Buddie, Can You Spare ... $13.5-Million to Rescue the North Manitou Shoals Light Station

T he restoration of the North Manitou Shoal Light Station, more commonly known to locals and old-timers as “the Crib”, is seriously in need of an “angel.”

The offshore facility is successor to the North Manitou Island Light. That first lighthouse, built on North Manitou’s Dimmick’s Point in 1898 proved ineffective in warning ships away from the hazardous shoal which extends far out into the passage from the island’s southern tip, so it was soon augmented by a light ship stationed at the shoal’s end. The Crib was commissioned in 1935 to replace the island’s lighthouse and light ship.

The U.S. Congress instituted an innovative program for lighthouse restoration and preservation with the passage of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. NHLPA recognizes the cultural, recreational, and educational value associated with historic light station properties by allowing these to be transferred at no cost to nonprofit corporations and other eligible entities. These groups must agree to comply with conditions set forth in the act, be financially able to maintain the facility, and must make it available to the general public for education, park, recreation, cultural or historic preservation purposes at reasonable times and under reasonable conditions. Only those light stations that are listed, or determined eligible for listing, in the National Register of Historic Places, can be conveyed under this program.

Government agencies involved in the process include the U.S. Coast Guard, the General Services Administration, the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office. I’ve been in touch with the Coast Guard, the NPS NHLPA Coordinator, Michigan’s Lighthouse Preservation Project, the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, Mihm Enterprises of Hamilton, Michigan (a historic restoration contractor with experience working on facilities of this kind) and with the DeTour Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society, a group which has successfully undertaken a project of this kind with a very similar offshore lighthouse near Drummond Island. Everyone is eager to see the North Manitou Shoal Light Station rescued.

I suggest that $13.5-million will be needed to save this historic light. That amount includes an estimated $3.5-million to restore the structure, equip it as a self-sufficient facility, and refit it with historically authentic equipment and furnishings. Beyond that, a $10-million endowment will provide for ongoing operation and maintenance expenses, and assured compliance with the State of Michigan’s bottomlands conveyance rules (which require removal of the structure in case of eventual abandonment.)

Although this lighthouse is within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, it is not owned by the National Park Service, and for the time being, at least, NPS has no interest in taking control of it.

Although this lighthouse is within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, it is not owned by the National Park Service, and for the time being, at least, NPS has no interest in taking control of it. That location, however, assures that its restoration and maintenance will be of great benefit to the public, since the light is visible from the mainland, and since ferry service to the Lakeshore’s South Manitou Island brings visitors immediately past the light station twice each day during the visitor season.

Off-Shore Lights are Tough Projects

Over recent years, two or three nonprofits have investigated the feasibility of taking over this off-shore light station. Offshore light stations are notoriously difficult projects even under the best of circumstances. But beyond that, two main problems have prevented that from happening.

The first, of course, is money; several millions of dollars being beyond the capabilities of most small nonprofits, especially now, when charitable donations might better be directed to dire human needs ... to victims of ignorance and poverty, and victims of natural disasters.

The second limitation is administrative and management capabilities. Projects of this size and scope are generally beyond the capabilities of volunteer boards of small nonprofit organizations. The exceptions are organizations with board members who have had significant experience in large-scale business and management situations (as is the case with the DeTour Reef project.)

Got money? You can save this landmark.

Why would you want to do that? Perhaps as a way to give something back to the American people; something that will endure over the coming generations. Perhaps as a monument to yourself; since this would not be a government-owned entity, you’d be at liberty to attach a bronze plaque commemorating your

Are you among those lucky bonus recipients in the financial sector? — Here’s a worthy use for those windfalls!

generosity. Or maybe just for the fun and adventure of doing something completely out of the ordinary. Whatever your reason, your consideration of this initiative will be most welcomed.

Were I rich enough, I’d eagerly do this project, for both of the above reasons. I’m not that fortunate. So I can only appeal in this way to you, and with a plege to provide whatever assistance I can ... administrative “grunt work”, volunteer recruitment, on-site oversight, etc.

If you are interested in talking about the possibilities, please feel free to get in touch ... any time — day or night.

Meanwhile, you might be interested in a “virtual visit” to the light station.

On the Gathering Storm

We recently attempted to send Christmas packages to our son in Iraq, and son-in-law in Kuwait. Our son's came back, having been rejected by a postal clerk because he or she didn't like the way the customs form was filled out.

