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Weathering through the Storm!
Preface / Introduction

As each year passes through the sands of our mind, each one of use faces many challenges and
issues that force us to make choices. These choices drive many different things in our lives and
sometime, our choice cause us to lose those things that are dear to us.
Many people around the world experience storms that influence many issues, here are just a few
that influence us here where we are!
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Table of Contents
1. Of apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts. Edible autumn in New England.
2. O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m.
20 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour.
3. USA sets 6,800 high temperature records in March, 2012 as we consider the future when we have
money -- and nothing else.
4. Not gone. Just gone before. An open letter to a friend and colleague upon the death of his beloved
grandmother. Swing low, sweet chariot.
5. 'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. I can tell.'
6. 'Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow.' One of America's greatest leaders -- Yale's president Richard
C. Levin -- retires after 20 years. An appreciation.
7. Of plums, their sweetness, politics, and the eternal desire for more.
8. At a lunch counter in Harvard Square. A place of friendly people and tasty meals; a dinosaur en
route to extinction. Some thoughts.
9. The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometime prince of Cambodia, king, prime minister,
revolutionary, demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012.
Weathering through the Storm!


Of apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts. Edible autumn in
New England.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. The bounty of New England's small family farms is now available at road
stands throughout the region. The weather, despite the wallop of Hurricane Irene, has been
beneficial and the crops are ample. There is, therefore, enough for all.
I love this time of the year, and my neighbors do, too. We, though we abide in the region's cities,
make a point of leaving our urban condominiums and walk-up apartments, glad for the opportunity
to taste autumn. This is a yearly ritual which none of us wants to miss, for it calls us, if only for a
moment, back to the land which is a part of all of us and which recalls us to a past which is for all of
us at some point agrarian.
We are all of the land... and the farms and gardens, so picturesque in October, remind us where we
have been... and of our forefathers... who kept faith with this land... tending it... nurturing it...
protecting it... so that the land and their descendants might prosper together. Each rock that they
used to build the fences that make good neighbors reminds us of our own families and the constant
work that the land necessitates. The land demands... and we obey the land... for this is the way of the
immemorial land and richness that comes forth if we but do our part. Apples are part of this land and
this richness... and now is the high season of these apples.
Apples must be picked.
Each apple that you see has been picked. It's something we urban dwellers never think about and
which industrious apple growers must never forget... for apples on a tree are useless to all but the
birds which well know how to get their sweet juices.
In his poem "After Apple-Picking" (published in 1915) Robert Frost reminds us just how laborious it
is to pick the apples. On his tiny New Hampshire farm, Frost tells us that in apple-picking time the
farm and the needs of the crop determine all. Everything else must be put aside for now; this is the
way of the insistent land, the demanding land, the land that dictates that which humans who desire
the bounty of this land must do:
"And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired."
Apples must be packed and promptly moved.
Apples, like every fruit of the farm, must be moved, for we buyers and eaters of apples are slothful
and must be waited on. We will go on a yearly ritual of pilgrimage to the apples... praising farmer,
land and crop.. .but we demand on all other occasions that the apples we so desire be brought close
to us.
The apples I buy, for instance, come from Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, Massachusetts. It is a far
trek from Cambridge and so Carl and his helpers bring the apples to me in a local farmers' market,
held each Sunday in Harvard Square until Thanksgiving. There after 10 a.m. (the strict opening time,
not a minute earlier permitted)... I can fuss over the multitude of varieties, rejecting most, selecting
just the most attractive, aromatic, and (I trust) delicious.
Even after his many other customers purchase (for Carl and Kimball have a following), the piles of
apples are still heaping; each and every one must be re-packed, taken back to Pepperell, to be
packed again tomorrow, moved again, scrutinized again, and so on until at last all the apples are

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gone. Carl, like Frost, gets overtired, too.
But apples are the pride of Kimball Fruit Farm... and their website boasts of over 40 varieties.... how
many could you name? Baldwin, Blushing Golden, Brock, Burgundy, Cameo, Chesnut, Crab
Cortland, Elstar... the list goes on an on, each one a pledge by Proprietor Carl that the land will be so
cherished so that each of these apples will flourish in years to come, including one of the most
beautiful apples of all: the Spencers which I crave. And so it has been going on for the thousands of
years apples have been amongst us, starting in Western Asia, where the apple's wild ancestor, the
Alma, can still be found today.
There are more than 7,500 known cultivars, resulting in a wide range of desired characteristics. So
desirable are these characteristics that 55 million tonnes of apples were grown in 2005, with a value
of about $10 billion. China produced some 35 percent of this total; the United States was second
with more than 7.5 percent of world production. Iran is third, followed by Turkey, Russia, Italy, and
India.
Many of these apples are eaten raw... but many are also transformed into that silky mixture called
apple cider. I buy mine from Allen's Cider Mill in West Brookfield, Mass. The reason I initially
bought from this stand at the farmers' market was that the fellow tending it looked so sad. I felt glad
to lift his load just a smidgeon, but in truth I liked the product... and got in the habit of buying from
him, though he is laconic to a degree and has never smiled in my presence or ever said a friendly
greeting. I notice such things. A teen-aged boy of 15 or so helps the man out; it's probably his father.
They look alike. I notice he never smiles either and that makes me wonder at the ways of genetics
and family farms.
The label makes it clear that this cider must be refrigerated at below 40 degrees Farenheit and wants
you to know, too, that it has been ultra light treated for my safety... no preservatives... no additives...
and is made of "washed sound ripe apples." I have never bothered with such cider labels before, but
I am grateful for their care and practical concern, though I'd still like a friendly greeting, a smile, and
a chipper query asking me how I like the cider, since I keep returning for it... and for the cider
doughnuts, too, which I first sampled at this stand...
I was in a relaxed and friendly disposition the day I saw the hand-written sign about cider doughnuts
and asked what they were. The answer was worthy of Silent Cal, Vermont's only president. "Made
with cider, instead of water," he said, as if each word was a treasure to be hoarded, not shared even
for commercial gain. They were 50 cents each; I got one, the minimum risk... The next week I got
4... and devoured them at record speed, a new taste of fall... topped off with cinnamon and sugar. It
is a delicacy indeed, and I can bear even the lack of amiability so long as there are cider doughnuts
near at hand... and great, grand Spencer apples, too... and the smoothness of apple cider. For all of
these together, and each distinct, is truly the apple of my eye... deserving of high praise, no waiting,
please, for I have no patience, none at all.
But I do have a song to accompany so many delicacies. It's by the Four Lovers, "You're the apple of
my eye." (released 1956). Go to any search engine to find it now... and enjoy. For you are "done with
apple-picking now" and must take a moment to eat, savor, and thank. For apples and everything
about them are a great joy and benediction. As you and I have known for a lifetime, haven't we?




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O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge,
Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m. 20 degrees
Fahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Before I left on my Christmas walk-about at not quite 1 a.m. Eastern today, I
turned on every light in my brilliantly lit house. On the lights in the hallway thereby exposing in
radiance the wistful picture of a young 18th century prince of the House of Brunswick-Luneberg.
Dead too soon, not even 20, he craves all the light I can give him, and that is much.
On the lights, all the lights in the Red Drawing Room, on the lights, all the lights in the Green Room,
on the lights, all the lights in the Blue Room from where I am writing you now, where the chandelier
throws out over 10,000 facets of light. So the seller told me; I have long since given up counting
them... but their colors entrance while its welcome heat warms me...
What kind of mania is this that demands every light lit, every treasure burnished, everything bold,
audacious, polished, warm and, to my uttermost ability, welcome?
Just this: It is Christmas Day, this very day, this day of days, to come but once and go... and I am
alive, ready, eager to take myself from here and see how this 2,011th Christmas is evolving from
my vantage point in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I command all this light, first, to celebrate the
advent of this day and its great meaning, that on this very day, over two thousand years ago the
Prince of Heaven was born, a boon to mankind, our sustaining hope unto the ages. And I want Him
to know that He is welcome here... and always has been, though often I did not know or show it...
And, too, there must be light, an explosion of light, to welcome me home, for I mean to go out and
see for myself how this Holy Night is faring and what my neighbors may be doing.
Red hat, white fur, my lassez passer.
This is my 63rd Christmas; the year when my many friends worldwide, of so many climes and
countries, offer their advice freely before I venture out into the dark and cold. "Bundle up," says
Mark Anderson. "Remember to cover your ears," proffers Dale Thomson. "Don't stay out too long,"
offers David Mobile. Such words, each one on any other day lese majeste', convey care and love...
and make me smile. A man like me knows well the warmth of such words and how to conjure them;
they cheer the heart such as no fire can. Age hath its wisdoms and privileges; no one knows that
better than I do, and I crave them as surely as air or sun; and get them, too.
And so I put on the foolish Santa hat I was given by a young friend who looked raffish when he
wore it, whereas I look just silly... but I know that wearing it out this night of all nights, will safely
mark me as harmless, eccentric, a man who has imbibed too much of the grape, erroneous
conclusions to be sure, but useful when a man leaves his cozy house at midnight, and warm bed, too,
to venture out into the piercing cold of a Bay State Christmas in pursuit of... but you must come out
of your snug world and along with me to see.
Presents for me...
In the lobby of my building where I am now, I think, the senior resident or close to it, I see two
boxes for me. These neat parcels, festooned by words like FedEx and UPS and the numeric
mysteries of their tracking systems, firmly establish me as a card-carrying person of the middle
classes and of means; poor people shop at stores and carry home their packages, often on buses and
late-running subways. Mine ascend by elevators and are given by delivery men, exceptionally polite

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at this time of year, who say things like "Something else for you, Dr. Lant. Somebody loves you..."
But I have no time for such packages now... I have a mission.
Cold air, colder Puritan.
The cold of midnight is piercing but by no means the worst I have felt; the Internet weather report
(the only place I go for weather intelligence anymore) says the wind chill factor is 10 degrees
Fahrenheit. I feel superior to that, and further plunges, too. I am glad to take it, and to know I can
still take worse; more evidence of my evergreen condition; of increasing importance as I get older...
The Cambridge Common, where by ancient law and privilege I could graze my cows (should I get
some), is vacant tonight... but the statue of John Bridge continues its austere duty, scrutinizing the
lives of Cantabridgians, ensuring not that we are as worthy as he (for that is impossible) but that we
do not stray too far from his noble example.
Bridge was a Puritan, a man of God and God's affairs and ran these, no doubt to God's satisfaction,
for Bridge's all-worthy career prospered in mid-17th century Cambridge. Such men, the very fibre of
moral rectitude and self-assurance (my ancestors, too, for the nonce) made a point of destroying the
olde English Christmas of "God rest ye merry gentlemen." Bridge would no doubt have disapproved
the frivolity of my chapeau... and so I walked on, glad he was not coming to disdain my liberated
Christmas.
The artistry of ice.
Burdened by winter as I often am here, captive of the chill Atlantic and its perishing cold, I more
often avoid the ice than consider it. Tonight I rectified this error and stopped to scrutinize the
random beauty of ice, frigid patterns that turned yesterday's puddles into tonight's etched allure. It is
beautiful, the kind of sharp avant garde pattern in black and silver a stylish billionaire might use to
dazzle every penthouse guest; here this transient beauty goes unremarked by all but me.
There is livelier fare across the street, when seven squad cars spurt police, busily at work at the main
gate of Harvard College, just opened days ago from the thrall of the hapless revolutionaries who
Occupied Harvard, but not effectively or for very long. The police are out in force, a tow-truck at the
ready, a fellow human being in their arms, his Christmas and destiny to be paid out in hospital or jail
cell.
I look instead at the statue of Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), a man of such austerity and
respectability that when he escorted Mary Todd Lincoln there was no touch of scandal at all, though
he was reckoned the most handsome man at Harvard and in Civil War Washington. I often wonder
whether the burden of such rectitude made him happy. Certainly his statue does not show it. He was
cold in life, and perhaps the coldness of this statue is its truest aspect.
I prefer to spend my Christmas night with another Harvard man, the Reverend Phillips Brooks
(1835-1893). He is memorialized in Harvard Yard, but not in copper and stone. His is a memorial of
people, for the people who admired and loved him created in 1904 Phillips Brooks House
Association, a student-run, community-based non-profit public service organization whose mission
is the true meaning of this holiday, to give and give until it truly helps and makes a difference.
Brooks took the fine tune by organist Lewis Redner and graced it in 1868 with the words we know as
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" and whose words are my prayer for us all this day, and every day.
"O holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us we pray... O come to us, abide with us Our Lord
Emmanuel."
(Concluded and sent to the world as the author's gift, 5:05 a.m., Christmas Day, 2011).

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USA sets 6,800 high temperature records in March, 2012 as
we consider the future when we have money -- and nothing
else.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Future historians, if any of Clio's ranks remain, will scrutinize this period of
our planet as the days when Earth reached its tipping point and began its descent to the unimaginable
horrors of the Apocalypse. At least this is the sobering prediction of the International Panel on
Climate Change, founded in 1988 by the United Nations. This article highlights this panel, its work,
its dire predictions... and asks you not only to contemplate what is happening to us all... but what
you can do to save yourself, your family and the pied a terre in the Cosmos for our vulnerable
species.
But first, go to any search engine and smile. For not all weather predictions are cataclysmic. Take the
one made in 1982 by The Weather Girls, also known as Two Tons o' Fun. Their hit -- their one and
only hit -- was called "It's Raining Men" and featured two plus-size African-American women
cavorting with scantily clad boy toys falling from a beneficent heaven. It was cheeky, irreverent...
and a superbly good dance song. When this ancient body was much younger and more limber, I cut
the rug with it myself. Listen to it now.... because it's the last thing in this article that gives you
absolutely nothing to worry about.
About the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
March 28, 2012 this Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists released its latest bomb shell, in
the form of a 594-page report. This report represents an important development in its work. Up until
now, the panel has focused on the slow, inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of global
warning. Their work, while important and telling to anyone who could read between the lines, didn't
attract much notice. Indeed, since it was the work of scientists and climate wonks who never met a
somnifacient phrase they didn't like, their important work went largely unread.
But this year and this report are very different.
This report is the first to examine the less common but far more noticeable extreme weather changes,
which in recent years have been causing $80 billion annually in damage. As Stanford University
climate scientist Chris Field, one of the report's top editors, says, "We mostly experience weather
and climate change through the extreme. That's where we have the losses. That's where we have the
insurance payments. That's where things have the potential to fall apart."
"There is disaster risk almost everywhere."
The conclusion of Field and fellow panelists is stark and cannot be misunderstood. Thus, you can
almost hear the instructions given to participants at the start of their important work...
"Friends and colleagues. Our many previous endeavors reported facts in a calm, deliberative
fashion. We knew what the findings meant... but because we were not explicit in our conclusions
almost no one else did. Thus we assuaged our consciences by reassuring ourselves that we had done
our work... and it was for others to draw the implications and do the necessary follow-up work to
make sure that the science we knew became the basis for necessary policy changes. But this is no
longer enough. We must not only be accurate fact finders, but absolutely clear on what this means
and what must be done. In other words, we must go beyond the usual role of scientist and behave as
a citizen of the world committed to saving our planet by doing what is necessary before it is too
late."

