User:Lou Sander

About Me

I'm retired from a career in several medically-related high-tech industries. In retirement I teach logic, critical thinking, and practical computer subjects at the college level. Otherwise, I do pretty much as I please, subject to financial limitations.

I think I'm a pretty good editor because...

I've done a lot of reading, especially in encyclopedias. I've been reading since 1942, when I was three years old, reading encyclopedias since I was six or seven, and reading them extensively since the 1970's. I've spent countless hours reading the World Book and various editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I own a copy of the 1911 Eleventh Edition, and have spent many hours perusing it. IMHO, the guys who wrote it really knew how to write an encyclopedia. Very little of what they wrote was later shown to be wrong.

I've learned at the feet of high and exalted masters. I got straight A's in high school (back when that was harder to do), and I earned degrees in rigorous subjects from Duke University and the University of Chicago (far less than straight A's at either place, but I got my share of them, plus a few D's, in a time when both were much harder to get). More recently, I've spent quality learning time in person with Tony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki.

Many have seen fit to publish my writings. That includes about 500 articles, columns, programs and reviews for dozens of publications, including newspapers and computer magazines with worldwide circulation. During my "computer period" in the 1980's I was a prolific and well-known writer on Commodore subjects. I wrote dozens of articles, two books (one of them translated into Italian) and several very popular columns, most notably the Magic column in RUN magazine. My work was reprinted in six other books that I know of. Though my computer writing spanned all the computers of the day, it stopped when Commodore faded from the scene. Since then, most of my writing has been for newsletters, web sites, corporate research reports, etc., though I occasionally do an article for a magazine. In addition to the aforementioned, I've written about a hundred poems, and people tell me they're good. When writing for publication, I am always known as Louis F. Sander.

Et cetera. I spent ten years as chairman of the board of a regionally important public library, and helped it grow from a storefront operation to the largest suburban library in Pennsylvania. While doing that, I spent thousands of hours in dozens of different libraries, where I learned a lot about information and how it's processed and disseminated. Also, as stated up above, I teach logic and critical thinking.

The bottom line is that I've spent over half a century cultivating the art of being right. The most important part of that art is that when you aren't right, you admit it and learn from your mistake. Whatever my abilities in the lesser parts, I claim absolute mastery of that one.

I think I'm a pretty good editor, Q.E.D..

You might also like to know (but probably not)...

I played basketball at Duke University, but I did not play lacrosse. The basketball was in gym class. After college, I spent time as an officer aboard a warship and in a then-secret Navy Special Forces unit. (I learned to kill there, but I never was called on to do it. Really.) I have had a root canal treatment without any anesthetic, and I have seen a person die. I can swear like a sailor, and I am an expert rifle and pistol shot. I carry. Nobody I knew was killed in Vietnam, but my neighbor Jorge Arteaga and his friend were the first two Americans killed in Desert Storm. I've drunk pisco with Jorge's father, and Moutai with my friends. (Pisco is OK, but the other stuff tastes like Drano mixed with Quaker State motor oil.) I know a lot of geography; I've not yet been to India, but I'm fond of all things Indian. Elsewhere in the Commonwealth, I've never seen Mrs. Slocombe's pussy, but I've fantasized about her doing silly walks for me. (Hillary, too!) Here in America, I deeply distrust the New York Times, especially since Jayson Blair came out and I learned about Walter Duranty. I greatly admire Fred on Everything, for both his thinking and his writing. I like to watch Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore, but not George Bush. Cheney, OK, but definitely not George Bush (or Bill O'Reilly, either). I have expert knowledge of Jung's theory of psychological types, including its popular manifestation in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (I'm ENTP, the rational Inventor. They do things like making this User page.) I'm an exceptionally creative amateur programmer, and I know morse code. (W3BOA, DXCC, QCWA.) I've met and talked with Bill Gates, Steve Case, George Shultz, and several Nobel laureates (of all those big-time guys, only Steve Case might remember me). I never met Timothy McVeigh, but I edited his writing and got it published for him. (I'm pretty sure he had big-time help with the bombing, and I'm absolutely sure he'd remember me.) I fly the American flag, 24 hours a day, and illuminated at night, but I'm not some kind of a nut about it. I know a lot about elections, voting machines and voter fraud. (Republicans are newcomers, and amateurs; the other guys are, or at least they were in their rapidly-receding heyday, highly trained professionals.) As a teacher, I practice the soft bigotry of low expectations, and my students definitely appreciate it. Like The Daily Show and Rush Limbaugh, I know how to mix humor with truth, and I can pack lots of both into one paragraph. All facts but one in this paragraph are absolutely, provably, true.

