"Thanks," many small businesspeople are saying, "but no thanks. Forget the government credits and loan programs, and just get rid of all the bureaucratic red tape and high taxes which make it hard to build businesses, hire employees and meet our payroll."

What the great mentor is always looking for is a person who is willing to tap his genius, to put it through the refiner's fire, to do the hard work to develop it. Indeed, mentoring is the medieval art of alchemy-turning plain old human steel into hearts and minds of gold.

There are really only two ways to teach. You can inspire the student to voluntarily and enthusiastically choose to do the hard work necessary to get a great education, or you can attempt to require it of him.

The slaves in Rome were incapable of leisure and so their masters gave them entertainment to keep them pacified.

The shortest distance between where we are today as a nation and an effective return to increasing our freedoms and widespread prosperity is for regular American citizens to read and study the great books.

Will we follow the course of societies past that have lost their way and crumbled under the devastating forces of economic upheaval, war and other crises? Or we pull together as families and communities to create a brighter future?

If Americans are frustrated with Congress, imagine their frustration with a group of international bank officials running our ecomomy-bankers who may not have as their motive either to see us out of debt to them or to strengthen our economy, society, international influence, or other elements of our way of life.