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On this basis, the panel has produced what is to date their most important and influential work.
Item: Some places, particularly parts of Mumbai in India could become uninhabitable from floods,
storms, and rising seas. In 2005, over 24 hours nearly 3 feet of rain fell on the city, killing more than
1000 people at once and causing massive damage. Roughly 2.7 million people live in areas at risk of
flooding.
Item: Many other cities are also at high risk including Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, Vietnam's Ho Chi
Minh City, Myanmar's Yangon (formerly Rangoon), and India's Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).
Item: Entire countries like the Maldives are at risk, facing submersion because of rising seas and
fierce storms.
Said Field, "The decision about whether or not to move is achingly difficult, and I think it's one that
the world community will have to face with increasing frequency in the future."
At risk.
This report is unique because it emphasizes managing risks and how taking precautions can work. In
other words, it not only highlights risks but is explicit in its recommendations about how to handle
them. In fact, the panel report uses the word "risk" 4,387 times... and gives examples of how various
cities and countries have learned from them, thereby providing solutions and models for other
challenged entities.
Item: Field pointed to storm-and-flood-prone Bangladesh, an impoverished nation that has learned
from past disasters. In 1970, a Category 3 tropical cyclone named Bhola killed more than 300,000
people. In 2007, a stronger cyclone killed just 4,200 people. Despite the loss of life, the country is
reckoned a success story because it was better prepared and invested in warning and disaster
prevention.
By comparison, a country that was not so prepared, Myanmar, was hit with a similar-size storm in
2008, which killed over 138,000 people. This avoidable disaster makes it clear why the work of this
panel is so important. Over 138,000 people might well be alive if the repressive government of
Myanmar focused less time and money crushing its people and more on the early warning and other
tools needed to diminish the horrific weather effects that batter them so often and which this report
makes clear will worsen in the years ahead.
The worst is yet to come... unless...
The study -- all 594 pages of it -- is a Pandora's box of looming catastrophes. Tropical cyclones --
including hurricanes in the United States -- will get stronger because of present-day and
worse-to-come climate changes. Heat waves and record hot temperatures worldwide will increase
with increased downpours in Alaska, Canada, northern and central Europe, East Africa, and north
Asia.
Action now... or worldwide grief later.
In the face of so much alarming news, all supported by exact science, it is easy to opt out, confident
there is nothing the average person can do but wait and hope. Such a conclusion is not only wrong
but calamitous. Here's what you can do:
1) Urge school officials to disseminate these findings so that young people, who have so much to
lose, can be informed.
2) Ask your elected representatives what they are doing to stem the tide and give us meaningful
measures, not just partisan rhetoric that is so out-of-place in solving this problem.
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measures, not just partisan rhetoric that is so out-of-place in solving this problem.
3) Make every day "Earth Day", a top priority. For there can be no progressive change of any kind if
the very Earth is threatened, at risk, and increasingly vulnerable.
And I tell you this: when all the water is polluted, when all the air is toxic, when every once fertile
acre is arid, we shall still have money. For unlike all the other elements, God-made, money is man
made; so let's spend what is necessary to ensure that our one and only home -- Earth -- remains as
secure as possible, as verdant and productive... a place not of lamentation and anxieties but where all
the crucial weather information can be sung by Weather Girls who tell you, "According to our
sources, the street's the place to go/ Cause tonight for the first time/ Just about half past ten/ For the
first time in history/ It's gonna start raining men!" And that's a fact.




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Not gone. Just gone before. An open letter to a friend and
colleague upon the death of his beloved grandmother. Swing
low, sweet chariot.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
James, you have done me the honor to interrupt your family's grief to share your thoughts and
reflections on a matter of the utmost significance. I want you to know, first of all, how honored I am
that you gave me this time, even more precious than usual at such a moment.
You have done me the signal honor to tell me my responses have provided balm during a time of
profound reflection and sadness.... and I am humbled, grateful to take a friend's part and help you
bear the unbearable.
For what you are doing now is the most difficult thing we humans confront... the death of a dear one
who is now gone, gone forever... and we can not grasp how one so vibrant but short hours ago is
now in a different place, a place beyond our ken, beyond our knowledge and our touch whilst we
remain here to carry on as best we can... as best we must, bitterly remembering that in life we are but
in the midst of death.
And this is bitter indeed for now you know, as all will come to know, just how bitter our portion is...
and how we must drink of this dread cup to the very dregs. As you are doing this very moment. Let
us then mourn together you and I and find the succor and strength that comes when we share this
high moment of humanity together... and thus pave the way for the peace of God, the greatest gift of
all.
Oneida Thomas, December 17, 1923 -- May 8, 2012, your grandmother.
These are the facts about your grandmother Oneida Thomas, and they are but briefly told. How she
was born December 17, 1923 in Grayson, Louisiana to the union of Albert Simmons and Parlee
Leggins Simmons. How on December 4, 1944 she married Clinton Thomas. How to this union five
children were born: Jeri, Carolin, Clayton, Leonard and Marian. How in 1948 they moved to
Denver, Colorado. There they celebrated 55 years of marriage... and there she worked hard,
strenuously, long and carefully for the betterment of her much cherished family, her fortunate
employer, her community and her God. This was her abiding credo: "What I do, I do to the best of
my abilities... or I do not do at all". She meant every one of these words... and as she lived them so
she quietly showed the world what was important to her and that she meant to do her part to make
that world a better place. No excuses given, none tolerated. On these elements she built her life... a
life well worth living and working for.
Her prodigious labor.
Stop for a moment and call to mind any image of your grandmother; chances are you'll see her in
movement, at work, doing something beneficial for her work was incessant, unending, tiring,
essential, purposeful, done early, done late, done right. And done for you... for, after God, you and
all your relations were always her first concern.
These were the fortunate people who always benefited... but who sometimes took her titanic strength
and unending application for granted, as we all too often do. But there was nothing for granted about
what she did beyond one hard fact: her work was unending drudgery,demanding, draining.
However, she was and remained a woman of energy and determination. Both were needed, and over
the course of a long lifetime she had constant reason to call upon them. Work was necessary... so she
worked, none harder even if this work was unpleasant. It was work to be done; she could do it; so

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she did.
She started her work as a housekeeper, until she was hired by Swedish Hospital as a surgical setup
and equipment preparer. Whilst working as a part-time housekeeper she retired from Swedish
Hospital in 1988 after 20 years. She continued to work as a part-time housekeeper for 58 years.
These are the facts. Now let us review them for meaning.
Louisiana, segregation, poverty, fortitude.
Your grandmother was born and grew up in an atmosphere seething with troubles, malice, threats,
painful realities, gnawing poverty, an environment fraught with menace and disturbance. She knew
from her earliest memories what it meant to be Southern, female and black... and while she may
never have discussed this acid situation with you, this situation shaped her. She endured this as she
ensured so much... with dignity... with everyday courage... with sweet temper... with a kind, loving
and giving disposition. She took each day as it came, however inequitable, inadequate, unforgiving...
and kept her dreams alive, in a treasured place, working for them... never dismayed because they
came so slowly. She personified fortitude... and never let the drawbacks obscure and embitter. That
was not her way.
The world was harsh, her circumstances harsher... but her thoughts were free, uplifting, pure, and
always giving. I know. You see, she has bequeathed this strength, this endurance and her warm,
magnetic smile to... you. Thus, the first thing we see in you is the first thing we saw in her. You are
her chiefest legacy. Thus she abides in you forever. Hallelujah!
Her hands.
Close your eyes, dear James, and remember the solace and comfort of her hands. Many times they
have cherished and soothed you... I want you to feel them now, in your mind's eye... for they are
there now to sustain you for life... as they sustained so many before.
These were the hands of a woman who gave... and so demonstrated her love. She never had to say
she loved, although she did so say... you had but to see her at her work... up early before the dawn to
be on her way... returning long hours after sunset... no time squandered.... all put at the service of
others. She was a woman who found comfort for her soul by comforting others... and she did so
gladly, happily... a woman fulfilled, hence able to help fulfill a myriad of others. Where did such
unceasing strength, always at the service of others, come from? She knew... she always knew...
Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour.
Your grandmother's great healing gifts, her soothing skills, her hands that comforted, the smile that
warmed... all these came from a single source of unequalled power and strength, the Saviour to
whom she gave herself long years before when the landscape was grim and oppressive. Once
committed she never wavered... for wavering was not her way. She had selected wisely and lived
happily through every vicissitude. She knew the strength that comes from serenity... and she knew
whence this strength had come. He freed her from doubt.... she repaid with a heart of joy... and what
He gave her, she willingly gave to others. For her source of strength was the Lord... and thus she
drew from strength everlasting, inexhaustible, without beginning, without end.
Coming Home.
Thus, your grandmother fashioned a life worth living and because it was grounded in certainty and
anchored in her warm heart she lived it with unceasing joy. And so the years passed in happiness, in
fulfillment, ... with family and friends who flourished with her love and care ... always cared for
herself by the Lord whom she trusted with everything... because He gave everything.

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Then things changed radically, as things can do, overnight , with bewildering speed. After 88 years
of health and stability a sea-change bringing fear and anxiety. Your grandmother's health, so
serviceable for so long, began to fail. Doctors told her she must do this and that... but she took
advice from the source of all health... and the Lord said, "As you have trusted in Me in good times,
so trust in Me in the bad." And she did, graciously thanking the doctors for what they did... but
trusting in her Lord, for in Him she had always trusted.... and hers was no fair-weather devotion but
one to abide the numberless ages to come.
And so Oneida Thomas died, surrounded by love, secure in the love of the Lord.
Now she waits for you.
You are grieving now, James, for her loss, but she knew a secret still to be revealed to you. For she
is not gone. Just gone before. Thus this woman who gave so much, gives you one last gift: the gift
of eternity... for she has pointed the way for you and yours and resides there now her caressing
hands ready to embrace you again. Let her certainty about this meeting cheer you, for it most
assuredly cheered her.
Now go to any search engine, there to locate the words and music to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"
for they are apt and soothing:
"Swing low, sweet chariot Coming for to carry me home Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to
carry me home."
As it has already carried her. World without end! Amen! Amen!
Written for James A. Holmes and his grieving family and for a restive world whose need for peace
and serenity has never been greater.




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'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. I
can tell.'
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. In 1960 one of the loveliest musicals ever written hit the Big Apple and
made history. It was "The Fantasticks" with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It
tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" by Edmond Rostand,
concerning two neighborhood fathers who trick their children into falling in love by pretending to
feud and erecting a wall between their houses.
The show's original off-Broadway production ran a total of 42 years and 17,162 performances,
easily making it the world's longest-running musical. One of its gems is a song called "Soon It's
Gonna Rain", and I defy you to listen to its lyric beauty unmoved... Go now to any search engine;
find the original cast album. Then close your eyes and imagine the gentle rain falling calm and
serene, washing away all distress...
"Then we'll let it rain./ We'll not feel it. Then we'll let it rain./ Rain pell-mell."
Beautiful isn't it?... And, in this summer of 2012, painful and ironic, for in these dog days of this
scorching year there is no rain, though millions pray daily for relief and wonder why God does not
respond and save His people.
The facts.
The first and most sobering fact, a fact millions are still not prepared to believe, is that climate
change is no longer a "threat" that will occur sometime in the future. It is present reality as virtually
every scientist in the field confirms. This includes three scientists who make their findings clear in
the August 2012 issue of the journal "Nature-Geoscience".
The findings by Christopher R. Schwalm, research assistant professor of earth sciences at Northern
Arizona University; Christopher A. Williams, assistant professor of geography at Clark University,
and Kevin Schaefer research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are telling. In a
nutshell, this is their conclusion: extreme weather and drought are here to stay and will influence our
lives directly or indirectly.
Item: This year's drought, no end in sight, is already one for the record books in terms of duration,
severity and temperature.
Item: The 2011 drought in the South Central states was a record at the time, but has easily been
bested by the events of 2012.
Item: Widespread annual droughts, once a rare calamity, have become more frequent and are now
ready to become the "new normal."
Bad news gets worse.
Item: A growing frequency of weather and climate extremes like heat waves, droughts, floods, and
fires can be expected.
Item: Future precipitation trends, based on climate model projections from the coming fifth
assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, indicate that droughts of the 2012
severity will become commonplace as the century progresses.
Item: Assuming "business as usual", each of the next 80 years in the American West is expected to

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see less rainfall than the average of the five years of the drought that hit the region from 2002-2004.
And still more bad news.
Item: Crop yields will continue to fall, with many more local cases of complete crop failure.
Item: Agricultural productivity will decline as plants take in only half the carbon dioxide they do
normally, thanks to drought-induced drop in photosynthesis.
Item: Major river basins, already showing 5 percent to 50 percent reductions in flow will fall further,
with lakes and reservoirs unable to return to "normal." Ever.
Is there any good news?
Frankly, not a great deal. In fact, as I sit here surrounded by learned studies, articles the more
alarming because so grounded in indisputable fact, and the jeremiads of scientists worldwide, I want
to bury my head in the sand like most everyone else. But of course that is completely useless and
unhelpful, whoever does it.
Why our "leaders" do not lead.
Why do the words "climate change" and our options so rarely if ever pass the lips of our major
presidential candidates? They are intelligent men... but they also refuse to rock any boats and a
frank, open discussion on the matter certainly does that, roiling the dwindling waters.
They know that talking about human-induced carbon emissions would upset the "see no evil" voters
of Michigan, for instance, and Ohio, states they must carry. Thus, the conspiracy grows. Voters and
candidates know about the problems of climate-change... but no one wants to bite this bullet which
will necessitate major changes of every kind. And so, before our eyes, things worsen. It is the
American way and it will, in due course, sabotage our culture and lifestyle.
To avoid this all-but-certain outcome, these are the questions we must ask and honestly answer:
1) Do we have the will, the stomach and the fortitude to see this problem completely and truly?
2) Are we willing to examine all data without flinching or prejudice?
3) Are we willing immediately to act, to implement our findings without special pleading or
exemptions?
4) Have we the guts to stay with earth-saving programs for the long durations necessary, for there
can be no rushed or instant conclusions?
5) And finally. Will we induce our leaders to lead by demanding constant effort and a frank, open
discussion of continuing problems, deterioration and, yes, progress. For if we do not hold their feet
to the fire, they will not focus on the necessity for curtailing it.
Is progress certain?
Not as things stand at this moment... but we have not yet begun to fight, and so we cannot say what
we will do to keep the rain coming and all the benefits which ensue therefrom. "The Fantasticks" will
help...
"Soon it's gonna rain/... And we'll not complain/ -- Happy ending --- / / If it never stops at all."/
That would be fantastick indeed!
Envoi.

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At about 5:45 a.m., just as I was completing this, the heavy mist of early morning changed into
greater abundance as the lightest of rains... a benevolent beginning, most welcome. May it come
soon to your neighborhood and help cleanse us all.




