There is a small, outspoken minority that are offended by Nike’s celebratory ad of Tiger Wood’s recent PGA triumph as he climbs to No. 1 in Golf.
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Nike’s position on the message,”winning takes care of everything,” is that it’s about Tiger’s game – it is not a tongue in cheek reply to the scandals that dethroned the golfer in 2009. But no one is buying Nike’s official statement. Any controversy actually feeds the hype. And, honestly, who is going to passionately argue that winning doesn’t take care of everything?
I rewrote episode one. The protagonist needed a better introduction due to the complex Whovian backstory.
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Phil Collins, In The Air Tonight
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Through binoculars, Tauran watched the slender brunette crouching on her hanches in front of a nine year old girl. She was buttoning the girl’s coat. Then she gently squeezed the little girl’s nose, honked, and laughed. The little girl laughed with her and threw her arms around the woman’s neck. Stacie hugged her back.
Releasing the girl, she stood up and looked around. A yellow school bus pulled up and the child climbed aboard. Stacie waved good bye.
He wondered what the relationship was between Stacie and the girl and he wondered why this was a Friday ritual. This was the third time he had observed this scene.
Perhaps, Stacie had met the girl on one of her adventures and bonded with her. Perhaps, Stacie had selected the girl as a recruit for the time agency. Just as Stacie had selected him, so long ago. He looked at the mark of the Corsair’s Horoscope on his huge forearm – the oddly thick snake swallowing it’s own tail. Read the rest of this entry »
Marjorie Clayman reflects here on the triumphs and defeats of the Medici as an inspiration for social media success. It may even apply to gaming. And sex? Yes, sex too.
Wealth, power and influence – for the obvious reasons – will always be interesting.
But I have occasionally wondered whether or not the meek, the poor in spirit, and the pure of heart can profit by the ways and means of the wealthy, powerful and influential. Are these ways and means the rising tides that can lift small boats?
This was, in fact, the hope, promise and merit of capitalism.
Reciprocity, itself, is a greater challenge than we may care to admit – especially when everyone, equally, wants something for nothing.
However, if reciprocity is to be providential and reciprocal, it must provide an equity in results – not action.
The economics of sex should be fairly obvious in regard to results and satisfaction. I hope you can forgive me for not illustrating the intimate details of our expectations, results and satisfaction. But I would like to imagine that you get my point.
Likewise, if you mention me on your Facebook fan page and bring me to 50,000 eyes, my mentioning you on your fan page to 100 eyes is not a reciprocity. Reciprocity requires me to commit myself to liking a 100 posts (or more), supporting your posts with encouraging comments for months and months AND sharing your posts across Facebook, G+, etc. across a year.
Who does that?! Who tries?
Sadly, it is the rare individual who pays his/her social debt. And rarer for the individual who pays it gladly. And this, I fear, is why more people do not succeed in their ambitions – social, game-wise, friendship, or everlasting love.
Alas- even the meek, the poor in spirit, and the pure of heart seem to lack a basic understanding of economics. And equitable reciprocity.
Of course, I could be mistaken. But I also could be a little bit right.
Do you secretly want to have sex with people you know in real life and/or people you’ve met online?
Now you can make that happen. Easily.
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Taylor Swift, Trouble
Bang With Friends
There’s a lot of buzz about a social sex app, Bang With Friends. And the buzz is going to get a lot louder. Because it’s social. Because it’s about sex. Because this is the kind of topic that gets attention and clicks.
Jure Klepic writes about Bang With Friends in the Huffington Post here:
Watching the movie, The Social Network (2010), one gets the impression that Facebook was actually designed for the hook up. Zuckerberg’s own apparent sociopathic disempathy may (or may not) confirm such speculation. [grin] But if so, that only speaks to the high value of the Facebook business model. “Sin” as defined in a college human geography class (a long time ago) is always “good” business and the fact that porn has been the MVP in the Internet growth equation (since forever) is just more proof that sin makes money.
Note: I do not suggest that the sin business model has high moral, spiritual or cultural value. That said, Bang With Friends (BWF) is no surprise. And it’s going to get worse in the sense that social sex is going to become more visible.
