Promotion Via the World Wide Wild - USENET News Groups

About USENET and Posting

One of the earliest Internet applications, USENET was originally conceieved in 1979 as a forum for an organization called "USENIX," a UNIX users group now called the "Advanced Computing Technical Association"; hence the name (it does not stand for "Users Network"). USENET is now a wild and crazy place. Newsgroups are unmoderated for the most part, and are often little more than spam-fests. Although unfamiliar to many Internet users, USENET hosts tens of thousands of newsgroups which are browsed by millions of people from all over the world. Google and some other search engines also index these groups to some extent, so news releases posted here are likely to generate at least some additional interest.

Although officially unmoderated, USENET newsgroups have certain generally accepted rules of decorum. These are enforced by flaming those who violate them. To avoid flame attacks, or being seen as a spammer or an ignorant novice, do not ignore these rules. Because USENET is a great resource for spambots, never include your real name or email address, either in the header or body of your post. Provide only a link to your website. Your news reader will probably not send posts without a valid-looking email address. Rather than make up something or munge your actual address, reverse its username and domain name components - for example, I would change gwarner@boysmindbooks.com to renrawg@skoobdnimsyob.com. That will look less philistine, and is not likely to inadvertently produce anyone else's actual email address.

A post that is just advertising or hype will probably not get anyone's attention. Your modified press release should work fine here, with its regular title used as the subject line. Post it only in groups where it is likely to be relevant and appropriate. For example, to post notes about my SfS book (a book for secretaries of nonprofits), I found only the following nine groups among the 56,000 newsgroups available on my server:

     • alt.books
     • alt.business
     • alt.business.ads
     • alt.business.home
     • alt.business.misc
     • alt.business.seminars
     • alt.christian.businessmen
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • soc.org.nonprofit

For The Manitou Passage Story, a book about a particular aspect of Michigan history, and a story of interest to Northwest Michigan tourists, and visitors to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakershore (NPS) in particular, these newsgroups seemed appropriate:

     • can.rec.boating
     • alt.books
     • alt.coast.guard
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • alt.support.lonliness.lighthouse-keepers
     • alt.travel.lighthouse
     • rec.boats
     • rec.boats.cruising
     • rec.outdoors.national-parks

For Mind Over Monster, s self-help psychology book for preteen and adolescent boys, the situation gets a little dicey. Some of the following newsgroups contain pornographic content, and to the extent that some of it involves underage boys, it would be considered child pornography. One would naturally be reluctant to post anything in these groups, but on the other hand, it seems likely that some of those who do are probably prime candidates for the message this particular book attempt to get across. I decided that I a post in these groups turn out to be to be the spark that helped just one boy, that would be worth risking my reputation for. I did avoid the most atrocious examples of bad taste, however. The groups remaining on the list were these:

     • alt.binaries.boys
     • alt.binaries.boys.choir-and-soloist
     • alt.binaries.multimedia.treblevoices
     • alt.binaries.pictures.boys
     • alt.books
     • alt.fan.prettyboy
     • alt.fan.utb.naughty-boy
     • alt.gayteen.personals
     • alt.marketplace.books
     • alt.news.boys
     • alt.parents-teens
     • alt.psychology
     • alt.psychology.personality
     • alt.psychology.psychotherapy
     • alt.suicide.methods
     • alt.support.boylovers
     • alt.support.depression.teens
     • alt.support.personality
     • alt.teens.gay
     • ... etc.

News Servers

Most Internet service providers include at least limited access to the USENET system. These news servers usually leave a lot to be desired, but are good for gaining some experience if you are new to this aspect of the Internet. There is also always an assortment of free news servers. These services are also usually limited, however full-featured systems undergoing testing are sometimes temporarily open to anonymous users. Search Google for "free news servers," or check the NewsParrot for an up-to-date list of what's available.

To appreciate the full power of the USENET system, a subscription service is usually the only real alternative. Here, the situation is much brighter; there are several very good and reasonably priced services to choose from. Here are a few that come highly recommended by USENET users:

     • UseNetServer.com $14.95/Mo (no limits)
     • NewsHosting.com $10.00 for 10Gb/Mo
     • EasyNews $9.98 20Gb/Mo (unused gigs roll over)
     • Giganews $7.95 2Gb/Mo (rated as "a premium service")
     • Newsfeeds.com $4.95 2Gb/Mo (promoted at easiest for newbies

These services all host a full complement of USENET news groups, which currently number upwards of 120,000. Many of those are inactive for one reason or another, so the number of groups in a service's list does not necessarily indicate the quality of their service. Most offer a link where you can review the groups they cover in advance. Sign-up is completed using your credit card, and rebilling occurs automatically each month until you cancel your subscription. If your usage is limited, unused gigabytes are sometimes continuously rolled over. If you use up your bandwidth before the month is out, it's usually very easy to immediately renew your subscription at that point and continue with whatever you were doing when you reached the previous limit. I've been using EasyNews for the past several months, and have never had any complaints. EasyNews offers a web-interface, making it easy to access their system from any computer.

Readers

Windows Outlook Express, which comes with all versions of the Windows operating system as a companion to Internet Explorer, is adequate for text messaging. Otherwise, the only free newsreader that can be recommended is XNews.

XNews is fairly easy to use out of the box. But it also has a lot of capability, so that naturally introduces the possibility of complexity if you wish to change the default configuration in some way. XNews has no help file, as it were. Clicking on "Help" brings up its manual, which isn't always that helpful. Download and install XNews, then browse the tutorials provided by Slyck's Guide to XNews and newZguide, and you will quickly be cruising USENET like a pro.

[-=glw=-]

News Releases & Where to Send Them

News Release Templates

The first step in marketing anything is to make people aware that it's available. A news release (also called "press release") immediately comes to mind. Submit a write-up to your local papers, if only as an ego-trip - "New book by local author/publisher shows how anyone can ...". Submit a non-local version of the same press release to the various free online PR-distribution sites to drive traffic to your website, and your booksellers.

Press releases are not difficult to prepare. The following templates conform to what most "how to" articles deem appropriate. The "cut 'n paste" version is useful when submitting your information online. Save a copy for each site as a record of your your logon information, and what you submitted there.

          • Example Press Release for online press release submissions
          • Cut 'n Paste template for online press release submissions


Suggested Media Kit

Provide downloads useful to editors on your website, and provide a link to these materials in your publicity. Your media kits should include at least the following items. Provide images in TIFF format at 300 DPI, and in assorted sizes.

          • Author Image(s)
          • Cover Image(s)
          • Logo Image(s)
          • Press Release, .doc format
          • Press Release, .txt format

Here's an example. Download the media kit to see how that works.


Press Release Sites (23+ Free Services)

At the time of this writing (August 2007), the following free services were available:

          • local newspapers
          • 24-7pressrelease.com
          • 1888pressrelease.com
          • clickpress.com
          • express-press-release.com
          • freepressrelease.com
          • free-press-release-center.info
          • freepressreleases.co.uk
          • i-newswire.com
          • malebits.com
          • mediasyndicate.com
          • pr9.net
          • pr.com
          • prbuzz.com
          • pressabout.com
          • press-base.com
          • pressbox.com
          • prleap.com
          • prurgent.com
          • przoom.com
          • seenation.com
          • theopenpress.com
          • xtvworld.com

The submission process is similar among these services, requesting a title, summary, and body text in separate fields of the sumbission form. (Hence the "cut 'n paste" version of your your news release.) Most services require you to register and log on, and will review your submission prior to publishing it. When composing your news release, avoid hype and address the prospective readers' interests - what's in it for them. Press releases should be news, not simply an advertisment for your book. Editors will not be eager to publish what is essentially an advertisement.

[-=glw=-]

Using Bookmarking, Blogging and Social Networking Sites

The first step in marketing anything on the Internet is making prospective buyers aware that you exist. Just launching a website does not accomplish that. Your website could exist for months without anyone ever becoming aware of its existence. You can spread the word among your family, friends and associates, and even request that they provide links to your site from there's. But that probably won't help much, if at all.

