My gut reaction is that corporations should strive to be more value neutral. There are causes I believe in which might seem divisive or disagreeable to others. Specifically, I think evolution must be taught in schools and I think educating each other is the highest value. Educating people is a really touchy subject because what is important about education is different to different groups and none of us want to be brainwashed. I don’t want to learn about homeopathy; Liberty University wants people to learn fake science.

Since even education is so mired in controversy, I expect many forms of giving to be even more divisive. If you support women’s health, can you avoid supporting abortion options? If you support marriage, can you avoid supporting domestic partners? I don’t think a corporation can in such a way that they create more sales than they would have generated had they kept their corporate giving to themselves. On the other hand, if a company must give, those donations and any specific details about grants being funded should be disclosed blatantly like a moral Surgeon General’s warning so we can tell what we’re supporting.

Philanthropy is important. I think that should come from individuals only. If 100% of Chick-fil-A’s employees support Focus on the Family but Chick-fil-A as a company gives $0, then I am morally satisfied to purchase their tasty food products. However, if Chick-fil-A donates 10% of their profits to a charity, I must suppose that I am being charged 10% over market value for their food in order to support their ability to give. And in that situation, I must evaluate my support for their charities.

People should give even if it means you are donating to support things I find abhorrent. Corporations should not so that I can buy their products on the basis of their business and product quality without considering whether they are run by people with matching values. I won’t be eating at Chic-fil-A for the time being. And as more companies like Chic-fil-A come to my awareness, I will trim down my purchasing habits accordingly.

Over the next few months:
I will relocate to Tennessee.
I will begin an accelerated masters program designed to earn me a Masters of Engineering and a Masters of Business by the end of May 2013.
I will continue to address the software concerns of a new to me department at work.

And while I’m doing that I’m going to find a way to manage the facts like:
My kids still live in Virginia.
I don’t have a lot of cash on hand.
My girlfriend needs a place in all of this, too.

I guess this blog post is a note to the world that for one period of time, I’m not relaxing while I think about all the ways the world could have been. From now until about June 2013, I’ll be juggling several things at once in the hopes that it launches a lucrative next stage of my career when I convert all that momentum into company focused problem solving.

Wish me success and a large salary. I didn’t win the Mega millions last week so I’m taking the long route.

But you’re the spitting image
you work in the church
You can’t see perspective
when you sit on that perch

So you stagger out friendly like
with a shudder and a lurch
Because your machinism’s rusted
But your Bible’s dusted.

You’re confused and untrusted
Because I have a secular job and no faith
You have a faith based job, that’s why
we can’t see eye to eye.

To learn more about who Jack Palms is or the preceding Seth Harwood stories you could start with this link. Also, he has his own website: sethharwood.com.

This is Life starts with Jack coming home to find his bed burnt with an assailant on the premises. Mills, the old cop who helped Jack navigate through waking up and investigating the death of Ralph, needs Jack’s help to look into the connected return of Jack’s former KGB nemesis who survived the first shit storm climax that left Junius dead and Freeman unemployed. The assassination of a crooked cop via a fifty caliber slug that pokes holes in the cop’s not-a-K-car modern Mustang brings the consequences of Jack’s involvement in the local San Francisco underground home to roost.

Seth Harwood, the author, has a unique marketing strategy and brings his full talents to this, his third book and second of the Jack Palms series. His style is a clean narration of the events with short punchy chapters that drive the action forward. I stumbled across his existence with a fluke of chance when I began googling people named Seth. All of this is posted previously and you can look into some of that by clicking the first link in this post or putting “Seth Harwood” in the search box on this page.

This book is faster than the first two books. With Jack’s background established effectively in the first book, Jack gets thrust into the adventure with so little preparation that he still needs a haircut when the book starts. Sometimes life calls you to act before you can tame the accidental mullet.

