by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. Quick! Can you name a hugely popular Broadway musical which partly takes place in the ancient, fetid sewers of Paris? That would be Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1980 mega-hit “Les Miserables”, a tale of love, fate, comradeship… and of the spirit of freedom and liberty that cannot be crushed and obliterated, no matter how many Inspector Javerts are set to the task.

The musical, of course, is based on the celebrated book by Victor Hugo (published in 1862). Hugo was a master story teller, a man able to get in your head and etch impressions that would last a lifetime. Here is his description of the great sewers of Paris…

“… Paris has another Paris under herself; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is slime, minus the human form.”

And so a great artist sketches the terrain for the words that will arise and grab you by the throat, forcing you to look, taking you where you do not want to go… but will go… where you will see things you never saw… in a place you hoped to avoid but which you must now confront… such is the mastery of this man and his vision.

The sad thing is, Hugo only wrote about the sewers of Paris… because every sewer system in the world needs his help to get people to focus on the crumbling lines within their midst, systems we never, ever think about but which are essential, absolutely essential, to our way of life.

How essential? Well, consider this: sewer and water systems, inextricably linked, 2 sides of the same coin, give us the water we drink, the toilets we flush, the H2O that runs factories, keeps offices open and enables firemen to do their dangerous, essential work. Therefore, when sewer systems fail cities cannot function, and epidemics break out. Thus, the importance of sewers and the water systems with which they are connected could scarcely be greater. Which is why their deterioration constitutes a problem of the first magnitude.

If this is so… and it most assuredly is… why do we hear nothing about this subject… why has nary a presidential candidate, or the president himself, offered a single word, or any concern, about the matter? For make no mistake about it, sewers are terra incognita for all, never, ever mentioned, much less discussed in what was once called “polite society”… Why is that anyway?

Sewers immediately conjure up images that no one except the few professionals involved in their efficient operation wants to consider. For the bulk of us, sewers are dark, creepy places, full of stinks and disgust which no “nice” person wants to know about, much less think about and discuss. They are the places where the colossal stench of mankind is somehow dealt with, without any bother at all to the rest of us. This is, of course, a prescription for disaster, the disaster that comes closer and closer as the systems on which our lives are based grow old and perilous.

“All the big cities have these problems, and to me it’s the unseen catastrophe,” says George Hawkins, general manager of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. “At least with bridges or a road, people have some idea of what it is because they drive on them and see them.” But with our crucial but aging sewer system, it’s out of sight, out of mind…

How big is this problem?

The plain fact is, the vast majority of the country’s water systems are in urgent need of repair and replacement. At a recent Senate hearing, it was estimated that, on average, 25 percent of drinking water leaks from water system pipes before reaching the faucet. The same committee was told it will take some $335 billion to resurrect water systems and $300 billion more to fix sewer systems.

These numbers are staggering, unimaginable, and have absolutely no chance of realization. My fellow countrymen, you see, reckon thus: if we don’t know about it, never discuss it, and make a concerted effort to ignore it, this problem, by definition, doesn’t exist and need never disturb our slumbers… no matter how many Senate and House panels and commissions composed of cadres of experts weigh in on the matter. Ignorant we are, and ignorant we intend to remain.

Just as we are ignorant about and intend to stay ignorant about the other aspects of our crumbling infrastructure where experts now reckon we need at least the $7 trillion it will cost to restore and repair roads, bridges, aviation, and transit in the next decade alone. Here, too, we have collectively decided to know little, do less… hoping against hope our increasingly inadequate systems will at least last our time and so become yet another essential thing we can blithely leave our hapless children and their staggering must-do list. We can only hope they’ll forgive us as they get bill after bill drawn on their inadequate accounts.

The need is pressing… the concern casual… the sense of immediacy and a need for prompt and thorough action non-existent. This being the case, what can we lotus-eaters, practitioners all of la dolce far niente expect, since we are adamant in our refusal to see?