Advertising is another alternative - if you have a lot of money. If you had a lot of money, you probably would not be trying to self-publish and sell books.

That leaves search engines, a means by which millions of people can eventually discover your website and check out what you have to offer. Search engines will, one way or another, eventually discover your website, or you can submit its address and hope they'll more quickly get around to indexing it. Then when someone happens to submit a search request for something relevant to what your site is all about, a link to your site will, hopefully, be included in the results.

But search services also have a product to sell. The value of their product is defined by the relevance of the results they return in response to the search terms user's submit. The various search services each have their own proprietary ways of trying to achieve that. Articles about how search engines work usually talk about page ranking, but the only people who really know the facts about that are not telling. It's a competitive business, and search services do not reveal that proprietary information. It is clear, however, that content is ranked, in part, according to (1) the number of links pointing to that particular content, and (2) the number of times links to that content are selected on the search engine's results pages. Even after your site is spidered and indexed, your rankings are going to be so low that your position on results pages will be so far down on the list that the link to your site often will never be seen, and therefore will never be selected.

You need some way get other sites to link to yours. One way is to provide some content worth linking to. The availability of your wonderful books probably will not be enough. One way that has proven successful is blogging. After you have something going in that department, you need to make people aware of your blog's existence. Same problem. How will anyone find your blog if the link to it always appears towards the end of 64-million results?

One answer is to seed the process. Book marking, blogging and social networking sites will permit you to create links from their site to your site, your books and your blogs. Here is a list of over three-dozen such sites that are relevant to what you are trying to do. MySpace, of course, is the leader of this pack, by far, so that's the place to concentrate on first. But register at each one, create a personal profile, then find the appropriate place to provide links to your website. Ideally, you will be able to create links to your home page, your blog, and to the promotion page for your books (individually or collectively). On book marking sites, you can appropriately enter these links as a list. On social networking sites, that sort of blatant self-promotion is usually not considered appropriate, so you will want to be a little bit more subtle about it. You can work links into your profile items, and most such sites offer space for a blog. Write a story for that space indicating that your personal blog is hosted on your own website (example provided below). Here's the list:

     • 43Things
     • Bebo
     • BlackPlanet
     • Blogger
     • Bloglines
     • Classmates.com
     • del.icio.us
     • Digg
     • eBay
     • Facebook
     • FaceParty
     • Friendster
     • hi5
     • Hover Spot
     • LibraryThing
     • LinkDoozer
     • LinkedIn
     • Listible
     • LiveJournal
     • Ma.gnolia
     • MetaxuCafe.com
     • MoTime
     • Multiply
     • MySpace
     • Netvouz
     • Orkut
     • Shelfari
     • ShoutLife
     • Spurl
     • StumbleUpon
     • Tagged
     • Tagworld
     • Technorati
     • Tribe
     • Tumblr
     • Vox
     • Wordie
     • Wordpress
     • Xanga
     • Yahoo! 360
     • Zaadz

Registering on all these sites is going to be a time-consuming process. Since the applications are all very similar, you can expedite it by preparing all the information you will need in advance. Type it up in a plain text file. Then select and copy the needed information and paste it into the appropriate boxes as your create your profile. Here is a copy of the page I have used; open your text editor, then copy and paste this section, save it as plain text and then revise the information under each heading for your own use:

Standard Data for Registration Forms
====================================

ABOUT:
I've worked as a self-trained, self-employed electronics engineer/entrepreneur for over thirty years. I am the founder of Warner Instruments, provider of special purpose temperature controls and alarm systems to industry under the well-known FireRight Controls brand name, since 1976. Now semi-retired, I have turned my attention to volunteer work, serving during the past few years on boards and committees of small nonprofit organizations, and lending my experience as a practical and resourceful innovator to show how these small groups can more effectively leverage their limited financial and experiential resources. I've also become a self-publishing author, writing in a broad range of topics. See http://www.boysmindbooks.com to see what I've done and what's in the works.

MEET:
Anyone interested in the topics I write about, who has opinions or experiences to share. Users of FireRight Controls are also welcome to contact me through this venue.

INTERESTS:
Nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, writing

BANDS:
Ottawas, Hurons, Iroquis (This was supposed to be funny. I'm not interested in any music groups, per se.)

VIDEO GAMES:
Combat Parcheesi (Ditto)

TV SHOWS:
Boston Legal, The News Hours with Jim Leaher

MOVIES:
On Golden Pond, It's a Wonderful Life, The Quiet Man

MUSIC:
Show Tunes, Trebles

BOOKS:
My Own, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, George Soros, Eric Kandel

QUOTES:
The end never justifies the means.

SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Grand Haven High School, 1954 - 1958
Missippi State University, 1961 -

"The Manitou Passage Story" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Learn about the natural and human history of the Manitou Passage, from glacier to National Park! This small book offers a light, sometimes romantic, conspectus written in the conversational style of the popular broadcast series, "Alistair Cooke's America."

"Solutions for Secretaries" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
A guide for nonprofit corporate secretaries and administrative assistants. Learn how to build a first class image on a third rate budget.

"Mind Over Monster" BOOK DESCRIPTION:
Psychological self-help for boys. A simple approach to becomming a happy, well-adjusted man.

BOYSMINDBOOKS COMPANY DESCRIPTION:
BoysMind Books publishes print-on-demand titles in wide ranging subject areas. Offerings include books on nonprofit management, historical narratives, visitor guides, common sense psychological self-help books, and personal memoirs. BMB books are sold through ordinary trade distribution and are ordinarily available through any bookseller.

MAIN BLOG URL and DESCRIPTION:
http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/labels/bloghome.html
News, views, whims, rants, and notes about things learned the hard way at HKU (Hard Knocks University) about authoring and publishing print-on-demand books.

BLOG RSS FEED:
http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/rss.xml

SPLOGGING MESSAGE FOR USE ON BLOGS ASSOCIATED WITH PROFILES
===========================================================
BoysMind Blog

In the interest of housekeeping, and to avoid any hint of splogging, I've moved all my stories to my own website.

For news, views, whims, rants, and notes about things learned the hard way at HKU (Hard Knocks University) about authoring and publishing print-on-demand books, visit <a href="http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/labels/bloghome.html">BoysMind Blog</a>.

Click here to hook up to the <a href="http://www.boysmindbooks.com/rss/rss.xml">RSS Feed</a>.

[-=glw=-]

Is this legit, or is it really just "splogging"? After you've been registered at MySpace for a day or two, you'll find out what splogging really is. You'll receive lots of friend requests from unsavory characters who are really trying to sell you porno, sex toys, or sex partners. Occasionally the pitch will be more mundane, perhaps for penis or breast enlargement pills or creams, or offshore prescription drugs. If they provide any profile information at all, it'll be scant. Another consideration is this; these sites are in business to make money, mostly through advertising. As you can see from the above "the leader" link, you saw that the basis of the ratings was mainly the number of unique visits these sites logged per month. By registering and visiting, you are therefore doing them a favor. You are also making it possible for others to find you and get acquainted, and these associations can sometimes prove very helpful. That's the whole point of networking.