I tried it a second time, and it was rejected again because it contained a sample-size plastic bottle of hand sanitizer gel, which they claimed probably contained alcohol 'with a flash point of ... blah, blah, blah.' (The various military support websites recommend sending hand sanitizer; that's why we included that item.)

Then they required that each and every item in the package would have to be listed on the customs form, complete with its description (precise; not terse), quantity, weight and value. But our gift packages contained a couple dozen or more miscellaneous toys, treats and toiletries ... like a Christmas stocking, as it were. Since the PS Form 2976-A customs form has only five spaces for descriptions, one of which has to be used to certify that the listed items are a bona fide gift, I would have had to fill out five or more of the five page forms for the single small package.

As if that wasn't idiotic enough, the post office had stickered the package "Surface Teansportation Only." So I presume it would have finally arrived in Kirkuk, Iraq after our son was long gone and safely back on his base in the States.

So I just decided to forget the whole thing. We'll divide the stuff up, and give it to our grandchildren instead. (Alex, the four-year old, will love the farting key chain.)

Our son's wife shared that she had tried to send him some brownies she had baked. She simply marked the customs form "cookies." They couldn't accept that, telling her she needed to list what kind of cookies on separate lines. When she told them they were actually all the same, just brownies that she had made herself, they wanted to know, "What kind of brownies?" She didn't know there were different kinds, so wrote down "Brown Brownies." Then she wanted to send him some deodorant (non-aerosol), which is also supposedly on the forbidden list since it probably contains alcohol (but which is also a recommended item on various "support our troops" websites), so she marked that package "Brown Brownies" also.

Americans are expected to risk their young family members' lives to participate in politicians' military misadventures, yet by no means should anyone risk the safety of a cargo plane's crew by including a deodorant stick in a "care package?"

The other package, sent our maybe son-in-law in Kuwait, was identical to the one sent to our son in Iraq, and was sent at the same time with the customs form filled out exactly the same way. That one hasn't come back. Maybe he'll get it.

Or, according to the postal clerk, maybe he won't, since, she claimed, "It'll probably just be confiscated."

Isn't it really just too disgusting that Americans are expected to risk their young family members' lives to participate in politicians' military misadventures, yet by no means should anyone risk the safety of a cargo plane's crew by including a deodorant stick in a "care package" — something that thousands of merchants commonly offer on their shelves in stores all across the country, and millions of passengers commonly carry in their luggage aboard domestic and international flights?

Mr Obama; tear down this wall?

President Reagan challenged the Soviets with words like that some twenty-three years ago. Twenty-nine months later, the Soviet Union — the world's only other "superpower" — began its collapse. Today, that empire is no more. Who would have thought such a thing was possible?

Our country has become so encumbered with the sort of idiocracy described above — bureaucracy having absolutely trumped adhocracy, as it were — and our federal government has become so corrupt, I do think (as recently suggested by Newsweek), that we are rapidly approaching the end of our run. I expect that after the New Year we'll be seeing rioting on the mall in Washington D.C., and I fear that when that is put down with force, it'll be followed by car bombs and suicide bombers there, and elsewhere, during the summer.

It'll be called "domestic terrorism."

Young people in this country are now getting screwed over big time as our corrupted "representatives" in Washington grease the wheels for anyone who is willing to drop some big bucks into their so-called "campaign funds." Bankers and investment swindlers "too big to fail" get bailed out, while the young suffer the futility of job searching in an ever-shrinking market, and the shrinking middle class continue to get boned by credit card interest and fees schemes, in spite of the recent legislation (which gives the bankers plenty of wiggle room and time to figure out where the loopholes are and how to get around the so-called "restrictions." — source: Shailesh Mehta; former chief of Providian).

The pending healthcare legislation also appears to be shaping up as another bone-job for the young, purchased by the health-care industry — insurers, providers, and pharmaceutical power-houses.

Perhaps the only good thing about the growing problem of unemployment is that it discourages high school drop outs. Yet the drop-out rate here in Michigan, the unemployment capital of the U.S., is about 31% (source: Educational Testing Service — ets.org). Many drop-outs do eventually try to better their chances in life by achieving GED certificates, but those are mostly meaningless in today's job market; a buyers' market now rife with education snobbery, and typically requiring at least "some college" even for menial, low paying jobs.

Terrorism or Revolution?