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                     Copyright Denis Darling - 2012          17 of 31
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'Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow.' One of America's greatest
leaders -- Yale's president Richard C. Levin -- retires after 20
years. An appreciation.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Harvard University, my alma mater, doesn't inaugurate presidents like other,
lesser institutions of exalted learning. By no means. They consecrate and install latter-day deities,
mere administrators no longer, but the dynamos that rule from Harvard Yard the Great Republic and
every other nation and significant institution everywhere on Earth. That is why such inaugurals, but
infrequently rendered, are more important than the mere coronations of ancient dynasties. Such
dynasties with the most venerable sovereigns are but temporal. Harvard is eternal and its presidents
celestial.
The inauguration of Lawrence Summers, Autumn, 2001.
The scene was perfect Harvard... academic gowns from every great university on Earth looking like
giant flowers... no one marched to their appointed places as requested; they ambled arm-in-arm
instead; the brilliantly colored foliage from the great trees fell softly down upon us, a great
institution participating in this passing of the torch... everything was as it should be... everything
except for President Summer's eagerly awaited remarks... in the event bombastic, inelegant,
impolitic, awkward...
Thus as these ultra discerning worthies, masters all of nuance and exegesis, listened as their anointed
leader blundered through his remarks, the audience grew restive, abashed, and even chagrined. The
27th president made his inaugural address, but it was in truth his inaugural blunder, the first of many.
I turned to my colleague and, sotto voce, predicted stormy weather for Mr. Summers. One didn't
need a Ph.D. in prognostication to make what became in due course a gross understatement.
What should have been a glorious event, historic, High Harvard and grand, made us all not merely
disappointed, but sad, let-down and angry that our Harvard was not so fair that day as she had every
right to anticipate and expect. Its bright promise was overcast and glum.
... until Dr. Richard C. Levin, President of Yale since 1993, got up to present fraternal greetings and
timely observations. And not a moment too soon. I am embarrassed to tell you, I knew nothing about
this man that day; in my defense I must stress that presidents of Yale are not first priorities to
Crimson alumni. Still... it was a lacuna.
On this day, economist Levin came to praise, exhort and welcome fellow economist Summers to the
rank and status of Ivy League president, to all loyal Ivies the very top of the greasy pole. And so
Levin, elegantly dressed, looking every inch who he was, custodian of one of the Great Republic's
greatest institutions, a man of distinction and undoubted presence rose... and from the very first
words he uttered we were all on beloved terra cognita, dismayed no longer.
Every word he said was le mot juste, carefully selected, carefully stated. He was at once eloquent,
informed, genteel, amusing, insightful, a leader who knew his audience like the back of his hand. He
made the right allusions, his point of view perfect to the occasion, with just the right amount of
immemorial raillery, for the rivalries of generations must be honored and sustained.
I was not alone in that vast audience in wishing we were inaugurating the gentleman of polished
manners, eloquent and graceful turns of phrase, and the divinity that doth hedge instead of the often
clueless, bumptious president so ill-equipped for the role that his tenure when it ended in rancor and
disarray after just 5 years in 2006 was the shortest since the university's earliest days. Oh, yes, we

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coveted Levin for Harvard and to preserve, protect and defend our profound interest in the matter.
But Dr. Levin loved Yale, although Yale nearly missed the opportunity to be loved by one whose
love was worth the having.
Low-key Dr. Levin? You're kidding!
Yale before Levin was an institution at risk; critics of old Eli, its whys and wherefores, were legion.
If Yale were a great galleon, its leaks were prodigious and threatening. Yale needed, Yale had to
have a "known" leader... someone capable of overawing the nay-sayers and getting on with the
massive overhaul and reformation required. "Rick" Levin wanted the job... but he was no hero, no
glamor boy, no titan of education, no household name.
No one felt he was up to the job of working successfully with factious faculty, or liberating New
Haven from ghetto status and urban blight by undertaking a sincere and dedicated policy of working
together with skeptical community officials and residents. And what about the worrisome budget
shortfalls, the disheartening staff cuts, falling applications and facilities which badly needed
renovation and repair? It was a mighty job, and Levin didn't look like he had the necessary skills,
stomach, and salience.
And so Yale's presidential search committee repeatedly, embarrassingly postponed the deadline for
naming a new president, hoping McCawber-like, that something would turn-up, thereby showing
exactly what they thought of Rick Levin, the man who became one of the greatest of Yale's
presidents and a model for beleaguered and challenged college presidents everywhere. His
accomplishments are staggering, the more so because the honest and honorable man was not
destroyed by ego and arrogance.
He is today what he was at the beginning, a man who loves Yale and is happy to do what is called
for for her immediate improvement and long-term well-being. Here are just some of his notable
achievements:
Item: He lead the school's largest building and renovation program since the 1930s, expanding
Yale's financial aid programs and global activities.
Item: He measurably improved the university's historically difficult relationship with its unions and
built necessary and long overdue partnerships with the too often unregarded and dismissed city of
New Haven.
Item: Yale's endowment went from $3.2 billion in 1993 to $19.4 billion this year.
Item: A homebuyers program started in 1994 offered financial incentives to buy homes in the city
and more than 1,000 Yale faculty and staff have participated.
Item: About 70 percent of the space on campus has been partially or completely renovated,
including all 12 of its residential colleges, with plans to build two more.
"Rick Levin is simply one of the world's great leaders," Indra Nooyi, chief executive of PepsiCo.
Now Richard C. Levin is stepping down, 65 years old, the longest serving president in the Ivy
League. He says it's time to take up the next challenge of his life, writing a book of reflections on
higher education and economic policy. He also wants to travel some, and I trust the Overseers will
grant him a Harvard degree honoris causa so he'll have reason to return to Cambridge.
When John F. Kennedy got such a degree from Yale, he quipped that he now had the best of both
worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree. I trust that Levin will at the next Commencement be
so honored, ready to say that now he, too, has the best of both worlds, a Yale education and a
Harvard degree. For this I shall make it a particular point to return to the Tercentenary Theater in

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Harvard Yard where I first encountered this remarkable man, whose unstinting love affair with Yale
has been so helpful to so many, so enhancing the Great Republic and the world.
Musical accompaniment to this article. Here there were choices aplenty ranging from "Boola Boola"
(composed in 1900 by Allan M Hirsch Yale '01) to "The Whiffenpoof Song" sung by Rudy Vallee
'27, America's first pop star. But in the end I had to go with Cole Porter '13 because, like the
Coliseum and Cellophane, Rick Levin, "You're The Top". Go to any search engine and find Cole
Porter belting it out for you!




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                    Copyright Denis Darling - 2012          20 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!


Of plums, their sweetness, politics, and the eternal desire for
more.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. I decided to walk to the Farmer's Market yesterday; usually I ask Mister
Joseph to drive me, the better to bring home the excessive armloads of produce I need to feel I have
enough. But the weather, on the cusp between a summer exiting and a fall arriving, was perfect for
something ambulatory and good for you.
Yes, it was a perfect day to be out and about.... and the way to the market hard by the Charles Hotel
was packed with everyone and his brother, folks who had the same idea as I did: to prepare
squirrel-like for the rigorous winter ahead... never mind that every morsel I purchased this day
would be long gone before the first flake of snow hits the pavement. It's the thought that counts, that
there would be enough, that I would have enough, and that this winter there should be, for me and
mine at least, an ample sufficiency.
It is most curious to me how this process works. One minute it is a hot, stiffling New England
summer day... then, as if by magic, there is a whiff of the New England autumn ahead with its
preview of gusts and dismay about the return of the winter that tests us all so sorely, the more so if
Social Security is your metier. This touch of autumn is Nature's wake-up call... and, unless you are
clueless on such matters, you get the point and do the necessary. Thus I was walking to the Market
with a friend who said, "I knew I should have worn my sweater." He really didn't need it... but
Nature's clues resonate more with some than others. Moreover since he is not of hardy stock, he
needs a call more clarion than I do. And he got it.
"Done for the season, sir."
Last week there were white peaches, blueberries and a few blackberries, too. I asked how long the
fabulous whites, an exquisite liquor in a soft skin, would last. The young woman behind the counter,
overly plump and too young to catch her breath as often as she does, was cavalier. "We'll have them
for another month at least." But today, just a few days after her confident pronouncement, there were
no whites to be had, no more to come, and so I was disgruntled. The only white peaches now were in
my head with many a long day to pine for them and wish them sooner here....
But when God, they say, closes a door, He opens a window. And that was nothing but the truth this
day... for there before me was a deep purpled fruit I had, in my lamentation for the whites, forgotten.
But the fruit had not forgotten me. "Try the plums, sir. They're oozing and ready to pop in your
mouth. No waiting!" Thus the young woman, who any 18th century English novelist would have
correctly described as a "saucy wench", thereby in some measure regained the good opinion of
Yours Truly... and so, by the merest touch, I confirmed her evaluation... eyes engaged for color...
fingers to test for perfect readiness... only mouth yet to call into action... and that, once
accomplished, lead to a dozen ready to take home and devour without ceremony.
And so with the plum I had regained my equanimity and good cheer. I knew exactly how Little Jack
Horner must have felt when he, plumless one minute and chagrined, had by deft digital movement
extracted a beauty from his Christmas pie. Plums have been coming to the rescue just like this for
centuries and so boys like Jack "Sitting in the Chimney-corner" know that a single plum at just the
right moment can make a world of difference and that old grannies should be reminded of this
whenever the world is too much with us, late and soon.
Facts about plums.


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A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus. It is a diverse group of species including
peaches, cherries and bird cherries, amongst others. Prunus is distinguished from its relations
because its shoots have a terminal bud and solitary side buds (not clustered), with flowers in groups
of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one side and a
smooth stone (or pit.)
Mature plum fruit may have a dusty-white coating that gives them a glaucous appearance; this is
easily rubbed off. This is an epicuticular wax coating and is known as "wax bloom". Dried plum
fruits are called dried plums or prunes, although prunes are a distinct type of plum and may have
antedated the fruits now commonly known as plums... but universally regarded as the best.
Plum: the best part of anything.
You have only to eat a plum to understand why they are regarded as "good". But you need to know
something of its long history and association with mankind to understand why the very word itself
has passed into our language meaning "the best part of anything," for to call a thing "plum" is to call
it the very best it can be. The question is, how to put this "bestness" to work for our greatest
pleasures.
Uses for plums.
Plum fruit tastes sweet and/or tart. The skin, for instance, may be particularly tart. It is juicy and can
be eaten fresh or used in jam-making. Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine; when distilled
this produces a brandy known in Eastern Europe as Rakia. In the English Midlands, a cider-like
alcoholic beverage known as plum jerkum is prized.
In considering how plums are used you must remember that refrigeration is a very recent
development in human history. One feature very much in the plums favor is that it dries well and
keeps its flavor. Dried plums (called prunes) are sweet, juicy, and contain several antioxidants.
They're widely known for their laxative effect, particularly with elderly people suffering from
constipation. How to handle this aspect of what the prune can do has produced sharp disagreement
among plums, all of whom have an opinion on the matter.
On the one hand, plums are glad to be helpful, especially to old folks who have eaten plums and
been loyal to them for a lifetime. On the other hand, plums wish to develop their reputation for being
a celebrity fruit, edgy, cool, the favorite of trend-setters and calorie conscious fashionistas. This
split, so distressing to plum lovers everywhere, after many acrimonious years now seems on the road
to reconciliation thanks to recent developments in a thing which initially wasn't a plum at all... sugar
plums.
"Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads".
A sugar plum is a piece of drage'e candy that is made of dried fruits and shaped in a small round or
oval shape. But "plums" here mean any dried fruit, such as dried figs, dried apricots, dried dates,
dried cherries, etc. The dried fruit is chopped fine and combined with chopped almonds, honey and
aromatic spices, such as anise seed, fennel seed, cardamom etc.; then rolled into balls, to be coated
in sugar or shredded coconut, thence to go into expectant mouths and such gems of our culture as "
'Twas the Night Before Christmas" (1822) ; Eugene Field's poem "The Sugar Plum Tree" (from
"Poems of Childhood", 1904) and, of course, Tchaikovsky's masterpiece "The Nutcracker" (1892)
where the Sugar Plum fairies and their brilliant theme still enchant despite being egregiously
overplayed every Christmas. (Even some plums concur). As for the plums, every time they hear it,
they get angry... for their name and flavorful renown have been usurped to sell... apricots! And
cherries! And that will never do.
Check your sugar plums... make sure there are plums there. Accept no substitutions.

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Since launching this campaign, plum sales have soared... and plums, gathering to extol themselves
upon this success, have forwarded any number of additional ideas to keep the ball rolling. The best is
to rework Jack Horner's presentation. Abercrombie and Fitch has been approached for one of their
comely lads to hold a strategically placed plum... and nothing more. Kinky.
The Plum Book.
No story on the plums and their great reputation would be complete without a reference to what
automatically becomes the most popular book in Washington, D.C. the minute the television
networks project the next President. Its actual name is "United States Government Policy and
Supporting Positions"; it is, however, universally called "The Plum Book." It contains over 9,000
civil service leadership and support positions (filled and vacant) in the Legislative and Executive
branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointments, in other
words political appointments.
Are you of an upwardly mobile and competitive disposition? Then imagine this: whilst scanning The
Plum Book for something geared to your genius, you nibble an authentic sugar plum whilst listening
to the great melodies of the sugar plum fairies. If you're a plum lover it gets no better than this... go
to any search engine now and, with Tchaikovsky's help and an appointment from the president turn
today into Christmas, the plum itself in all its manifestations the best present of all.