When you register at these sites, most will provide you with a special URL to your own sub-domain or webpage. To keep these registrations active, you will need to log in at these sites periodically. To make that easy, create a local html-coded page with links to each site where you are registered, and showing your logon information. You can then open this page in your browser to quickly and easily access each site. Here's an example you can copy and paste as a template:

<html>
<head>
<title>Blog/Bookmark/Social Networking Site Subscriptions</title>
</head>

<body>

Blogging/Social Networking Site Subscriptions<br>
=============================================<br>
43Things | username::password | <a href="http://www.43things.com/person/genwar">login</a><br>
... etc ... <br>
Zaadz | username::password| <a href="http://www.zaadz.com/genwar">login</a><br>
&nbsp;<br>
&nbsp;<br>

</body>
</html>

There are many other networking sites. The following were excluded from my list for the reasons indicated, but might be of interest to you if they target a relevant audience:

     • AIM [messaging system]
     • BoardGameGeek [about games]
     • BookCrossing [book swapping system]
     • BookMooch [book swapping system]
     • Buzznet [photo, journal, and video-sharing ]
     • Clipmarks [web page clipping using special toolbar]
     • Coastr [beermaking]
     • Cork'd [wine reviewing and sharing]
     • deviantART [for artists]
     • Diigo [web page clipping using special toolbar]
     • Dopplr [travel blogs (currently invitation only)]
     • DVD Aficionado [DVD interest site]
     • DVDSpot [DVD interest site]
     • Flickr [photo sharing site]
     • Flixster [movie database site]
     • Fotopic.net [photo sharing site]
     • FrugalReader [book swapping system]
     • Furl [web page bookmarking and commenting using special toolbar]
     • Geobirds [social networking for birdwatchers]
     • h2g2 [collaborative online encyclopaedia project]
     • I Heart Movies [social networking and personal databases for movie lovers]
     • iMeem [for music and video enthusiasts]
     • ICQ [instant messaging system, now part of AOL with social networking]
     • Lala [music]
     • Last.fm [internet radio - music networking]
     • List of Bests [part of ideas.43things.com ,ideas.43places.com, etc.]
     • MetaFilter [poorly run - sign-up fee - product promotion not allowed.]
     • Mog.com [music sharing and discussion]
     • MSN Messenger {messaging]
     • MyFilmz {networking with a movies theme]
     • Gaiaonline [teen-oriented social networking]
     • Live Spaces [Microsoft friends networking - MSN Messenger/Hotmail extension?]
     • Buzznet [networking with a music and pop culture emphasis]
     • Sconex [networking for high school students]
     • MiGente.com [networking for latinos]
     • myYearbook [networking for high school students]
     • NaNo [unknown]
     • Pandora [internet radio - music]
     • RawSugar [bookmarking - but links addable only with browser button]
     • PaperBackSwap [book swapping club]
     • Piczo [photo based networking for teens]
     • pbase [photography sharing for the professional and serious amature]
     • PoemHunter [poetry and quotations]
     • Rate Your Music [music enthuiasts]
     • Ravelry [a knit and crochet community]
     • Second Life [a virtual world - subscription service]
     • Skype [peer-to-peer internet telephoning]
     • Slashdot [scoemce and technology-related news; science-fiction]
     • SmugMug [digital photo-sharing]
     • SocialCatalogers [not found]
     • SongMeanings [song lyrics]
     • SourceForge.net [Open Source software development]
     • Squirl [cataloging site for collectors]
     • Stashmatic [cataloging site for collectors]
     • Title Trader [book swapping]
     • Twitter [mini-blogging, usefulness not understood]
     • TypePad [a subscription service - 14 day free trial]
     • WhatsOnMyBookshelf? [book swapping]
     • Wikipedia [encyclopedia project]
     • Windows Live Spaces [Microsoft friends networking - MSN Messenger/Hotmail extension?]
     • WineLog [online wine community]
     • Writing.com [online writing]
     • Yelp [reviews of local businesses]
     • YouTube [video clip sharing]
     • zoominfo [[business information search engine]

This is going to be a lot of work. But, hey; whoever said the marketing part was going to be easy?

[-=glw=-]

Book Signing? - What's Up With That?

There are lots of articles about book signings on other blogs, so I'm not going to add to that glut. Here are some of the good ones:

     • 40+ Ways to Make Your Next Book Signing an EVENT - Larry James
     • How to Have A Successful Book Signing - MaryJanice Davidson
     • Signing Protocol - Nora Roberts
     • Celebrity Book Signing - Tommy Yan
     • Getting a Book Signed
     • 35 Ways to Make Your Next Book Signing an Event!

I wasn't really wondering about how to conduct a book-signing event. I just wondered where a book should be signed; on what page. Would you believe I couldn't find one article that could say definitively where a book should be autographed? This question came up because I wanted to give a copy from the first printing of one of my first books to someone who had helped promote it to its prospective audience. This was a somewhat influential person whom I was only casually acquainted with, so I also wondered about the inscription - what would be appropriate, under the circumstances. I only found one article that had anything to say about that, and it wasn't talking about books.

So, if you're wondering about these same things, here's a report on my research.

Where to Sign

Although there appears to be no formally adopted standard or rule, authors usually choose to autograph the title page of their books. Some books have a "half title" page. The title page is the recto side of the copyright page, not the half-title page, which is usually blank on the verso side. Since the author's name is already printed on the title page, signing there is similar to placing their signature on a typed letter. So that makes sense.

Although it often isn't adhered to, there is a generally-accepted standard for book organization. The location of an author's autograph should be as predictable as the location of other content. If a book has an index, you would expect to find it at the back of the book. If you are wondering if the book has been signed by its author, you should be able to expect to find that on the title page.

A notable exception to this convention was Ian Fleming, famous author of the James Bond series. He evidently had some aversion to defacing title pages, so usually autographed his books on the front flyleaf (the blank page immediately inside the cover). An author like Ian Fleming is like the proverbial 500-pound gorilla; he signs wherever he wants.

What to Say

If a book ever achieves any status as a collector's item, an autographed copy will have greater value, and sometimes much greater value. Prominent authors are therefore sometimes reluctant to autograph their books for people other than close friends and associates. Fleming was also an example of this, and looking over some of the signings he provided gives some insight into what is appropriate for various associates.

It turns out this isn't much of a mystery. The inscription in a book can be writted using the same protocol one would use when writing the complementary close for a letter. It's helpful to have the range of possibilities established in advance. My suggestions are these:

• Perfect strangers - flat sign (meaning to simply sign, signature only): "GWarner"
• Acquaintances less than friends - reservedly personalize it: "For Margaret - GWarner 9/23/2007"
• Friends and Associates - personalize it: "For my old chum, Margaret - GW 9/23/2007"
• More than friends (family members, etc.): "With love, for Aunt Mary - GW 9/23/2007"
• Dignitaries: "Respectfully for Judge Albert Burton - GWarner 9/23/2007"
• Special Requests: see below

These involve some subtleties. If the book ever becomes a collector's item, the mention of a name might increase its value if the person named is identifiable as someone important in their own right, or someone with a special relationship to the author. Otherwise the name would be more likely to impair the value of that particular copy. The signing date, written in the author's hand, is a touch that adds value to the autograph since such dates are always of interest when books wind up in collections. Omitting the date lessens the potential value of the autograph, and is appropriate when signing for strangers.

Honoring Inscription Requests

Books make great gifts, and the value of the gift can be greatly enhanced by a personalized inscription written in the author's hand.

Human nature being what it is, there are sure to be occasional request for personalized inscriptions which are not honest or appropriate. The value of such inscriptions depends on your integrity, so were you to condescend to such requests, your autograph wouldn't be of much value anyway. Furthermore, doing so would lessen the worth of inscriptions provided to others containing sentiments that were honest and genuine. Reputation is collateral. It is therefore entirely appropriate to refuse.

Virtual Signing

Virtual book signing ranges from something as elaborate as a live, interactive videoteleconference (VTC), to simply accepting requests by email and returning signatures or personalized inscriptions on sticky labels by regular mail.

The VTC approach involves offering books for sale, taking orders and inscription requests live, and showing the actual signing of the books on-camera. The idea is to simulate an actual book-signing event. Downloadable handwritten labels are also sometimes provided, which recipients can print out and attach to previously purchased copies of the book being promoted.

To offer the simple approach, buy some labels and create a template showing the name of the book and your imprint.

Penmanship

Did that word strike you as odd? Whoever hears anything about "penmanship" any more? Exactly! Elementary students spend very little time learning how to write these days. Perhaps you have never been able to write nicely, so when you impose your signature even on a credit card slip, you feel a little tinge of ambivalence.

It has been said that you can trace a person's career by their signature. When they start out in life, it's clear and legible. The higher they climb, the worse it gets. At the bottom of the ladder, they're considerate, conscientious, hard-working, anxious to make a good impression - qualities reflected in the care they take when signing their name. Later on, for whatever reasons, they are less willing to take care with such basic details. Fixing the problem can elevate one's self-esteem. If you make a conscientious effort to be considerate of others by writing more neatly and legibly, you will find yourself acting more courteously and thoughtfully in other matters also - at home, on the job, and even on the highway.