The growing population of unemployed and deprived young people is a formula for trouble. At some point, they will realize that they have become a newly created class of

The growing population of unemployed and deprived young people is a formula for trouble.

"American Poor," with little opportunity to achieve the middle class status of yesterday's generations, much less "the American dream." That hopelessness will lead to rebellion.

And rightfully so.

The powers that be will call it "terrorism." When Americans were being screwed over by the powers that were in 1776, we called it "rebellion." The British called it treason, cowardice, and terrorism.





Of the People, By the People, and For the People

Everyone in American has the right to expect recognition, and a fair shake, from government. It is not the function of government to support the demands of special interests, or to facilitate increasing success for the already rich and powerful. That is not, as they say, 'the reality of modern politics.' That is corruption.

When the moneyed and powerful own the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of those we now elect to be servants of all the people — when the cash and the perks that only the rich and powerful can provide are the only way to get their attention — what's left for the rest of us?

Quick Fix for Unemployment and the Economy

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (September 2009), there are about 154-million people in the U.S. labor force. Of those, about 139-million (90%) have jobs and are receiving a regular paycheck. About 15-million (10%) are officially listed as unemployed. These are people who do not have jobs, but are actively looking for work, whether receiving unemployment compensation or not.


This is the figure often cited as "the unemployment rate." However, there are another 82-million people who are listed as "not in the labor force." These are people who are not receiving unemployment compensation, and would be working if they could find jobs but, for various reasons, are no longer seeking employment opportunities. If these workers were included in the labor force, its numbers would be about 236-million, with 97-million (41%) unemployed. Somewhere between these two figures, lies the real numbers of people who are out of work.


But there's more to the story; these figures do not suggest the number of workers who are now under-employed, having been forced to take jobs paying much less than the ones lost through lay-offs, down-sizing, or shut-downs. Nor do they reflect the extent of earnings being lost as a result of wage and salary cuts and shorter hours.


Against this backdrop, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that the average rate of job creation in the U.S. over the past forty years has been about 2% per year. That would produce about 3-million jobs at today's employment rate. However, each year about one-million young workers enter the labor force, with fewer older workers now retiring each year. At this rate, it would take over seven years — until 2017 — to get all those who are currently unemployed back to work.


But the bad news doesn't end there; private sector job creation over the past ten years has, in fact, been minimal,

Job creation over the past ten years has been minimal, and is presently zero.

and is presently zero. This suggests a cruel reality for the unemployed, and for young people coming into the labor force. Opportunities will be few and far between, with many never being able to find full-time work.


Even for those who do, it will be a buyer's market. With a large surplus of available workers, employers will be able to freely pick and choose, without having to compete with each other for quality people by offering incentives such as better pay and more generous fringe benefits. This is happening already. Job descriptions are stuffed with all sorts of inflated requirements for prospective candidates, often to the point of being ridiculous. Since it is unlikely that anyone could meet all the requirements in such grocery lists, the hidden purpose of this phenomenon seems more likely to be to provide employers with plenty of wiggle room when it comes to evading federal rules regarding discrimination and fair labor practices. But even in the unlikely event that an applicant would be able to bring all of the stated skills, capabilities and qualifications, the starting pay offered is usually in no way commensurate ... often laughingly inappropriate.


Thus, it seems quite evident that if we insist on business as usual, the decline of the American middle class will continue, with increasing numbers finding their future to be a story of hard times such as people in this country haven't seen for a hundred years, eventually winding up as a struggle between the haves and the have nots. This is not good for anybody. It is a formula for disaster. Nothing promotes economic growth, cultural development, and peace like a middle class that is healthy, vibrant and growing. Wide rich vs. poor disparities in a nation promotes unrest, discord, destructive violence, and ultimately, revolution.


Hard times and calamity can easily be avoided if we have the courage to face reality and implement some major paradigm shifts.


Changing the Shift Paradigm


First, the nation needs to shift from an eight-hour workday to a six-hour schedule ... from a forty-hour to a thirty-hour week. Businesses that presently operate around the clock will run four shifts,

The nation needs to shift from an eight-hour workday to a six-hour schedule.

instead of three, increasing their employment by 33%. Businesses that presently run eight-hour days, from nine to five, would then be open from seven to seven, increasing their employment by 100%. All by itself, this puts everyone back to work.