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                        Copyright Denis Darling - 2012            23 of 31
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At a lunch counter in Harvard Square. A place of friendly
people and tasty meals; a dinosaur en route to extinction.
Some thoughts.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. We've been having a lot of rain lately here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's
the kind of rain that all locals greet with amiable forbearance, saying even to total strangers
(especially if they are grumbling), "We need the rain." It makes us feel important when we say it; as
if we were trained agronomists advising farmers on the matter of rain, when, where, how much. Of
course it also needs to be said that when we hear other people say it, we regard them as conversation
impaired, offering up such banality with such seriousness.
Ordinarily, weather doesn't interest me very much. Rain or shine inside a penthouse where the
shutters in my office are always closed, no exception; looks much the same, as do day and night.
Others may not like such a situation, but it suits me and my pursuits perfectly. It's not only where I
do my writing but where my daily webcasts and running commentaries take place. The shutters and
two fine verde mare marble columns once in a French palace constitute the elegant back drop to
subjects discussed which may be anything but.
Yesterday, however, the rain lifted and even I, the ultimate urban dweller clueless on the rhythms
and rhymes of nature, thought descending from my ideally appointed space capsule was in order. I
grabbed the Harvard cap one of my visitors had forgotten and left behind; took an umbrella that
another of my visitors had forgotten and left behind. I was ready for an excursion, lunch in Harvard
Square was indicated...
"The Square", isn't.
Irregularly shaped and sprawling Harvard Square is one of the half dozen places on Earth every
person of consequence, real or imagined, visits at least once in a lifetime. It is a place of human
flotsam and jetsam; of people who come to move up (including future presidents of the Great
Republic) and those who are down on their luck, street dwellers who solicit those who feel generous
for giving a buck or two, which will probably end up amongst the blood-stained profits of one
Mexican drug cartel or another. But Mexico and its hecatombs and legion of hapless victims are too
far away to worry about, especially as so many of its leaders were schooled at Harvard, which is just
the way it's supposed to be.
Down Massachusetts Avenue, the brick sidewalks muddy and wet, passersby smelling like a dog left
out in the rain.
I am walking to lunch on the sidewalk along Massachusetts Avenue; "Mass Ave" to the cognoscenti
who are past masters at making people like you seem unsophisticated, unhallowed, unready for the
world Cambridge folk are imagining and inventing this very minute. These multi-degreed paragons
are the planet's movers and shakers. They want to be sure you know this about them instantly, so
that they may then exhibit the modesty for which they will one day be so renowned despite so many
momentous achievements. But this is now... and so they regard modesty solely as a trait for those
who have much to be modest about -- that would be you.
Labor Day Week-end, 1969.
I am in my stride now passing one Harvard-owned property after another. Here the lavish donations
of long dead alumni are put to current use, fully rented out generating still more money for The
World's Greatest (and already Richest) University. The kinds of shops tell you much about the place

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and its inhabitants: bank, ice cream parlor, smoke, ice cream parlor, bank, Harvard insignia, ice
cream parlor, bank. Get the picture? The Square has more banks and ATMs within a few blocks than
many cities as well as untold tons of ice cream.
Because Harvard students are the most privileged people on Earth, strident calls for world
revolution and sweeping change rarely have much presence either in the Square, or in Harvard Yard,
the heart of the place. People who like the status quo are hardly likely urge its destruction. Yet John
Reed '10 did so urge. "Red" Reed is buried in the Kremlin's walls. Even that dubious honor needs
must go to a Harvard man. We wouldn't want it any other way, even though he was Red; at least
that's a shade of crimson.
Even the homeless like the situation as it is, idling life away, supported by those who can only
imagine having so much free time since they do not, and never will. Thus instead of earnest young
people, grim faced and determined (at least until winter arrives to chill their resolution), there are
boys with pony tails selling designer ice cream to undergraduates who will one day (and not so
distant either) rule the world and reap its benefits. They already regard each day at Harvard as the
best years of their lives; Harvard likes it that way. The more they think like that, the bigger their
alumni contributions over the many years to come... and so memory and remembrance help Harvard
wax richer.
I arrive. 1246 Mass. Ave.
About 10 minutes from the time I entered the elevator, I am at my destination, a place of importance
for two reasons: first, this is my first memory of Harvard; the moment I saw Harvard and the Square
for the first time; Labor Day Week-end, 1969. And because I remember everything about that
epiphany, I clearly remember Mr. Bartley's. That's where I shall lunch this day... but not because I
am nostalgic about food, but because the food is good and, for once, I am really hungry.
A hole in the wall, a dive, a joint.
Bartley's opened its door (it has but one) in 1960, just 9 years before I arrived in Cambridge to start
my graduate work. I cannot tell you how many times I've gone, but dozens seems conservative.
What's more, more times than not I order what I always order because I like it: large raspberry lime
rickey (to be refilled); Burger Supreme medium well, onion rings, extra dill pickle. If I ate this same
meal every day, I might be thought to be in a rut, but going just two or three times in a year to order
and devour this specialite' of the house makes me a connoisseur; I insist on the description.
Uncomfortable, packed like sardines, chairs too low.
Let me be plain with you; if you are not willing to overlook its inconvenient aspects, if you insist on
every amenity, then you will never be happy at Bartley's which in an astonishingly small space
packs in an astonishing number of chairs, booths, human and machine food cookers, waitpersons,
the raspberry lime rickeys that I crave and can nowadays get nowhere else -- and the lunch counter.
Bit by bit you see just how much is going on in this compact space. The walls are covered with
clever sayings, double entendres, pictures of film stars, pictures of politicians, and accolades for its
signature "burguhs". You want to get up to see these better but chances are you'd be tripping over a
few people to do so; unless you come right at opening there is no chance you'll get to do this. You'll
have to return. After over 40 years I still have not seen it all.
The first time a waiter screams "Burguh Supreme" at the cook, you'll be startled, but pretty soon
you're screaming your comments and conversation at the top of your voice, like you've been coming
for decades, and here the sheer proximity of other hungry humans, from Kansas, Greece, or
Timbuktu works its singular magic.


http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                        Copyright Denis Darling - 2012            25 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!

Forced to be close to them, you make your choice, a choice with universal implications. Either you
decide to ignore your very near neighbor, or you talk to them, like our fathers and grandfathers used
to talk... up close, personal, direct, often humorous, even hilarious ... but talk... to the astonishment
and discontent of the young, who are at first often affronted and monosyllabic when an adult like me
offers a comment, an introduction, an opening to the wonder of people meeting each other and
actually conversing, not just texting some inane, impersonal drivel. Bartley's works because the food
is good and, if you're lucky, you've made a new friend...
This is the way America used to be and now so little is, for along the way we have lost the ability to
talk with our neighbors about everything, about anything, about nothing in particular. Now we want
what Greta Garbo wanted, "to be left alone." And then when we are, we text message wildly in a
vain attempt to conjure the kind of relationship text messaging can never supply.
So, now a newly minted old age pensioner of 65, I shall keep going to Bartley's, where I shall
inform everyone (especially the staff not one of who was then born) how long I've been coming, like
old codgers do. I shall ask for help getting into and especially out of the blue plastic chairs which
always make me feel older than the hills. I shall greet the only senior on the staff and will politely
turn down the offer of a menu. I know what I want. And I shall say something like this to the person
sitting across from me, "You look like Ernest Borgnine." "Oh, yeah, didn't he just die?..." I am on
my way to acquaintance with all its myriad of possibilities.
And while I wait for the best burguh on Earth, I will wonder how much longer Bartley's will last, its
price for burguhs being the highest in the Square, each increase a nail in its coffin.
However for now I intend in my small way to help keep them alive, a place of good food and the
chance to connect with another human or two. And so I have selected as the music for this article,
the 1964 tune by the Newbeats "Bread and Butter". It's a peppy little number, completely foolish and
inane, about his food and his woman. "She don't cook mashed potatoes/ She don't cook T-bone
steaks". No, she secretly gets them at Bartley's... where she also found her new boyfriend, a man
who really appreciates "her" cooking! Find the story in any search engine... and enjoy.




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                        Copyright Denis Darling - 2012            26 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!


The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometime
prince of Cambodia, king, prime minister, revolutionary,
demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.
Author's program note. When the Abbe Sieyes, one of the first three consuls of the new French
government of 1799 was asked what he did during the Terror, he replied "I survived." Everyone
who had done the same would have understood at once just how signal an achievement that was. It
seems a particularly apt comment to apply to King Norodom Sihanouk... who lived to a venerable
age which so many times looked unlikely, even impossible. It may well have been his most
significant achievement. You may judge for yourself.
Geography is destiny.
To begin this article, go to any search engine and print out a map of Cambodia and its contiguous
neighbors, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam. Then cast your eye North, to China, which monitored and
influenced his every move his entire life.
I suspect His Majesty knew every boundary, highway, minor road, river, city and town. He was no
scholar, but on this subject I imagine he excelled. Much of what he could do, much of what he
could not do was played out on the maps of Southeast Asia; his dreams, his fears, his rationales for
so many shifts, turns, lies, deceptions, convolutions, "irrational" decisions made, reversed, made
again, reversed again and again.
You will never understand this man and his decisions, which so often infuriated and exasperated so
many uncomprehending statesmen and diplomats, without understanding the geography of the place.
I am writing this article with such a map at my fingertips. You should do the same. To achieve his
goals of staying alive, keeping Cambodia independent and autonomous, and its population safe, he
had to master every nuance of these maps and his options... options which changed as the goals of
his contiguous neighbors (and their near and far-away allies) shifted... and above all whenever the
shadow of great China crossed his path... as it seemed constantly to do.
Born in the purple October 31, 1922.
Cambodia at the time of King Sihanouk's birth was part of French Indochina, a protectorate since
1863. The royal dynasty reigned; the French ruled everything including the dynasty. To make this
work as efficient and thorough as possible, they wanted young, naive, powerless princes at the helm.
Shy 18-year-old Prince Sihanouk seemed tailor-made and so in 1941 French colonial authorities
raised him to be king. No one, certainly no Frenchman, took this adolescent monarch seriously; he
had wept after all when elevated. They wanted "a little lamb", Sihanouk said later. They got a tiger.
The man had been misjudged and misunderstood from the beginning; that never changed.
Everything else did, including the French Protectorate over Indochine.
The beginning of the end of the French Colonial Empire.
The breathtaking 1940 German invasion of France and the French capitulation (June, 1940) gave
King Sihanouk the chance he needed to advance Cambodian independence. He worked with the new
conquerors, the Japanese, as he had worked with the previous conquerors, the French. On March 9,
1945, the Japanese still in charge, King Sihanouk proclaimed an independent Kingdom of
Kampuchea. The Japanese soon left; the French were prostrate. The King had had a very good war,
despite General Charles de Gaulle's insistence that the ancien regime be resurrected. He might so

http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                      Copyright Denis Darling - 2012           27 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!

desire, but he could not dictate; a lesson he found hard to learn, then or ever.
In due course, October, 1953, Sihanouk declared independence. The "little lamb" had
outmaneuvered the Cross of Lorraine himself. The King was now as grand as the kingdom
proclaimed itself to be... and the Golden Age of his reign and his nation were at hand, a graceful
time revered by every subject and remembered with joy, gratitude and bittersweet nostalgia. If only
things had so remained... if only.
But now one word hung over Cambodia, its king, its gentle people and their life of beauty, serenity,
grace and tranquility. That word was Vietnam and in this single word there was an unimaginable
horror and woes beyond measure. No one knew this better than the liberator King of Cambodia, at
the very center of so much that went so wrong for so many, including himself.
Saving his house from the inferno next door.
Before continuing you must remember this man's objectives -- to save himself, to preserve his
dynasty, to ensure the nation's freedom and self-rule, and to keep his adoring people safe from the
collateral damage inflicted on them by bigger, richer, careless nations. It was not merely a tall order;
it was the devil's own conundrum. And he could not avoid action or, in the way of so many
academics, avoid making crucial decisions altogether; no, he had to decide, he had to act, he had to
row his tiny boat and its 5 million vulnerable inhabitants through the growing maelstrom that
emanated from and engulfed his proximate neighbor Vietnam.
For 17 years, he kept his people out of the ever-growing civil conflict destroying his much larger
neighbor. This is the key fact by which he should be judged, not the fact that he employed every
single stratagem, tactic, ruse, insinuation, prevarication or deception he had to. He was a king,
charged by heaven with the care of his people, whom he called and considered his "children". God
would understand.
As a result, Sihanouk became the very personification of the oldest Western stereotype, the Wily
Oriental Gentleman (WOG). This and other far cruder characterizations and epithets permeated the
CIA's "top secret" (1964) report "Prince Sihanouk and the New Order in Southeast Asia" by John W.
Taylor, the word "patriot" seems hardly to have occurred to his detractors.
And so as the fire consumed Vietnam one killing field at a time, King Sihanouk perfected his
mastery of the legerdemain that kept his most vulnerable realm as secure as a world of insecurity
would allow.
Item: He became the darling of the world's left-leaning non-aligned nations while discouraging the
growth of Cambodia's left-wing parties.
Item: After the Vietnam war broke out again in 1961, he secretly allied with North Vietnam and
began allowing Viet Cong troops to use Cambodia as a military base. At the same time he tacitly
approved limited US bombing runs on Cambodian soil.
Item: But you get the picture. His Majesty would do what His Majesty needed to do... and he did it
until it no longer pleased all the people all the time, which had always been His Majesty's special,
impossible assignment. In March, 1970 the United States tacitly approved a CIA coup that removed
Sihanouk, turned the nation over to Lon Nol, a former military adviser who gave the United States
what it wanted: a friendly regime that turned neutralist Cambodia into an American base, corrupt,
propped up by lavish US aid. The golden days of Sihanouk's Cambodia were done and truly over.
War, genocide, an impatient, impotent ex-monarch watches. Now the great Cambodian tragedy
began; Lon Nol tethered to US interests, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge Communists infiltrating,
destabilizing from the left. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing, condemned Lon Nol and backed the Khmer

http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                        Copyright Denis Darling - 2012           28 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!

Rouge which in 1975 imprisoned him in his palace thereby effectively silencing the Cambodian
people's best friend and "father". The genocide of Pol Pot's regime, responsible for over 1.7 million
brutal murders, starvations, and exterminations as it tried to convert the entire nation into an agrarian
collective, showed just how good the "good old days" had been.
And so he watched from afar as the nation he had built was destroyed; the people he loved were
killed in their tens and hundreds of thousands and the United States condemned him for his
unaccountable advocacy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. A realist to his royal fingertips, the
ex-monarch knew he must explain himself on this matter, or languish on the sidelines forever,
anathema to the Great Republic and its "do as I say, not as I do" approach to international relations.
"War and Hope," my dinner with King Sihanouk, my ticklish assignment.
The result was Sihanouk's book "War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia" (Pantheon Books, 1980),
a ringing denunciation of the Khmer Rouge and its spectrum of brutalities, a denunciation he took to
Harvard and its Center for International Affairs; where in those days I was a marketing, public
relations and development consultant to Professor Samuel Huntington. As such I was invited to his
lavish black-tie dinner in honor of the man called "Former Chief of State" and his Samuel L. and
Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture. Before that dinner, Professor Huntington handed me the evening's hot
potato: on the pressing need to ensure the Prince's traveling concubine did not attend the festivities
in honor of her aging but agile Lothario.
"Girls, girls, girls"... but not at Harvard!
Sihanouk, like all the kings of Cambodia, was a sybarite, a libertine, a frequent, frequently
indiscriminate, lover and prodigious producer of princely children (at least 14), a real life character
like Mrs. Anna Leonowens found in Bangkok in 1862. The CIA made much of his concupiscence;
he enjoyed his droit de seigneur. In any event, it helped pass his gilded exile. But whatever was
acceptable elsewhere, such behavior did not suit Fair Harvard, at least the residual Puritans at the
Center for International Affairs (now called the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs). They
wanted no part of his current traveling companion. And because I was a hired consultant I was told
to get the lady gone.
I can see her to this day and even smell her intoxicating Rue de la Paix scent. She was lovely in the
Cambodian manner, young, lavishly dressed, a doll. She disdained me... and no wonder.
Had it been me alone, I would have invited her, but I was merely following orders. And so while she
filed her nails and cast her eyes down, I stumbled through the message and her contempt. She knew
my discomfort and dragged it out. I felt like a worm, for all that they paid me well. She was not in
attendance that evening.
But King Sihanouk was, to deliver his "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" on the Khmer Rouge, toppled
in 1979 but not forgotten or forgiven in Washington, D.C.. When I was presented, I murmured the
expected compliments which he, the consummate man of the world, reciprocated without a
moment's thought. It was what he'd been doing for a lifetime, saying the expected, while doing what
needed to be done.
But what was clear was that he was in Cambridge, at Harvard, because he wanted to return to
Kampuchea and if exchanging small talk with someone like me, if giving up his play fellow for a
time were required, he would do it all, and more. For Cambodia was his real love, his one and only
love, and he missed her to distraction. And so after Pol Pot fell; after the Vietnamese were expelled
he got his fervent wish, to be reunited with the beloved.
Now this man, this king, this tiger once thought to be a little lamb, this lover of women and great
patriot, this evasive man, ambiguous man, deceptive man for whom mere truth was a luxury he

http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                        Copyright Denis Darling - 2012            29 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!

could hardly ever afford is dead. We shall never see his like again in our time. Go then to any search
engine. Find "Nokor Reach", the national anthem of the Kingdom of Cambodia... "Heaven save the
king/ Give him happiness and glory/... rule the Khmer Land and/ make it high and filled with honor",
as in his way he did.