As a rule of thumb, I have always thought you can quickly take the measure of a business by the look of the place. If it is messy and disorganized, you can safely assume that is the way it does business too. It's probably not a very successful operation, but even if it's managing to succeed in spite of its messy and disorganized style, it's not measuring up to its real potential. Your signature suggests the same sort of imagery to others, and maybe even worse. Doctors are famous for scribbling; its not only accepted by actually expected of them. For others, people are not always likely to be so understanding. Your scribbled signature might very well leave the impression that you think you're "all that."

We're writers, for goodness sakes! Shouldn't handwriting be an essential skill for someone who assumes that title? With a little practice and care, all of us can write more clearly, showing that we respect the written word and, above all, the reader. Some of the fundamentals are only common sense: (1) assume a comfortable position, (2) take your time and write carefully, and (3) practice writing neatly and legibly. Make up your mind to spend as little as just five or ten minutes a day practicing your signature.

If you need a little more help, you can find a wealth of interesting and useful resources at Lessons in Calligraphy and Penmanship. Or go back to school at DonnaYoung.org and learn to write as your teacher's should have taught you to write when you were in the third grade.

[-=glw=-]

Our Makoonsag

Preface

I once read a personal memoir written by an old man who was one of the children of a North Manitou Island Lightkeeper. The light station was located on the north Island's southern-most point, several miles from the few other people who lived on the island. Some of them were farmers and loggers, but most were summer residents who left as the days began to grow shorter. It was a lonely place, open to the winds and the weather.

The Manitou Passage was still an important maritime asset then, with several ships negotiating the treacherous waters between the towering Sleeping Bear Dunes on the mainland, and the two nearby islands, North Manitou and South Manitou. The significance of the maritime traffic and the danger in that immediate area was marked by the presence of two lighthouse stations and three lifesaving stations. But as time marched on, the importance of shipping was diminished by the growth of railroads, motor freight and air travel. By the late years of the twentieth century, the Manitou Passage was only a footnote in history books, and important only as a beautifully scenic tourist destination. The islands were eventually deserted by all the families who had once thought of them as "home."

Makoonsag is an Ojibwa word meaning "bear cubs"; Mishe-Mokwa is "the Great Bear" referred to in Longfellow's famous "Song of Hiawatha." Those familiar with the area know the Indian legend explaining the presence of the great dune and the two nearby islands. I was conceived on South Manitou, so certain things in the memoir I was reading that evening struck close to home, even bringing tears as in my mind's eye the words on the page morphed into moving pictures of what used to be. That inspired the only attempt I've made at poetry during my adult life.

[-=glw=-]

Our Makoonsag

West of watchful Mishe-Mokwa, lay the cold and lonely Islands
on the slate and restless waters, 'neath the clouds that darkly threaten,
warning boats to stay at bay.

Hosting now the north winds only and the snows its gales blow fiercely
into fields and woods and ruins, drifting over trails and pathways
where our feet oft found their way.

Out of season and abandoned, save for tiny beasts and migrants,
islands where we once made merry; silent now and solitary
on this wintry New Year's Day.

On the mainland we now frolic, having moved across the Passage,
seeking fortunes then elusive (never found on either Island) ...
lighter work for greater pay.

But quiet moments bring to mind the warmth of simple village folk,
faithful kin and caring neighbors, farmsteads once so full of laughter;
journeys made by horse and sleigh.

Dauntless seamen making crossings challenging the angry billows,
worried wives a'watching seaward, catching ropes upon deliverance.
Voyagers back, now home to stay.

Sands still warm on summer evenings soothing bare feet of the children,
racing beams around the lighthouse, finding shapes in starry heavens.
Bath and bedtime after play.

Sought we all for "something better", fooled by fickle expectations,
one by one the Islands leaving. Dreaming then, now sadly knowing,
the better life we'd cast away.

While coldly we forsook our Islands, steadfast they to our hearts cling,
fostering such recollections! Absence hindering not remembrance,
pictures saved there oft replay.

Save we facts and share we fables of our much revered makoonsag;
generations hence might know them as have we, their privileged stewards,
passing on our legacy.

Gene L Warner
January 1, 2004

What's All This "What's All This ... Stuff, Anyhow? (A Tribute to Bob Pease)

Robert A Pease is one of my heroes. He has written a column for Electronic Design News (now called "EDN") magazine for, oh, I don't know how many years. Seems like forever. The articles are usually titled "What's All This ... Stuff, Anyhow?" Sometimes the "..." was something about electronics; and sometimes not. A rant about the Alternative Minimum Tax or a recounting of his latest hiking adventure was just as likely. It was and is the kind of stuff we put into "blogs" today.

"RAP" has been working at National Semiconductor for 30-years. Other than that, I don't know much about his background. He's obviously a pretty smart fellow. I didn't know it at the time, but I built my business, in part, on the fruits of his labor.

I'm not much of an education snob, because my formal academic life ended with a Diploma from Grand Haven High School. My family was financially impaired and up to that point I hadn't excelled much as a very good student, so the only person who thought it was a shame I wasn't going to college was my English teacher, Miss. Geraldine Dykhuizen. My Dad had graduated from the eighth grade, and thought I'd already done quite well, having gone four more years beyond that. So I joined the U.S. Air Force.

The Air Force gave me a choice of two schools: "Gunnery Systems Maintenance" or "Aircraft Electronic Navigation Systems Maintenance." The first school was in Denver, but "gunnery systems" sounded like something that involved grease and oil and dirty clothes. So I picked the second choice, which took me to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. That was a good choice because of the wide variety of navigation equipment, which was common to a wide variety of aircraft. I was wrong about the Denver deal; that was really about taking care of the short-range radar enabled computer system that ran the cannons on the back of the B-52 bomber. I would have wound up working in the same kind of outfit anyway, an "Armaments and Electronic Squadron", or "A&E" outfit. Their part of it was called the "Fire Control" shop. Ours was "COM/NAV," which stood for communications and navigation.

Anyway, I entered the Air Force tech school at Keesler in the spring of 1959. I learned all about how all sorts of vacuum tubes worked. Transistors were around by then, but they didn't bother teaching anything about that. PN junctions were inherently too noisy to ever be of any use in military applications, they said. For the three years after that, I worked in a thermionic world on B-52's and KC-135's of the Strategic Air Command's 4228th Strategic Wing at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. We were a combat-ready outfit, flying daily missions with two hot bombers, helping to keep the Soviets convinced that we were capable of holding up our end of keeping the peace through the cooperative policy of "M.A.D." - "Mutually Assured Destruction." We thought we were pretty hot stuff. I was damned good at what I did, and thought I was pretty hot stuff.

When I re-entered civilian life however, I discovered quite quickly that when it came to electronics, I knew a lot about the kind of stuff they have on B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers, but outside of the Air Force, there weren't many outfits in need of a person like that. RCA offered me a good job on a ship that sailed down the line from Cape Canaveral to track things that NASA launched, but didn't need me right then, promising to eventually be in touch, and "Don't call us; we'll call you." "Eventually" turned out to be a long time, and when I got to the point where I didn't have the price of a plain McDonald's hamburger, let alone the rent, I had to hire in somewhere else.

The want-ad in the paper talked about "military-aerospace" work and mentioned names like General Dynamics, Teledyne and North American/Rockwell, so I bit on that. It turned out to be a company that made test chambers for electronic stuff, and the field service job was actually highly refrigeration-centric - oily stuff; dirty cloths. A few weeks later I was their resident "expert" at Autonetics in Anaheim. The real expert they had on that project needed a vacation and they needed a body just for the sake of having a continuing presence on the project. I was young, clean-cut, nice looking, and the one they could most easily do without at the factory, so they sent me. So, there I finally was - in the big time, in the big city ... and not very far from DisneyLand and Knotts Berry Farm. RCA finally called, but I'd promised the guy who owned the chamber company that I'd stick it out for a month before deciding to quit. RCA said, "Well then, thanks. And have a nice life."