I have had a lot of focus issues these days. One symptom of this is the gaps between my blog posts. Another symptom is that even though I have kept up with my book purchasing, the only books I have finished are Young Junius and This is Life. To make my point a little deeper, this is the year I’ve tried catching up on Game of Thrones to see what all the fuss is about. Either my meds are still off or the George Martin fuss might be about nothing I’m into. I’m willing to use my lack of Martin interest to support the idea that there are few books these days that I feel compelled to keep reading. One of the reasons I think Seth is such a page turner is that his style feels a lot like watching a series of something like 24 without ever having to break for the commercials. And in that gimmick free style, I can pay attention to every round loaded into every chamber throughout the story’s progression.

I probably wouldn’t recommend reading This is Life as your first book especially since I liked the first book so much and that book puts Jack into perspective as a rejuvenated version of a Hollywood has been. I haven’t read the short stories yet but I have them and I will. When I do, I’ll review them and whether or not they are better read in order or if they are fine in an encore capacity.

That’s all a long winded way to say if you haven’t read either Jack Palms books or you simply haven’t read the new one, you’re in for a treat. It’s the best one to date and a good chance to see what Seth Harwood is all about. If you’re motivated by catching a rising author on the way up, you better move fast, he’s gaining momentum. Now to see what he comes up with next and maybe look into his In Broad Daylight, his short stories and what I think is the continuation of This is Life in the Kindle book Czechmate. I’ll keep you posted.

*** Update January 4, 2012 ***
It turns out that Czechmate is included in the physical copy of This is Life. If you finished This is Life via Kindle, then you should finish the job and read Czechmate, too.

I question everything. A lot of people think I settle on the beliefs I have but then don’t think to ask my exwife how different I have been. In some ways, I’m a new person each year because I’ve taken so many mental shifts. I like that except for the frustrating nagging feeling that nobody pays enough attention to me to keep up. They see a contradiction, I see growth and continued effort to grasp enough of complex problems. A lot of people think I’m as atheist as Phelps is a Westoboro Baptist but I’m not. I question whether atheism is a good label even when the idea of gods is very settled for me. I’m not exactly my lack of belief.

I like pornography and I like women’s rights. I believe in voluntary exhibitionism. But I hate marketing. I like when people want to be attractive to me but I want to ensure they don’t have to. I’m pretty sure that no matter how ugly people tried to be, I’d find a way to be turned on somehow. So I think people are prudes. I think dress codes are outdated. Yet at the same time, I see a fun aspect to fashion, dress up, kink exploration and just in your face “ha ha I’m naked bitches!” kinds of pictures. I’m cool with that. Other people are not our toys automatically. But some people are more than happy to let you share in an aspect of voyeurism into their interests. I could talk about pornography all day because I love it so much. But you catch me spending a lot of time pointing out that a message like this

is going to be seen for its information and also it’s going to be seen for the attractive attributes of the speaker. Neither are exactly wrong but I argue that she should be seen for her statements first. And you should act cool and pretend you didn’t know she was pretty because the content of her video isn’t about anything visual. She has to make her breasts relevant. Otherwise, you keep your breast interest or disinterest to yourself. Get it?

Then I get crazy and go further. What about the gays? What about transpeople? Let’s face it, I don’t know that many transfolk. I may have run into two in my life. Why does it matter? I think it matters because the sooner you decide how they make sense the cooler you can treat them in person. I spend a lot of time wondering how I would interact with white trash for the same reason. I don’t mean that term to mean more than illustrative of a type of culture that is very different than mine. It has aesthetics, it has feedback cycles. It has beauty and it has tragedy. I’m not here to do the math. I like it when people want to open up to me and I’m willing to pay the price of thinking too deeply to get that.