Well here for openers is a pocketful of jarring thoughts:

* without necessary, overdue repairs to the system, water prices will experience constant increases;

* without necessary, overdue repairs, about 900 billion gallons of raw sewage will flow into waterways, spreading sickness and disgust;

* without necessary, overdue repairs over a trillion gallons of water a year will leak from pipes no longer up to the job.

Contact the water man.

“People count on turning on the faucet and having clean water come out,” says Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland), chairman of the subcommittee on water, “but that’s not true anymore.” Worse, without prompt, thorough, comprehensive action it may never be true again. Are you helpless in the face of this impending crisis? Certainly not.

Write Senator Cardin in Washington. Let him know you support the need for action and action now and want to be kept up-to-date on proposed reforms and their progress. If every reader of this article did this small thing, it would empower the senator in his important work and help the repairs and reforms we must have.

Then go to any search engine. Find Susan Boyle’s magnificent rendition of “I Dreamed A Dream” from “Les Miserables”; hers is a voice that makes you believe dreams are important and can come true:

“There was a time when men were kind./ When their voices were soft/ And their words inviting./ There was a time when love was blind/ And the world was a song/ And the song was exciting/There was a time/ Then it all went wrong…”

Then consider this. No matter how wrong things went before, that will be as nothing when compared to the day that dawns without water and with an ocean of sewage submerging our land and everyone in it with filth. That disgusting day is drawing nigh and quickly, too, and if we do not act, this couplet from “Les Miserables” will be our fate:

“I had a dream my life would be/So different from this hell I’m living,” a hell where Susan Boyle’s voice might be the last sweetness on Earth.

**** Your thoughts on this article are invited, submit them below.
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About the Author

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

Today in Worldprofit’s Home Business Bootcamp, Instructor and marketing expert, George Kosch went back to basics. With so many new Members joining the program it was essential to cover the fundamentals of profiting from the Worldprofit Home Business System. Throughout the LIVE interactive training, George answered questions from a number of new Members.

Topics during today’s training included:

ClickBank Promotion
ClickBank Engine
ClickBank Press
WordPress
Pre-built Widgets
Blogs
Blog Comments
Windows Live Writer
Contacting Associates
Handling Sales
FastTrack Advertising Co-op
Traffic Generation
Safelists
Landing Pages
Backlinking
Traffic Exchanges
Guaranteed Visitors
Newsletter Subscribers Delivery Rates – A Reality Check
Google – AdSense
Comparison of Advertising Strategies
Recommended Safelists List Building

George offered a preview of two new Worldprofit Services scheduled for release shortly. The Safelist Exchange Plugin will be offered at NO charge to all current and new Worldprofit Platinum VIP Members. George also revealed an example of the new stand alone Safelist Exchange sites that will include a unique domain address, design and management. These will be Member-owned Safelist Exchange sites and the cost is yet to be finalized. Watch for futher details to be announced.

For Members, who missed the LIVE session today of the Home Business Bootcamp Training, it has been recorded and will be posted later today to the Worldprofit Member area. Previous recordings can be located under the TOP menu under TRAINING. Remember! These are only the video recordings of the LIVE sessions. Members are urged to also follow the online bootcamp training levels 1 – 8 for graduation as a Worldprofit Certified E-Business Consultant. Completing the online training levels ensures Members understand how to use all the tools, resources and software included in the Membership.  Worldprofit Top Sellers are ALL GRADUATES of the Worldprofit online bootcamp training course.

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George Kosch is the Home Business Bootcamp Instructor at Worldprofit Inc., as well as one of the original co-founders. For 17+ years, Worldprofit has been providing training, support software, traffic tools and website hosting and design for small and home based business owners. Republished with author’s permission by David Mobile “http://HelpingHandBusiness.com“.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

How do you build an online business? Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat.

I really hate using the first expression because I LOVE elephants but to make a point sometimes you have to be blunt.

This blog is meant to be direct and maybe make you a little irritated so you will REACT. A reaction is better than nothing. Hopefully that irritation leads to a reaction which leads to an action.