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                      Copyright Denis Darling - 2012          30 of 31
Weathering through the Storm!


Resource
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. Your response to this article is
requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.
Republished with author's permission by Denis Darling http://MyExtremeResults.com.




http://www.MyExtremeResults.com                    Copyright Denis Darling - 2012         31 of 31

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  • 2. Preface / Introduction As each year passes through the sands of our mind, each one of use faces many challenges and issues that force us to make choices. These choices drive many different things in our lives and sometime, our choice cause us to lose those things that are dear to us. Many people around the world experience storms that influence many issues, here are just a few that influence us here where we are! Denis Darling FOR YOUR FREE MARKETING CONSULTATION-Value $100 CALL ME 24/7/365 SKYPE: denis.darling YES, YOU CAN MAKE MONEY NOW ONLINE STANDINY BY FOR YOUR CALL..... NOW
  • 3. Table of Contents 1. Of apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts. Edible autumn in New England. 2. O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m. 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour. 3. USA sets 6,800 high temperature records in March, 2012 as we consider the future when we have money -- and nothing else. 4. Not gone. Just gone before. An open letter to a friend and colleague upon the death of his beloved grandmother. Swing low, sweet chariot. 5. 'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. I can tell.' 6. 'Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow.' One of America's greatest leaders -- Yale's president Richard C. Levin -- retires after 20 years. An appreciation. 7. Of plums, their sweetness, politics, and the eternal desire for more. 8. At a lunch counter in Harvard Square. A place of friendly people and tasty meals; a dinosaur en route to extinction. Some thoughts. 9. The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometime prince of Cambodia, king, prime minister, revolutionary, demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012.
  • 4. Weathering through the Storm! Of apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts. Edible autumn in New England. By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. The bounty of New England's small family farms is now available at road stands throughout the region. The weather, despite the wallop of Hurricane Irene, has been beneficial and the crops are ample. There is, therefore, enough for all. I love this time of the year, and my neighbors do, too. We, though we abide in the region's cities, make a point of leaving our urban condominiums and walk-up apartments, glad for the opportunity to taste autumn. This is a yearly ritual which none of us wants to miss, for it calls us, if only for a moment, back to the land which is a part of all of us and which recalls us to a past which is for all of us at some point agrarian. We are all of the land... and the farms and gardens, so picturesque in October, remind us where we have been... and of our forefathers... who kept faith with this land... tending it... nurturing it... protecting it... so that the land and their descendants might prosper together. Each rock that they used to build the fences that make good neighbors reminds us of our own families and the constant work that the land necessitates. The land demands... and we obey the land... for this is the way of the immemorial land and richness that comes forth if we but do our part. Apples are part of this land and this richness... and now is the high season of these apples. Apples must be picked. Each apple that you see has been picked. It's something we urban dwellers never think about and which industrious apple growers must never forget... for apples on a tree are useless to all but the birds which well know how to get their sweet juices. In his poem "After Apple-Picking" (published in 1915) Robert Frost reminds us just how laborious it is to pick the apples. On his tiny New Hampshire farm, Frost tells us that in apple-picking time the farm and the needs of the crop determine all. Everything else must be put aside for now; this is the way of the insistent land, the demanding land, the land that dictates that which humans who desire the bounty of this land must do: "And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired." Apples must be packed and promptly moved. Apples, like every fruit of the farm, must be moved, for we buyers and eaters of apples are slothful and must be waited on. We will go on a yearly ritual of pilgrimage to the apples... praising farmer, land and crop.. .but we demand on all other occasions that the apples we so desire be brought close to us. The apples I buy, for instance, come from Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell, Massachusetts. It is a far trek from Cambridge and so Carl and his helpers bring the apples to me in a local farmers' market, held each Sunday in Harvard Square until Thanksgiving. There after 10 a.m. (the strict opening time, not a minute earlier permitted)... I can fuss over the multitude of varieties, rejecting most, selecting just the most attractive, aromatic, and (I trust) delicious. Even after his many other customers purchase (for Carl and Kimball have a following), the piles of apples are still heaping; each and every one must be re-packed, taken back to Pepperell, to be packed again tomorrow, moved again, scrutinized again, and so on until at last all the apples are http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 4 of 31
  • 5. Weathering through the Storm! gone. Carl, like Frost, gets overtired, too. But apples are the pride of Kimball Fruit Farm... and their website boasts of over 40 varieties.... how many could you name? Baldwin, Blushing Golden, Brock, Burgundy, Cameo, Chesnut, Crab Cortland, Elstar... the list goes on an on, each one a pledge by Proprietor Carl that the land will be so cherished so that each of these apples will flourish in years to come, including one of the most beautiful apples of all: the Spencers which I crave. And so it has been going on for the thousands of years apples have been amongst us, starting in Western Asia, where the apple's wild ancestor, the Alma, can still be found today. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars, resulting in a wide range of desired characteristics. So desirable are these characteristics that 55 million tonnes of apples were grown in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. China produced some 35 percent of this total; the United States was second with more than 7.5 percent of world production. Iran is third, followed by Turkey, Russia, Italy, and India. Many of these apples are eaten raw... but many are also transformed into that silky mixture called apple cider. I buy mine from Allen's Cider Mill in West Brookfield, Mass. The reason I initially bought from this stand at the farmers' market was that the fellow tending it looked so sad. I felt glad to lift his load just a smidgeon, but in truth I liked the product... and got in the habit of buying from him, though he is laconic to a degree and has never smiled in my presence or ever said a friendly greeting. I notice such things. A teen-aged boy of 15 or so helps the man out; it's probably his father. They look alike. I notice he never smiles either and that makes me wonder at the ways of genetics and family farms. The label makes it clear that this cider must be refrigerated at below 40 degrees Farenheit and wants you to know, too, that it has been ultra light treated for my safety... no preservatives... no additives... and is made of "washed sound ripe apples." I have never bothered with such cider labels before, but I am grateful for their care and practical concern, though I'd still like a friendly greeting, a smile, and a chipper query asking me how I like the cider, since I keep returning for it... and for the cider doughnuts, too, which I first sampled at this stand... I was in a relaxed and friendly disposition the day I saw the hand-written sign about cider doughnuts and asked what they were. The answer was worthy of Silent Cal, Vermont's only president. "Made with cider, instead of water," he said, as if each word was a treasure to be hoarded, not shared even for commercial gain. They were 50 cents each; I got one, the minimum risk... The next week I got 4... and devoured them at record speed, a new taste of fall... topped off with cinnamon and sugar. It is a delicacy indeed, and I can bear even the lack of amiability so long as there are cider doughnuts near at hand... and great, grand Spencer apples, too... and the smoothness of apple cider. For all of these together, and each distinct, is truly the apple of my eye... deserving of high praise, no waiting, please, for I have no patience, none at all. But I do have a song to accompany so many delicacies. It's by the Four Lovers, "You're the apple of my eye." (released 1956). Go to any search engine to find it now... and enjoy. For you are "done with apple-picking now" and must take a moment to eat, savor, and thank. For apples and everything about them are a great joy and benediction. As you and I have known for a lifetime, haven't we? http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 5 of 31
  • 6. Weathering through the Storm! O Little Town... Christmas comes to Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 25, 2011. 12:54 a.m. 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds W-NW 8 miles per hour. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Before I left on my Christmas walk-about at not quite 1 a.m. Eastern today, I turned on every light in my brilliantly lit house. On the lights in the hallway thereby exposing in radiance the wistful picture of a young 18th century prince of the House of Brunswick-Luneberg. Dead too soon, not even 20, he craves all the light I can give him, and that is much. On the lights, all the lights in the Red Drawing Room, on the lights, all the lights in the Green Room, on the lights, all the lights in the Blue Room from where I am writing you now, where the chandelier throws out over 10,000 facets of light. So the seller told me; I have long since given up counting them... but their colors entrance while its welcome heat warms me... What kind of mania is this that demands every light lit, every treasure burnished, everything bold, audacious, polished, warm and, to my uttermost ability, welcome? Just this: It is Christmas Day, this very day, this day of days, to come but once and go... and I am alive, ready, eager to take myself from here and see how this 2,011th Christmas is evolving from my vantage point in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I command all this light, first, to celebrate the advent of this day and its great meaning, that on this very day, over two thousand years ago the Prince of Heaven was born, a boon to mankind, our sustaining hope unto the ages. And I want Him to know that He is welcome here... and always has been, though often I did not know or show it... And, too, there must be light, an explosion of light, to welcome me home, for I mean to go out and see for myself how this Holy Night is faring and what my neighbors may be doing. Red hat, white fur, my lassez passer. This is my 63rd Christmas; the year when my many friends worldwide, of so many climes and countries, offer their advice freely before I venture out into the dark and cold. "Bundle up," says Mark Anderson. "Remember to cover your ears," proffers Dale Thomson. "Don't stay out too long," offers David Mobile. Such words, each one on any other day lese majeste', convey care and love... and make me smile. A man like me knows well the warmth of such words and how to conjure them; they cheer the heart such as no fire can. Age hath its wisdoms and privileges; no one knows that better than I do, and I crave them as surely as air or sun; and get them, too. And so I put on the foolish Santa hat I was given by a young friend who looked raffish when he wore it, whereas I look just silly... but I know that wearing it out this night of all nights, will safely mark me as harmless, eccentric, a man who has imbibed too much of the grape, erroneous conclusions to be sure, but useful when a man leaves his cozy house at midnight, and warm bed, too, to venture out into the piercing cold of a Bay State Christmas in pursuit of... but you must come out of your snug world and along with me to see. Presents for me... In the lobby of my building where I am now, I think, the senior resident or close to it, I see two boxes for me. These neat parcels, festooned by words like FedEx and UPS and the numeric mysteries of their tracking systems, firmly establish me as a card-carrying person of the middle classes and of means; poor people shop at stores and carry home their packages, often on buses and late-running subways. Mine ascend by elevators and are given by delivery men, exceptionally polite http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 6 of 31
  • 7. Weathering through the Storm! at this time of year, who say things like "Something else for you, Dr. Lant. Somebody loves you..." But I have no time for such packages now... I have a mission. Cold air, colder Puritan. The cold of midnight is piercing but by no means the worst I have felt; the Internet weather report (the only place I go for weather intelligence anymore) says the wind chill factor is 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I feel superior to that, and further plunges, too. I am glad to take it, and to know I can still take worse; more evidence of my evergreen condition; of increasing importance as I get older... The Cambridge Common, where by ancient law and privilege I could graze my cows (should I get some), is vacant tonight... but the statue of John Bridge continues its austere duty, scrutinizing the lives of Cantabridgians, ensuring not that we are as worthy as he (for that is impossible) but that we do not stray too far from his noble example. Bridge was a Puritan, a man of God and God's affairs and ran these, no doubt to God's satisfaction, for Bridge's all-worthy career prospered in mid-17th century Cambridge. Such men, the very fibre of moral rectitude and self-assurance (my ancestors, too, for the nonce) made a point of destroying the olde English Christmas of "God rest ye merry gentlemen." Bridge would no doubt have disapproved the frivolity of my chapeau... and so I walked on, glad he was not coming to disdain my liberated Christmas. The artistry of ice. Burdened by winter as I often am here, captive of the chill Atlantic and its perishing cold, I more often avoid the ice than consider it. Tonight I rectified this error and stopped to scrutinize the random beauty of ice, frigid patterns that turned yesterday's puddles into tonight's etched allure. It is beautiful, the kind of sharp avant garde pattern in black and silver a stylish billionaire might use to dazzle every penthouse guest; here this transient beauty goes unremarked by all but me. There is livelier fare across the street, when seven squad cars spurt police, busily at work at the main gate of Harvard College, just opened days ago from the thrall of the hapless revolutionaries who Occupied Harvard, but not effectively or for very long. The police are out in force, a tow-truck at the ready, a fellow human being in their arms, his Christmas and destiny to be paid out in hospital or jail cell. I look instead at the statue of Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), a man of such austerity and respectability that when he escorted Mary Todd Lincoln there was no touch of scandal at all, though he was reckoned the most handsome man at Harvard and in Civil War Washington. I often wonder whether the burden of such rectitude made him happy. Certainly his statue does not show it. He was cold in life, and perhaps the coldness of this statue is its truest aspect. I prefer to spend my Christmas night with another Harvard man, the Reverend Phillips Brooks (1835-1893). He is memorialized in Harvard Yard, but not in copper and stone. His is a memorial of people, for the people who admired and loved him created in 1904 Phillips Brooks House Association, a student-run, community-based non-profit public service organization whose mission is the true meaning of this holiday, to give and give until it truly helps and makes a difference. Brooks took the fine tune by organist Lewis Redner and graced it in 1868 with the words we know as "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and whose words are my prayer for us all this day, and every day. "O holy Child of Bethlehem Descend to us we pray... O come to us, abide with us Our Lord Emmanuel." (Concluded and sent to the world as the author's gift, 5:05 a.m., Christmas Day, 2011). http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 7 of 31
  • 8. Weathering through the Storm! http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 8 of 31
  • 9. Weathering through the Storm! USA sets 6,800 high temperature records in March, 2012 as we consider the future when we have money -- and nothing else. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Future historians, if any of Clio's ranks remain, will scrutinize this period of our planet as the days when Earth reached its tipping point and began its descent to the unimaginable horrors of the Apocalypse. At least this is the sobering prediction of the International Panel on Climate Change, founded in 1988 by the United Nations. This article highlights this panel, its work, its dire predictions... and asks you not only to contemplate what is happening to us all... but what you can do to save yourself, your family and the pied a terre in the Cosmos for our vulnerable species. But first, go to any search engine and smile. For not all weather predictions are cataclysmic. Take the one made in 1982 by The Weather Girls, also known as Two Tons o' Fun. Their hit -- their one and only hit -- was called "It's Raining Men" and featured two plus-size African-American women cavorting with scantily clad boy toys falling from a beneficent heaven. It was cheeky, irreverent... and a superbly good dance song. When this ancient body was much younger and more limber, I cut the rug with it myself. Listen to it now.... because it's the last thing in this article that gives you absolutely nothing to worry about. About the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. March 28, 2012 this Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists released its latest bomb shell, in the form of a 594-page report. This report represents an important development in its work. Up until now, the panel has focused on the slow, inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of global warning. Their work, while important and telling to anyone who could read between the lines, didn't attract much notice. Indeed, since it was the work of scientists and climate wonks who never met a somnifacient phrase they didn't like, their important work went largely unread. But this year and this report are very different. This report is the first to examine the less common but far more noticeable extreme weather changes, which in recent years have been causing $80 billion annually in damage. As Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, one of the report's top editors, says, "We mostly experience weather and climate change through the extreme. That's where we have the losses. That's where we have the insurance payments. That's where things have the potential to fall apart." "There is disaster risk almost everywhere." The conclusion of Field and fellow panelists is stark and cannot be misunderstood. Thus, you can almost hear the instructions given to participants at the start of their important work... "Friends and colleagues. Our many previous endeavors reported facts in a calm, deliberative fashion. We knew what the findings meant... but because we were not explicit in our conclusions almost no one else did. Thus we assuaged our consciences by reassuring ourselves that we had done our work... and it was for others to draw the implications and do the necessary follow-up work to make sure that the science we knew became the basis for necessary policy changes. But this is no longer enough. We must not only be accurate fact finders, but absolutely clear on what this means and what must be done. In other words, we must go beyond the usual role of scientist and behave as a citizen of the world committed to saving our planet by doing what is necessary before it is too late." http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 9 of 31