Social sex, of course, will out compete less compelling platforms and services in terms of engagement. Just as porn always has and will continue to do so. Popular social sex participants will come to command greater attention, engagement and transaction than the tastemakers, thought leaders, cheerleaders, etc. for all the obvious reasons. It goes without saying that enlightenment doesn’t hold a candle to sex – nor can a revival of traditional values save us from the “license” that we are willing to pay for.
Here’s the problem – unlocked potential swings both ways: good and evil. And so long as the market and money is the ultimate arbiter of value, utopia will always look a lot like hell. Or Sin City,
Trouble, Trouble, Trouble
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
– Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1
Is Bang With Friends trouble? Well, Britney Spears sings about it. Trouble – that is.
The trouble with BWF is that it reduces the ordinary challenges to our getting into trouble. Such challenges allowed some of us to exercise self-control. As I toured BWF, I felt the adrenaline, fear, shock, shame, and horror when I saw the “Down to Bang” button below pictures of…
1. Friends
2. Relatives
3. Lovers or Spouses of Friends and Relatives
4. Grown-Up Children of Friends
And I didn’t have to push any buttons.
Troubles and bad decisions often begin with a certain coy presumption of innocence: My being “Down to Bang You” is like a “like”, right?
I can see it now – the fun and “harmless” exchanges on Twitter, Facebook and beyond:
I’ll bang you!
Bang me PLEASE!
Bang me and I’ll bang you back.
The dark seed, however, is sown and the realization of trouble shall be decided more forcefully by interest and opportunity than conscience and consequence. With certain trepidation, I predict that 1 out of 3 friends will get into trouble – because the ordinary challenges to sin have been neatly removed from virtue’s armory.
In the G+ Community, re:Design, Paul Biedermann put up a great link to an article about the importance of drawing in a designer’s professional aspirations and service: http://bit.ly/149qjYy
I couldn’t agree more with Paul and legendary designer Saul Bass.
Google says point blank, dogmatically, and in bold…
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You can make money without doing evil.
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Does Google’s shutting down Google Reader bear reflection upon the ten things that Google knows to be true?
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Shutting down Google Reader disconnects people, prevents them from sharing, and changes the game on several levels for many stakeholders. But is that evil?
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What is evil?
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Wikipedia doesn’t give an illuminating definition of evil.
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Myself, I have always considered evil as the deprivation of the dignity of a thing – especially a deprivation of the dignity of the human person. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for example, are universally considered basic to the design and identity of a human being. That which threatens deprivation (or actually deprives us) of our good exercise of this existential property by intention, therefore, is unmistakably evil.
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Murder, theft, lies, supernormal taxes, unjust laws, unbounded ambition, and adultery are conspicuous and patent examples of evil – recognized alike by the ancient shepherd and modern cosmopolitan. Most of us (myself included) participate in evil to some degree – more often than we may want to admit to ourselves. It is unfortunate…
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But as much as is at stake in Google’s shut down of Google Reader – the deprivation of a free service (once provided at Google’s expense) does not appear to be evil. Even if the deprivation causes harm.
Untimely cancellation of a free service or feature is, in fact, the territory and culture of the proverbial free lunch.
The shut down may encourage us, however, to reflect on Google’s motives and brand.
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Googles’ decision, for example, seems to contradict other Google truths. Are these paradoxes a symptom of incompetent management (Kitchen Nightmare) or a conspiracy of brand?
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Focus on the user and all else will follow.
There’s always more information out there.
Great just isn’t good enough.
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Ultimately, if the moral arc of Google’s character is profoundly problematic, perhaps we should consider the alternatives and disempower the capricious, authoritarian throne that Google seems to pursue.
The more important lessons, nonetheless, are clear:
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Users of freeware, beware.
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Don’t build your dream, business, mission-critical process, product or service on freeware.
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If you’re not paying for it, it’s not a tangible asset. At best, it’s a hack (cheat).
I have struggled to find and share beauty through this blog. And I have failed. Often and persistently. A hundred or so failures for each paltry success. On the other hand, the traffic is fine – I remember when I also bemoaned having less than 10,000 readers in a month.
This is not a tragedy.
This is a joke. [grin]
But I am not joking! My effort and lack of success is the joke. Blogging is a comedy – sooner or later.
Laugh with me.
