BoysMind Blog

A Simple, Practical Control System for Ceramic Kilns

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:52:00 +0000

Grand Haven, MI -- Nov 15, 2008 -- Free booklet tells how combining "obsolete" controls provides equally good results at a fraction of the cost of "high tech" solutions.

Happiness and success in kiln firing means consistently achieving good results from low cost, easy to use equipment that operates reliably and efficiently. Too good to be true? Not at all! The key to that kind of happiness has been commonly available for years.

The KilnSitter® was invented in the 1950’s by Wilfred P Dawson, a theater film projectionist whose wife was a ceramics artist. Thousands of these units have been used over the past half-century, in all sorts of settings and with consistently good results. The KilnSitter uses a special pyrometric cone to regulate firings, much as a person would mind their kiln manually. When the cone bends, the firing is considered complete and the control trips the kiln off. Nothing could be simpler. Over the years this ingenious little device has saved people millions of hours of kiln-sitting.

The KilnSitter does not regulate the early stages of kiln firing however. That was a problem since in order to get to very high temperatures, electric kilns have lots of heating capacity, and are capable of drastic temperature rises when beginning from room temperature. FireRight provided a solution for this problem many years ago with simple controllers designed to regulate the turn-up process. Today’s implementation is called the “AutoMate II Automatic Kiln Switch.” Used in combination, the KilnSitter and the AutoMate II provide a completely automated solution, proven through years of experience, and at a fraction of the cost of programmable digital controls being offered today.

Warner Instruments has manufactured controls for ceramics and pottery kilns since 1976, under the KilnTroller and FireRight brand names. The booklet is free at www.fireright.com.

Gene Warner - FireRight Controls
Ph: 616-843-5342
Email: info1@fireright.com
Web: www.fireright.com

Cover Color Conundrums

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:08:00 +0000

I've done only a few covers, but only one came out exactly as intended.

Taking advice I'd read a few times here and there, I initially decided to keep my covers simple. The first had no background color. That looked good until printed on high-gloss stock. Lots of white space on really a shiny cover is a bad idea. With fancy gold text, it might work out for a book about wedding planning; otherwise that's a mistake I won't make again.

I changed that cover for the better, with a background and images that are basically shades of what I'd call "khaki to olive drab" (RGB 141 130 84). The next proof came out a little more greenish than anticipated, but wasn't skewed so much that I needed to fix it. The background colors of some of the inserted images and graphics didn't exactly match, but I decided to leave well enough alone (mainly because I didn't know how to fix that anyway.)
The next attempt had a background which was gray with a slight tan cast (RGB 234 240 235). Again, the proof was a big disappointment. It came back not with my nice very light earth-tone gray, but with an unappetizing light greenish cast all over; about the shade of "light cyan1" (RGB 224 255 255).

I was using Lulu.Com to proof these books. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but the covers delivered looked a lot like the thumbnail images in the "cover art" section of the book's "Edit Content" page on lulu.com, which always seem to have a greenish cast. However, the "View press-ready PDF file" downloads never look any different than what I originally upload, and what always comes out of my old desktop ink jet looking just like they do on the screen.

I decided I need to learn about the basic issues, and spent a lot of time reading up on:

     • RGB vs. CMYK
     • spot vs. process color
     • color management systems
     • inconsistencies between printer color systems
     • paper characteristics (creme vs. white, matte vs. gloss)
     • etc.

So I then understood why the output of ColorCentric or LightingSource machines would not necessarily match what I see on my old CRT or new flat-panel monitors, or what comes out of my desktop printers (old HP and new Lexmark ink jets). Yet it didn't seem to make sense that each submission should be like "buying a pig in a poke."

There must be a "right" was to do this. Hmmmm ... What to do?

After reading a whole lot more about color management, sRGB vs. CMYK gamuts, and all that stuff, I decided the situation was impossible. For one thing, I didn't have software that could output CMYK color information, and even if I did, there was no guarantee that was I was seeing on the computer monitor would match what the printer's machine would produce. And then too, ColorCentric has one kind of machine, Xerox I suppose, and LightningSource has something else. So maybe I could beat my brains out trying to guarantee a result, but never achieve an exact match anyway.

For the above case, I solved my problem by loading up my original nice-looking cover layout, then clicking on my desktop to access my display driver setup and tweaking the color controls until it looked like the greenish version I'd gotten back from Lulu. I then went back into my cover layout program, readjusted the colors until the cover came back to the look I wanted, saved that as a new PDF and uploaded it to Lulu. What came back this second time around was exactly what I was shooting for the first time.

I don't know if this was just a coincidence, or if this is a useful work-around. Next time I have a problem with cover colors that don't come out, I'll try it again. Meanwhile, since you can get single proof copies of your book from Lulu at cost plus shipping, this is a cheap and dirty solution to an otherwise intractable problem.

Another thing I've learned is to not mix tools. For example, if there are graphic components on the cover, such as photographs, logos, and so on, the logical thing to do would be to prepare them in an image editor, then place them on the cover in a cover layout program. If the background of the imported graphic needs to match the cover background; good luck with that. It rarely ever will. Notice the background ghosting in the example shown here, which was taken from the second cover I ever did (check the link above for the first, which was "not so good.")

A better solution is to incorporate all the graphic components in a single image the size of the cover layout, then import that into the cover layout as a background - a opposed to establishing a background color in the cover layout program, then importing the individual graphics onto that and trying to match their backgrounds. Even if you get a good match on your monitor, the results from the printer will probably be disappointing.

The last cover I've done was easy - it was all grayscale on a black background.

That's another good way to solve color matching problems!

-=glw=-

Reunions and the Popcorn Years

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:24:00 +0000

I was never a fan of High School reunions. I was never sociable in my teenage years. As a strategy for staying away from home as much as possible, I worked all the time, and in jobs where I learned how to behave like an adult in order to interact successfully with adults. On returning to school each fall, I'd feel like a stranger in a foreign land. Coming back out of an adult world, I didn't share the usual teenage interests, so it was hard to relate to most of the other kids. They all seemed so ... childish. Their usual take on this was that I seemed so ... aloof. To me, other kids were mostly juvenile and boring; to them, I was a stuck up odd-ball. Hence, I made very few friends among my classmates - I thought.