Forgive me if the tone of this blog sounds a bit tongue in cheek. My purpose is to try and get you to simplify tasks so you can get the results you want. I’d like you to think about things from a different perspective.

Every day I talk to people all over the world who are trying to build their online business. Some are having no success, some are having mixed success, some are just getting started, some have been working an online business for years. The ones who are hugely successful, I never hear from  – hmmm strange.

What’s the difference between the successful and the non-successful?  Well it depends on who you ask and your definition of success. Here’s my take on it.

People who are successful are DOERS!
They don’t over think, they plod in and get busy.
They make mistakes, they learn, they try again.
They fall down, they get up again as often as it takes to get the job done. They simplify; they don’t overcomplicate.
They have a unique way of looking at things, and attacking a task.
They FOCUS on what needs to be done, eliminate distraction.
They understand that small tasks can lead to big results.
They find what works and stick to it.
They have a patience many of us just can’t fathom.
Failure is not an option.

I had the honour of playing a round of golf with a Professional Golfer last week. This guy was good and had won numerous tournaments.  I asked him how he got to be such a good golfer and this is what he told me. He said, “I’ve played golf since I was 4. I’m 24 now. I’ve played golf pretty much every day my entire life.” I then said to him, “so you did the same thing everyday and got really good at it?”  He looked at me for a moment to make sure that I was being serious about something so obvious then he said. “Yes, I got some lessons and instructions then practised every day and here I am.”

So if I can draw from that, if you want to be good at something – successful at something – do it everyday – over and over and over again!

Could it be that simple?

Building your online business is as simple as   Copy. Paste. Promote. Repeat.  Everyday?

What do you think? Post your comments below. I’d like to see your thoughts.

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About the Author

Sandi Hunter is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc. Worldprofit provides a number of services for the small and home-based business community including hosting, design, webconferencing, traffic, advertising, SEO, training and resources. This year Worldprofit marks their 17th year in business. Republished with author’s permission by David Mobile “http://HelpingHandBusiness.com“.

by  Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note: Arguably the most important and influential science fiction novel ever written was “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells in 1898. It made palpable, frightening, believable the horrifying possibility that we are not alone and that what creatures descend on us could mean catastrophe for each and every one of us, our entire species and every manifestation of who we are, where we came from, what we’ve done, and even what happened to us thereafter and our pitiable inadequacies, best passing into oblivion rather than remembering, much less celebrating them in any way.

As if this book was not unsettling enough, the astonishing genius of Orson Wells (1915- 1985) made it worse. In 1938 this visionary, this enfant terriible, this man of audacity as boundless as space itself, scared the bejesus out of America with a fictional tale designed to look completely real, as if the events portrayed in New Jersey could have been taking place in any town, any state. Despite the fact that frequent announcements were made that the whole was merely a radio play (albeit the most famous ever broadcast)  vast numbers of people believed, ardently, fervently, and with unwavering commitment. Yes, whatever disclaimers were made, these folks knew in their bones that what they heard was the God’s honest truth; not just that it might happen. But that it would happen. And we passengers on Spaceship Earth have lived with this deep-seated belief ever since.

Most of us put the matter out of our mind and daily life. Living creatures out there there might be, but not in our time. And so general belief in the existence of “something” was dropped to the lowest possible echelon of public concern, anxiety, and fear.

But now, in a development of the utmost importance, the comfort level of our species and its planetary lotus-eating has received a shock, a very great shock indeed… for we are now closer than ever before to not merely the philosophical supposition that we inhabit inter-galactic space with others… but the distinct and real possibility that that joint habitation is so.

And so I give you as the incidental music for this article, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Number 1. This was the opening music for the Mercury Theatre on the Air, October 30, 1938 when the future we most dreaded and had always expected descended on Grover’s Mill, New Jersey and the genus homo sapiens went irrevocably from master to minion…

Only one thing is different from that evening in October, 1938 and the astonishing discoveries announced by NASA December 21, 2011. And that is the fact that this time there will be no periodic announcements that what you are experiencing is fiction.