Second, we must shift to a universal health care system. This can be as simple as expanding Medicare to cover everyone. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average U.S. wage is presently $18.67 per hour, which amounts to about $37,340 per year. For a 24-hour operation to control employment costs while increasing employment by one third, wages would need to be reduced to $14 per hour. However, the average per employee health insurance cost for family coverage is currently $13,000, which amounts to about $6.50 per hour. Retired persons pay about $1,000 a year for Medicare. Assuming a family of four, a $4,000 contribution should be more than adequate, given that medical expenses for younger people, and especially children, are surely much less than those of the elderly. That leaves $9,000 available to wages which, if added back, brings average pay rates back up to $18.50 per hour.


Besides the obvious improvement in the general economy and the quality of our lives, full employment will go a long way towards solving Social Security financing problems and State tax revenue shortages.


Taking Control of Health care Costs


Third, health care expenses need to be more sensibly managed.


Over the past several years, wage increases have been diminished as the cost of government-mandated employer-provided health insurance has escalated. The same has been true for Social Security recipients, whose cost-of-living increases have been eaten up by higher assessments for Medicare coverage. No worker is going to embrace a six-hour work day at the expense of a quarter of their regular earnings. And, as shown above, that does not have to be the case. Pay will remain about the same, the difference being made up for by reducing the cost of health care coverage. But in order to permit that, the cost of health care itself must be reduced. Significant reductions are immediately possible through the implementation of a few sensible changes, mostly affecting things that are already widely recognized as wasteful nonsense.


• Misdiagnosis and treatment error is a significant burden on the present system. While it is obvious to any practical person that perfection can never be achieved, and while exact figures are difficult to come by, it would appear that the error rates are presently upwards of 40%. In spite of all the technological advances, this rate hasn't change much over the past 100-years. Health care presently costs the U.S. about $2.5-trillion per year. Reducing the error rate by half would potentially save a fifth of that — $500-billion — while at the same time actually improving the quality of care.


• Medical care during the final few months at the end of life presently accounts for about a tenth — $250-billion — of total U.S. health care expenditures, $110-billion of which is paid for by Medicare. Much of this cost arises from extraordinary treatment efforts on patients known to be terminally ill. Much of it is understandable, since when the decision is left up to them, it's difficult for anyone to decide the fate of older family members, and it's easy to put off the inevitable decision by hoping for a miracle. In other cases, it often appears that hospitals are quite willing to turn terminally ill patients into "cash cows," knowingly providing expensive treatments they know to be unnecessary or useless. Extra-ordinary efforts to prolong life often only prolong misery for patients who would not have approved such choices, but are no longer capable of speaking for themselves. Much of this misery and expense can be saved by developing a common practice of counseling and decision-making before the end-of-life crises' present themselves, much as people now commonly make arrangements for the settlement of their estates and other affairs.


• Elective surgical treatments, such as coronary bypass and joint replacement operations have long been known to be favored revenue generators for hospitals, with prices varying widely between different hospitals. Hospitals now host upwards of 500,000 coronary bypass operations per year, with an average price of $75,000. That's $37.5-billion worth of procedures which many consider unnecessary, and useless so far as prolonging life is concerned. Joint replacement procedures vary, but presently average about $45,000. According to American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, hospitals are doing over 700,000 knee and hip replacements each year. That comes to another $32-billion, and again, the advisability of such procedures is often arguable. According to the same source, surgeons perform about 23,000 shoulder replacements. In his book The Healing of America, author T. R. Reid compared various approaches for dealing with an old shoulder injury by visiting other countries. In the United States, he found orthopedists most apt to recommend joint-replacement surgery, costing tens of thousands of dollars. In France and Germany, doctors were more apt to advise a regime of physical therapy, while in Britain, his complaint was summarily dismissed. In India, he was finally treated very effectively and inexpensively with herbs, massage, and meditation. With the numbers and prices of these dubious procedures drastically escalating — the present total $100-billion cost expected to soar beyond $500-billion within the next 20-years — it's obviously time for a serious value analysis.


• Malpractice litigation, in itself, may not be a highly significant cost item, with insurance costing the medical industry about $10-billion per year, and awards amounting to another $5.8-billion, according to the University of Michigan. What isn't accounted for however, are two other factors ... doctors and hospitals practicing defensive medicine by requiring extensive and usually unnecessary consultations and lab tests ... and their reluctance to recognize and admit error, and promptly engage in remedial procedures and treatments. The cost of these realities can never be known, but it is obviously not insignificant. It can be greatly reduced simply by requiring courts to limit awards to reasonably expected remedial costs, and by limiting attorney fees to fair amounts according to a published schedule.


