This Blog Is Now A Book !

Yep, all 314 posts from March 6, 2008 to August 30, 2009 and the book ended up being 789 pages!

I produced the book for absolutely no cost…

I started with BlogBooker which downloaded the blog into a PDF file…

Then, I used Lulu to upload the PDF and convert it into a print-ready file, with color cover and all…

Lulu lets you add whatever royalty you want to their basic costs to print the book when someone orders it—Print-On-Demand…

Well…

Since the book was 789 pages, Lulu could only produce it as a hardback; and, since the blog (and now the book) has a picture for each post, it had to be a full-color book…

So, I only added $4.00 as a royalty…

You can download it at Lulu for $5.00 or order the full-color hardback for $177.80… Ridiculous, right?

Plus, the download is much better because you can click on all the links and they pop-up in your browser…

Just for the fun of it, and so you can see what one of Lulu’s sales pages looks like, here’s the link…

I suppose $177.80 for a 789-page full-color hardback is “reasonable” but I think the most important part of the whole process is that I took a blog and turned it into a book available for sale for not one penny!!

Also, I’d previously published a 305-page, black-and-white book in paperback (8.5×11) and their base cost to print was only $13.00…

Bottom-line:

Since, no matter how good this blog has been, no one should pay that much for it, you can download the book for free  right here… Since it’s a large book, give the file a few minutes to prepare itself for download…

Spiritual Quote:

“We have said in the past that one word hath the influence of spring and causeth hearts to become fresh and verdant, while another is like unto blight which causeth the blossoms and flowers to wither. God grant that authors among the friends will write in such a way as would be acceptable to fair-minded souls, and not lead to cavilling by the people.”
Bahá’u’lláh in the Compilation, Writers and Writing

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Are You *Really* Educated?

Yes! magazine is good for a lot of reasons…

One of the latest goodies on their site is a list of twelve things a really  educated person knows…

From the site: “You won’t find ‘takes honors classes’, ‘gets good grades’, or ‘attends only Ivy League schools’ on John Taylor Gatto’s list of qualities of an educated person.”

Do check out the full article but here are those points of real education:

1: Establish an individual set of values but recognize those of the surrounding community and of the various cultures of the world.

2: Explore their own ancestry, culture, and place.

3: Are comfortable being alone, yet understand dynamics between people and form healthy relationships.

4: Accept mortality, knowing that every choice affects the generations to come.

5: Create new things and find new experiences.

6: Think for themselves; observe, analyze, and discover truth without relying on the opinions of others.

7: Favor love, curiosity, reverence, and empathy rather than material wealth.

8: Choose a vocation that contributes to the common good.

9: Enjoy a variety of new places and experiences but identify and cherish a place to call home.

10: Express their own voice with confidence.

11: Add value to every encounter and every group of which they are a part.

12: Always ask: “Who am I? Where are my limits? What are my possibilities?”

Spiritual Quote:

“Bahá’u’lláh taught the Oneness of humanity; that is to say, all the children of men are under the mercy of the Great God. They are the sons of one God; they are trained by God. He has placed the crown of humanity on the head of every one of the servants of God. Therefore all nations and peoples must consider themselves brethren. They are all descendants from Adam. They are the branches, leaves, flowers and fruits of One Tree. They are pearls from one shell. But the children of men are in need of education and civilization, and they require to be polished, till they become bright and shining.

“Man and woman both should be educated equally and equally regarded.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá  in London, p. 28

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Youth In Danger

This post isn’t directly about the moral dangers our youth face, but a perusal of this Google search will deepen your understanding about that…

~~~

But, look at this couple: so youthfully together, so fresh with Life and promise! They could be dead in tragic moments from engaging in an activity that far too many do with no thought of danger—exuberance overcoming vigilance…

While I was Twittering, I followed a link to a very well-produced yet grippingly graphic public service video from Wales. Though texting while driving isn’t normally considered a moral issue, it’s consequences could lead to issues of high moral concern…

Show it to all the youth you know…

Spiritual Quote:

“…the dangers facing the modern youth are becoming increasingly grave, and call for immediate solution. But, as experience clearly shows, the remedy to this truly sad and perplexing situation is not to be found in traditional and ecclesiastical religion. The dogmatism of the church has been discarded once for all. What can control youth and save it from the pitfalls of the crass materialism of the age is the power of a genuine, constructive and living Faith such as the one revealed to the world by Bahá’u’lláh. Religion, as in the past, is still the world’s sole hope, but not that form of religion which our ecclesiastical leaders strive vainly to preach. Divorced from true religion, morals lose their effectiveness and cease to guide and control man’s individual and social life. But when true religion is combined with true ethics, then moral progress becomes a possibility and not a mere ideal.

“The need of our modern youth is for such a type of ethics founded on pure religious faith. Not until these two are rightly combined and brought into full action can there be any hope for the future of the race.”
From a letter Written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, April 17, 1926, Lights of Guidance, p. 630

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Social Media – So What?

Not really sure what all the hype is about?

Twitter… FaceBook… Plurk… Jaiku… LinkedIn… Bebo…

So What, you say?

Watch the compelling video, Social Media Importance Explained, on the WebSite Un-Marketing and you just might see a phase-change coming in how humans live on this earth…

Spiritual Quote:

“Increasingly, globalization assumes political, social and cultural dimensions. It has become clear that the powers of the institution of the nation-state, once the arbiter and protector of humanity’s fortunes, have been drastically eroded. While national governments continue to play a crucial role, they must now make room for such rising centres of power as multinational corporations, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations of every kind, and huge media conglomerates, the cooperation of all of which is vital to the success of most programmes aimed at achieving significant economic or social ends. Just as the migration of money or corporations encounters little hindrance from national borders, neither can the latter any longer exercise effective control over the dissemination of knowledge. Internet communication, which has the ability to transmit in seconds the entire contents of libraries that took centuries of study to amass, vastly enriches the intellectual life of anyone able to use it, as well as providing sophisticated training in a broad range of professional fields. The system, so prophetically foreseen sixty years ago by Shoghi Effendi, builds a sense of shared community among its users that is impatient of either geographic or cultural distances.”
Commissioned by The Universal House of Justice, Century of Light, p. 132

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