Here are the facts as they stand today… facts which every concerned man and woman on this planet owe to themselves to understand and to think deeply, profoundly about.

NASA and its Kepler mission searches the planets circling other stars, by analyzing more than 150,000 stars near the Cygnus and Lyra constellations. Kepler measures the size and orbit of distant planets by watching for a tell-tale dimming in a star’s brightness as a planet crosses in front of the star.

In early December, NASA announced the discovery of Kepler-22b, a planet 2.4 times the size of Earth that orbits a star in a habitable zone that could support liquid water, and perhaps life.

Then on December 21 NASA announced the discoveries of Kepler -20e and Kepler -20f, two rocky planets, one Earth-sized and one slightly smaller. This was important and would have been even more important had both these rocky entities not had surface temperatures of 800 degrees, whereas Earth’s average temperature is around 59 degrees. If… if… if either of these planets had had temperatures like Earth’s, what then? Closer and closer to what scientists are aiming for: life forms, not just rocks and cosmic debris.  But the tantalizing “if” that drives scientists early and late was closer than it had ever been, no longer merely possible, but distinctly plausible. And so humanity makes quantum leaps to… what?

And it is this “what” that matters above all else… for humanity must be ready, as ready as possible, should we encounter, in any way,  personages of different planets and stars, different in as many ways as we may imagine now… and in ways we have not even dreamt of.  And for this, I advance the following recommendations, which I first address to the President of the United States, the responsible government authorities of the Great Republic, each and every presidential candidate, and to all the great executives of all other nations, for perforce we are all of us in this together.

ALL aspects of this unique, historic and portentous intersection must be given increased recognition, funding and priority, for no other single action, event or deed in human events has had the unfathomable significance of this matter.

So, here’s what these officials and authorities must do, and do with dispatch:

1) Establish a department of state where all matters pertaining to this epochal rendezvous can be deposited, easily accessed, augmented, corrected, reviewed.

2) Important subjects to be reviewed and kept up to date must include all information, howsoever improbable and unlikely the source. This must include but not be limited to archeological data, historic artifacts, letters, diaries, commentaries on the general subject of denizens of the universe and how they may have made themselves known over time. Nothing should be regarded as beside the point, beneath academic interest, or responsible review. We must always be knowledgeable and humble about what we know on this crucial subject.

3) As a matter of course, aspects of inter-galactic search, contact, and consequences must include defense data, medical knowledge and necessities, as well as the body composition and genetics of our newly discovered neighbors.

More organizing, still better preparedness.

Members of the designated department must brainstorm all subjects, no matter how obscure, relating to this most significant meeting in history. These questions must be conceived, then considered for policy implications, etc.

The great role of the Great Republic.

You don’t need to be a political scientist to realize America’s once  high reputation has fallen in recent years to a distressing, even humiliating level.  This hurts, disappoints, and angers all well-meaning citizens who love this nation. It is time for America to reassert itself as that shining city on a hill, extolled by the first Pilgrims of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Never could America so help the world as being at the service of humanity through the preparation, protection, and pro bono work that will need to be done, done meticulously and done as soon as possible.

This work at once begun, can never be stopped, disregarded, dismissed, or left undone. You see the scientists at the new planet discovering Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and all the other scientists at our most prestigious institutions will not stop their seismic work; they mean to make the crucial discoveries of life, if it be humanly possible. And we and our human institutions worldwide must adhere to the same high standards, for make no mistake about it; nothing less than the future of our species and our planet are at stake. And we must be prepared, or accept the potential obliteration of every sign, signal, and artifact of the place in the universe we forfeited when we had every opportunity to save ourselves, our cosmic foothold, and our self respect.

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About the Author

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

Welcome to the Helping Hand Business Blog. The purpose of this blog is to stir discussion and debate while informing and helping you learn more about business on the internet. Here you will find articles by Sr. Jeffrey Lant, George Kosh, Sandi Hunter and David Mobile (me) as well as videos illustrating the video’s. Feel free to look around and make comments on what you read. Thanks for stopping by.

Blessings,

David Mobile