The Courage to Adapt to New Realities


It should be clear that we are presently on the cusp of some major paradigm shifts. At the dawn of the twentieth century our American culture changed from agrarian to industrial. Now, a century later, we find ourselves at a similar moment, where what has worked well for the past few generations is clearly no longer serving us well. Insisting on business as usual and waving the flag is either lazy thinking, or succumbing to the fear of change. Worse yet, many of those whom we have entrusted with the

America is presently on the cusp of some major paradigm shifts.

responsibilities of leadership have fallen victim to the insidious lure of corruption that has become institutionalized in our political system, and are concerned first with protecting the interests of the those who are filling campaign coffers and supporting their regal lifestyles.


It always takes time for people to embrace new ideas and adapt to big changes. Government can lead by phasing in the six-hour workday in the military, for civilian government workers, and in newly created work programs similar to the WPA and CCC programs of the 1930's. There is plenty of work to do in America; eliminating the maintenance backlog in our national parks, cleaning up urban blight, serving as mentors and teaching assistants in school classrooms, and more. Temporary public works programs will provide immediate employment for idle hands, boost self-esteem, and teach skills that individuals can ultimately take into the private workplace, while also creating a body of experience with the six-hour workday paradigm.


Our choices are clear. We can muster the courage needed to try new ideas and work towards their successful implementation, or we can continue to accept defeat at the hands of lethargy, wishful thinking, fear and special-interest politics.


The time is ripe for some newly creative and uncommonly courageous leadership in America. Perhaps some of those presently serving will find themselves able to rise to this occasion. Otherwise our fortunes will depend solely upon the Grace of God.

Our Do-It-Yourself Entertainment Center

Our Do-It-Yourself Entertainment Center

We once had cable television service. It was a long time ago.

When cable was brought to our small town by a forward-thinking consortium of wealthy community leaders, people were suspicious. "Yup, after we all take our antennas down, they'll up the ante. Then we'll all be trapped into filling their pockets for the pleasure of watching what we now get for free." The consortium pledged that the price, $7.45 per month, would be iron-clad since their contract with the city governed the rates.

The city approved the contract, the cable system was set up, and over the next several months, people began to sign on. Within a couple of years, most of the roof antennas disappeared. After a couple of years, the local group sold the system off to a national cable system. That effectively killed the original contract with the city. We quit the cable about twenty-five years ago, after the monthly rate for basic service had climbed to $34.95.

It wasn't just about the price. We were receiving ninety-some channels, but a good share of those were junk channels - religious, shopping, sports, government, local groups, local schools, and so on. I'd often flip through the channels, and then turn the television off. My wife and kids would often flip though the channels, and then go out and rent movies to watch. So, I went over to Radio Shack, bought a $50 antenna, and put it up on the roof. Since then, we've been satisfied with the four broadcast channels we can receive in this area - CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX - and that has cost us about $2.00 a year, leaving lots of money for movie rentals.

Thence cometh the switch to DTV. We got the converter boxes for cheap, but they don't work all that well because ... wouldn't you know it ... the four broadcast stations in our area chose widely divergent geographical locations for their transmitters. DTV signals don't bounce as good as the old analog waves, so the wonderful new technology often provides chopped up audio with pixilated video. I've been pretty sure that the switch to DTV was a success story for the cable/dish lobbies … extra fees for each additional TV in the house, increased fees for HD stuff, and so on … so I'm damned if I'm going to cave after all these years.

Thanks to the Internet, we have the option of downloading movies for free, watching network television programs for free, and logging on to online entertainment providers like Hulu.Com. So who needs cable anyway? Yet, watching stuff on PC monitors is kind of like watching 1950's era televisions, where the family pulled their chairs up close, crowding around the front of a round, twelve-inch screen. So I decided to someday replace the old TV with a new flat-panel type, and then hook a PC up to that. That was my long-range plan, since I really wasn't prepared to pop for a new computer fast enough to do entertainment video, or a new flat screen television to use as a monitor.