What reason would there be for me to go to a class reunion?

This year was our 50th high school class reunion. I didn't participate. I had other obligations anyway, so that provided a convenient excuse. The real reason was the archaic feelings and perceptions left over from fifty years ago - all the awkward moments, the feelings of being different, of being on the outside looking in, of not really belonging or being accepted as part of the group. I never cared to revisit any of that. (More truthfully, I probably always feared that.)

But then, I got the bright idea of developing a class reunion website template and giving it away for free to promote a couple of my not-so-best-selling books. Part of that template was a "Remembrance" page. Building the prototype around my own high school class, I discovered that so far, forty-two of my former 270-some classmates have a spot on that page. Some I never knew, and others I barely knew.

But then there were the others.

I remembered Dawn, a flippant, flirty girl who often volunteered a teasing conversation with me in classes and hallways, in spite of my lowly place in the pecking order. Evidently, she saw something in me that I didn't know was there. I remember her as a fun person who frequently made me feel comfortable in that otherwise seemingly hostile environment.

Janice was a twin. I went all through school, beginning in the grades, with she and her look-alike sister. They were quiet. In the lower grades, when one became ill and vomited on her disk, so did the other. They were twins, after all.

Jim; good-looking and having an engaging way of always looking surprised and interested in what was going on. Peter, the son of some city fathers, and trying to carry on in that tradition. He married a girl I thought I was in love with in the Second Grade. Brent, the athlete, but crippled and doomed to never succeed in spite of credible athletic abilities. Then Perry; a rather strange and quiet boy who didn't seem to fit in - like me, maybe.

Then there was Albert, known as "Pug." I don't know why, except that his dad was also named Al. I knew him forever. As little boys we used to swap night-overs. His Dad took me to the first football game I'd ever seen. Sitting there on the side of the hill at Green Hill Field, I stupidly kept calling the guys in the black and white stripes "umpires." They thought that was funny. It turned out that I would know Al senior until the day he died. When we were operating our family manufacturing business, Pug's dad provided us with electrical maintenance supplies, and stopped by frequently. I think the last time I saw Pug was at my Dad's funeral. He was then called "Al."

Jane, William, Arlan - I really didn't know them at all. Dennis was almost a neighborhood kid, but lived just outside the boundaries of what we considered "our neighborhood," and inside the borders of a somewhat rougher territory. He seemed like a "boy's boy" who would grow up to be a "man's man." I think his parents were divorced, which was not a common thing then. Kids from "broken homes" were expected to be difficult. When I eventually got to know Denny a little better, I was surprised to discover that he was not all "tough kid." I liked him.

Sharon I was barely acquainted with; only knew her by name. Jerry stands out in my memory as an example of the perfect personality conflict. He and I somehow got along, although our ways of thinking about things were always different, and usually diametrically opposite. I don't know why, or why we got along in spite of that.

Jay; didn't know him. Always seemed like trouble, I don't know why. Then Bob - cripes! Bob is gone? I didn't know that. He was always a happy, highly personable type, as a kid and as an adult. I've passed him so many times in the past few years, usually at the Post Office, and that always left me with a good feeling - pleased that he'd recognize me with a smile and a greeting. After all, he was one of the "popular kids."

And on, and on, through Charles, my "smart kid" childhood playmate; Sig, who I really didn't know real well in high school, but who, years later, always somehow recognized me on the street, down to Durrell, another one who quietly slipped away; we often bumped into one another at the supermarket, and he'd always somewhat sheepishly say hello. He was like me; not one of the "popular kids."

These are all people whom I thought I didn't know - whom I thought I had little in common with. Going back through the forty-two pictures, I count twenty-one who were actually special to me in one way or another. Exactly half.

Somebody once wrote -

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven … For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I guess this is what he was talking about. These memories are indeed treasures - "golden" dividends of a person's investment in life. Opening this box to revisit one's treasures brings special feelings to the heart that somehow make life seem worth its trials and troubles after all. Meanwhile, if one does not dwell on the mud and lumps of coal, memories of unpleasant things inexorably sink deeper and deeper into the psyche, becoming ever more difficult to fetch back up.

What an ass I've been about class reunions!

Here's yet another example of the adage, "Ve get too soon olt, und too late schmardt!" Only now, at the twilight of my life, I've finally figured out what reunions are all about. I passed up fifty opportunities to polish some golden pieces of my life. Now many of those will have to remain as they are, perhaps somewhat tarnished with this new regret.

It took me a couple of days to put the Remembrance page together, using the class reunion's information, the SSDI (death index), and scanning portraits from the old high school yearbook. During that process, some very strong feelings about our human situation arose, bringing to mind from some corner of my memory the poignant truths of an old song written by Earl Wilson Jr:

We laugh, we cry, we live, we die;
And when we're gone, the world goes on.
We love, we hate, we learn too late;
How small we are, how little we know.

We hear, we touch, we talk too much,
Of things we have no knowledge of.
We see, we feel, yet can't conceal,
How small we are, how little we know.

See how the time moves swiftly by;
We don't know how, we don't know why.
We reach so high, and fall so low;
The more we learn, the less we know.

Too soon the time to go will come.
Too late the will to carry on.
And so we leave too much undone.
How small we are how little we know.

Then I got thinking about popcorn.

Somebody takes a handful of corn kernels and puts them into a bag. A little grease is added to facilitate the process, and a little flavoring, to improve the final product. This goes into the microwave for about four minutes. In a little while, there's a single pop, then a few moments later, another. During the first couple of minutes nothing much happens as that happy group of seeds turns round and round with the microwaves shining on them; just the occasional pop of the odd one, which for reasons unknown succumbs to the heat and pressure before all the rest. Then, in the third minute, all hell begins to break loose. Another pop, then another and another, popping in pairs, and finally an explosion of activity!