My ancestors were German and Swiss—I think some were Pennsylvania Dutch. My wife is German and Hungarian. Both of us are orphans, but we don't think it gives us absolute moral authority. (You can think so if you'd like, and both of us will appreciate it.) Our property includes a forest and a garden, and I like to go walking in both—they are home to an abundance of birds and wildlife. My Social Security Number is 671-555-1212. My ZIP code is unlisted, and my password is * * * * * * *. I do not answer emails from Nigeria, but that doesn't make me a racist. I adhere to (esp. nos. 11-13) their Articles of Faith, but that doesn't make me a Mormon. I have never been divorced or arrested, or smoked a cigarette, and neither has my wife. (My wayward son has been or done all three, and has also spent time in jail.)

Life has taught me to suffer fools, but not to suffer them gladly or for a protracted period of time. (When I encounter them here, I'm compelled to avert my eyes.) I'm probably older than you, smarter than you, tougher than you, and quite a bit more experienced than you, but I will respect you and your opinions, whether those guesses are correct or not. (Your opinions can earn their way out of my respect, but it takes multiple offenses and ample evidence.)

I have three grown children: a wayward son whose life has been ruined by alcohol (but I love him anyway), a daughter who married a rock star, and a son who runs an important Manhattan real estate company. My grandchildren call me "Hubby."

If you care to know more, just Google my name and you'll find it. I'm not the baby doctor, and I'm definitely not the orchid or the tragically murdered cop.

Original Articles

I like to do articles that relate to my short career as a Naval officer, which was spent aboard USS Rankin and as a Beach Jumper. That has led to doing an article for every Navy ship built the same place the Rankin was. (Other people did one or two of them, but I did the rest.) Lately I'm working on articles for all the Navy's attack cargo ships. There will be over 100 of them before they're all finished. Doing them isn't as hard as it might seem, since the basic facts are available at DANFS; there's a lot of copy editing and heavy-duty Wikification, however. I've also created or meddled with a few other articles that interest me, or were red links somewhere, etc., and of course I expand, fix errors, etc. in articles that I come across that need it.