Some people go nuts when they think I am deliberately motivated by self interest. How can being an atheist semi-hedonist make sense if all you think about is yourself? Well, how does all the cracked and warped self esteems of the people you know make more sense? Why don’t you try being honest with yourself? Humanity wants its commitments and its fancy. Why can’t we focus on best practices instead of denying that absolute monogamy is a bad precedent in general? That’s just one thing. Also, now that you know I’m loose with my definitions of monogamy, maybe my partner(s) will feel more free to discuss when they have or have just felt like having interactions of an adult kind with other people. It’s not that I don’t understand why you would feel that way. But how am I gonna get to the level where people will talk to me about that instead of telling me everyday how they are Stepford Wives while they are real people with real interests. I want the realness. I’m willing to pay for that with ambiguity.

But maybe mostly people dislike the fact that I’ll say what I’m thinking from the top of my head. Sometimes it’s genius, most of the times it’s disagreeable. I tend to challenge any statement someone else makes as part of my philosophy to think critically. I use it effectively against marketing. I overdo it against friends. But I’m not going to stop. And I’m going to say I get the misogynistic messages in rap even though it’s clear that I have different values. I’m going to say being marginalized is a fairly honest excuse for why you might feel the need to stop worrying about how someone else is marginalized too. It’s not right but the real solution comes from including those people into the conversation and it’s counter productive to attempt to silence them. Keep critiquing them though on their content. Those that do still rap misogynistically still have a wake up to go through. But they aren’t wrong to have said what they think. And they aren’t wrong because they thought it. They are wrong because elevating marginalized groups benefits everybody and so they are in some ways chopping their own feet out from under them.

I actually think my views of helping other people helps me. I’m so selfish, I care what you think. How nutty is that?

I believe in the basic principle that a good nation builds good workers that make good products that everybody can be proud of. In return for investing in our young Americans, that nation then taxes you a bit to invest in the next set of young Americans and to care for the well being of those who have invested their twenties through sixties in the American Dream.

I want a country that makes strong athletes, strong visionaries, and big profits. Why don’t we make enough to have signs of luxury in every home and make the rest of the world voluntarily pay for it because our exports are so nice? Why don’t we have the kind of mass transit that you can’t wait to ride? Why don’t we have the kind of medicine that you want to take? Why doesn’t being better feel better?

It doesn’t feel better because the big companies have the big losses, the big salaries, and the big profits all at the same time. It doesn’t feel better because while we voted in conservatives for fiscal responsibility, we got a gridlocked Congress, an “in God We trust” motto guaranteed to divide a nation of people who are suffering together, we lost some women’s coverage of abortion options and somehow that was sold to us as progress. Progress is a new world that feels cleaner. Politicking is solar panels that you can’t afford that won’t run your dishwasher. What we have gotten is politicking.

The government should facilitate commerce by encouraging people who think outside the box to solve problems such as medical ethics, how to get fast healthy food on the market, how to get the right laborers to the right jobs and how to get keep up with the competition that the rest of the world will give us. The government should want to save you time and save you trouble so that you can focus on your job and your family. The government should want to be simple and transparent while finding ways to give you the education you can use to put complex issues into perspective because they actually want your opinion.

Well, I want those things. Do you?

Name me “terrorist” because I spit explosives.
My attitude can’t fly it’s so corrosive.
The patriot act doesn’t cover me
Because I pledge allegience to nothing peaceful.

I wear jeans and I soldiered on.
But I don’t have that job so the smoulders on.
Everywhere I look at Americans it’s face to palm.
It’d be a fine island if you fuckers weren’t on it.

I’m not the Be attitude in your bonnet.
I’m the future caravan. Get your white ass on it.
The bandwagon out the sand when you face the truth.
I’m Keyser Soze then I vanish. Poof!

Rub the bottle and I pop up.
It’s three of your wishes then I’m fed up.
You better sooth the spirit when you’re walking near it.
If you don’t fear it, you’ll get your cranium cleared out.

Explode in your brain like I’m rocket science.
You let me in so go get compliant.
Make a nice tight seal so you can keep this thought.
The future got bought up. I’m getting you caught up.