Then a few, a couple, a single pop or two - in four minutes, it's all over.

Classmates seem like a handful of humanity that, through happenstance, wind up in the same bag. We get a little upbringing and education in hopes of greasing our paths as we revel in the sunshine of life. Then there's the first pop. In our class that happened forty-eight years ago. A year after that came the second pop, then six years later yet another. Now, as my classmates and I are all pushing seventy, there are lots of pops. There will be lots of new pictures coming to my Remembrance page now; perhaps even my own.

In four score years, it'll be all over for us.

Is this aspect of life not like a bag of popcorn? Its duration is four score years, rather than four minutes, but its life story seems the same. I never could see why anyone would call these "The Golden Years."

I think "The Popcorn Years" is a caption more apt.

--=glw=-

A Simple Class Reunion Website Design – FREE

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:23:00 +0000

I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of high school class reunion websites. I suppose that’s because classes only have one reunion a year. Why bother with a website – and who’ll pay for it?

Nevertheless, since I graduated from Grand Haven High School, there have been fifty other graduating classes. You’d think someone in some of those classes would be interested in putting up a site and maintaining it just as a hobby. You can do that these days for less than the cost of dinner for two, or a tank of gas. And unlike those two pastimes, tinkering around with a Class Reunion website can provide hours of entertainment and fun. Besides that, as the “Class Webmaster,” (albeit self-appointed) you’d probably get a seat at the head table – right up there with the Class President, Secretary, and all those former “preppies” who snubbed you in the old days.

I hate ClassMates.Con (oops! – I meant “.Com,” of course). They keep sending me messages about all my old classmates who are eager to check out my profile and get together, with invitations to come to the site and see who they are. Then when I go there they meet me at my home page with their hand out – pimping their site with a “Choose Gold!” button. They’ll tell me who “Friend X” is and let us get together for $59 – their “best value.”

Best value? I’m dubious. I can do a lot better than that over on the corner of Hall and Division in Grand Rapids. And I’d even get to see the merchandise first. And, she’d probably even lie to me and tell me I was “hot” for an old guy.

So, I thought a good way to pimp my books might be to build a class reunion website template and give it away for free. The catch is that in order to go live with it, a person would be smart to read Chapter 9 of my book Solutions for Secretaries of Small NPO’s, but then, you can read that for free on Google if you can stand reading books on a screen. I don’t like to do that, and I hope others hate it too, and will therefore decide to pop for the price of the book (hint: it's discounted at amazon.com, barns&noble.com, etc.) Even if they don’t, they’ll maybe stumble across my author/publisher website, so my small but growing library might get a little exposure.

My class reunion website is Spartan and “user friendly.” Rather than cluck about all its virtues, I’ll just point you towards my real, live online example – www.ghhs58.org. Go there and browse around, and if that encourages you to put up a similar site for your class, the link to the freebie is at the bottom right-hand side of the GHHS58 home page. You’ll find the download in the SfS site’s “Examples/Downloads” area. Inside the downloaded ZIP file you’ll find a README text that’ll get you started and walk you thorough the process up to the point of launch.

C’mon – give it a shot. If you’re smart enough to get here and read this, you know all you have to know to handle the project. Quite whining and making excuses. Just do it!

-=glw=-

Book Helps Small Nonprofits Build Better Images

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:16:00 +0000

A guide for nonprofit corporate secretaries and administrative assistants. Learn how to build a first class image on a third rate budget.

GRAND HAVEN, MI--AUGUST 20, 2007-- A new comprehensive guidebook for volunteer secretaries of small nonprofit organizations provides solutions for the dilemma that often stymies small organizations; while little money can be allocated for administrative functions and image-building, weakness in these areas restrains success and growth by limiting volunteer interest and fundraising effectiveness.

Solutions for Secretaries of Small NPO's covers everything from how to form a nonprofit corporation and receive IRS recognition without expensive professional assistance, to governance and parliamentary best practices, fundraising, membership recruitment and retention, volunteer recruitment, and practical approaches to the development of low cost but highly effective desktop publishing and graphics arts capabilities.

The SfS guide is supported by a companion website, with an extensive collection of free downloads, including templates for documents and forms, layouts for desktop publishing projects such as newsletters, patterns for graphic arts projects, and even a fully developed membership database application. The website also hosts a forum where readers can discuss issues and share ideas with the author and each other.

Author Gene Warner has worked as a self-trained, self-employed electronics engineer/entrepreneur for over thirty years. Having also served on boards and committees of small nonprofit organizations, he lends his experience as a practical and resourceful innovator to show how these small groups can more effectively leverage their limited financial and experiential resources.

Solutions for Secretaries of Small NPO's
ISBN: 978-0-9797896-1-8
www.boysmindbooks.com/sfs/

Michigan's Historic Manitou Passage - Charming New Book Tells It's Story

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0000

An Indefinitive History of the Settlement of Northeast Lake Michigan

GRAND HAVEN, MI--AUGUST 20, 2007-- 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."

Author Gene Warner began life in the Manitou Passage, on South Manitou Island, and ancestor of original settler immigrants. Husband, father, grandfather, engineer, business owner, author, and publisher, his works include visitor guides, historical sketches, nonprofit management guides, and practical self-improvement books.

The Manitou Passage Story - An Indefinitive History of the Settlement of Northeast Lake Michigan
ISBN: 978-0-9797896-0-1
www.boysmindbooks.com/tmps/

A Psychological Self-Improvement Book for Boys

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Troubled boys become unsuccessful and unhappy men. Any boy can learn how to keep that from happening.

Grand Haven, MI -- July 30, 2008 -- Happiness and success in life depend on something nobody teaches a boy anything about - his mind. Most of the time brains just free-run, doing whatever they want with the inputs they receive, and taking us wherever they happen to drift, which often turns out to be places we would rather not be. Instead of letting an out-of-control brain be his master - a "monster" that constantly works against him - a boy can decide to take control, making his mind think rationally and constructively to provide a highly successful, abundantly happy and richly rewarding life.