The chamber company was in the technological dark ages, trying to use old Brown Instruments (Minneapolis-Honeywell) and Bristol Instruments stuff to control their reliability test chambers. Autonetics was working on cutting-edge Minute Man and F-111 hardware. The general idea was to put that stuff inside a test chamber that simulated what it would be subjected to in the real world by exposing it to vibration and extremes of hot and cold temperature, then documenting its failure rate. Obviously, the test chambers were nowhere near as reliable as the cutting-edge stuff, so all the chamber failures complicated the task of getting good MBTF (Mean Time Between Failures) data.

But that presented a good chance for me. Being inquisitive, innovative, and a loner, I busied myself with a project of designing some instruments and controls that would work as good as the military-aerospace stuff. But I didn't know anything about transistors! I'd noticed, of course, that Autonetics was using those noisy transistors in spite of what the Air Force thought, and I was smart enough to figure out that unveiling a new "secret weapon" made out of vacuum tubes would get me laughed at. So I decided to figure out on my own exactly how transistors worked. That proved to be really tough, because I knew that current flow involved electrons. The books all talked about "holes." If current flow was really about holes, why is it still called "electron-ics"? Even today, I'm good at using transistors to switch things. But should any transistor circuit I design have the misfortune of getting itself into a linear mode, that's bad. It usually ends up with smoke and fire, and the room smells real bad for a while.

I was able to avoid that issue for a while, choosing for my first kitchen-table invention (I was working on these things clandestinely in my apartment) a programmer based on punched tape and relay logic. It was noisy (audibly), but was compact (by our standards) and had lots of flashing lights, so caught the owner's interest. He offered me a great deal: come back to Michigan and invent more stuff like that, or stay in L.A. but find some other job.

When I got back to Michigan, I began to feel cornered. There's only so much you can do with relay logic. And I still hadn't been able to get past the mental block that was preventing me from understanding transistors. I was very secretive about what I was working on because I didn't need for anyone to have any expectations. Sometimes it wasn't easy to avoid attracting attention. Electronic components are really stinky when they burn up, and electrolytic capacitors can make pretty good firecrackers.

So what's any of this got to do with Bob Pease?

Nothing yet at this point. It was only early 1970, but in early 1970 God was good to me, and had a salesman from some electronic distributor bring me some brains. Salesmen never like to come in empty-handed, and this one came bearing some little printed "Application Notes" written by some guy named Robert J. Widlar at some company called "National Semiconductor." Among the more interesting ones were these two. That day proved to be a watershed in my career!

These papers talked about little "black box" like thingies (tin cans, actually) that I could hang a few external resistors and capacitors on and achieve just about any kind of function I needed to do. They were full of transistors, but I didn't need to know anything about that. All I needed to know was what Bob Widlar had written in these "AN's," and some of the stuff on the spec sheets. Best of all, National's stuff was written in plain English, rather than the usual verbose "engineer-speak" that only confuses practical people in its attempt to impress peers by making sure they have no idea what the heck the author is talking about. Even a High School graduate could get what Widlar was talking about.

Eventually I learned how to do the math, and that put an end to the "smoke testing." I could design whole products on paper, and know they were going to work pretty good without even having to build a prototype. That was fun, because next-door to my lab we had an ex-NASA "scientist" who used the other method; tinkering until by trial and error whatever he was working on finally worked. When his stuff went into production, he was often left scratching his head over a pile of gizmos that didn't work as good as his jury-rigged prototype, and sometimes didn't work at all. NASA scientist vs. High School graduate. My boss explained that quite easily; I was a "boy-genius."

Within a couple of years, most of the electronic instruments and controls shipping on our chambers were made in-house. We used lots of LM301's and LM308's. For power supplies we used National's LM304's and LM305's. What began on my kitchen table in Fullerton turned into the company's "ACS Division" (Automatic Control Systems). The owner was really pleased with himself, especially when taking visiting customers and site inspectors on the plant tour.

In the midst of this, Bob Pease came to National to become one of Bob Widlar's colleagues. I don't think I ever heard of Bob Pease until his "Pease Porridge" column began to show up in Electronic Design News. I still get EDN and that's always the first page I turn to (and usually the only page, now). In addition to that, he was instrumental in the development of some other IC's that greatly simplified my life. One was the indestructible LM317 positive voltage regulator. I've been using that from the time it became available. Another is its complimentary negative regulator, his LM337. We're still using both of these in production parts even today.

However, I think Bob's best achievement is his having carried on the tradition of no-nonsense technical writing. Thanks to that tradition at National I, a dummy, was able to launch a career that has served me well for the past 37-years. I've owned and operated my own business for the past 31-years based upon what I learned from the likes of Bob Widlar, Bob Dobkin and Bob Pease, and the income derived from that has provided a pretty good life for us; my wife and I and the five children who grew up under this roof. This just goes to show you, what you're doing might be doing lots of others a lot of good, even though you'll probably never know it.

In his "Pease Porridge" feature, Bob's moniker is to entitle his articles the same basic way - "What's All This _____ Stuff, Anyhow?" I've been tempted to use that a couple of times here, but felt a little sheepish about doing that. After all, that's Bob's trademark, registered or not.

But after thinking it over, I've decided to go ahead and do it. Each time I do, it'll be my little tribute to a guy who has really made a mark, on my life and, no doubt, many others.

[=-glw=-]

What's all this RSS Stuff, Anyhow?

Blogs and RSS Feeds

A good way to draw attention to yourself and your books is to include a "blog" on your website. The term "blog" derives from web log, which originally referred to a regularly updated journal or column published online. (See LiveJournal and The Drudge Report.) The term is now popularly, if not always accurately, applied to any collection of articles and stories, including even collections of photos, videos, and music files. The defining aspect has become the blog's vitality, rather than the nature of its content. Blogs that provide useful information, or articles that are interesting or entertaining, are likely to draw visitors and links to your site. That traffic works like word-of-mouth advertising, and eventually results in your pages winning higher rankings in search results.

"Syndication" is a term that originated in journalism, referring to the simultaneous publishing of proprietary content in a number of newspapers or other periodicals. Syndication is handled by agencies that buy articles, stories, columns, photographs, comic strips, or other features and distribute them for simultaneous publication by subscribing clients. Similar arrangements are found in radio and television broadcasting.

"RSS" stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way to distribute designated web content to particular subscribers. The subscribers are people who have an interest in your website which is keen enough that they want to be informed about changes and newly added content. RSS is also useful for linking to your blog from other websites. For example, if you register at several social networking sites, it makes sense to host your blog at a single location, preferably your own website. You can then link to your blog from the profiles you set up on all the other sites. This avoids duplication, which might be interpreted as blog spamming, which is also called splogging. It also eliminates any chance that search engines might link to your articles at sites with a higher ranking that your own, your hard work thereby serving to direct traffic to someone else.

If your website is static, containing material that doesn't often change, there would ordinarily be no reason for anyone to be interested in a RSS feed from it. Therefore if you have no intention of becoming a "blogger," you know as much about this subject as you need to know, and there is no reason to continue beyond this point.

The syndicators on the web are called "aggregators." That will be you, but you'll will need some help from Google, or someone else. Blogs can be just blurbs (one-sided commentary), but are at their best when interactive. That means you should permit your readers to respond by entering comments of their own which other readers can also see and respond to. That immediately raises the probability of your blog's being open to spam and abuse. Special blog management software is used to help prevent that, and to permit you to manage your system. A couple of free applications that you can install on your own website are DasBlog and WordPress. If your main interest is blogging, you might be willing to become a blog site manager. Otherwise you can leave all that complication up to someone else. There are lots of sites that host blogs, but only a few who do that as their primary business. The leading free blog hosting provider is Google's Blogger. WordPress also provides free hosting as an alternative to the do-it-yourself approach.