Then our eldest son and his wife came to visit. Evidently thinking that we're hopeless mired in the technological dark ages, they bought us a new 42-inch Visio television and, after returning back home, sent us one of their surplus PC's; a speedy full-size desktop tower. After adding that to all the stuff already hooked to the television - the DVD player, VCR, Radio Receiver/Stereo Amp, X-Box, and Game Cube - alas, our little old Sauder TV stand was getting too crowded and overloaded. Finding a compact, low cost, replacement that could accommodate all that stuff, plus the big PC box, proved difficult and probably impossible. So I decided, reluctantly, that it would be easer to just build a custom-made box for myself.

I started by measuring up all the components that would need shelf space, and then cranked up "SketchUp," a free three-dimensional drawing program provided by Google, and went to work. Within a couple of hours, I had this ...


Then I went to the lumber yards to find some decent material. The best deal I could find was some walnut-veneered plywood on sale at The Home Depot for $34.95 per sheet. Since my plan needed two sheets, that would cost almost as much as I'd wanted to pay for a bigger, better Sauder kit. That immediately quashed my interest in the DIY project, and I resumed the search for an easier solution.

But then, the son showed up again for a quick visit, bringing along his new air compressor, his new pneumatic brad nailer, and all hot to trot to build my custom-designed entertainment center.

Oh well; resigning myself to the idea that this would be a good chance for a little quality father-son time together, off we went the next afternoon to The Home Depot, collecting about $95 worth of materials and supplies. We pulled the old table saw out of the garage, blew off the dust, and went to work on the driveway under the hot summer sun. By nightfall, not too long after the mosquitoes began tapping our veins, we had this ...

A day later, my wife (the artist in the family) finished the box with "Colonial Walnut" MinWax stain and sealer. After going over it with a little Lemon Pledge, we move it into the house, swapped out all the toys under the television, and were looking at this ...

So that's my little story. No cable or dish for me, and goodbye Blockbuster.

For those who are interested, my SketchUp layouts and other information are available for free at www.boysmindbooks.com/misc/entertainmentcenter.zip.

If the design doesn't suit you exactly, download a free copy of SketchUp and change it. You don't need to be an engineer to use SketchUp. Take an hour or two to check out the basic video tutorials, and then you'll find that modifying the drawing will be easy and fun.

BoysMind Books Titles Now Instantly Available as EBM Books

I knew it would happen!

When our town decided to spend millions to replace an already-decent library, I thought “What a waste of money!” It seemed obvious to me a year or more ago that libraries, as we've known them, would soon be dismissed into obsolescence by emerging Print On Demand (POD) technologies. You'd simply walk in, tell the digital librarian what book you wanted, a few buttons would be pushed, and a machine would instantly manufacture a professionally printed and bound copy of the book for you. Instead of lending it, the library would sell it to you for a nominal fee. That would produce a revenue stream that supported the library, eliminating the need for public financing through tax millages.

Now comes On Demand Books of New York City, with their Expresso Book Machine (or “EBM”). Tell its operator what you want, the machine then goes online to fetch the PDF files, prints the book block and the cover, then binds them, and spits out a perfectly manufactured paperback.

Hmm ... wonder how long it will be before the EBM is turned into a vending machine. Wonder what the brick ’n mortar book stores will look like a few years from now.

Technology is certainly a destroyer for business models and careers. While we’re playing futurists, how about this ... nobody I know likes to read ebooks on a computer screen. Ever try sitting on the pot with your laptop atop you lap? For that, and lots of other reasons, that’s just not the same as holding a book in your hands. The EBM development is great, yet the machines are highly mechanical, and therefore most likely prone to maintenance problems. Beside that, what a waste of time and materials. What a load on the landfills! Wouldn’t it be great of someone developed a book-reader thingy that actually had the look and feel of a book? One that could download content via a wireless connenction to the Internet and receive requests and instructions via speech recognition (“go to”, “search”, “bookmark”, and so on)?

A word to the wise ... ODP beware! The life-cycle of your wonderful EBM is probably going to be short ... probably less than a decade.

---

Wanna see how the Expresso Book Machine works? Watch the video:

BoysMind Books has accepted an invitation from Lightning Source, an Ingram Content company, to participate in their partnership with On Demand Books, thereby easily entering this new innovative distribution channel.