That is the premise of the newly published "Mind Over Monster," a psychological self-improvement book intended for boys age ten and up. The book presents a practical approach to understanding what the mind is and how it works, how emotional and personality problems naturally result as a boy grows up, and how they can easily be overcome. It doesn't shy away from sensitive but important issues such as family, sex and religion, offering insights that might prove controversial among some factions, but which face up to the practical realities boys must deal with while becoming men in today's real world. Written in a conversational style, these frank conversations are liberally illustrated with real accounts from the author's own life experiences.

Author Gene Warner is a husband, father, grandfather, engineer, business owner, author, and publisher. His works include visitor guides, historical sketches, nonprofit management guides, and practical self-improvement books.

Mind Over Monster - Psychological Self-Improvement for Boys
ISBN: 978-0-9797896-2-5
www.boysmindbooks.com/mom/

Word 2002 Hyphenation Error

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Sat, 24 May 2008 18:11:00 +0000

"Word cannot find the hyphenation file mshyph2.dll or mshy32.dll for ."

After working on a manuscript for several months in Microsoft Word 2002, this error message began to pop up whenever the document was opened. I thought it was just another ~!@#$%^&*()_+ Microsoft "issue," since hyphenation was evidently working just fine.

Googling the error message — my usual strategy for finding solutions for such nuisances — I found several referances to the problem, but no solutions that actually worked. A few weeks after having given up, I decided to have another shot at figuring out what was going on.

It turned out that Word was actually doing the right thing.

The only installed language in my setup was "English (US)" and I had enabled "Automatically hyphenate document" and "Detect Language Automatically." The manuscript did have a few foreign language words scattered about, so I suppose Word was trying to figure out what they were, and when it so happened that one of them wound up too close to the right margin, it wanted to hyphenate it, but had two problems. It couldn't figure out what the language was, so wasn't able to come up with any hyphenation file for it — hence the missing attribute at the end of the error message. What began to clue me is was that when I got into the registry and changed the pointer to the existing "mshyph2.dll" file, the error message that then popped up said, "Word cannot find the hyphenation file mshyph2.dll or mshy32.dll for English(U.S.)."

Having no need to deal with any language other than English(U.S.), I did this in Word:

• Turned off automatic language detection — uncheck "Tools > Language > Set Language... > Detect Language Automatically"

• Selected the entire manuscript and marked it as "English(U.S.) — "Tools > Language > Set Language... > Mark selected text as: > English(U.S.)"

• Changed the "normal.dot" template so these settings would be applied automatically to future documents — "Tools > Language > Set Language... > Default... > "Do you want to ..." > Yes.

I've never seen the hyphenation error message since.

Book Review: The Mythmaker, Paul and the Invention of Christianity - Hyam Maccoby

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 02:28:00 +0000

Case Dismissed for Lack of Evidence

It is true. Most of the conclusions this book offers about the origins of the "Jerusalem Church," the Roman Christian Church and Paul of Tarsus, are actually intuitive assumptions and speculations based upon circumstantial evidence and hearsay. Hyam Maccoby's case would therefore be thrown out of court, or dismissed by any other professional fact-finding panel.

This is the argument usually resorted to by Maccoby's critics and, as a matter of fact, they're quite right. His book actually "proves" nothing. However, this argument fails simply because the same can be said for any book written about the origins of the Christian faith, regardless of its author's purpose.

How pleasant it must be for fundamentalists who understand the Holy Bible as the literal and unquestionable word of God, given to us through inspired writers. Everyone else has to struggle with faith, drawing conclusions by reading between lines and parsing obscure passages originally written in the archaic vernacular and unfamiliar language of some ancient culture. Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote anything. Neither did anyone else, for the most part - no newspapers, magazines or books, not much in the way of carefully documented and archived official records. Therefore, the only research materials available are the scant offerings of people who usually wrote for a targeted audience, and without the journalistic or secretarial scruples we now understand as appropriate to such efforts. We therefore do Bible studies, peruse Bible commentaries, and read books like this one, attempting to figure out what we believe and why, never finding any truth, because there is none to find.

Most of us are persuaded by the religion of our birth; I am no exception. As Christian children, we are taught the fundamentals. I was no exception to that either. While fundamentalism suffices for children, increasing age and experience is likely to bring a decreasing willingness to accept the nebulous and obscure explanations traditionally offered for various aspects of our faith. Frankly, I began to think that some of it, including even the sacraments, was poppycock - hocus-pocus that Jesus himself might have found strange, irrelevant and/or inappropriate.

I admit that I was therefore favorably disposed towards Maccoby's book from the very beginning. In it, I found confirmation of my surmise that what we call "Christianity" is really based more upon what Paul thought than what Jesus taught. Whatever else he was, Hyam Maccoby was a highly respected scholar with impressive credentials. His intuitive assumptions and speculations therefore cannot be dismissed out of hand as the work of some charlatan, religious kook or bitter Jew. Furthermore, his explanations and ideas seem quite plausible in light of our understandings of human nature, politics, and the way things usually work out in the real world.

In this respect, Maccoby is a problem only for bible-believing fundamentalists and mainline churches intent on rigidly adhering to sixteenth century theology. A thoughtful reader is likely to finish the book wondering if the time has come for another reformation, this time to sort out the Paul vs. Jesus questions, towards developing a faith that makes sense to intelligent, thinking adults. Ideas that cannot stand this kind of review are not worth holding on to, since they are bound to fail us in times of trials and troubles. To this extent, Maccoby's work is of great value to serious Christians.

The express purpose of this book, however, is not to defame Paul of Tarsus or debunk the Christian faith, but to show how and why Paul's invention created anti-Semitism, vaguely hinting that Christian anti-Semitism was ultimately responsible for the holocaust. It is not his first attempt. In other works, he dances around the same accusation, without ever coming right out with it.