Setting Up Your Blog

Blogger is very easy to use and usually works well. The following assumes that you have an existing website with your own registered domain name, and the usual FTP access to your space on the web server. While you actually manage your blog on Blogger, Blogger can be set up to automatically transfer it to your website via FTP. Your blog will therefore be hosted at your own URL, with all links and RSS connections pointing to your web address. Here's how to do it:

1. Before you begin, log on at your website via FTP and create a folder named "rss" in your root directory. Then make note of these items:

     • FTP server address: yoursite.com
     • FTP path: /rss/
     • Blog filename: index.html (need not actually exist)
     • Blog URL: http://www.yoursite.com/rss/
     • FTP username: joeuser
     • FTP password: ••••••••

2. Unless your blog is going to be about a single subject with chronological entries, you will probably want to organize it in some way. Unless you provide otherwise, visitors will see your most recent post when arriving at your blog, unless they clicked on a link to a particular article. You can organize your blog according to categories, as shown at the right (scroll up to see the navigation list):

     • Blog Home
     • Religion
     • Politics
     • Culture
     • ... etc.

Prepare the text for a "Welcome" or "Introduction" for your blog. When you provide links to your blog on other websites or in emails, you can point to this article as a more appropriate entry point than your last, most recent post. This article will wind up as the only item in your "Home" folder, so will appear whenever anyone clicks on your "Blog Home" link. Here is an example:

FireRight Customer Support - Welcome

FireRight Controls is a division of Warner Instruments. We design and manufacture electronic temperature control systems for environmental and reliability test chambers, glass annealing furnaces, and ceramic kilns.

This is the portal to a variety of helpful information for users of FireRight products. Information of a more general nature is also available. Please notice the links on the left to find the support information you need.

If you are not able to locate the information you're looking for, we invite you to contact us directly. We'll be happy to provide further assistance.

Thank you for visiting fireright.com

3. Go to Google's main page site and click the "Sign In" link. If you already have a Google account, sign in. Otherwise click the link provided to create a new account, fill out the form, then retrieve and respond to the verification email. That will bring up your personal Google "Manage Account" page.

4. Click the "Personal Information" "Edit" link and fill in the form. If "Blogger" doesn't appear under the "Try Something New" header, click the More " link under that header, then click "Blogger." The Blogger start page appears; click the CREATE YOUR BLOG NOW link to continue.

5. Fill in the forms to create a blog on Blogspot. On the second screen, enter a Blogger address if your wish, but DO NOT click "Continue"; click the "Advance Blog Setup" link instead to bring up the "Advance Blog Setup" form. Fill in the form using the information you collected above. Click "Continue" to save your information and bring up the "Choose A Template" page.

6. Choose the "Minima" template for now. Page templates can be tweaked to some extent, and you can also change templates whenever you wish later on. You can even create your own template if you need to have your blog exactly match the look and feel of the rest of your site. Click "Continue" to finish the setup process. Then click the "Start Posting" link.

7. Before posting anything, click on the "Settings" tab, and select its "Basic" section. The "Title" shown will appear at the top of your blog pages, and the "Description" will appear just below that. Enter a short description or tag line, answer the questions that follow as desired, then click the "Save Settings" button.

8. Select the "Formatting" section and change the default selections as needed or desired. Items of special interest here are "Time Zone" and "Convert line breaks." For everything else, the defaults are usually appropriate. Save your settings.

9. Select the "Comments" section, and indicate your preferences. "Show Comments" is recommended, as is "Show word verification." If you allow comments, you'll need to monitor that activity to ensure that what others share is tasteful and appropriate. Therefore be sure to enter a "Comment Notification Address" before clicking "Save Settings."

10. Return to the "Create" section under the "Posting" tab, and enter the title and text for your "welcome" page. Before entering your text, notice the "Labels for this post" box; type "home" in the box to create a unique category for this particular item. Whenever you create a new post, be sure to label it before you publish it. You can create a new category simply by typing its name in the label box. Existing categories will be displayed beneath the label box if you toggle the "Show all/Hide all" switch at the right end of the box. You can assign a post to more than one category by separating two or more labels with a comma.

11. Also notice the "Post Options" link. Click this to ensure that "Allow Reader Comments" is checked. You can also change the "Post time and date" if needed, which is useful when correcting errors in, or otherwise revising an existing article.

12. Then enter your title and text, using the "Preview/Hide Preview" switch to review and revise your post. When satisfied with your work, click the PUBLISH POST link.

13. If everything goes right, the "Publishing files to your blog ..." screen will momentarily appear, then the "Your blog published successfully." page will replace it. Click the "View Blog (in a new window)" link to see what others will see. If needed, click the "Edit post" link to make corrections and adjustments.

14. Notice the sidebar on the right side of your page. All of these items can be edited by switching to the "Template" tab and selecting the "Edit HTML" item. To add a navigation list to your template, scroll down to the <!-- Begin #sidebar --> section near the bottom of the code and find the "Edit-Me" links. Replace these with links to your content, which will look something like this:

<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/home.html">Blog Home</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Religion.html">Religion</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Politics.html">Politics</a></li>
<li><a rel='tag' href="http://www.yoursite.com/rss/labels/Culture.html">Culture</a></li>
... etc.

15. To simply link to your blog, the URL is:

http://www.yoursite.com/rss/index.html.
To set up an RSS connection to your blog from another site, you will be asked to provide a link to your blog's RSS feed. The URL for that is:

http://www.yoursite.com/rss/rss.xml
... or:
http://www.yoursite.com/rss/atom.xml
... depending upon the protocol that site prefers. Users who desire to do so may subscribe to your blog simply by clicking on the link at the bottom on any of its pages.

I hope this has proven helpful to you. Happy blogging!

[-=glw=-]

Comment for Tamara (and other "survivors")

Preface:

I originally began writing this in response to a friend request I received on a social networking website from someone using the moniker “achildabusesurvivor.” The requester turned out to be a woman in her mid-thirties named Tamera, who claimed to have been a victim of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, father and step-father.

As such stories go, hers didn’t sound all that horrific. But, of course, children living in their own little world inevitably arrive at a belief that their situation is unique and worse than anyone else’s. That happens because children usually won’t talk openly about things they feel are shameful or threatening to themselves or someone close to them, and their scant experience in life provides little basis for ranking their personal fear and pain. Her purpose was to lobby for a more aggressive child protection system, and harsher punishments for perpetrators of abuse. Meanwhile, she took satisfaction from the fact that her father was in prison, and would remain in confinement for the rest of his natural life, and seemed to suggest that her mother’s suicide was a well-deserved end.

The responses to her post ranged from politely supportive to viciously collaborative, one “Christian” writer even wishing he could go into that prison and murder her father. Assuming hers was an original appeal, I also felt somewhat sympathetic, but not for the same reason. Indeed, here was a person who had evidently embraced a “victim” identity early on, and has been wasting the best years of her life on a self-defeating hate campaign. That, indeed, is a sad situation. I found it disturbing that of all those who responded, none suggested there was anything wrong with her obvious obsession. And an obsession it turned out to be. Googling her moniker turned up hits on other sites where she had copied and pasted the same story.

Here’s my comment to Tamara, and many of those who commented on her blog.

Dear Tamara ~

I was also a severely abused child; physically and emotionally by parents, sexually by others. The physical and emotional abuse affected me much more than the sexual abuse. That might have been because I was a boy, I suppose, and was, most of the time, an accommodating "victim" of the sexually abuse. But the result of it was that I wasted the better part of my life hating my father, seeing myself as a victim, believing that my case was unique, and feeling that I was somehow "different" than everyone else.

Because of what went on in my childhood home, I developed what psychologists call "Avoidant Personality Disorder." Personality disorders always arise as a way of coping with low self-esteem. I did not begin to grow out of that until I was 36-years old.

At that point, people thought I had it made. I'd become a successful young executive, the resident "boy genius" at the small corporation where I worked, single, handsome, well-built, always tastefully dressed, cool car, money in the bank, great apartment, admired by all the cute young girls - all the things any normal young man would dream of.

