Faithfully Following Directions Leads Us Astray – With Amazing Consequences!

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By on July 28, 2010

Jambo Journal – Day #2, Monday, July 26, 2010 – Arrival.

Yesterday’s entry: Eternal Answer Finally Revealed

After a night of no rest, we turn 795594_46981410_Danger-Do-Not-Enter_Sign_stock_xchng_royalty_freeinto the large McDonald’s (complete with McPlayground) at 6:00am Monday, a full hour behind schedule. Wait! No, it’s the wrong one. We leave with another of the five buses and head down the road to the McDonald’s we phoned ahead to warn.

We get there and wonder if the busses will be able to park anywhere. Man, is it small. In fact, it’s about the size of one of Ray Kroc’s original franchises. Don’t worry about not having a playground, it barely has Continue Reading “Faithfully Following Directions Leads Us Astray – With Amazing Consequences!”

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Eternal Answer Finally Revealed

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By on July 26, 2010

Jambo Journal – Day #1, Sunday, July 25, 2010 – Departure.

We embarked on our 12-hour ride at 497227_52009257_chick_and_egg_stock_xchange_royalty_free9:30 Sunday night, thirty minutes past our scheduled departure time. The kids didn’t mind. Their parents didn’t mind. The weather was perfect for picture taking. The whole scene reminded me of one of those old movies – you know the kind I speak of – when it seems like the entire community comes to celebrate the debarking from port of some fabled steam liner.

Fortunately, the preliminary forecast did not indicate any likelihood of icebergs roaming the interstates between Rochester and Fort A.P. Hill. Heat Advisories? Well, that’s another thing altogether.

The joyous banter of youthful testosterone-filled excitement permeated the Continue Reading “Eternal Answer Finally Revealed”

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Shakedown, June 2010

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By on June 8, 2010

We left the safe harbor of our homes late afternoon on Friday. The sun shone pleasantly, its yellow hue melting the soft deciduous leaves in the tranquil heat 484658_81602532_storm_seascape_royalty_free_stock_xchng_300of a mid-summer-like air. A pleasant breeze bathed exuberant faces filled with the hope and promise of the weekend’s journey, itself a mere primer for a more extended voyage this July. We knew the forecast, but the fresh sky bedazzled us. We carried on as planned.

The storms began to the north around midnight. The senior crew had just broke from their debriefing in the mess hall. The march to our assigned quarters took us again out into the bewitching serenity of Continue Reading “Shakedown, June 2010”

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My Greatest Sale

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By on May 4, 2010

I had worked the graveyard shift on the AM dial for more than two years when the idea struck me – Why don’t we have a sports department? I knew from first-hand experience the Yale hockey team had a fan base well beyond the campus borders. New 1041448_77704542_Green_Money_royalty_free-stock_xchng_300Haven, back then at least, thrived on the skates of its minor league hockey team. Yalies and townies alike delighted in the drama provided by the Yale icemen and their young new head coach – but only during home games. When the team went on the road, it left the fans high and dry, yearning for a shred of news. Until I had my idea…

The AM dial – my home – had a limited audience due to FCC restrictions on its signal. The FM side, however, reached halfway into the Long Island Sound. This fact, given few people actually lived on the Long Island Sound, was less impressive than it seemed. More impressive, however, lay in the detail that radio signals swept a circular area, meaning two-thirds of the signal strength seeped into homes along the southern Connecticut shore and into the very heart of the state. Within these homes lived tens of thousands of hockey fans. It was the call of these people that brought me to the Continue Reading “My Greatest Sale”

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In Search of Virtue: How Boy Scouts Helped Me Do the Impossible

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By on April 6, 2010

In 1748, the French philosopher Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, anonymously published his opus The Spirit of Laws. Two years later, Thomas Nugent 928906_80180220_Pontifical_Authority_royalty_free_stock_xchng_300published the initial English translation. This work, from where the term “separation of powers” first appeared, greatly influenced our Founding Fathers.

Montesquieu outlined three essential forms of government – Despotism, Monarchy and Republic – each dependent on one vital and defining character trait among its citizens. Under despotism, it’s fear. In a monarchy, it’s honor. But in a republic, Montesquieu maintains, those governed must be disposed to nothing less than virtue. Our Founding Fathers understood this. They possessed high expectations of both their new country as well as its citizens.

Oddly enough, the nation’s forebears did not see it as the role of government to imbue virtue upon its citizens. Rather, they expected the people to embrace virtue of their own volition. Nothing said this more than Benjamin Franklin’s answer to a woman who Continue Reading “In Search of Virtue: How Boy Scouts Helped Me Do the Impossible”

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