I do not buy Maccoby's "Christ-killers" explanation for anti-Semitism. By kicking that dead horse, I'd say he exhibits a very poor understanding of what practical Christians really think about. My religious upbringing taught that some Jewish higher-ups in Jerusalem were complicit with the Roman government in an affair that was otherwise mainly political and Roman. We were more apt to attribute that complicity to the usual corruption of people in high places, rather than to Judaism as a whole. Having said that, I must also admit that one of the things I have always found somewhat confusing is that while Christians are taught to revere the Old Testament's Israel as the foundation of our faith, the New Testament's Jews seem to somehow become the bad guys.

After reading Maccoby's arguments, I am willing to consider the possibility that a generally negative attitude, which I am not sure rises to the level of anti-Semitism, arises from the various defamatory comments about the Jews, which appear here and there in the New Testament. Maccoby lays the direct or indirect responsibility for these on Paul's doorstep. To that extent, his assertions seem to have merit.

However, I cannot remember ever encountering anyone, even among the most zealous radicals, who found in any of that reason enough for Christians to hate Jews. Like everyone else, I learned about what had happened to European Jews at the hands of the Nazis shortly after World War II ended, but I never heard of "anti-Semitism" until age fifteen, when a traveling lecturer speaking at a school assembly explained the meaning of the word "restricted," as used on signs in front of real estate developments.

Through common sense, practical people understand that there are always two sides to every story. For the case in point, it seems obvious that any group seeming to have a "better than thou" attitude is likely to encounter some backlash. Claiming a preferential status in the eyes of God, a reluctance to socialize outside their particular faith or ethnic group, discouraging offspring from marrying "outsiders", being quick to remind others of their particular faith or ethnicity whatever the occasion, and maintaining an allegiance to a country and culture other than the one they are sharing with their present countrymen - these are good ways to distance one's self from others.

This is not "anti" anything. It is, for better or for worse, just human nature. During my life, where I live, I have seen the same negative attitude arise with respect to others, and for the same reasons: the Christian Reformed Dutch ("Holanders"), the Catholic Polish ("Polacks") and the Catholic Bohemians ("Bo-hunks"). This accompanied the arrival of nineteenth century immigrants, lasted for a generation or two, after which the ethnic and religious differences giving rise to these feelings faded away, and the discriminatory feelings were gradually forgotten.

Maccoby does not address this reality at all. In view of that, one can only conclude that his opinion was that the sole source of anti-Semitism was Paul and the Christian religion he "invented." That, unfortunately, discredits the quality of his thinking by revealing as underlying bias.

Were it not for this, I would give this work a five-star rating. As it is, I give it a one-star rating for Jewish readers, since its premise is mostly invalid, and it probably will not otherwise teach them anything they do not already know.

For Christian readers, however, I think it merits at least a four-star rating, the above notwithstanding - the reason being that the book includes a lot of historical and other background information that has significant value as part of a well-rounded program of religious study and spiritual growth.

-=glw=-

Dissolution of the Air Force -- A Nuclear Non-Proliferation Doctrine

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:05:00 +0000

In a brief blog at The American Prospect called "Abolish the Air Force," Robert Farley, a 33-year old assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky has taken up a cause that has become rather familiar. This was noted with much consternation by Military.Com and elsewhere. In response to invitations to comment, including Dr. Farley’s, I respectfully submit these thoughts.

The fundamental mission of the USAF has always been strategic bombing. That capability was the province of SAC, the once prestigious Strategic Air Command. Other combat commands of the Cold War era, such as TAC and ADC were, more or less, “mission impaired,” having no realistic or urgent imperative.

SAC played a major, perhaps even pivotal, role in bringing the Cold War to an end, as our primary means of implementing a strategy of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” aptly also referred to as "MAD." ICBM’s fitted with nuclear warheads were awesome and intimidating, however up to the end of the Cold War we still relied on SAC’s B-32 bombers. Although not very well known, during those years the United States kept an armada of B-52’s in the air 24-hours a day, each of which carried two nuclear weapons and sealed war orders with Soviet target designations. This presented a sobering reality to anyone watching a radar screen on the other side of the Iron Curtain. A preemptive first strike strategy was clearly out of the question. Happily, a nuclear exchange never happened.

The effectiveness of this program, variously code-named "Steel Trap,” “Chrome Dome,” etc., was demonstrated during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The airborne B-52 armada was much multiplied to back up the newly articulated “Kennedy Doctrine,” which effectively neutered any threat of missiles in Cuba, turning that Soviet initiative into a complete waste of time and money.

The efficacy of MAD was therefore tested and proven during the Cold War. It accomplished what it was supposed to; obviating the use of nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cold War abruptly ended and SAC’s forty-year mission was accomplished. There was much euphoria and magical thinking about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, and a year later the command was dissolved. Now, sixteen years later, it seems obvious that the world will never beat its nuclear swords into plowshares. Much as we fussed about North Korea, that tinhorn regime still went ahead and evidently now has a nuclear military capability. The target of our tantrums is now Iran. However, it is unlikely that Iran can be deterred or legitimately prevented from joining the nuclear club so long as Israel, Pakistan and other nearby neighbors are permitted to maintain an offensive nuclear capability.

The present realities are these: (1) Iran cannot be prevented from going nuclear, and will probably soon have a nuclear military capability, (2) a terrorist organization with money and connections will eventually get their hands on a nuclear device, with aims of using it for its own radical and misguided purposes, and (3) so long as all we want to do is throw tantrums, there will continue to be a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the new owners of these worrisome devices will be increasingly less principled, trustworthy, and politically sophisticated. In these circumstances, are we so sure it is time to think about permanently relegating the U.S. Air Force and the MAD strategy to history? I suggest just the opposite.

I suggest it is time for the United States of America to enunciate a new doctrine, declaring that a nuclear attack on anyone, anywhere in the world, will most assuredly result, without exception, in the total destruction of the regime in the country from which it was carried out, inevitably accompanied by collateral destruction in their country at least the equal of that resulting from their attack on someone else. This would make the possession of nuclear weapons by legitimate governments irrelevant by reducing their offensive, defensive and political worth to zero.