Where can you buy one of our books, instantly produced while-you-wait by the Expresso Book Machine? Right now there are fourteen EBM installations, with many more planned:

Now in service:

• World Bank InfoShop, Washington D.C.
• New York Public Library, New York, NY
• New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans, LA
• Internet Archive, San Francisco, CA
• University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, MI
• Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, VT
• University of Alberta Bookstore, Edmonton, AB, Canada
• McMaster University Bookstore, Hamilton, ON, Canada
• Newsstand UK, London, England
• Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt
• Angus & Robertson Bookstore, Melbourne, Australia
• University of Waterloo Bookstore, ON, Canada
• Blackwell’s Bookstore, London, United Kingdom
• McGill University Library, Montreal, QC, Canada

Coming soon:

• Brigham Young University Bookstore, Provo, UT (2.0 beta test site)
• University of Melbourne, Australia

“Nothing endures but change.” said Heraclitus of Ephesus ... about 1500 years ago.
[ BMB Home Page ]

Earn Money for Your Activity or Organization

Here's a fund-raising opportunity for boy-related activities and organizations, or for guys who are serious about earning money for their own college fund, or to pay for personal expenses.

My book, Mind Over Monster, is written as a practical how-to book for boys between the ages of ten and twenty-one.

There are about 22-million guys that age in the U.S. today. Most of them will carry a lot of baggage from childhood into their adult life. That load of worthless rubbish — invalid ideas and bad feelings — turns out to be self-defeating, and sometimes even distructive.

Boys waste many of their best years with bad feelings and failures, until they finally somehow on their own learn how to dump this junk. Many never do, so it keeps them from ever becoming all that they could be, tragically causing some to ruin their life before it has hardly even begun.

The whole idea behind Mind Over Monster is to show guys how they can avoid that; how they can easily move on from wherever they are, into a happy and successful ever after. It's not about child psychology, nor is it a feel-good religious book. It's a book of common-sense, real-life realities that anyone can understand, and changes that any young guy who wants the best out of life can easily make.

It's a book that every boy should read, and the sooner, the better.

Here's the deal. It's very simple. You can do other guys a big favor by getting a copy of Mind Over Monster into their hands, conveniently, and at a discount price.

My book has a barcode price of $24.95. Book sellers like Borders, Barns & Noble, Amazon and others who buy it from the distributor get the standard 55% trade discount. Their cost is therefore $11.23, plus the shipping cost and a small handling fee.

I will sell you the book at the same wholesale price, but with free shipping and no handling charge!

You may then sell the book to your friends, classmates, or anyone else, for whatever price you think is fair. Online sellers offer the book for as low as $18.96, plus shipping, which adds about $4.00 more. That comes to about $23.00 total.

If you sell your books for the magic number “$19.95” delivered, you'll earn $8.72 each. Selling a dozen books nets your activity, orgainzation, or your personal kitty, a little over $100. Selling 100 gets you $872, 1000 provides $8,720, and so on.

There are no catches and no strings attached. You buy the books from me, I ship them directly to you, and they're yours. You can order any quantity you want, whenever you want. You can do whatever you want with your books — sell them wherever you want, to whomever you want, and at any price you want.

You'll be able to order your books online, and pay for your order through eBay's PayPal. If you are less than legal age, your PayPal order, which requires a credit card, debit card or checking account, will represent proof of parental consent. PayPal also gives you top-notch data security and purchase protection programs that help guarantee you'll get what you paid for.

“Check it out! Order a single review copy of the book …”

Check it out. Order a single copy of the book to review for yourself, or with others. If you like the book, and think it would be helpful to other boys, just use the same link to order more as you need them.

This offer is for guys who are serious about fund-raising and making money by selling my books. It is not intended to compete with the book sellers who have been kind enough to make Mind Over Monster available world-wide. The ordering page is therefore not available to the public. Click here to send me a blank email, and an autoresponder will immediately send you the ordering link.

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Read tips, hints and success stories. To learn more about BoysMind Books, please visit the www.boysmindbooks.com web site.

One-Hundred Things — Family Values

Family life is usually lots of fun, until the first child crosses the threshold between childhood and adolescence. Then parents begin to regret the neurotic longings and romantic fantasies; those sirens that beguiled them into parenthood back when their love was new, and things used to be so peaceful and happy.

When it comes to their own children, parents are apt to misapply the "Golden Rule" ... to do onto their children as they wished their own parents might have done onto them ... rather than employ a more sensible approach. The result is children who feel naturally entitled to privileges and good things; children who haven't been taught anything about the principle of reciprocity — the relationship between input and output; the reality that privileges and good things are made possible by someone's having made an effort to enable such possibilities.