  • 10. Weathering through the Storm! On this basis, the panel has produced what is to date their most important and influential work. Item: Some places, particularly parts of Mumbai in India could become uninhabitable from floods, storms, and rising seas. In 2005, over 24 hours nearly 3 feet of rain fell on the city, killing more than 1000 people at once and causing massive damage. Roughly 2.7 million people live in areas at risk of flooding. Item: Many other cities are also at high risk including Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, Myanmar's Yangon (formerly Rangoon), and India's Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). Item: Entire countries like the Maldives are at risk, facing submersion because of rising seas and fierce storms. Said Field, "The decision about whether or not to move is achingly difficult, and I think it's one that the world community will have to face with increasing frequency in the future." At risk. This report is unique because it emphasizes managing risks and how taking precautions can work. In other words, it not only highlights risks but is explicit in its recommendations about how to handle them. In fact, the panel report uses the word "risk" 4,387 times... and gives examples of how various cities and countries have learned from them, thereby providing solutions and models for other challenged entities. Item: Field pointed to storm-and-flood-prone Bangladesh, an impoverished nation that has learned from past disasters. In 1970, a Category 3 tropical cyclone named Bhola killed more than 300,000 people. In 2007, a stronger cyclone killed just 4,200 people. Despite the loss of life, the country is reckoned a success story because it was better prepared and invested in warning and disaster prevention. By comparison, a country that was not so prepared, Myanmar, was hit with a similar-size storm in 2008, which killed over 138,000 people. This avoidable disaster makes it clear why the work of this panel is so important. Over 138,000 people might well be alive if the repressive government of Myanmar focused less time and money crushing its people and more on the early warning and other tools needed to diminish the horrific weather effects that batter them so often and which this report makes clear will worsen in the years ahead. The worst is yet to come... unless... The study -- all 594 pages of it -- is a Pandora's box of looming catastrophes. Tropical cyclones -- including hurricanes in the United States -- will get stronger because of present-day and worse-to-come climate changes. Heat waves and record hot temperatures worldwide will increase with increased downpours in Alaska, Canada, northern and central Europe, East Africa, and north Asia. Action now... or worldwide grief later. In the face of so much alarming news, all supported by exact science, it is easy to opt out, confident there is nothing the average person can do but wait and hope. Such a conclusion is not only wrong but calamitous. Here's what you can do: 1) Urge school officials to disseminate these findings so that young people, who have so much to lose, can be informed. 2) Ask your elected representatives what they are doing to stem the tide and give us meaningful measures, not just partisan rhetoric that is so out-of-place in solving this problem. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 10 of 31
  • 11. Weathering through the Storm! measures, not just partisan rhetoric that is so out-of-place in solving this problem. 3) Make every day "Earth Day", a top priority. For there can be no progressive change of any kind if the very Earth is threatened, at risk, and increasingly vulnerable. And I tell you this: when all the water is polluted, when all the air is toxic, when every once fertile acre is arid, we shall still have money. For unlike all the other elements, God-made, money is man made; so let's spend what is necessary to ensure that our one and only home -- Earth -- remains as secure as possible, as verdant and productive... a place not of lamentation and anxieties but where all the crucial weather information can be sung by Weather Girls who tell you, "According to our sources, the street's the place to go/ Cause tonight for the first time/ Just about half past ten/ For the first time in history/ It's gonna start raining men!" And that's a fact. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 11 of 31
  • 12. Weathering through the Storm! Not gone. Just gone before. An open letter to a friend and colleague upon the death of his beloved grandmother. Swing low, sweet chariot. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant James, you have done me the honor to interrupt your family's grief to share your thoughts and reflections on a matter of the utmost significance. I want you to know, first of all, how honored I am that you gave me this time, even more precious than usual at such a moment. You have done me the signal honor to tell me my responses have provided balm during a time of profound reflection and sadness.... and I am humbled, grateful to take a friend's part and help you bear the unbearable. For what you are doing now is the most difficult thing we humans confront... the death of a dear one who is now gone, gone forever... and we can not grasp how one so vibrant but short hours ago is now in a different place, a place beyond our ken, beyond our knowledge and our touch whilst we remain here to carry on as best we can... as best we must, bitterly remembering that in life we are but in the midst of death. And this is bitter indeed for now you know, as all will come to know, just how bitter our portion is... and how we must drink of this dread cup to the very dregs. As you are doing this very moment. Let us then mourn together you and I and find the succor and strength that comes when we share this high moment of humanity together... and thus pave the way for the peace of God, the greatest gift of all. Oneida Thomas, December 17, 1923 -- May 8, 2012, your grandmother. These are the facts about your grandmother Oneida Thomas, and they are but briefly told. How she was born December 17, 1923 in Grayson, Louisiana to the union of Albert Simmons and Parlee Leggins Simmons. How on December 4, 1944 she married Clinton Thomas. How to this union five children were born: Jeri, Carolin, Clayton, Leonard and Marian. How in 1948 they moved to Denver, Colorado. There they celebrated 55 years of marriage... and there she worked hard, strenuously, long and carefully for the betterment of her much cherished family, her fortunate employer, her community and her God. This was her abiding credo: "What I do, I do to the best of my abilities... or I do not do at all". She meant every one of these words... and as she lived them so she quietly showed the world what was important to her and that she meant to do her part to make that world a better place. No excuses given, none tolerated. On these elements she built her life... a life well worth living and working for. Her prodigious labor. Stop for a moment and call to mind any image of your grandmother; chances are you'll see her in movement, at work, doing something beneficial for her work was incessant, unending, tiring, essential, purposeful, done early, done late, done right. And done for you... for, after God, you and all your relations were always her first concern. These were the fortunate people who always benefited... but who sometimes took her titanic strength and unending application for granted, as we all too often do. But there was nothing for granted about what she did beyond one hard fact: her work was unending drudgery,demanding, draining. However, she was and remained a woman of energy and determination. Both were needed, and over the course of a long lifetime she had constant reason to call upon them. Work was necessary... so she worked, none harder even if this work was unpleasant. It was work to be done; she could do it; so http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 12 of 31
  • 13. Weathering through the Storm! she did. She started her work as a housekeeper, until she was hired by Swedish Hospital as a surgical setup and equipment preparer. Whilst working as a part-time housekeeper she retired from Swedish Hospital in 1988 after 20 years. She continued to work as a part-time housekeeper for 58 years. These are the facts. Now let us review them for meaning. Louisiana, segregation, poverty, fortitude. Your grandmother was born and grew up in an atmosphere seething with troubles, malice, threats, painful realities, gnawing poverty, an environment fraught with menace and disturbance. She knew from her earliest memories what it meant to be Southern, female and black... and while she may never have discussed this acid situation with you, this situation shaped her. She endured this as she ensured so much... with dignity... with everyday courage... with sweet temper... with a kind, loving and giving disposition. She took each day as it came, however inequitable, inadequate, unforgiving... and kept her dreams alive, in a treasured place, working for them... never dismayed because they came so slowly. She personified fortitude... and never let the drawbacks obscure and embitter. That was not her way. The world was harsh, her circumstances harsher... but her thoughts were free, uplifting, pure, and always giving. I know. You see, she has bequeathed this strength, this endurance and her warm, magnetic smile to... you. Thus, the first thing we see in you is the first thing we saw in her. You are her chiefest legacy. Thus she abides in you forever. Hallelujah! Her hands. Close your eyes, dear James, and remember the solace and comfort of her hands. Many times they have cherished and soothed you... I want you to feel them now, in your mind's eye... for they are there now to sustain you for life... as they sustained so many before. These were the hands of a woman who gave... and so demonstrated her love. She never had to say she loved, although she did so say... you had but to see her at her work... up early before the dawn to be on her way... returning long hours after sunset... no time squandered.... all put at the service of others. She was a woman who found comfort for her soul by comforting others... and she did so gladly, happily... a woman fulfilled, hence able to help fulfill a myriad of others. Where did such unceasing strength, always at the service of others, come from? She knew... she always knew... Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour. Your grandmother's great healing gifts, her soothing skills, her hands that comforted, the smile that warmed... all these came from a single source of unequalled power and strength, the Saviour to whom she gave herself long years before when the landscape was grim and oppressive. Once committed she never wavered... for wavering was not her way. She had selected wisely and lived happily through every vicissitude. She knew the strength that comes from serenity... and she knew whence this strength had come. He freed her from doubt.... she repaid with a heart of joy... and what He gave her, she willingly gave to others. For her source of strength was the Lord... and thus she drew from strength everlasting, inexhaustible, without beginning, without end. Coming Home. Thus, your grandmother fashioned a life worth living and because it was grounded in certainty and anchored in her warm heart she lived it with unceasing joy. And so the years passed in happiness, in fulfillment, ... with family and friends who flourished with her love and care ... always cared for herself by the Lord whom she trusted with everything... because He gave everything. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 13 of 31
  • 14. Weathering through the Storm! Then things changed radically, as things can do, overnight , with bewildering speed. After 88 years of health and stability a sea-change bringing fear and anxiety. Your grandmother's health, so serviceable for so long, began to fail. Doctors told her she must do this and that... but she took advice from the source of all health... and the Lord said, "As you have trusted in Me in good times, so trust in Me in the bad." And she did, graciously thanking the doctors for what they did... but trusting in her Lord, for in Him she had always trusted.... and hers was no fair-weather devotion but one to abide the numberless ages to come. And so Oneida Thomas died, surrounded by love, secure in the love of the Lord. Now she waits for you. You are grieving now, James, for her loss, but she knew a secret still to be revealed to you. For she is not gone. Just gone before. Thus this woman who gave so much, gives you one last gift: the gift of eternity... for she has pointed the way for you and yours and resides there now her caressing hands ready to embrace you again. Let her certainty about this meeting cheer you, for it most assuredly cheered her. Now go to any search engine, there to locate the words and music to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" for they are apt and soothing: "Swing low, sweet chariot Coming for to carry me home Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home." As it has already carried her. World without end! Amen! Amen! Written for James A. Holmes and his grieving family and for a restive world whose need for peace and serenity has never been greater. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 14 of 31
  • 15. Weathering through the Storm! 'Hear how the wind begins to whisper. Soon it's gonna rain. I can tell.' by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. In 1960 one of the loveliest musicals ever written hit the Big Apple and made history. It was "The Fantasticks" with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" by Edmond Rostand, concerning two neighborhood fathers who trick their children into falling in love by pretending to feud and erecting a wall between their houses. The show's original off-Broadway production ran a total of 42 years and 17,162 performances, easily making it the world's longest-running musical. One of its gems is a song called "Soon It's Gonna Rain", and I defy you to listen to its lyric beauty unmoved... Go now to any search engine; find the original cast album. Then close your eyes and imagine the gentle rain falling calm and serene, washing away all distress... "Then we'll let it rain./ We'll not feel it. Then we'll let it rain./ Rain pell-mell." Beautiful isn't it?... And, in this summer of 2012, painful and ironic, for in these dog days of this scorching year there is no rain, though millions pray daily for relief and wonder why God does not respond and save His people. The facts. The first and most sobering fact, a fact millions are still not prepared to believe, is that climate change is no longer a "threat" that will occur sometime in the future. It is present reality as virtually every scientist in the field confirms. This includes three scientists who make their findings clear in the August 2012 issue of the journal "Nature-Geoscience". The findings by Christopher R. Schwalm, research assistant professor of earth sciences at Northern Arizona University; Christopher A. Williams, assistant professor of geography at Clark University, and Kevin Schaefer research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are telling. In a nutshell, this is their conclusion: extreme weather and drought are here to stay and will influence our lives directly or indirectly. Item: This year's drought, no end in sight, is already one for the record books in terms of duration, severity and temperature. Item: The 2011 drought in the South Central states was a record at the time, but has easily been bested by the events of 2012. Item: Widespread annual droughts, once a rare calamity, have become more frequent and are now ready to become the "new normal." Bad news gets worse. Item: A growing frequency of weather and climate extremes like heat waves, droughts, floods, and fires can be expected. Item: Future precipitation trends, based on climate model projections from the coming fifth assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, indicate that droughts of the 2012 severity will become commonplace as the century progresses. Item: Assuming "business as usual", each of the next 80 years in the American West is expected to http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 15 of 31
  • 16. Weathering through the Storm! see less rainfall than the average of the five years of the drought that hit the region from 2002-2004. And still more bad news. Item: Crop yields will continue to fall, with many more local cases of complete crop failure. Item: Agricultural productivity will decline as plants take in only half the carbon dioxide they do normally, thanks to drought-induced drop in photosynthesis. Item: Major river basins, already showing 5 percent to 50 percent reductions in flow will fall further, with lakes and reservoirs unable to return to "normal." Ever. Is there any good news? Frankly, not a great deal. In fact, as I sit here surrounded by learned studies, articles the more alarming because so grounded in indisputable fact, and the jeremiads of scientists worldwide, I want to bury my head in the sand like most everyone else. But of course that is completely useless and unhelpful, whoever does it. Why our "leaders" do not lead. Why do the words "climate change" and our options so rarely if ever pass the lips of our major presidential candidates? They are intelligent men... but they also refuse to rock any boats and a frank, open discussion on the matter certainly does that, roiling the dwindling waters. They know that talking about human-induced carbon emissions would upset the "see no evil" voters of Michigan, for instance, and Ohio, states they must carry. Thus, the conspiracy grows. Voters and candidates know about the problems of climate-change... but no one wants to bite this bullet which will necessitate major changes of every kind. And so, before our eyes, things worsen. It is the American way and it will, in due course, sabotage our culture and lifestyle. To avoid this all-but-certain outcome, these are the questions we must ask and honestly answer: 1) Do we have the will, the stomach and the fortitude to see this problem completely and truly? 2) Are we willing to examine all data without flinching or prejudice? 3) Are we willing immediately to act, to implement our findings without special pleading or exemptions? 4) Have we the guts to stay with earth-saving programs for the long durations necessary, for there can be no rushed or instant conclusions? 5) And finally. Will we induce our leaders to lead by demanding constant effort and a frank, open discussion of continuing problems, deterioration and, yes, progress. For if we do not hold their feet to the fire, they will not focus on the necessity for curtailing it. Is progress certain? Not as things stand at this moment... but we have not yet begun to fight, and so we cannot say what we will do to keep the rain coming and all the benefits which ensue therefrom. "The Fantasticks" will help... "Soon it's gonna rain/... And we'll not complain/ -- Happy ending --- / / If it never stops at all."/ That would be fantastick indeed! Envoi. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 16 of 31