It would also greatly reduce the threat of such devices coming into the hands of terrorists, since governments surreptitiously or passively hosting or accommodating terrorist movements would become liable for terrorist missions planned, or carried out from, within their borders. Governments otherwise willing to host or accommodate terrorist movements would clearly have to conclude that the risk of terrorists obtaining and using a nuclear device were much too great, and would be moved to prevent that from ever happening. Moreover, the most expedient way to avoid that risk would be to prevent such groups from operating within one’s borders at all.

Some might then ask, “Who designated the United States as the world’s policeman, and the only nation permitted to maintain nuclear weapons.” I believe this role could be justified in two ways.

Just before his death, Dr. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, was prompted to leave a better legacy by a French newspaper article describing him as “the merchant of death … who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.” He quickly revised his will, giving the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prizes – awards given to “those who … shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” In a like manner, the United States of America, the inventor of the atomic bomb – the world’s first “weapon of mass destruction” – is behooved and rightly obligated to take upon itself the responsibility of preventing its further use.

Secondly, in spite of our recent departures from these values and virtues, the United States of America is still seen as the closest man has come so far to the establishment of “liberty, and justice for all.” All people, everywhere, have a right to liberty, peace and prosperity, and freedom from the threat of death and destruction of war. It is right for the United States of America to continue championing this truth, that this hope may endure in the hearts of even the most tyrannized and oppressed.

While visiting Offutt Air Force Base several years ago, the former headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, I noticed several people wearing caps and tee shirts bearing the slogan, “SAC Will Be Back.” That was cute and nostalgic, but might also have been prophetic. Whether implemented by manned aircraft, long range missiles or from orbiting satellites, a SAC-like entity would be needed to support the doctrine suggested above. Because of its unique mission and awful responsibility, and the need for world trust, this entity should not be an integral part of our regular combat military – the Army, Navy or Marine Corps – but rather, a separate service with a unique and highly specific mission. This was essentially the description the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command at the end of the Cold War.

The day might come when economic disparities and philosophical differences dissolve, leading the world into an era of cooperation and lasting peace. That situation is nowhere within the future anyone now living can realistically anticipate. I therefore suggest that the legitimate interests of world peace and self-protection will inevitably engender the eventual adoption of a nuclear non-proliferation doctrine such as described above, and when that happens we will already have the means of implementing it, provided that the Air Force is maintained as a separate service.

Talk about its dissolution at this time is therefore premature and ill advised.

-=glw=-

More Idiocracy - Michigan to Ban Pier Jumping?

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:50:00 +0000

Michigan has lots of lakes, rivers and streams for people to enjoy on hot summer days. Anyone who was ever a kid understands why kids like to jump off things into the water. Here in Grand Haven, kids have been "cannonballing" into Lake Michigan off the local pier probably ever since the pier was built. But a bill recently passed in Michigan's Senate would make such jumps illegal, at least from public piers and structures along the Great Lakes and connecting waters.

Senate Bill 629, which supposedly arose as a result of meetings among officials in communities along Lake Michigan in the wake of recent drownings, would "prohibit a person from jumping, diving, or swimming from a pier, jetty, breakwater or other similar structure, or a buoy or other navigational device, that was located in the Great Lakes or their connecting waters." The bill passed the Senate on October 17, 2007 by a 35-2 vote, and was then sent to the House. If it becomes law, those jumps and dives will be punished by a fine of as much as $500.

Here is a hot flash for Lansing - Michigan has some big problems, and this is not one of them. Have you checked the unemployment figures lately? Have you driven on our rickety roads and streets lately? How about the drop-out rates from our crummy schools? Have you given any thought to the opportunities available for our maturing children, or how they'll be able to make ends meet when married with children?

I'm tired of our lazy-minded Legislature passing lame, unnecessary laws. How did you find time to debate this issue in the midst of your "budget crisis"? The Senate's vote, 35-2, is a clear indication of how much thought anyone put into this before deciding the issue. Moreover, who is doing the deciding anyway? Does anyone in the Senate have any idea what "pier jumping" really is? Have any of you ever done that, or even been out on a pier to watch what's going on?

I have. I have lived on the lakeshore all my life (67 years). Pier jumping is great fun and a wholesome activity for kids, who usually appear to be in the twelve to sixteen year age range. I suppose it happens, but I have never heard on anyone being injured or drowning while doing that. On the other hand, people do drown off the pier, but they're usually older, and either fall off or are washed over the edge in bad weather.

As for kids drowning, we loose an average of one kid a month during the summer season, usually a ten to fourteen-year-old boy from the interior or from out of state, at our bathing beaches. I don't suppose Grand Haven is unique in that respect, so given all the beaches around the state, that's a lot of dead boys and sad families. I would guess that is a much more significant problem. So why not pass a law forbidding swimming and bathing off publicly owned beaches?

Better yet, how about just passing a law against drowning. That would cover the whole gamut. It would also be typical of the depth of thinking that we have come to expect out of Lansing.

Lansing needs to understand that government does not need to address every piddling little problem found in society. You are there to work on the big problems. I suspect that the delving into these piddling little issues is really just a form of escapism practiced by a legislature that is not capable of addressing big problems effectively.

Thoughts on “Foreign Aid” and “Mission”

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:35:00 +0000

(Note: this was written in response to a note from a pen pal in India.)

Your interest in promoting assistance for your compatriots from foreign sources brought a couple of issued to mind.

When I was a young schoolboy, we used to receive a little publication called the Weekly Reader It was designed to promote an interest in reading, and to help develop reading skills. Among other features, it included articles about current events, and one title that has always stuck in my mind was Trade – Not Aid. This was in the early 1950’s, and the point being made in the article was that people in countries who were receiving “foreign aid,” which was a political issue here at the time, did not want handouts. They wanted assistance in rebuilding their infrastructures and economies so that they would be able to support themselves and determine their own destinies.