That's not a lesson children can learn by receiving privileges and good things. Nor can it be taught by lecturing. The only way a person learns that reward is the wages of effort is by experience, and the teaching of that lesson needs to begin at the earliest possible age.

Why the "Golden Rule" mistake?

Most of us grow up to be neurotic. We're discontented and unhappy with life. Because we are neurotic, we have to blame that on someone or something else. We therefore cultivate the belief that we're miserable and unsuccessful because our parents were thoughtless and mean ... that we were mistreated, exploited and deprived, and our childhood was the worst ever. As an unconscious strategy for proving to ourselves that this nonsense is indeed true, we resolve never do that to our own kids ... to be much better parents than the ones we were stuck with.

We therefore coddle our children, protect them from every stress and distress, and lavish upon them everything that we can afford to give, with the intention of enabling them to grow up as bright, happy and successful people. What we get instead, as our children move into their second decade of life, is more neurotics ... self-centered, discontented, contemptuous, disrespectful, brats.

At some point, we might begin to realize that perhaps our own parents were not so dumb after all. Perhaps they actually did a better job of preparing us for the realities of life than we are doing with our own children, who will all too soon have to leave the nest and enter into a highly competitive world ... a place where there are no free lunches, and where most of the people they encounter will be indifferent or hostile towards them until they are able to win their affection or better opinion.

So then what?

It's not a matter of tightening the screws, or straightening your kid out. It's more a matter of getting your own act together. You wanted to be an exemplary parent, but you didn't know how to do it. Nobody ever taught you, and what you probably read from time to time provided all sorts of whacky theoretical and conflicting advice.

The answer is simple, and clearly a matter of common sense. Your kid is heading for an adult world which is quite unlike the environment of childhood. It's an utterly lonely, callously uncaring and highly competitive place. Your kid will need to have mastered four skills:

         • caring of himself physically and emotionally,
         • valuing and caring for his personal property and interests,
         • interacting successfully with other people, and
         • honoring his family ties.

The first three of these are the subjects of many books, including my book for boys; Mind Over Monster. The importance of family is not something that is as popular to write about these days. That's unfortunate, for two reasons.

         • First, raising generations without an appreciation of that truth has led to the demise of family through easy divorce and multiple marriages. The result is lonely and vulnerable grown-up children who find themselves with no refuge. That's terribly unfortunate because ...

         • Second, in an adult world which is utterly lonely, callously uncaring and highly competitive, family abides as a safe harbor where one can always find unconditional caring and love.

As kids grow up, they naturally seek increasing autonomy and independence. Knowing how much to yield, and when, is always a challenge for parents. But even when that's handled intelligently and fairly, peer relationships encourage teenagers to disparage and distance themselves from their family.

Here's an idea that will help deal with that.

Next time your kid screws up to the extent that you feel obliged to extract a penalty of some sort ... such as taking away their cell phone, ipod, computer privileges, the car keys, or whatever ... give them a quick and easy way to fix the situation. Edit and print this note:

If you wish to have your _______________ privileges restored, you may make three lists, as follows:

1. Benefits that you personally enjoy from being a member of this family, and our particular household.

2. Things you personally contribute to make life easier and happier in our home and family.

3. Other things you could do, if willing, to show your consideration for, and appreciation of others in your in your home and family.

When your three lists contain a total of one-hundred items, your privileges will be restored.

Most kids will think this is a lame, but easy, assignment, and ... depending upon how badly they want to get off the hook ... will promptly produce the requested lists. They'll be expecting a discussion, but surprise them. Don't bother. Accept the lists with a "Thank You" and fulfill your part of the bargain right then and there.

Then use your word processing skills to type up nicely formatted letter size versions of their three lists in a style suitable for framing. Go to Walmart, Hobby Lobby, or your local discount department store, and buy three cheap "certificate frames." Frame the lists, and hang them neatly on the wall in your kid's bedroom.

The lists do not constitute a "deal" of any sort ... not a contract to continue the thoughtful and considerate contributions your kid might already be making for the family, nor a promise to do anything more. They simply serve as a reminder that "family" is a cooperative institution where members faithfully and unconditionally support each other, and can be depended upon to rightfully give as much as they receive.

Nothing more need be said about them.