"The Price of Civilization"

Thad G., a high school classmate from our days in Wichita, KS, recommended a book to me, The Price of Civilization - Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by economist, Jeffrey D. Sachs.  I reserved the book at the library and took ten days to read it.

In my opinion, Mr. Sachs did an outstanding job of describing what went wrong with America.  His suggestions for the changes that will be necessary to fix the mess are well thought out.

Here are three quotes from the book.

• In fiscal year 2011, the federal government covered around 39 percent of its spending, roughly $1.4 trillion of $3.6 trillion, by borrowing.  (p. 209)
• There is no way to increase the scale of government if the government remains as incompetent and corrupt as it is today. (p. 210)
• The quality of life is deteriorating because we refuse to pay for the public goods needed for civilized society. (p. 211)

I posted that I read the book to both, weRead and LibraryThing.

Mr. Dickie

17 January 2012

Closing The Year

For Auld Lang Syne - BBC Symphony

Closing The Year

This is the day on which another year closes.  It is a good time for a quiet, honest look at our personal progress.  Has it been a good year, better than those which came before?  Has following your day-by-day spiritual program brought you more serenity and acceptance of yourself, the unique individual you are?

If you have regrets for errors or omissions, review them quickly and dismiss them.  In the new year, which lies ahead, there will be no time for futile regrets.

Resolve to live the coming year, one day at a time.  Whatever comes, meet it with a serene mind.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God."  (Romans)
(after One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 31 December)

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity 

to accept the things I cannot change; 

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; 

Enjoying one moment at a time; 

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it; 

Trusting that He will make all things right 

if I surrender to His Will; 

That I may be reasonably happy in this life 

and supremely happy with Him 

Forever in the next. 

Amen.

Reinhold Niebuhr

2011 Reading Program

This morning I finished reading twelve books which were part of my 2011 daily reading program.  In all I read twenty-five books this year. There were four other books on my reading list that I set aside and didn't complete. I also skimmed a number of books on computer subjects, Windows 7 in particular, that I checked out of the county library.

I maintained two lists of the books I was reading.  I used the weRead application which I set up to work with Facebook.  On my own computer I created a file with the CSVed program.  Last night I extracted the following list of books read from the CSV file.  I also set the "Read It" switch for all twenty-five books on weRead and "tagged" each one with the tag "2011."  This was the first time I'd used tags with weRead.  I was pleased that it allowed me to easily find the books read in 2011.  I'm going to use LibraryThing to track the books I'm reading in 2012.  I've already selected the books and done some of the work to set up the two files I'll use to track my reading program.

1. Andrews, Andy - The Noticer
2. Anonymous - In God's Care
3. Anonymous - One Day At A Time In Al-Anon
4. Anonymous (Casey and Vanceburg) - The Promise of a New Day
5. Barclay, William - The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians
6. Barclay, William - The Letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon
7. Barclay, William - The Letter to the Hebrews
8. Case, Steve - Everything Counts
9. Copage, Eric V. - Black Pearls
10. Dyer, Wayne W. - Wisdom of the Ages
11. Franken, Al - Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them
12. Graham, Billy - Hope For Each Day
13. Hughes, Selwyn  and Thomas Kinkade - Every Day Light
14. Kushner, Harold - To Life!
15. Larsen, Earnie and Carol Hegarty - Believing In Myself
16. Magee, Mike - A Book of Choices
17. Martin, Iain C. - Worthy of Their Esteem
18. O'Toole, Ph.D., Mary Ellen - Dangerous Instincts
19. Rice, Helen Steiner - A Collection of Blessings
20. Rice, Helen Steiner - From The Heart
21. Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
22. Tolle, Eckhart - A New Earth
23. Tolstoy, Leo - The Gospel In Brief
24. Various Authors - Daily Guideposts - 2009
25. Wiersbe, Warren W- Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary

Mr. Dickie's Blog

Thanks to everyone who took an interest in Mr. Dickie's Blog in 2011 on NetworkedBlogs, Facebook or Google.  I hope that once in a while I posted something that caused you: 

• to think, 
• to smile, 
• to laugh.
• to learn.

It's my intention to continue posting to this blog and my Arrow Prayers blog on a daily basis in 2012.  I hope you'll find my efforts worthy of taking some of your time to see what's on my mind.

Happy New Year 

2012

Mr. Dickie

31 December 2011

Books and Reading

I quote others in order to better express my own self. (Montaigne in The Book of Choices by Mike Magee, Introduction page)

******

For a number of years I've pursued an annual reading program. The idea is to select a stack of books I want to read at the beginning of the year and then read a page each day from all of the books in the stack. This works particularly well when the books selected are designed for daily devotional or spiritual reading. All books with 365 pages are finished on the same day, December 31st. Shorter books are finished at various times during the year.

