch, Sandi Hunter, and me; and for all your many friends, colleagues, dealers and well wishers, I name you Worldprofit Sales Person of the Year, 2012. What will you do now? I know.

After having graciously accepted our words, kind, well-meant, honest, you will go back to your work and touch the lives of people worldwide who, not yet knowing you and what you can do, will soon know better and thank you for being you, the lady we know, the lady we respect, the lady who long ago won our hearts and admiration.



 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. 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 Elizabeth English http://LizsWorldprofit.com


->Check out Syndication Rockstar ->  http://www.LizsWorldprofit.com/?rd=mr7LdU2O