Living on the West Michigan shoreline, I spent lots of time at our wonderful Lake Michigan beach watching those other guys come out in the evenings and pay with their kids. That really began to hurt as I began to think 'That'll never be me. I've let that opportunity slip away.' In fact, I did not have it made at all, or at least that is not how it felt to me. In spite of how much I achieved, it was never enough. I was still always lonely, hopeless, self-loathing, and clueless. I had no idea how I had gotten to that age and never been able to find anyone who could love me.

At the end of my 37th summer, I couldn't stand it anymore. By that time, I had finally come to realize that I wasn't any different than anyone else, just severely screwed up attitudinally and emotionally. I'd actually known that for quite a while. I had seen a couple of shrinks and read lots of books. None of that did much good because I wasn't able to accept the fact that the situation I'd gotten myself into by all the stinkin' thinkin' I'd been doing over all those years was my own fault - nobody else's. Like all neurotics, I blamed others for the way I was, rather than accepting the reality that the responsibility for making a life for myself was, and always had been, mine alone.

As long as I continued to blame others, nothing in my life could change, because I had no power to change other people, or to rewrite history. I did not realize that then, so only knew that I was a hopeless case, and nobody, least of all me, knew how to fix it. During that time in my life, most nights I went to bed hoping that I would not wake up in the morning. Nevertheless, each morning I did wake up, disappointed and frustrated at having to cope with yet another day. Suicide was not an option, because I was sensitive about the good opinion of others. In my goofy way of thinking, I thought a natural death would be seen as tragic; suicide as idiotic. So I had no choice but to get up, slog on, and hope to die in my sleep the next night.

Early one evening I finally turned tearfully to God (something that was not characteristic of me at the time) and pleaded, "I know I'm a loner and a looser, but I know I don't know how to change it. If You are not willing to change me, for Christ's sake let me die! I don't want to go on like this anymore."

Within a day or two, I young waitress at a restaurant I frequently dined at sheepishly handed me an envelope containing an "I just want to be your friend" greeting card. I did my best to let her down gently, because I wasn't into flirting with the young waitresses at the restaurants I frequented. I did not care to be seen as a dirty, lecherous old man.

Then one night my "cool car," a bright red and white Oldsmobile Cutlass S, suddenly died. Something went wrong with its electrical system, and it was just totally stone dead. My neighbor owned a garage, so took it to his shop and tore it all apart - just before he had a minor heart problem and wasn't able to work for weeks. The young employee that he entrusted his business to in the meantime evidently wasn't capable of finishing the job, so the car sat there in the garage, in pieces. At the time, our town didn't have much to offer by way of dining places, so I usually frequented higher-class out-of-town restaurants. Now, without wheels, I was stuck with the few in-town choices. I never did "fast food" back then, and the restaurant where the girl worked was the only place open on Sunday in our town. So while the car was broken, I got into the habit of going there.

She was only 19 when she handed me that sappy "just wanna be friends" card; I was almost 37. We have been married for just over 30-years now, and have five wonderful children, four of whom are already all grown up, two with kids of their own.

When I look back at my life, I am never sorry about the way things have turned out, but I do regret all the years I wasted, and all the good things, and all the good times I was given that I never appreciated because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and blaming others for my miserable life. I had indeed achieve much, but could never take any pride or find any satisfaction in those achievements. I did indeed "have it made," having a life that was the envy of many, but never took any pleasure in that, or felt any appreciation for having been so blessed.

And what of the villains in the story - those devils who were so abusive to the sweet, wonderful boy that I was?

Well, what of them! They were just neurotic, like most other people we see passing us on the street every day - suffering the pain of being imperfect, as it were. They were, perhaps, more imperfect that the typical man on the street, and their behavior was certainly not good. But the way they behaved never had to be defining of me. I just happened to have had the bad luck of being born into a bad situation. I suppose the same was true of them. For his part, my father was in the military for the duration of World Was II, doing convoy duty with the U.S. Coast Guard and watching the merchant vessels they were supposed to be protecting being sent to the bottom by enemy U-boats. That he was so volatile and mean might well have been a manifestation of PTSD; something we never heard of back then. But whatever their situation, they never had the good luck - or perhaps the blessing - that I had of being able to eventually overcome that bad beginning.

Now, their lives are over. It's too late for them. But as long as you are still breathing, the opportunity is still there for you.

How Christian is it to seek revenge, and revel in someone else's prosecution? How righteous is it to glorify the destruction of any of God's children; and we believe we are all - even your parents - children of God. We are all fallible, and it is always quite correct for any one of us to say of another's failing, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." We are taught that God understands this, and makes allowances. How does it profit you to remain angry and vindictive?

The need to point fingers and blame others is always a hallmark of neuroticism, which always arises from low self-esteem. It's simple; we feel badly about ourselves, and are able to find some solace, albeit a sort of sick solace, in pointing out how much worse others are. So-called "sexual abuse" has been elevated to such hysteric proportions that any child involved in it cannot help but feel shame at having been involved in something considered so vulgar and improper, and especially when in their hearts and the privacy of their own conscience they also feel some culpability or complicity.

I know that is a very touchy and debatable subject, and one that victims and professionals involved in the system are rarely willing or able to address. But no matter how the child-adult roles are rationalized, that underlying feeling is often present, and what happens to the child as CPS interrogators and prosecutors attempt to build an iron-clad case usually only exacerbates it. No amount of explaining to a child that they cannot be considered responsible in any way can change what they know about their part in the relationship. Even worse, when the "perp" is a family member, close relative or friend, others close to the "victim" are often hurt and resentful, with the result that investigations and prosecutions destroy relationships well beyond the one in question, giving the child even more cause to feel guilty and blameworthy.

Finally, let us revisit these fairly well-known realities: the majority of all child abuse allegations, for all of the pain and embarrassment they cause, never have enough merit as to result in formal charges. Moreover, of those that do, few result in actual convictions. Of those few that do, even fewer are actually found guilty through the trial process; most cases being settled by plea agreements, usually offered by prosecutors who don't really have what they think is a sure-fire case, and accepted by defendants who are lacking either in the courage or the financial wherewithal to fight them. And again, the children involved are always dragged through these nasty proceedings, often by people willing to use the most damnable strategies and tactics to get things out of them or elicit their cooperation in order to obtain a conviction.

Taking the long view, is this not also child abuse?

State child protection laws are all patterned after the federal law, which was originally the product of politicians pandering to lobbies and public hysteria. The federal law requires states to fall in line, else loose federal funding. Government funding has engendered a vigorous cottage industry, much as has "the war on drugs." Rather than fix anything, it actually exacerbates the problems, while costing everyone a lot of money. Like any other industry, it needs customers, and to assure a supply the law actually waives what we have always trusted to be sacred protections. One only need pick up a telephone and make a quick call to CPS to launch an investigation and cause a lot of trouble for someone they merely suspect, or perhaps just don't like.

Perhaps it is time for a more enlightened approach. We need no special laws regarding cases of rape or assault. The current laws are as protective of children as they are of adults. But what if we were to think of nonviolent sexual relations between adults and children as grossly bad behavior on the part of the adult, but not criminal? What if we thought of such adults as being unacceptably neurotic and in need of dealing with that, instead of being dangerous non-emendable monsters in need of incarceration and permanent stigmatization? Would this not be more compassionate for the children and considerate of their real long-term interests?

And what of you, Tamera? Bad things happen in every life. To grasp such a thing and cling to it as your life's defining moment is a fatal mistake. One cannot grow any more after that, so the only other alternative is to abide, waiting for the moment that death finally ends the agony. After all these years, might it now finally be time to recheck your premises? The woman who coined that phrase (a famous atheist, by the way) also offered this:

"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity ..."

To that I would add that nobody can be happy so long as they're making it their business to cause pain for others.

[-=glw=-]

Practical Pacifism

I have become a pacifist. It has nothing to do with religious fervor or moral views. It is much simpler than that.

I was thinking about claiming that in two or three thousand years of recorded history, there has never been a single case where a war successfully resolved a problem. But on reflection, Israel's early God-directed approach seemed like a rather permanent solution; total annihilation, killing every man, woman and child, and even their animals, then turning their town into a pile of rubble that the sands of time rather quickly covered up. But what was the legacy of that? The Israel of today has few friends in its neighborhood. Fast-forwarding, it seemed like our Revolutionary War solved the problem of having to put up with colonial England's King George, and our American Civil War made it clear that the republic is indeed indivisible, and brought an end to slavery. But at what cost?