Today, the U.S. Government spends a lot of money on various aid programs, although much less than the post WW-II/Cold War era, and what is distributed amounts to just a miniscule fraction of our government’s annual budget. Unfortunately, the largest portion of that aid involves military assistance and the fostering of political self-interest – money spent to buy and retain friends, in other words. The largest benefactor is always Israel (currently excepting Iraq). India is no longer on the list of leading aid recipients.

Mainline Christian denominations are big on “mission,” which is their euphemism for charity. A lot of money is collected and distributed to causes at home, and around the world. Perhaps nobody knows exactly how much. I was unable to find a figure, but I estimate it is somewhere in the area of $800-million (estimated by multiplying total Presbyterian spending by the ratio of PCUSA membership to total mainline church membership). This amounts to only about $6.75 per member. Unfortunately, much of that is wasted on projects that are ineffective, inefficient, or inappropriate. In the case of the Presbyterian church, upwards of 75% of the money is spent on personnel, support and administrative costs – almost exactly the opposite of what is ordinarily considered to be an acceptable program spending ratio by most charitable organizations.

I was brought up in a protestant Christian tradition, in the Presbyterian Church. Like any other religion, Christianity has its moderates and its zealots. Presbyterians have traditionally been on the moderate end of the spectrum, emphasizing mission (good works and charity) and education as an appropriate way of carrying on the work begun by Jesus Christ. Christ’s agenda was to bring hope for a better life, now and in the hereafter, to common people, and He worked to that end in his time by teaching and healing. Hence, Presbyterians have gone out into the world to build schools and hospitals, rather than to preach and proselytize.

Mission is legitimate and effective when it helps people become capable of helping themselves. Otherwise it is often just an easy give-away which permits the more fortunate to justify their affluence without getting their hands dirty, while the rest of the world continues to suffer. Mission done right is not simple or easy. Ineffective and inappropriate projects therefore often result, with the well-intentioned, but misguided rushing in with temporary assistance of some kind, which does nothing to solve systemic problems. Eventually the recipients are left in the same poor condition, while the givers walk away feeling good about themselves.

Several years ago the World Council of Churches got into trouble for providing aid (money, food, and medical supplies) to people in Africa who turned out to be murderous rebels. That is an (admittedly extreme) example of "feel good" mission that has no good result.

A more typical example of wasting mission resources is the annual trip to Mexico that involves teenagers from our local church. Traveling across the country to a small village in Mexico, they reopen and repair a small derelict church building while befriending the local Mexican youth. For the Mexican kids, this has evidently turned into a festival of sorts; a time when they expect the gringos and gringas from America to show up to host parties, play games and pass out gifts. The price they pay is having to listen to American kids witness and preach. The reality is that Mexico is predominately catholic with a much stronger family oriented culture than ours, so Mexican youth could probably better be teaching the American kids about things that matter. After the American’s leave, the Mexican’s close up the building, permitting it to fall into a state of neglect again in preparation for next year’s event, and life in their little village returns to normal. Our kids come back home clucking to the congregation about all the wonderful things that happened in Mexico, while the congregation pats itself on the back for yet another contribution to mission. As a cultural exchange or encounter, this activity probably has merit, and it should probably be billed as such, rather than thought of as a mission project.

On the other hand, our local church helps support a man who felt he was called to go to Haiti to help the poor. His first project was to teach rural peasants how to build simple concrete water filters. That cost very little, and had a big impact upon disease. More recently he came up with a program where a $40 donation enables a peasant boy to establish his own small plantation, which will provide enough income over the years to pay for twelve years of schooling. This may not be a big deal in a global sense, but it is a big deal to the people of this small mountain region in Haiti. This man paid a significant personal price for the privilege of helping others. He devoted his own money and material to what began as his personal project. He gave up all the opportunities he would have had in his own country. He gave up the safety and security of his American home to take up his work in a risky, politically unsettled and relatively lawless place. He contracted a chronic form malaria, which evidently never really goes away. On the plus side, he also eventually met, fell in love with and married a fine Haitian woman.

Our church is small; only about 1200 members, all of whom are fortunate enough to have $40 to contribute to mission. If each small affluent group were to support a similarly small but effective mission, the world would soon become a better place for many.

***

As a footnote, I hasten to add this:

I am not trying to promote Christianity or the Presbyterian Church. I am not a student of religion, but am intelligent enough to understand that all religions have good and bad aspects, and that we are what we are mainly by virtue of the culture we are born into. My ancestors came to America as immigrants from Norway and Germany, and were therefore of the Christian tradition. Not surprisingly, our family was originally part of the German Evangelical Lutheran persuasion. My father was in the U.S. Coast Guard, a military service. After World War II, he was reassigned to a life saving station in Grand Haven, a small town on Lake Michigan that was originally founded by a Presbyterian missionary. As has been the Presbyterian tradition, the missionary quickly built a one-room schoolhouse, recruiting his sister-in-law as the volunteer teacher. In this town therefore, the Presbyterian Church was understandably prominent, and that is how we happened to become involved with that particular church.

We remain Presbyterians mainly because:

The denomination is liberal enough to recognize the equal legitimacy of other denominations and other faiths. That is unusual, most other traditions think that they must believe in the exclusive validity of whatever it is that they believe, and must therefore believe that everyone else is wrong. Today we are rediscovering scientifically and philosophically what wise people of old easily knew as a matter of common sense - that human minds are imperfect and our thinking on any subject is therefore fallible. Zealotry in any matter is therefore the mark of an ignorant person. Presbyterian doctrine is the only one I know of among the god-fearing faiths that acknowledges this fact of life. The alternative, which is to claim infallibility and insist that everyone else accept whatever such zealots claim to be "the truth" has a long history of destructiveness.

The other reason we are Presbyterian is that the denomination is governed democratically, rather than by a hierarchy of ordained clergy. Governing bodies include both lay members and ministers. A Book of Order, which is essentially a constitution, guarantees the rights of individuals, thereby limiting the power of any other individuals or factions, and assuring everyone of fair treatment, and a voice in the affairs of the church.