5"/38 caliber gun
Abigail Thernstrom
Ammunition ship
Andromeda class attack cargo ship
Arcturus class attack cargo ship
Artemis class attack cargo ship
Average and over
Battle Efficiency Award
Beach Jumpers
Center for Individual Rights
Crown Publishing Group
Cruise book
Davisville, Rhode Island
Giant Raccoon's Flatulence theory (deleted, alas, and redirected to its source)
Libertarian Party of Connecticut
Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award
Moore Dry Dock Company
Naval Supply Depot, Oakland
North Carolina Shipbuilding Company
Oro Bay
Onslow Beach
Pasco Bowman II (a federal judge for whom Ann Coulter clerked)
Sparrows Point
Teluk Yos Sudarso (a bay in New Guinea—I said I know a lot of geography!)
Tolland class amphibious cargo ship
Type C2 ship
USS Alamance (AKA-75)
USS Alchiba (AKA-6)
USS Alcyone (AKA-7)
USS Algorab (AKA-8)
USS Alhena (AKA-9)
USS Almaack (AKA-10)
USS Alshain (AKA-55)
USS Andromeda (AKA-15)
USS Aquarius (AKA-16)
USS Arcturus (AKA-1)
USS Arneb (AKA-56)
USS Artemis (AKA-21)
USS Athene (AKA-22)
USS Auburn (AGC-10)
USS Aurelia (AKA-23)
USS Capricornus (AKA-57)
USS Caswell (AKA-72)
USS Centaurus (AKA-17)
USS Cepheus (AKA-18)
USS Chara (AKA-58)
USS Circe (AKA-25)
USS Corvus (AKA-26)
USS Devosa (AKA-27)
USS Diphda (AKA-59)
USS Duplin (AKA-87)
USS Durham (AKA-114)
USS Eldorado (AGC-11)
USS Electra (AKA-4)
USS Estes (AGC-12)
USS Hydrus (AKA-28)
USS Lacerta (AKA-29)
USS Lenoir (AKA-74)
USS Libra (AKA-12)
USS Lumen (AKA-30)
USS Marquette (AKA-95)
USS Mathews (AKA-96)
USS Medea (AKA-31)
USS Mellena (AKA-32)
USS Merrick (AKA-97)
USS Mobile (LKA-115)
USS Montague (AKA-98)
USS Mount McKinley (AGC-7)
USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8)
USS Muliphen (AKA-61)
USS New Hanover (AKA-73)
USS Oberon (AKA-14)
USS Oglethorpe (AKA-100)
USS Ostara (AKA-33)
USS Ottawa (AKA-101)
USS Pamina (AKA-34)
USS Panamint (AGC-13)
USS Pocono (AGC-16)
USS Polana (AKA-35)
USS Prentiss (AKA-102)
USS Procyon (AKA-2)
USS Rankin (AKA-103)
USS Renate (AKA-36)
USS Rolette (AKA-99)
USS Roxane (AKA-37)
USS Sappho (AKA-38)
USS Sarita (AKA-39)
USS Scania (AKA-40)
USS Selinur (AKA-41)
USS Seminole (AKA-104)
USS Shadwell (LSD-15)
USS Shoshone (AKA-65)
USS Sidonia (AKA-42)
USS Sirona (AKA-43)
USS Skagit (AKA-105)
USS Southampton (AKA-66)
USS Starlight (AP-175)
USS Stokes (AKA-68)
USS Storm King (AP-171)
USS Suffolk (AKA-69)
USS Sylvania (AKA-44)
USS Tabora (AKA-45)
USS Taconic (AGC-17)
USS Tate (AKA-70)
USS Theenim (AKA-63)
USS Thuban (AKA-19)
USS Titania (AKA-13)
USS Todd (AKA-71)
USS Tolland (AKA-64)
USS Torrance (AKA-76)
USS Towner (AKA-77)
USS Trego (AKA-78)
USS Troilus (AKA-46)
USS Tulare (AKA-112)
USS Turandot (AKA-47)
USS Tyrrell (AKA-80)
USS Uvalde (AKA-88)
USS Valencia (AKA-81)
USS Valeria (AKA-48)
USS Vanadis (AKA-49)
USS Venango (AKA-82)
USS Veritas (AKA-50)
USS Vinton (AKA-83)
USS Warrick (AKA-89)
USS Wasatch (AGC-9)
USS Washburn (AKA-108)
USS Waukesha (AKA-84)
USS Wheatland (AKA-85)
USS Whiteside (AKA-90)
USS Whitley (AKA-91)
USS Winston (AKA-94)
USS Woodford (AKA-86)
USS Wyandot (AKA-92)
USS Yancey (AKA-93)
USS York County (LST-1175)
USS Zenobia (AKA-52)
Walsh-Kaiser Co., Inc.

About Me

I think I'm a pretty good editor because...

You might also like to know (but probably not)...

Original Articles

Other Articles of Interest