  • 17. Weathering through the Storm! At about 5:45 a.m., just as I was completing this, the heavy mist of early morning changed into greater abundance as the lightest of rains... a benevolent beginning, most welcome. May it come soon to your neighborhood and help cleanse us all. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 17 of 31
  • 18. Weathering through the Storm! 'Bulldog, bulldog, bow-wow-wow.' One of America's greatest leaders -- Yale's president Richard C. Levin -- retires after 20 years. An appreciation. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Harvard University, my alma mater, doesn't inaugurate presidents like other, lesser institutions of exalted learning. By no means. They consecrate and install latter-day deities, mere administrators no longer, but the dynamos that rule from Harvard Yard the Great Republic and every other nation and significant institution everywhere on Earth. That is why such inaugurals, but infrequently rendered, are more important than the mere coronations of ancient dynasties. Such dynasties with the most venerable sovereigns are but temporal. Harvard is eternal and its presidents celestial. The inauguration of Lawrence Summers, Autumn, 2001. The scene was perfect Harvard... academic gowns from every great university on Earth looking like giant flowers... no one marched to their appointed places as requested; they ambled arm-in-arm instead; the brilliantly colored foliage from the great trees fell softly down upon us, a great institution participating in this passing of the torch... everything was as it should be... everything except for President Summer's eagerly awaited remarks... in the event bombastic, inelegant, impolitic, awkward... Thus as these ultra discerning worthies, masters all of nuance and exegesis, listened as their anointed leader blundered through his remarks, the audience grew restive, abashed, and even chagrined. The 27th president made his inaugural address, but it was in truth his inaugural blunder, the first of many. I turned to my colleague and, sotto voce, predicted stormy weather for Mr. Summers. One didn't need a Ph.D. in prognostication to make what became in due course a gross understatement. What should have been a glorious event, historic, High Harvard and grand, made us all not merely disappointed, but sad, let-down and angry that our Harvard was not so fair that day as she had every right to anticipate and expect. Its bright promise was overcast and glum. ... until Dr. Richard C. Levin, President of Yale since 1993, got up to present fraternal greetings and timely observations. And not a moment too soon. I am embarrassed to tell you, I knew nothing about this man that day; in my defense I must stress that presidents of Yale are not first priorities to Crimson alumni. Still... it was a lacuna. On this day, economist Levin came to praise, exhort and welcome fellow economist Summers to the rank and status of Ivy League president, to all loyal Ivies the very top of the greasy pole. And so Levin, elegantly dressed, looking every inch who he was, custodian of one of the Great Republic's greatest institutions, a man of distinction and undoubted presence rose... and from the very first words he uttered we were all on beloved terra cognita, dismayed no longer. Every word he said was le mot juste, carefully selected, carefully stated. He was at once eloquent, informed, genteel, amusing, insightful, a leader who knew his audience like the back of his hand. He made the right allusions, his point of view perfect to the occasion, with just the right amount of immemorial raillery, for the rivalries of generations must be honored and sustained. I was not alone in that vast audience in wishing we were inaugurating the gentleman of polished manners, eloquent and graceful turns of phrase, and the divinity that doth hedge instead of the often clueless, bumptious president so ill-equipped for the role that his tenure when it ended in rancor and disarray after just 5 years in 2006 was the shortest since the university's earliest days. Oh, yes, we http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 18 of 31
  • 19. Weathering through the Storm! coveted Levin for Harvard and to preserve, protect and defend our profound interest in the matter. But Dr. Levin loved Yale, although Yale nearly missed the opportunity to be loved by one whose love was worth the having. Low-key Dr. Levin? You're kidding! Yale before Levin was an institution at risk; critics of old Eli, its whys and wherefores, were legion. If Yale were a great galleon, its leaks were prodigious and threatening. Yale needed, Yale had to have a "known" leader... someone capable of overawing the nay-sayers and getting on with the massive overhaul and reformation required. "Rick" Levin wanted the job... but he was no hero, no glamor boy, no titan of education, no household name. No one felt he was up to the job of working successfully with factious faculty, or liberating New Haven from ghetto status and urban blight by undertaking a sincere and dedicated policy of working together with skeptical community officials and residents. And what about the worrisome budget shortfalls, the disheartening staff cuts, falling applications and facilities which badly needed renovation and repair? It was a mighty job, and Levin didn't look like he had the necessary skills, stomach, and salience. And so Yale's presidential search committee repeatedly, embarrassingly postponed the deadline for naming a new president, hoping McCawber-like, that something would turn-up, thereby showing exactly what they thought of Rick Levin, the man who became one of the greatest of Yale's presidents and a model for beleaguered and challenged college presidents everywhere. His accomplishments are staggering, the more so because the honest and honorable man was not destroyed by ego and arrogance. He is today what he was at the beginning, a man who loves Yale and is happy to do what is called for for her immediate improvement and long-term well-being. Here are just some of his notable achievements: Item: He lead the school's largest building and renovation program since the 1930s, expanding Yale's financial aid programs and global activities. Item: He measurably improved the university's historically difficult relationship with its unions and built necessary and long overdue partnerships with the too often unregarded and dismissed city of New Haven. Item: Yale's endowment went from $3.2 billion in 1993 to $19.4 billion this year. Item: A homebuyers program started in 1994 offered financial incentives to buy homes in the city and more than 1,000 Yale faculty and staff have participated. Item: About 70 percent of the space on campus has been partially or completely renovated, including all 12 of its residential colleges, with plans to build two more. "Rick Levin is simply one of the world's great leaders," Indra Nooyi, chief executive of PepsiCo. Now Richard C. Levin is stepping down, 65 years old, the longest serving president in the Ivy League. He says it's time to take up the next challenge of his life, writing a book of reflections on higher education and economic policy. He also wants to travel some, and I trust the Overseers will grant him a Harvard degree honoris causa so he'll have reason to return to Cambridge. When John F. Kennedy got such a degree from Yale, he quipped that he now had the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree. I trust that Levin will at the next Commencement be so honored, ready to say that now he, too, has the best of both worlds, a Yale education and a Harvard degree. For this I shall make it a particular point to return to the Tercentenary Theater in http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 19 of 31
  • 20. Weathering through the Storm! Harvard Yard where I first encountered this remarkable man, whose unstinting love affair with Yale has been so helpful to so many, so enhancing the Great Republic and the world. Musical accompaniment to this article. Here there were choices aplenty ranging from "Boola Boola" (composed in 1900 by Allan M Hirsch Yale '01) to "The Whiffenpoof Song" sung by Rudy Vallee '27, America's first pop star. But in the end I had to go with Cole Porter '13 because, like the Coliseum and Cellophane, Rick Levin, "You're The Top". Go to any search engine and find Cole Porter belting it out for you! http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 20 of 31
  • 21. Weathering through the Storm! Of plums, their sweetness, politics, and the eternal desire for more. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. I decided to walk to the Farmer's Market yesterday; usually I ask Mister Joseph to drive me, the better to bring home the excessive armloads of produce I need to feel I have enough. But the weather, on the cusp between a summer exiting and a fall arriving, was perfect for something ambulatory and good for you. Yes, it was a perfect day to be out and about.... and the way to the market hard by the Charles Hotel was packed with everyone and his brother, folks who had the same idea as I did: to prepare squirrel-like for the rigorous winter ahead... never mind that every morsel I purchased this day would be long gone before the first flake of snow hits the pavement. It's the thought that counts, that there would be enough, that I would have enough, and that this winter there should be, for me and mine at least, an ample sufficiency. It is most curious to me how this process works. One minute it is a hot, stiffling New England summer day... then, as if by magic, there is a whiff of the New England autumn ahead with its preview of gusts and dismay about the return of the winter that tests us all so sorely, the more so if Social Security is your metier. This touch of autumn is Nature's wake-up call... and, unless you are clueless on such matters, you get the point and do the necessary. Thus I was walking to the Market with a friend who said, "I knew I should have worn my sweater." He really didn't need it... but Nature's clues resonate more with some than others. Moreover since he is not of hardy stock, he needs a call more clarion than I do. And he got it. "Done for the season, sir." Last week there were white peaches, blueberries and a few blackberries, too. I asked how long the fabulous whites, an exquisite liquor in a soft skin, would last. The young woman behind the counter, overly plump and too young to catch her breath as often as she does, was cavalier. "We'll have them for another month at least." But today, just a few days after her confident pronouncement, there were no whites to be had, no more to come, and so I was disgruntled. The only white peaches now were in my head with many a long day to pine for them and wish them sooner here.... But when God, they say, closes a door, He opens a window. And that was nothing but the truth this day... for there before me was a deep purpled fruit I had, in my lamentation for the whites, forgotten. But the fruit had not forgotten me. "Try the plums, sir. They're oozing and ready to pop in your mouth. No waiting!" Thus the young woman, who any 18th century English novelist would have correctly described as a "saucy wench", thereby in some measure regained the good opinion of Yours Truly... and so, by the merest touch, I confirmed her evaluation... eyes engaged for color... fingers to test for perfect readiness... only mouth yet to call into action... and that, once accomplished, lead to a dozen ready to take home and devour without ceremony. And so with the plum I had regained my equanimity and good cheer. I knew exactly how Little Jack Horner must have felt when he, plumless one minute and chagrined, had by deft digital movement extracted a beauty from his Christmas pie. Plums have been coming to the rescue just like this for centuries and so boys like Jack "Sitting in the Chimney-corner" know that a single plum at just the right moment can make a world of difference and that old grannies should be reminded of this whenever the world is too much with us, late and soon. Facts about plums. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 21 of 31
  • 22. Weathering through the Storm! A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus. It is a diverse group of species including peaches, cherries and bird cherries, amongst others. Prunus is distinguished from its relations because its shoots have a terminal bud and solitary side buds (not clustered), with flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one side and a smooth stone (or pit.) Mature plum fruit may have a dusty-white coating that gives them a glaucous appearance; this is easily rubbed off. This is an epicuticular wax coating and is known as "wax bloom". Dried plum fruits are called dried plums or prunes, although prunes are a distinct type of plum and may have antedated the fruits now commonly known as plums... but universally regarded as the best. Plum: the best part of anything. You have only to eat a plum to understand why they are regarded as "good". But you need to know something of its long history and association with mankind to understand why the very word itself has passed into our language meaning "the best part of anything," for to call a thing "plum" is to call it the very best it can be. The question is, how to put this "bestness" to work for our greatest pleasures. Uses for plums. Plum fruit tastes sweet and/or tart. The skin, for instance, may be particularly tart. It is juicy and can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making. Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine; when distilled this produces a brandy known in Eastern Europe as Rakia. In the English Midlands, a cider-like alcoholic beverage known as plum jerkum is prized. In considering how plums are used you must remember that refrigeration is a very recent development in human history. One feature very much in the plums favor is that it dries well and keeps its flavor. Dried plums (called prunes) are sweet, juicy, and contain several antioxidants. They're widely known for their laxative effect, particularly with elderly people suffering from constipation. How to handle this aspect of what the prune can do has produced sharp disagreement among plums, all of whom have an opinion on the matter. On the one hand, plums are glad to be helpful, especially to old folks who have eaten plums and been loyal to them for a lifetime. On the other hand, plums wish to develop their reputation for being a celebrity fruit, edgy, cool, the favorite of trend-setters and calorie conscious fashionistas. This split, so distressing to plum lovers everywhere, after many acrimonious years now seems on the road to reconciliation thanks to recent developments in a thing which initially wasn't a plum at all... sugar plums. "Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads". A sugar plum is a piece of drage'e candy that is made of dried fruits and shaped in a small round or oval shape. But "plums" here mean any dried fruit, such as dried figs, dried apricots, dried dates, dried cherries, etc. The dried fruit is chopped fine and combined with chopped almonds, honey and aromatic spices, such as anise seed, fennel seed, cardamom etc.; then rolled into balls, to be coated in sugar or shredded coconut, thence to go into expectant mouths and such gems of our culture as " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" (1822) ; Eugene Field's poem "The Sugar Plum Tree" (from "Poems of Childhood", 1904) and, of course, Tchaikovsky's masterpiece "The Nutcracker" (1892) where the Sugar Plum fairies and their brilliant theme still enchant despite being egregiously overplayed every Christmas. (Even some plums concur). As for the plums, every time they hear it, they get angry... for their name and flavorful renown have been usurped to sell... apricots! And cherries! And that will never do. Check your sugar plums... make sure there are plums there. Accept no substitutions. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 22 of 31
  • 23. Weathering through the Storm! Since launching this campaign, plum sales have soared... and plums, gathering to extol themselves upon this success, have forwarded any number of additional ideas to keep the ball rolling. The best is to rework Jack Horner's presentation. Abercrombie and Fitch has been approached for one of their comely lads to hold a strategically placed plum... and nothing more. Kinky. The Plum Book. No story on the plums and their great reputation would be complete without a reference to what automatically becomes the most popular book in Washington, D.C. the minute the television networks project the next President. Its actual name is "United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions"; it is, however, universally called "The Plum Book." It contains over 9,000 civil service leadership and support positions (filled and vacant) in the Legislative and Executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointments, in other words political appointments. Are you of an upwardly mobile and competitive disposition? Then imagine this: whilst scanning The Plum Book for something geared to your genius, you nibble an authentic sugar plum whilst listening to the great melodies of the sugar plum fairies. If you're a plum lover it gets no better than this... go to any search engine now and, with Tchaikovsky's help and an appointment from the president turn today into Christmas, the plum itself in all its manifestations the best present of all. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 23 of 31
  • 24. Weathering through the Storm! At a lunch counter in Harvard Square. A place of friendly people and tasty meals; a dinosaur en route to extinction. Some thoughts. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. We've been having a lot of rain lately here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's the kind of rain that all locals greet with amiable forbearance, saying even to total strangers (especially if they are grumbling), "We need the rain." It makes us feel important when we say it; as if we were trained agronomists advising farmers on the matter of rain, when, where, how much. Of course it also needs to be said that when we hear other people say it, we regard them as conversation impaired, offering up such banality with such seriousness. Ordinarily, weather doesn't interest me very much. Rain or shine inside a penthouse where the shutters in my office are always closed, no exception; looks much the same, as do day and night. Others may not like such a situation, but it suits me and my pursuits perfectly. It's not only where I do my writing but where my daily webcasts and running commentaries take place. The shutters and two fine verde mare marble columns once in a French palace constitute the elegant back drop to subjects discussed which may be anything but. Yesterday, however, the rain lifted and even I, the ultimate urban dweller clueless on the rhythms and rhymes of nature, thought descending from my ideally appointed space capsule was in order. I grabbed the Harvard cap one of my visitors had forgotten and left behind; took an umbrella that another of my visitors had forgotten and left behind. I was ready for an excursion, lunch in Harvard Square was indicated... "The Square", isn't. Irregularly shaped and sprawling Harvard Square is one of the half dozen places on Earth every person of consequence, real or imagined, visits at least once in a lifetime. It is a place of human flotsam and jetsam; of people who come to move up (including future presidents of the Great Republic) and those who are down on their luck, street dwellers who solicit those who feel generous for giving a buck or two, which will probably end up amongst the blood-stained profits of one Mexican drug cartel or another. But Mexico and its hecatombs and legion of hapless victims are too far away to worry about, especially as so many of its leaders were schooled at Harvard, which is just the way it's supposed to be. Down Massachusetts Avenue, the brick sidewalks muddy and wet, passersby smelling like a dog left out in the rain. I am walking to lunch on the sidewalk along Massachusetts Avenue; "Mass Ave" to the cognoscenti who are past masters at making people like you seem unsophisticated, unhallowed, unready for the world Cambridge folk are imagining and inventing this very minute. These multi-degreed paragons are the planet's movers and shakers. They want to be sure you know this about them instantly, so that they may then exhibit the modesty for which they will one day be so renowned despite so many momentous achievements. But this is now... and so they regard modesty solely as a trait for those who have much to be modest about -- that would be you. Labor Day Week-end, 1969. I am in my stride now passing one Harvard-owned property after another. Here the lavish donations of long dead alumni are put to current use, fully rented out generating still more money for The World's Greatest (and already Richest) University. The kinds of shops tell you much about the place http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 24 of 31