-=glw=-

"ADS" - The Obscure Cost of Urban Decay

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:35:00 +0000

I was in Warrensburg, Missouri a couple of weeks ago. Warrensburg is a small town of about 16,000. The town never had much of a history. It grew up on the frontier around Martin Warren's blacksmith shop, and eventually became the county seat.

Warrensburg was put on the map, as it were, during the latter part of the 19th century, when the newly formed Pacific Railroad replaced steamboats on the Missouri River as the carrier of choice for passengers and freight between St Louis and Kansas City. The rails through Warrensburg are still heavily trafficked, with several Amtrak and Union Pacific trains passing through town daily. A county normal teacher's training school evolved into today's Central Missouri State University (Dale Carnegie's alma mater). During World War II, Sedalia Army Airfield was established south of nearby Knob Noster ("Our Hills") and that became today's Whiteman Air Force Base, the home of a B-2 bomb wing, and one of the Air Force's larger installations.

Warrensburg is typical of many other small towns. It has some nice neighborhoods, and too many used-to-be-nice neighborhoods. The latter are a little more plentiful and unkempt than usual. I suspect that is because Warrensburg, the temporary home of lots of college students and Air Force personnel, has more than the usual numbers of residents who consider themselves non-residents. Like too many other small towns, Warrensburg also has lots of downtown storefronts and other commercial property that has obviously outlived its usefulness. Also present is the usual unsightly and slapdash distribution of bank branches, fast food joints and strip malls along all the main thoroughfares.

Hastings is a popular local seller of books, videos, music and games in Warrensburg. Their clientele is therefore youthful; teens to twenty-somethings. While sitting outside the store and people-watching as my wife and youngest daughter shopped inside, my observation was that the people coming and going matched the qualities of the town in general appearance. Except for two or three individuals in Air Force uniforms, I cannot remember seeing anyone who could be described as attractive and well dressed. On the whole, people seemed apt to be overweight, poorly groomed, and/or tastelessly dressed. Many were equally tasteless in behavior. I have gotten used to tattoos and piercing, although I still find those styles tacky, and the mark of the neurotic. However, I doubt I will ever see public nose picking, spitting, and "package adjustment" as kewl. I'm certainly no prude, but I am old enough (or should I say, mature enough) to find it objectionable when men utter the F-word ("fug-itit") in conversations loud enough to be overheard in a public setting, or when women utter even less vulgar expletives, such as the S-word (i.e., "she-it".)

In fairness, I must hasten to say this is not an indictment of Warrensburg, Missouri. I could have been people watching at a similar venue in my own hometown, or almost any other town. The only exceptions seem to be downtown office districts in larger cities. In those zones, the people on the street are apt to be professionals, or para-professional workers, who are obligated to pay attention to their personal appearance and demeanor. Being well groomed and dressing in the attire of a business executive seems to upgrade behavior in a way that is probably both unconscious and unintentional.

With that in mind, here's why I'm writing about this - I'm wondering about the relationship between our physical surroundings and our self-esteem. How much does living amongst crummy surroundings influence our personal perceptions about ourselves? Which comes first, the urban decay, or the crappy attitudes?

America is suffering from epidemic neuroticism. That manifests itself in lots of different ways, all anti-social and self-defeating; personality problems, divorce, delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, terrorism, war, and more. These things are much studied, written about and discussed. All sorts of solutions and fixes are proposed, but they all ultimately fail, because they attempt to eliminate the superficial symptoms, rather than the cure underlying disease.

Neuroticism results from low self-esteem. Therefore, by common sense we can easily and safely postulate that the most common and costly disease in America today is low self-esteem. That probably sounds too simplistic for most people to embrace. People seem to prefer being diagnosed with something that sounds more mysterious or sinister, and do not like to be referred to as neurotic ("nut cases"), I am going to coin a new name for this condition. I will refer to it as ADS, meaning, "Acquired Disesteem Syndrome."

Ohmigod! Millions of our fellow Americans are afflicted with ADS! Whatever can we do to stop this terrible scourge?

When it comes to urban decay, the "one bad apple" adage often applies. However, the reverse also works. When just one neighbor cleans up and fixes up, it makes everyone feel just a little bit better about where they live, and that good feeling is very often what instigates a contagion. Without any government or community action, master plan, or any other sort of "big deal," things slowly but surely get better.

ADS is certainly a more malignant and insidious threat to our nation than drugs or terrorism. We Americans apparently love wars. Whenever there is a problem, we like to declare war on it. Let us start one we can win for a change - a "War On ADS."

We can start this new war without firing a shot or spending a penny. Clean up your room. Mow the grass. Pick up the junk. You'll feel better about yourself. Spend a little money an move on to fix up and paint projects. The neighbors will soon get on board, then the whole town. Everyone will begin feeling better as they drive around town and see things looking up. With a little money and volunteer help, you can do bigger things corporately - perhaps launching a "Habitat for Humanity In Reverse" program, removing junk and derelict structures from property that can be cleared and perhaps someday repurposed, but which in the meanwhile can abide as clean, open space. Pride might happen!

Look around the place you live. Will you say, "Oh, what's the use; this neighborhood (or town) is the pits! My neighbors are all pigs. To hell with it. I'll soon be moving on to greener pastures; then they can have this dump."

Maybe you will be moving on someday; and maybe you won't. One way to help ensure that your future will be brighter in any case is to do something to improve your self-esteem right now.

You got it. Get your rear end off that couch and get out there.

-=glw=-

Promotion Via the World Wide Wild - USENET News Groups

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 05:29:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:09:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (BoysMind) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:38:00 +0000

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 
============================================= 
43Things | username::password | <a href="http://www.43things.com/person/genwar">login</a> 
... etc ... 
Zaadz | username::password| <a href="http://www.zaadz.com/genwar">login</a> 
  
  

</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=-]