Dick's Speeches

  An 8 year old child saw her father murder her mother at the kitchen table.   Another girl was abandoned at the age of 2 and raised by grandparents.  She never met her mother until coming to prison.  Her mother is on death row.  Mother and daughter shout across the chain link barriers to bond with each other. Mr Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, guests. I’ve been a volunteer in prisons for 2 years.  I do 5 prison visits per week, mostly for gavel clubs.  In case you don’t know, a gavel club is just like a TM club except the members don’t pay dues.  I’ve come to know and like my gavel club members as much as I know and like my fellow toastmasters.   To me, both groups are like an extended family. I used to be like everyone else.   I had a mental image of felons based on mug shots and reports of heinous  crimes, plus countless Hollywood crime and prison movies.  But now I learned that they are just people like you and me.  Within the confines of a gavel club meeting, and I want to stres

  When the cat’s away, the mouse will play. Madam toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, honored guests. Many of you know that my wife Libby is away up in Vermont.  I’m going to take advantage of that to speak about my personal politics.  Libby normally forbids me from talking about religion or politics in public, but while the cat’s away, the mouse will play. PAUSE I believe in minimum government.  You can call me libertarian. PAUSE Because that word libertarian is widely misunderstood, I first need to spend some time explaining what I am not. I am not, repeat not, one of those libertarian militia crackpots.  Nor am I a member of the Libertarian party with a capital L, I’m libertarian with a small l.    Nor am I an anarchist.  Anarchy means zero government, not minimal government. PAUSE So how much government is minimal?  Theorists dating back to the founding of our country say that the minimum is security, both foreign and domestic.  Foreign security means defending ourselves against fore

  My friend Sandra was an oncology nurse.  20 years ago, the survival rate of cancer patients was not as high as it is today.  Sandra said, and I quote, “Every day I met people recently confronted by the horrible truth that they would not live to fulfill their dreams.  Their dreams and plans of a lifetime were snatched away the instant they received that horrible diagnosis. I resolved to not be a victim.  I retired early.  My husband Bob and I bought this sailboat and named it Carpe Diem.” Carpe Diem is a very popular inspirational phrase.  It means, sieze the day.  Other translations are, pluck the day as it is ripe, enjoy the moment, And if not now, then when?, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, remember that you are mortal, make your life excellent.  Then Robert Herrick wrote a poem saying, Make Much of Time, Come carpe diem, baby!  --- strangely the title of his poem was To The Virgins. My definition of Carpe Diem includes all that.  But mine is more nuanced.  My version is more suit

  You all know the word nomad.   You’ve seen films about nomads perhaps narrated by David Attenborough. But have you ever actually met a true nomad in real life?   Yes, you have.   Libby and I lived 12 years as nomads aboard our sailboat. Madam toastmaster, I would like to share some of that experience. I define nomads as: 1. People almost constantly on the move. 2. Whose movements are annual and repetitive. 3. They have no mailing address. Among boaters, we were called cruisers, not nomads.   We were the elite.   But on land and with no mailing address, we were among the most despised segments of society.   How so?   Consider the pejorative words synonymous with nomad.    Migrant, vagabond, hobo, rambler, rover, wanderer, transient, tramp, bum, derelict, outcast, drifter, loafer, in England traveler, and in Australia swagman. On the other hand, people who travel but are presumed to have a mailing address get more respect. Explorer, pilgrim, pioneer, adventurer, tour

  Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that we just held a national election.   You have also heard people say that our country is deeply divided; more so than ever before.    Is that really true?    I am not the kind of person who likes being told what to think, so I did a little research of my own. Mr toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and guests.    I would like to share with you the product of my research.    I’ll share my screen. Here is a depiction of our division in national elections going back 150 years.   It looks pretty close to 50-50 to me.   So it is not true that the red/blue split is something new. But wouldn’t it be more interesting if research could show that we have been divided over the same issue the whole time?    It’s probably impossible to prove that, but I did find a few crumbs of evidence. I went back further in time to the year 1789.    The year when our Constitution was authored by the founding fathers.    What did I find?   Let me use

  Rationale Singularity, What Does It Mean? Several of my reviewers have no technical or math background.   They had a lot of trouble understanding the word singularity.   I couldn’t drop the word or the entire technical world would not recognize my topic because all of them have heard about the singularity and already have opinions about it. TedXEustis, unlike other TedX events, had a strict rule.  No visuals of any kind.  I dearly wanted to use this visual that I prepared a year ago as my visual.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words.   I didn’t have a thousand words to spend, I had only a sentence or two.  I wanted to use that curve to illustrate how technology would change and the same curve to depict how unemployment would change   Que sara sara , I had to make do without it. Of course singularity is an exaggeration.  I’m sure that Von Neumann knew that.  He meant is at a metaphor.  It will feel like a singularity.  It will approximate a singularity.   We need a visual met

  Several times per day, Libby and I look at each other and say, “We are so lucky.”   We say it because it’s true.   We are happy.   We are healthy.  We have a loving family, and not many worries.  But the word luck implies random chance.  So, is luck the right word?  Listen on. We grew up in the 50s and early 60s.  It was a happy time.   Year after year, life in the United States got better for almost everyone.    The phrase for that is Golden Age.  Yet in our lifetime, we have experienced grief, regret, insecurity, setbacks and threats just as everyone does. So is life just a matter of dealing with the cards that fate deals us?   Some people are dealt a Golden hand during youth, others later in life, still others never.  I say it is not just the hand you are dealt, but how you play the game. When I discussed this speech with Libby, I said “We make our own luck.”   Libby said, “No. It means taking responsibility for your own happiness.”   Libby is pretty wise, so I thought about that.

  It was late November 2005 and our first year living the cruising life.   Libby and I were heading south for the year on our sailboat with winter nipping at our heels.   It was cold, drizzly, miserable morning.   We planned to decide in Beaufort NC, whether to continue inland on the ICW, or to go out to sea via the inlet at Beaufort. Just as we got there, the sun came out.   There was a brisk wind blowing from the North.   Ideal conditions!  So, I made a snap decision; let's go out to sea.  Bad decision. One should always check the weather report and carefully plan a route before going out to sea. Shame on me.  It was a splendid afternoon out on the ocean, although a bit rough.  We made good speed with the wind and waves behind us.     On our GPS chart plotter, I made a straight line course from our current position to Fernandina Beach Florida, 400 miles away.   Bad decision.  Imagine yourself using the map app on your phone to plan a trip to Seattle.  You can zoom out the map to

E-Prime Tutorial, by Dick Mills Madam Toastmaster,  Miss Flowers, guests, and inmates.  Words have importance. The words we choose influence how other people think of us. I want to tell you about a dialect of English called E-prime. UF says that students taught to use E- prime increased their marks by a full grade point. E-prime can help you to get a job. E-prime can help you to keep a job. E-prime can help you avoid conflicts. Start with English, take away the verb to be in all its forms, and you have E-prime. The forbidden words include be, am, I’m, is, that’s, are, was, were, being, and been. That one small change in your language makes a profound difference. That’s it. Whoops. I can’t say that’s in E-prime. Let me say, Now you know it all. Here are 5 reasons I like E-prime. 1. E-prime Exposes Opinions Disguised as Facts Suppose you and I walk out from a movie. I say, That was a good movie. You say, No it wasn’t. Those are opinions, not facts. Saying it using the language of facts s