In 2010 I used a free program, CSVEd, to maintain a file of the books I planned to read and to record the completion date for each one. I'm going to use the same program again in 2011. Here's a list of the nineteen books, including a few carry-overs, I selected to read, output from the program.

• Andrews, Andy - The Noticer
• Anonymous - One Day At A Time In Al-Anon
• Barclay, William - The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians
• Case, Steve - Everything Counts
• Graham, Billy - Hope For Each Day
• Hughes, Selwyn & Thomas Kinkade - Every Day Light
• Larsen, Earnie & Carol Hegarty - Believing In Myself
• Magee, Mike - A Book of Choices
• Rice, Helen Steiner - From The Heart
• Rice, Helen Steiner - A Collection of Blessings
• Schucman, Helen and William Thetford - A Course in Miracles
• Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
• Tolle, Eckhart A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
• Tolstoy, Leo - The Gospel In Brief
• Various Authors - The Upper Room Disciplines - 2003
• Various Authors - The Upper Room Disciplines - 2008
• Various Authors - Daily Guideposts - 2009
• Wiersbe, Warren W. - Chapter-By-Chapter Bible Commentary

I'm using the weRead application, in conjunction with Facebook, to record all of the books I've read over a period of years as well as the books I plan to read this year. When I post information about a book to weRead I can also have the information posted to my Facebook Wall.

I encourage all friends and relatives to spend some of your spare time this year exploring the wonderful experience of reading books.

Mr. Dickie
1/Jan/2011 13:47

Tomorrow

(Photo: Mr. Dickie - Smithsonian Postal Museum, Washington, DC, 30 Dec 2010)

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. (Matthew 6:34 (RSV) in Daily Guideposts -1990, 29 December)

******

This morning I finished reading twelve books that I have been reading since the first of January. I read one page a day from each book. Three of the books were Daily Guidepost books. With the completion of these three I have read every Daily Guideposts book published except for the 2009 and 2010 volumes. I own a copy of the 2009 volume which I intend to read in 2011. I'll be on the lookout for a used copy of the 2010 volume. On my computer I maintained a little file (CSV format) of the books I was reading in 2010. I'll be posting the "date completed" to this file later on. I'll also be posting to my online weRead account that I finished these books. I already created a new reading list file on the computer for 2011 but I didn't post the titles to weRead yet.

Yesterday Cyndi and I took the Green and Red subway lines to Union Station. We went across the street to visit the Smithsonian Postal Museum for the first time. I purchased a sheet of twenty stamps, the Gulf Coast Lighthouses. I took quite a few photos. When I got home I used the camera to alter some of the pictures. I ended up with twenty-eight photos. Some are good and some not so good.

After we left the museum we walked up North Capitol Street for a block to the Government Printing Office. Cyndi went inside and asked them to contact our friend Keith O. who is on the police force. He came downstairs to meet us and then went with us to the food court at Union Station where we visited while Cyndi and I ate our lunch.

Mr. Dickie
31/Dec/2010 9:01

Principles

Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. There are positive consequences when we live in harmony with the principles. There are negative consequences when we ignore them. But because these principles apply to everyone, whether or not they are aware, this limitation is universal. And the more we know of correct principles, the greater is our personal freedom to act wisely. (Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 123)

• This morning there was an artcile in The Washington Post Business Section about the bankruptcy filing of Ritz Camera (the largest U.S. photography retailer) this past weekend. This store started in Atlantic City ninety-one years ago and is still held by the family. The headquarters is located in Beltsville, MD a few miles from our house. I have been in the headquarters store a few times in recent months. There are 800 stores in 40 states, 51 in the Washington, DC area. There are 6,424 employees. They are going to try to stay in business. After reading the article I have my doubts.
• This morning I realized that I should send a "suggest" a friend message to one of my new Facebook friends. That's a neat part of the Facebook experience. Yesterday several folks joined the "Class of '57" group. Next thing is to encourage them to post to "The Wall" and to the Discussion Board.
• Last night I brought up a stack of books from the basement and posted them to my weRead(IRead) account. My goal is to post 100 books. I won't have any trouble reaching that number. I've posted 79 so far. I tried to post all of the seven Harry Potter books. I don't own those so I have to do a little research to determine which ones I missed.
• I'm trying to understand how my Google Henthorn group works. There are certain aspects of it that I don't like. It seems difficult to let the visitors know what's in each of the files that are uploaded to the Files area. Perhaps I need to write a "Page" with file descriptions. Because I haven't made a lot of use of the group I seem to have forgotten what little I knew about it.
  

Mr. Dickie