As a sole proprietor, I am an executive. In fact, I am the entire C-level of my enterprise, if you will. I make all the decisions, but in an interesting twist I also do all the work. This perspective has in some small way helped shape my understanding of what other people in executive positions must do to be successful. You may have noticed that there is an entire Branch of Executives that has been bothering me of late.

The members of the George W. Bush corporation routinely ignore truth, reality, science, scholarship, history, conscience, and the interests of other people like the unfortunate in this country, citizens of other nations, and the world as a whole.

What they do pay attention to is the petty, the profitable, and the empowering aspects of executive and financial privilege. A good analog in the business world would be their buddy Microsoft. In addition to many other foul deeds, right now Microsoft is strong-arming a district in San Diego to turn a vacated elementary school into a new-fangled "High Tech High". Visiting friends last month, I got to hear how the local school board was fiercely divided over plans to waste vast amounts of money in ripping out the kiddie toilets and replacing all the furniture just so Microsoft can have a slick new vehicle to advance their interests in the education market at public expense. The big problem here is that there exists an accredited and acclaimed but unhoused elementary school program in the district, the Albert Einstein Institute no less, that could use the school today as it is to educate many bright kids. Just like efforts of the Bush administration to viciously subvert our public education system in favor the interests of the private and parochial, so too is Microsoft meddling at our children's expense.

Don't you think this bright girl deserves a place to go to school?

Business is business though, and these days government is business, too. I started my own business criticizing Microsoft and their new partner Sun, only to end up criticizing the government. You can think ill of me for my choices, but I have to ask: what have I been wrong about? Is Microsoft the bastion of security yet? Is Sun the touchstone for innovation, open source, and Linux? Did President Bush tell you everything about Iraq before we went in? I'm beginning to see a convergence of patterns here, even if you don't want to see it.

Now I happen to think Ralph Nader or John Kerry or an inanimate carbon rod could do more for this country than George W. Bush has done as president. You may think Bush has got America speeding on the highway of peace, but I'm warning you that if that's the case, we are going THE WRONG WAY and a lot more somebodies are going to keep getting hurt and killed. You may have deep feelings for George and find my perspective more offensive than a Jackson nipple but I'd wager you this: you don't know the whole story. In fact, watching a bumbling Bush in his 9/11 commission related press conference and knowing the secrets he's sweating, I'm sad to say things are even worse than they appear. But what do executives always do when things don't go their way? They blame somebody else. Bush blames the Intelligence community, of which I was once a member and have every right to take offense at the charade. And then there's Steve Ballmer blaming his Windows users for Microsoft's security shortcomings.

Every individual, every business, every organization, every government agency that uses a computer also has a responsibility to ensure that they're protected.

Well how about one company stop merging their system and application layer to promote patently unfair business strategies for a change. Nope, nothing changes. So I'll keep talking and you can keep ignoring me as you wish, but understand that I am not busy here assailing the character of one man or a single corporation. I am assiduously addressing a host of grievances against a culture that allows what is the property and privilege of the commonwealth to be squandered on the interests of so few in pretense of serving in the name of America and the one man who would have the most to say about it. I pray in my modesty some change can come, even if it is not to be through my means.

In the interest of fanning the flame of free spirit that I know America still harbors, I offer yet another single from my CD. C'mon, you have to love the title.

Hallelujah Brownies

by Hilfiger Tout

I never was a member of the Brownies, but now that I'm into cooking and childcare I'm beginning to wonder what it was like. More people seem to like this song than my others; the power of a single engineered hook is truly amazing. Using the harmonizer and an expression pedal off my (no shit) Boss ME-8 Guitar Effects unit, I made my lonely voice sound like somebody else was singing with me. Unfortunately, I'll probably be singing alone until June. I was going to dedicate this number on liberty to the Okaloosa County Libertarians, but I don't think they exist anymore. Not based on the last I heard...

At our last meeting, we decided to have a "shootout". On the following Saturday, three carloads of us met for breakfast at Golden Corral and then went to Champion Range in Pace for some shooting pleasure.

I'll have to instead dedicate it to the true freedom loving people of the world, who may in fact be the majority. I have found countless examples on the internet expressing whatever is on their mind like it was the virtual Hyde Park amid an extraordinarily unprecedented nexus of controversy. Keep the chatter coming, because the truth comes from the some of all of us. Under the license, you are permitted to copy, distribute, or perform any of my songs free of charge. That's "free" as in speech, beer, kitten, verse or whatever you like so cheers.

Which reminds me, I have to make a license decision sometime soon for a new library that makes it easy to express metadata and create custom Lightweight Directory Access Protocol clients with Java. It's based on the JLDAP library available from Novell and OpenLDAP. I was thinking the LGPL, but I saw they use a simpler one.

What license would you choose?