I’m at the top in my pin stripe get right
Everything I do to you invites your spitefullness.
I smile and clap cause you’re so delightful
when you’re pissed like that it’s like you’re wearing diapers.

The way your wisdom works it’s quite the same.
You claim history but it’s a future’s game.
You didn’t recall the facts of the world at all.
It’s a jab from my left but you see a southpaw.

Pack up last call. Drinking off your glass jaw.
Is that all, packing in the cab yelling “asshole”.
Thinking my freeze will thaw like I’m a TV dinner
Try to feed on me and get apprehended.

1. The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

2. Do not put things or even ideas above other human beings. (Let’s scream at each other about Kindle versus iPad, solar versus nuclear, Republican versus Libertarian, Garth Brooks versus Sun Ra— but when your house is on fire, I’ll be there to help.)

3. Say what you mean, even when talking to yourself. (What used to be an oath to (G)od is now quite simply respecting yourself.)

4. Put aside some time to rest and think. (If you’re religious, that might be the Sabbath; if you’re a Vegas magician, that’ll be the day with the lowest grosses.)

5. Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than honor, and parents matter, but so do spouse and children.)

6. Respect and protect all human life. (Many believe that “Thou shalt not kill” only refers to people in the same tribe. I say it’s all human life.)

7. Keep your promises. (If you can’t be sexually exclusive to your spouse, don’t make that deal.)

8. Don’t steal. (This includes magic tricks and jokes — you know who you are!)

9. Don’t lie. (You know, unless you’re doing magic tricks and it’s part of your job. Does that make it OK for politicians, too?)

10. Don’t waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it’ll make you bugnutty.

I like the beginning of the first point he makes. Human intelligence and creativity are awesome. Love is suspect. It smacks of woo. Altruism, self sacrifice, loyalty and so forth are things that should be discussed separately. After all, what is love? Baby, don’t hurt me no more.

The second point is crap. “Do not put things or even ideas above other human beings.” That’s unusable. It sounds like it makes sense. But every dollar you don’t spend in starving African nations is a dollar spent that could have saved lives. It reeks of feel good and when you dig you get to economy which is the balance of limited resources against unlimited wants. You can’t always put people first. People are important. Point two is poorly thought out.

I can get behind point 3. Honesty is important. Privacy is also important. Say what you mean. But leave room for jokes and privacy.

Point 4 is okay albeit boring. It’s like rest and have down time.

Point 5 I take some issue with. “Family” is a loaded word. I think we covered people being important on point 2. But if your family is killing you as they do by draining you and being familiar strangers no matter how much you just want to make sense, drop them. Or at least reduce their impact. For the sake of all people you should be willing to tailor your involvement to sustainable levels. Penn doesn’t give you all that leeway and promotes that “love is deeper than honor”. No. Love is a foil. Blood doesn’t make a friendship. If your relatives are friends, more power to you.

Point 6 is point 2 again. But this time it can be an argument for pro-life stances. I disagree with it.

Point 7 is Point 3. Keep your promises is a lot like say what you mean. Furthermore, I think your word is important but is it the seventh most important thing? No. That’s because you need to be willing to grow and change at any time and sometimes that affects your current promise.

Point 8 is simple “don’t steal.” It’s naive. Steal if you must to survive. If you steal from me, we have a conflict. And so it goes. It is unnatural to own property and with desperate times full of people at wide varieties of income, well, I just hope they are doing whatever they can think of to survive. I think that’s the appropriate game theory.

Point 9 is Point 7 and Point 2. Don’t Lie. Say what you mean which involves keeping your promises. Is honesty that important? No. Falsifiability is.

Point 10 is the joke at the end representing the don’t covet clause of the Old Testament. It’s not serious and so I won’t overly debug it. I think ambition is generally an awesome thing. Channel yours.

Soon, I will come up with my rebuttal to the 10 Commandments but I haven’t decided if it’s important to come up with my top ten or just to try and structure my most important concepts that I personally would advocate.

Stay tuned.