This is a ridiculous adventure. Absurd. Don Quixote is less foolhardy and he is lesser the fool. But I can not help myself. Perhaps, you find yourself in a similar predicament – unable to stop some foolishness or other. And if, perchance, you did or do…
Smile with me.
My failure as a blogger reminds me also of my failure as a novelist.
Laugh with me. Please.
My conceits are as boundless as my ambitions. And, perhaps, yours too. If so, laughter shall be our greatest solace.
Which brings me to Milan Kundera – a handsome man in a brutal manner. His face is fit for a Federal period scultpture.
The Czech author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, explains in his The Art of the Novel, that what defines a novel most of all is that it asks important, eternal and urgent questions.
Kundera recommends Don Quixote, a 17th (?) Century novel, written by Miguel de Cervantes. What I remember of the story, it asks, do I belong in a world in which virtues are irrelevant?
My unfinished novel passionately rejects Cervantes’ question. If we are here, then we belong here . Obviously, here is inescapable.
Even at the end of the world! Even in the midst of outrageous fortune, death, desperation, pain, fear and disappointment.
Or hell.
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If you’re in hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill said that. Right?
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If Mr. Churchill is right, how exactly do we keep going?
The enquiry does not recommend finis humanevitae. Instead, it leads me to further questions. …
They are not original questions, however. But they may resonate in the human heart. And I must admit that it’s very possible that no answer shall fully satisfy our curiosity, desperation and hope.
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Who am I?
What can I hope for?
What must I do (not knowing – with any certainty – who I am and what I can hope for)?
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Perhaps, writing them for you here – makes you want to click away. But if you ever sat or lay upon the ground with salty tears streaming down your face – don’t go yet.
Because I approach these timeless questions as they present themselves through opportunities and defeats on unwitting adventures of self discovery and our clumsy exploration of the world, others and the sacred. I search for these opportunities and defeats within the context of the human drama with all the passion, confusion, sound and fury of our experience as persons.
So, yes, there are explosions, the crack of an axe on exploding concrete, sex, love, hate, and everything else.
But I remain afraid to finish the work. I postpone yet another failure to connect, share, contribute to a community of servant hearts, and, ultimately, collaborate with others – to make this a better world and a world of we.
I remain afraid to fail yet again. As if I could pick and choose my failures!
Obviously, we do not.
I’m also reminded of some lines from a song by the Counting Crows, Mr. Jones.
Believe in me. Help me believe in anything. Cause I want to be someone who believes [that we can make a better world]
The Hot Mommas Project is an award-winning social venture that encourages young women to be confident, courageous and strong. Follow @ChiefHotMomma on Twitter to learn more.
Stacie Rohr looked at a drawing of her and Rosa Parks holding hands in front of an old Montgomery bus. Stacie thought back to the day Rosa faced the police officers on the bus. Rosa wouldn’t be moved around like an animal.
She leaned out the open bus window and made a promise to Rosa Parks as a policeman pushed her into the back of the police car. She would carry Rosa’s fight for the dignity of the person (human, alien or otherwise] until the end of time.
On December 1, 1955, Stacie Rohr, an illegal alien with two hearts, fell in love with humanity.
“I won’t forget you, Rosa,” she said, and closed her leather-bound journal. “A promise is a promise.”
But Stacie also knew that promises are not always easy to keep. Occasionally, a promise made itself difficult to keep. Because a promise can be its own foil. And several promises – they can easily become labyrinth of negotiation and good faith.
Turning her attention to her Twitter stream, a tweet caught Stacie’s eye.
“I want to do something amazing,” blurted Stacie as she shifted in the red leather arm chair and tugged on a lock of brown hair at the back of her head.
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AC DC’s song, Highway to Hell, played in the background.
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Stacie wore jeans, a white tee shirt, a pirate’s frock coat, and a Doctor Who scarf around her waist – like a sash. On the front of the tee shirt was a picture of Captain Picard’s face and there was text, There are FOUR LIGHTS!
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“You do amazing things.”
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“More amazing, mon Ange!”
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“My heart is empty,” Stacie explained. “I want to do more! I need to serve….”
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“Winnie-the-Pooh once said that sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart,” replied Az. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Stan Faryna 
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