By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. In dealing with the events following the fall of France June 22, 1940 you must always ask yourself, “What would I have done to keep living?” Then remember that every single Frenchman and Frenchwoman had to ask this question…. and answer it, often paying with their lives if …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Before you read this article, go to any search engine and find Peter Finch’s celebrated “Mad as Hell” speech from the 1976 film “Network.” I know exactly how Howard Beale, the character he plays, felt. Disgusted! Infuriated! Past mere anger! A nuclear melt-down gone beyond all these… His …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. The autumn auction catalogs have begun to pour in, a stunning library of things rare, notable, luxurious, just the kinds of things you know are necessary for the “look” that screams your name. You are — or want to be — a collector on an international scale… but …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Whether it is because of the unsettling information we have received minute by minute over the last few days; whether it is because of the ominous predictions of so many knowledgeable authorities; whether it is because it is just 5:48 a.m. and it is still pitch black, the …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. It’s a Saturday night in 1955, and you’re looking for entertainment. You want it bright, cheerful, positive, and free; the kind of program that taxes you intellectually not at all… but makes you smile with feel-good music delivered by feel-good people. You spin the dial and find a …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. For this article no other song would do besides the jaunty, rousing fight song of the United States Naval Academy, “Anchors Aweigh.” Strongly associated, too, with the United States Navy, it was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmerman with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. Zimmerman was at …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. This is the tale of someone who has achieved the kind of astonishing online results and amazing ongoing traffic that you wish you had. Her name is Diane Dohrn and she’s one of the handful of residents from Grygla, Minnesota (population 228)… a place that looks like a …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Only one song would do for this of all articles, the iconic anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), “We Shall Overcome.” It was not so much a song as a declaration of purpose and profound resolve, one that did not merely state and celebrate the destination… …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. In 1961 New York City went to work with a smile on its face and a can’t-help-but-like-it rhythm on the brain. It was Robert Morse and the ensemble of “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” by author Shepherd Mead and composer Frank Loesser. It is a …
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author’s program note. Like so many of my Scottish countrymen, my family left the Highlands in the mid-eighteenth century to pursue a better life in America. But though they left physically, a portion of their heart remained behind and their love continued strong and enduring. The current events taking place in …