I do not know if anyone in the colonies ever did a cost analysis on the Revolutionary War. I suppose the British did. As for the Civil War, whatever the dollar figures, the bottom line was that the South was totally devastated economically, and the North was nearly bankrupted. According to Zfacts, the war in Iraq, thus far, has cost you and me $422-billion. That's a lot of money. Your share of that is about $1,406 for each member of your family. Iraq's population is about a tenth of ours, so rather than spending that money to invade their country, kill a lot of people, and wreck a lot of stuff, we could have just given each man, woman and child $15,337. That is about fifteen times the average income in Iraq, and since half the workers there are unemployed, that windfall would surely have been appreciated.

But, of course, its not just about money. According to the DOD, we have lost 3,774 of our country's best in Iraq. Nobody knows for sure what the Iraqi death toll is, but most suggest the figure is at least ten times higher than our casualty rate. That is also the approximate number of our wounded; about eight or nine people coming home with Purple Hearts for each one that comes home in a box. Much less obvious are psychological wounds. Nobody really knows the extent of that, because "real men" are apt to "suck it up," and soldiers have traditionally taken a dim view of wimps. However, based upon the thousands of returning soldiers who have sought help, the estimate is that about a third of those returning from Iraq are in need of it. If the 140,000 people we have in Iraq came home tomorrow, the shrinks would have some 46,000 new customers. That's a lot of PTSD. No doubt that figure could also be multiplied by ten to get some idea of what's going on on the Iraqi side.

And so our invasion of Iraq has been rather costly to all involved. People these days seem to embrace the philosophy that the ends justifies the means, so what have the ends been so far? We got rid of Saddam Hussein and his two crazy sons. In spite of all their hardships, few Iraqis are willing to express any regrets about that. But that's about it for the "plus" side of the picture. The government we installed to replace Saddam's regime does not work, and will probably be radically altered as soon as we get out of the way. The sanctions we engineered in the years leading up to our invasion succeeded in ruining Iraq financially, with the average family's income reduced to less than 25% of what it was in the good times, and since the invasion it's dropped even less. Let us think about that for a moment; how well could we manage an 80% pay cut? The sanctions also took a toll on Iraq's infrastructure; electricity, water, sewer and refuse removal services, and transportation. The destruction visited upon the country after the invasion did not improve that situation.

What is much worse than any of these things is the fact that we have succeeded in destroying America's credibility as a force for good in the world, and made it easy for a lot of people to hate us. That is a legacy we will have to cope with for at least a few generations. Maybe worse even than that is what we have done to our own self-respect. There are few who still cling to the belief that there was some provocation to justify the invasion of Iraq. The consensus is that contrary to the assertion that the operation was launched as a result of misunderstandings about intelligence data, it was intentionally promoted by "spin" (propaganda) and intentional misinformation (lies). Regardless of what people believe about the motives, most now see the war in Iraq as a mistake at best, and at worst, legally criminal. This really dampens one's enthusiasm for getting out to wave the flag and sing God Bless America.

So, returning to the point, can anyone argue that war is ever a sensible way to achieve political objectives?

In 1949 the U.S. Government's Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense. That was a move in the right directions, but unfortunately World War II had not dampened everyone's appetite for belligerence and enthusiasm for military adventure. While President Truman and most Americans were in the mood to embrace Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy on the inevitability of forever having to deal with bullies, "Speak softly and carry a big stick.", not everyone involved in the building of the most formidable war machine the world had ever seen was as ready to stand down. At the end of his term as President, General Eisenhower was acutely aware of this, and warned:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The fiasco in Iraq is certainly a manifestation of President Eisenhower's worst fears, except that he had no way of envisioning an even more scary scenario - a coalition of politically conservative and religious fundamentalists crawling into bed with the powers that be in the military-industrial complex, to successfully capture the Executive Branch.

People from FreedomsWatch.Org cite their personal losses, and appeal that those will not have been suffered for no reason. They advocate "staying the course," of course. Perhaps this unfortunate experience will finally permit us to understand what President Eisenhower was trying to tell us. In that case, none of the losses, on either side, will have been suffered in vain.

[-=glw=-]

Reply to Liar

Note of Explanation: This started out as a short response to a MySpace "friend request" (gladly accepted) from someone calling himself "liar2u ." "Liar" sorely attacked one of the companies I had listed in my bio there, as well as "michigans west coast hypocrits" [sic]. It was not my intention to refute any of that, since I'm not into online "pissing matches," but it did occur to me that something I had previously written (see I've become progressively more disgusted with religion.) could be similarly misconstrued by others. So an explanation of that seemed to be in order. My experience at the company in question was also much different than what Liar reported, so I felt inclined to share something about that also.

Hello Liar ~

About Thermotron Corporation ~

I worked at Thermotron for eight of its early years. It wasn't that way then. We were simple, happy, very successfully growing, but not very profitable. We were also not very shrewd or slick, so didn't have much choice other than openness and inclusiveness.

The owner was Chuck Conrad, who was also the company's founder. The good opinion of his employees was more important to him than money. I don't say that in praise. It was more a figment of his personality organization than a real desire to be thoughtful and nice, but it all came out the same anyway.

All of us Executive Committee members put together wouldn't have made one good manager. Thus, although very successful in terms of growth, technological and market leadership, and all that, we weren't making any money, and the bank finally threw in the towel when the debt began to exceed $2.5-million. At that point they forced Chuck to bring in some professional management talent. That was the beginning of the end for me, and I left a year and a half later to start my own business.

Not long after I resigned, Chuck sold a controlling interest in Thermotron to a holding company from Wisconsin. By virtue of their professional management talent, the company's financial situation quickly, and significantly improved. A few years after that, Chuck finally sold off his remaining share, and exited with a well-deserved $8.5-million. Over the years that followed, he donated large chunks of that to various projects in the Ludington area and elsewhere. He and I took a final nostalgic tour of the place on the day he received his final payment.

After Chuck's exit, I didn't follow the company's fortunes much. I was then doing business with their competitors, so they were not comfortable with the idea of my having access to any inside information. I did a couple of deals with them, but they were both unpleasant experiences, so I kept away after that.

Evidently you had a bad experience at Thermotron. I'm sorry to know that, but am aware that others also suffered some bad times there under the regimes that followed ours. On the other hand, there are others who survived and made out quite well, and I have often thought that had I been more mature, personality-wise and in a business sense, I probably would have fared equally well, and would be much better off in retirement than what I have to look forward to now. That's just an observation, not a lament.

On Evangelicalism ~

As for Larry Huch, I don't know anything about him or his organization. His approval ratings are low, but then so are Robert Schullers (A Hope College alumnus, by the way), whom I always thought was pretty much on the up and up. Meanwhile Jim and Tammy Faye Bakers ratings are high. Go figure! If you worked with the man, I'm willing to take your word for him.

I'm a Presbyterian (PCUSA); we're on the very liberal end of the reformed tradition. What I was alluding to in my commentary was the evangelical movement that's going on not only in our denomination, but elsewhere. Two things bother me about that. The first is a (supposedly) unquestioned acceptance of the Bible as the infallible word of God. The Second is the sometimes in-your-face or ostentatious sort of worship, witnessing and proselytizing.

The Presbyterian tradition has, up to now, emphasized learning, imparting knowledge and doing good in the world.

The emphasis on education arose from the idea that ignorance is not a good basis for faith, that the strongest faith is that in which the tenets are able to withstand scrutiny by wizened worshipers.

Some of what's in the bible is a mere recitation of history, as it was preserved for generations in the Jewish oral tradition. Why would any of that be need be considered infallibly inspired, and the word of God. Moreover, during the past three centuries scholars have studied the Bible and its various roots, and have concluded that in many ways it reflects the fallibility of its human writers and compilers, misinterpreting things, stretching facts and perhaps even making things up. An example is the o