The day the world began to turn upside down. March 5, 1770, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony. The day the world began to turn upside down. March 5, 1770, Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's note. To get the most from this article, you should listen to the words and music for a tune called "The World Turned Upside Down". It's an English ballad first published in 1643 as a p...

First snow comes to Cambridge, February 12, 2012, a story of life's unpredictable savor and joys.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. The sound was unmistakable. It was, quite literally, that harsh, grating noise made when steel of the most tenacious kind scrapes against unyielding concrete; that immutab...

The hemorrhage at the U.S. Postal Service gets worse. Face it, the time for massive overhaul at this venerable institution is nigh.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. If you were around in 1961 and were of a teen-age disposition, your trips to the soda shoppe were frequent and your search for The Sound was never-ending, punctuated as the...

'And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight....' The tulips are coming! April 5, 2011.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's note: You will get the most from this article by listening to "Tip Toe Thru' The Tulips" before you start, or as you read. Search for the subject at any search engine. There are many ren...

'If you're ever in a jam, here I am.' Thoughts on a friend you adore, eat, and shamefully forget (until your next craving): jam.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note: Jam! Can you imagine life without it... smooth, delectable, always there, never contumacious like your last lover, never foul mouthed or vulgar (like some of your friends);...

Of earmuffs, sissies, bone-chilling cold, and warm ears; thanks to young inventor Chester Greenwood.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Winter. What a revoltin' development this is. I often wonder on days so ridiculously cold like this one is why the Puritans stayed here after arriving and sampling the de...

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

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. Whatever you were doing, whatever you thought important a moment before. Whatever your plans, schemes, intentions, wishes and desires, each alone and all together are tru...

So you want to be a CEO. Think again! Newly discovered manuscript by Scarlet O'Hara tells all... and you'll be shocked and aghast at what she reveals about life at the top of the business heap.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. Is there a person alive (or at least a movie goer) who doesn't know about Scarlet O'Hara, the spit-fire whom author Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949) originally wanted to ...

'Cruel and usual punishment.' Thoughts on the way we put people to death and on one man in particular, Dennis McGuire, executed at 53, January 16, 2014.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Since the beginning of human time, we have been engaged in finding ways of killing each other in every imaginable way. For thousands of years with no respite whatsoever,...

Umbuntu, 'We are growing/Growing higher and higher.' Thoughts on leadership as inspired by the life and choices of Nelson Mandela, 'Hear the children, hear thechildren/They are talking to you.'

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. She was discovered whilst cleaning other people's houses. Even there she had "it". Her employers were so impressed that they taped her singing and sent the tape to a rec...

A commentator's anniversary, three years, one thousand articles, more than two million words, one man's work, his vocation, his bliss.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. This is an article of joy and celebration, of luck and commitment, of cold nights, nimble fingers on the key board, and of a wrestling with words, from which God willi...

The Spider of the Kremlin and his cunning webs. The man who would be tsar and the Ukraine he covets to distraction. Vladimir Putin. The situation in Kiev. Some thoughts on a great people determined to be truly free.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. In 1866 Tsar Alexander II of All the Russias came to visit the greatest city in his restive province of Ukraine... and there he almost died at the hands of an assassin ...

On collecting political autographs. Downers Grove, Illinois, 1960, age 13.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Her name was Phoebe H. Dutcher, and she occupied the exalted elected office of Recorder of Deeds in DuPage County, Illinois circa 1960. As such she was an important part...

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. This article was inspired by not one but two recent restaurant closings in my neighborhood, two places packed with memories of every kind. I couldn't, just couldn't, l...

Thoughts on books.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. It had been a long, exhausting day, frustrating, irritating, a day of people I didn't want to know, disliked on sight, and couldn't wait to see the back of them. Busin...

Son of a gun. The murderous bullets of Sparks. Monday, October 21, 2013. The ineradicable shame of a great nation, knowing what must be done, unable to do it. And Mozart... who turns our tears and rage into the majesty of Redemption. A tale.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. This is the story I didn't want to write about. Didn't want to hear about... didn't want to think about... didn't want to deal with in any way... but all to no avail. ...

Good boy! Bad book! Thoughts on Larry DiCara, his antiseptic memoir, and what it takes to arrest the attention of the world and gain eternity with words you just can't put down.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. I think I should tell you. I've known the subject of this article for donkey's years and never was heard a discouraging word and the skies were not cloudy all day... un...

Rochus Misch; guard for Hitler saw fuehrer's last hours, dead at 96, September 5, 2013. 'There are none so blind as those who will not see'.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. Another minion of the unmitigated evil now only known ironically as the Thousand Year Reich has expired, full of years and blessed, so it seems, by the absence of ghos...

Harvard and MIT to offer free online classes. What it means for you, what it means for the world, what it means for education.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) was the first of the mega rich American tycoons. He made his money in transportation... first with boats ferrying freight and pa...

Last days of the egregious Evan Dobelle, still hanging in there as president of Westfield State University... to the embarrassment of everyone but... Evan! A cautionary tale.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. The summer of '13 was blown out of town yesterday, winds gusting, the rains torrential, a whole forest of venerable oaks and maples cast down into the ancient soil of ...