  • 25. Weathering through the Storm! and its inhabitants: bank, ice cream parlor, smoke, ice cream parlor, bank, Harvard insignia, ice cream parlor, bank. Get the picture? The Square has more banks and ATMs within a few blocks than many cities as well as untold tons of ice cream. Because Harvard students are the most privileged people on Earth, strident calls for world revolution and sweeping change rarely have much presence either in the Square, or in Harvard Yard, the heart of the place. People who like the status quo are hardly likely urge its destruction. Yet John Reed '10 did so urge. "Red" Reed is buried in the Kremlin's walls. Even that dubious honor needs must go to a Harvard man. We wouldn't want it any other way, even though he was Red; at least that's a shade of crimson. Even the homeless like the situation as it is, idling life away, supported by those who can only imagine having so much free time since they do not, and never will. Thus instead of earnest young people, grim faced and determined (at least until winter arrives to chill their resolution), there are boys with pony tails selling designer ice cream to undergraduates who will one day (and not so distant either) rule the world and reap its benefits. They already regard each day at Harvard as the best years of their lives; Harvard likes it that way. The more they think like that, the bigger their alumni contributions over the many years to come... and so memory and remembrance help Harvard wax richer. I arrive. 1246 Mass. Ave. About 10 minutes from the time I entered the elevator, I am at my destination, a place of importance for two reasons: first, this is my first memory of Harvard; the moment I saw Harvard and the Square for the first time; Labor Day Week-end, 1969. And because I remember everything about that epiphany, I clearly remember Mr. Bartley's. That's where I shall lunch this day... but not because I am nostalgic about food, but because the food is good and, for once, I am really hungry. A hole in the wall, a dive, a joint. Bartley's opened its door (it has but one) in 1960, just 9 years before I arrived in Cambridge to start my graduate work. I cannot tell you how many times I've gone, but dozens seems conservative. What's more, more times than not I order what I always order because I like it: large raspberry lime rickey (to be refilled); Burger Supreme medium well, onion rings, extra dill pickle. If I ate this same meal every day, I might be thought to be in a rut, but going just two or three times in a year to order and devour this specialite' of the house makes me a connoisseur; I insist on the description. Uncomfortable, packed like sardines, chairs too low. Let me be plain with you; if you are not willing to overlook its inconvenient aspects, if you insist on every amenity, then you will never be happy at Bartley's which in an astonishingly small space packs in an astonishing number of chairs, booths, human and machine food cookers, waitpersons, the raspberry lime rickeys that I crave and can nowadays get nowhere else -- and the lunch counter. Bit by bit you see just how much is going on in this compact space. The walls are covered with clever sayings, double entendres, pictures of film stars, pictures of politicians, and accolades for its signature "burguhs". You want to get up to see these better but chances are you'd be tripping over a few people to do so; unless you come right at opening there is no chance you'll get to do this. You'll have to return. After over 40 years I still have not seen it all. The first time a waiter screams "Burguh Supreme" at the cook, you'll be startled, but pretty soon you're screaming your comments and conversation at the top of your voice, like you've been coming for decades, and here the sheer proximity of other hungry humans, from Kansas, Greece, or Timbuktu works its singular magic. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 25 of 31
  • 26. Weathering through the Storm! Forced to be close to them, you make your choice, a choice with universal implications. Either you decide to ignore your very near neighbor, or you talk to them, like our fathers and grandfathers used to talk... up close, personal, direct, often humorous, even hilarious ... but talk... to the astonishment and discontent of the young, who are at first often affronted and monosyllabic when an adult like me offers a comment, an introduction, an opening to the wonder of people meeting each other and actually conversing, not just texting some inane, impersonal drivel. Bartley's works because the food is good and, if you're lucky, you've made a new friend... This is the way America used to be and now so little is, for along the way we have lost the ability to talk with our neighbors about everything, about anything, about nothing in particular. Now we want what Greta Garbo wanted, "to be left alone." And then when we are, we text message wildly in a vain attempt to conjure the kind of relationship text messaging can never supply. So, now a newly minted old age pensioner of 65, I shall keep going to Bartley's, where I shall inform everyone (especially the staff not one of who was then born) how long I've been coming, like old codgers do. I shall ask for help getting into and especially out of the blue plastic chairs which always make me feel older than the hills. I shall greet the only senior on the staff and will politely turn down the offer of a menu. I know what I want. And I shall say something like this to the person sitting across from me, "You look like Ernest Borgnine." "Oh, yeah, didn't he just die?..." I am on my way to acquaintance with all its myriad of possibilities. And while I wait for the best burguh on Earth, I will wonder how much longer Bartley's will last, its price for burguhs being the highest in the Square, each increase a nail in its coffin. However for now I intend in my small way to help keep them alive, a place of good food and the chance to connect with another human or two. And so I have selected as the music for this article, the 1964 tune by the Newbeats "Bread and Butter". It's a peppy little number, completely foolish and inane, about his food and his woman. "She don't cook mashed potatoes/ She don't cook T-bone steaks". No, she secretly gets them at Bartley's... where she also found her new boyfriend, a man who really appreciates "her" cooking! Find the story in any search engine... and enjoy. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 26 of 31
  • 27. Weathering through the Storm! The man who survived. Norodom Sihanouk. Sometime prince of Cambodia, king, prime minister, revolutionary, demigod. Dead at 89, October 15, 2012. by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. When the Abbe Sieyes, one of the first three consuls of the new French government of 1799 was asked what he did during the Terror, he replied "I survived." Everyone who had done the same would have understood at once just how signal an achievement that was. It seems a particularly apt comment to apply to King Norodom Sihanouk... who lived to a venerable age which so many times looked unlikely, even impossible. It may well have been his most significant achievement. You may judge for yourself. Geography is destiny. To begin this article, go to any search engine and print out a map of Cambodia and its contiguous neighbors, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam. Then cast your eye North, to China, which monitored and influenced his every move his entire life. I suspect His Majesty knew every boundary, highway, minor road, river, city and town. He was no scholar, but on this subject I imagine he excelled. Much of what he could do, much of what he could not do was played out on the maps of Southeast Asia; his dreams, his fears, his rationales for so many shifts, turns, lies, deceptions, convolutions, "irrational" decisions made, reversed, made again, reversed again and again. You will never understand this man and his decisions, which so often infuriated and exasperated so many uncomprehending statesmen and diplomats, without understanding the geography of the place. I am writing this article with such a map at my fingertips. You should do the same. To achieve his goals of staying alive, keeping Cambodia independent and autonomous, and its population safe, he had to master every nuance of these maps and his options... options which changed as the goals of his contiguous neighbors (and their near and far-away allies) shifted... and above all whenever the shadow of great China crossed his path... as it seemed constantly to do. Born in the purple October 31, 1922. Cambodia at the time of King Sihanouk's birth was part of French Indochina, a protectorate since 1863. The royal dynasty reigned; the French ruled everything including the dynasty. To make this work as efficient and thorough as possible, they wanted young, naive, powerless princes at the helm. Shy 18-year-old Prince Sihanouk seemed tailor-made and so in 1941 French colonial authorities raised him to be king. No one, certainly no Frenchman, took this adolescent monarch seriously; he had wept after all when elevated. They wanted "a little lamb", Sihanouk said later. They got a tiger. The man had been misjudged and misunderstood from the beginning; that never changed. Everything else did, including the French Protectorate over Indochine. The beginning of the end of the French Colonial Empire. The breathtaking 1940 German invasion of France and the French capitulation (June, 1940) gave King Sihanouk the chance he needed to advance Cambodian independence. He worked with the new conquerors, the Japanese, as he had worked with the previous conquerors, the French. On March 9, 1945, the Japanese still in charge, King Sihanouk proclaimed an independent Kingdom of Kampuchea. The Japanese soon left; the French were prostrate. The King had had a very good war, despite General Charles de Gaulle's insistence that the ancien regime be resurrected. He might so http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 27 of 31
  • 28. Weathering through the Storm! desire, but he could not dictate; a lesson he found hard to learn, then or ever. In due course, October, 1953, Sihanouk declared independence. The "little lamb" had outmaneuvered the Cross of Lorraine himself. The King was now as grand as the kingdom proclaimed itself to be... and the Golden Age of his reign and his nation were at hand, a graceful time revered by every subject and remembered with joy, gratitude and bittersweet nostalgia. If only things had so remained... if only. But now one word hung over Cambodia, its king, its gentle people and their life of beauty, serenity, grace and tranquility. That word was Vietnam and in this single word there was an unimaginable horror and woes beyond measure. No one knew this better than the liberator King of Cambodia, at the very center of so much that went so wrong for so many, including himself. Saving his house from the inferno next door. Before continuing you must remember this man's objectives -- to save himself, to preserve his dynasty, to ensure the nation's freedom and self-rule, and to keep his adoring people safe from the collateral damage inflicted on them by bigger, richer, careless nations. It was not merely a tall order; it was the devil's own conundrum. And he could not avoid action or, in the way of so many academics, avoid making crucial decisions altogether; no, he had to decide, he had to act, he had to row his tiny boat and its 5 million vulnerable inhabitants through the growing maelstrom that emanated from and engulfed his proximate neighbor Vietnam. For 17 years, he kept his people out of the ever-growing civil conflict destroying his much larger neighbor. This is the key fact by which he should be judged, not the fact that he employed every single stratagem, tactic, ruse, insinuation, prevarication or deception he had to. He was a king, charged by heaven with the care of his people, whom he called and considered his "children". God would understand. As a result, Sihanouk became the very personification of the oldest Western stereotype, the Wily Oriental Gentleman (WOG). This and other far cruder characterizations and epithets permeated the CIA's "top secret" (1964) report "Prince Sihanouk and the New Order in Southeast Asia" by John W. Taylor, the word "patriot" seems hardly to have occurred to his detractors. And so as the fire consumed Vietnam one killing field at a time, King Sihanouk perfected his mastery of the legerdemain that kept his most vulnerable realm as secure as a world of insecurity would allow. Item: He became the darling of the world's left-leaning non-aligned nations while discouraging the growth of Cambodia's left-wing parties. Item: After the Vietnam war broke out again in 1961, he secretly allied with North Vietnam and began allowing Viet Cong troops to use Cambodia as a military base. At the same time he tacitly approved limited US bombing runs on Cambodian soil. Item: But you get the picture. His Majesty would do what His Majesty needed to do... and he did it until it no longer pleased all the people all the time, which had always been His Majesty's special, impossible assignment. In March, 1970 the United States tacitly approved a CIA coup that removed Sihanouk, turned the nation over to Lon Nol, a former military adviser who gave the United States what it wanted: a friendly regime that turned neutralist Cambodia into an American base, corrupt, propped up by lavish US aid. The golden days of Sihanouk's Cambodia were done and truly over. War, genocide, an impatient, impotent ex-monarch watches. Now the great Cambodian tragedy began; Lon Nol tethered to US interests, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge Communists infiltrating, destabilizing from the left. Sihanouk, in exile in Beijing, condemned Lon Nol and backed the Khmer http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 28 of 31
  • 29. Weathering through the Storm! Rouge which in 1975 imprisoned him in his palace thereby effectively silencing the Cambodian people's best friend and "father". The genocide of Pol Pot's regime, responsible for over 1.7 million brutal murders, starvations, and exterminations as it tried to convert the entire nation into an agrarian collective, showed just how good the "good old days" had been. And so he watched from afar as the nation he had built was destroyed; the people he loved were killed in their tens and hundreds of thousands and the United States condemned him for his unaccountable advocacy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. A realist to his royal fingertips, the ex-monarch knew he must explain himself on this matter, or languish on the sidelines forever, anathema to the Great Republic and its "do as I say, not as I do" approach to international relations. "War and Hope," my dinner with King Sihanouk, my ticklish assignment. The result was Sihanouk's book "War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia" (Pantheon Books, 1980), a ringing denunciation of the Khmer Rouge and its spectrum of brutalities, a denunciation he took to Harvard and its Center for International Affairs; where in those days I was a marketing, public relations and development consultant to Professor Samuel Huntington. As such I was invited to his lavish black-tie dinner in honor of the man called "Former Chief of State" and his Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture. Before that dinner, Professor Huntington handed me the evening's hot potato: on the pressing need to ensure the Prince's traveling concubine did not attend the festivities in honor of her aging but agile Lothario. "Girls, girls, girls"... but not at Harvard! Sihanouk, like all the kings of Cambodia, was a sybarite, a libertine, a frequent, frequently indiscriminate, lover and prodigious producer of princely children (at least 14), a real life character like Mrs. Anna Leonowens found in Bangkok in 1862. The CIA made much of his concupiscence; he enjoyed his droit de seigneur. In any event, it helped pass his gilded exile. But whatever was acceptable elsewhere, such behavior did not suit Fair Harvard, at least the residual Puritans at the Center for International Affairs (now called the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs). They wanted no part of his current traveling companion. And because I was a hired consultant I was told to get the lady gone. I can see her to this day and even smell her intoxicating Rue de la Paix scent. She was lovely in the Cambodian manner, young, lavishly dressed, a doll. She disdained me... and no wonder. Had it been me alone, I would have invited her, but I was merely following orders. And so while she filed her nails and cast her eyes down, I stumbled through the message and her contempt. She knew my discomfort and dragged it out. I felt like a worm, for all that they paid me well. She was not in attendance that evening. But King Sihanouk was, to deliver his "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" on the Khmer Rouge, toppled in 1979 but not forgotten or forgiven in Washington, D.C.. When I was presented, I murmured the expected compliments which he, the consummate man of the world, reciprocated without a moment's thought. It was what he'd been doing for a lifetime, saying the expected, while doing what needed to be done. But what was clear was that he was in Cambridge, at Harvard, because he wanted to return to Kampuchea and if exchanging small talk with someone like me, if giving up his play fellow for a time were required, he would do it all, and more. For Cambodia was his real love, his one and only love, and he missed her to distraction. And so after Pol Pot fell; after the Vietnamese were expelled he got his fervent wish, to be reunited with the beloved. Now this man, this king, this tiger once thought to be a little lamb, this lover of women and great patriot, this evasive man, ambiguous man, deceptive man for whom mere truth was a luxury he http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 29 of 31
  • 30. Weathering through the Storm! could hardly ever afford is dead. We shall never see his like again in our time. Go then to any search engine. Find "Nokor Reach", the national anthem of the Kingdom of Cambodia... "Heaven save the king/ Give him happiness and glory/... rule the Khmer Land and/ make it high and filled with honor", as in his way he did. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 30 of 31
  • 31. Weathering through the Storm! Resource 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. Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below. Republished with author's permission by Denis Darling http://MyExtremeResults.com. http://www.MyExtremeResults.com Copyright Denis Darling - 2012 31 of 31