If you have never found that beach which fits you like a glove, perhaps you need some help from the guy who wrote the beach lovers guide to loving the beach.
My special treat for father's day was visting one of my favorite beaches. If you want to read about where the beach is and why you might also fall for it, try my article, A Special Beach To Love.
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My wife recently complained to me about an article written in our local newspaper. I try to have some sympathy for the newspaper business because it is a dying business, but the article my wife showed me demanded that I at least set the rules straight even if I have decided against calling the author out publicly. Had the author of the article made a point in his disrespectful piece I might have presented a reasoned piece disagreeing with him like I did with another author a few years ago in this article.
However, it is hard to win an argument when you cannot tell what the point of the article is other than to build a case that our local newspaper should find someone to replace the columnist whose articles will hasten the day that I drop our subscription. Surely they do not pay him to write?
Fortunately one of the lessons of my youth was that real journalism has little to do with the condition of the newspaper business. I spent my teenage years in the small town of Mount Airy, North Carolina. During those years, I got to know RJ Berrier quite well.
RJ had been in the newspaper business for over 50 years when he died in 2000. Even then it was a rocky business and RJ watched his beloved Mount Airy Times where he was editor be bought out by the competing Mount Airy News where he finished his career. He went from a manual typewriter to a computer in those 50 years. What newspaper RJ worked for and how much he was paid had little to do with his journalistic standards which were likely even tougher than those that I have linked. He sought the truth and worked tirelessly at presenting it accurately.
I still remember RJ telling me once that most people only got the privilege of being in the newspaper three times, once when they were born, a second time when they graduated from high school, and a final time when they died. RJ believed that they deserved to have their names spelled correctly during those moments. That attention to detail is long gone in today’s world of newspapers.
While we are in a different world than my friend RJ navigated, that is no excuse for completely throwing journalistic standards out the window. I believe the poorly written article that I read is a good example of just how far journalism has declined.
I would link to the article but like many other people who have been writing for years, I try not to harm others even idiots. I make every effort “to seek truth and report it; minimize harm; act independently; be accountable.”
I have debated whether I should write his editor and suggest the so-called journalist enroll in an ethics course, but I long ago learned that making sure that I do the kind of quality writing that I believe my readers deserve is a full time job. As such it does not leave time for trying to intervene in a newspaper’s continuing effort to drive away the few remaining readers that they have.
It is easy to write garbage which appeals to the baser instincts of people. What is hard is telling the truth when the truth is not very popular. I will keep telling the truth but hopefully in a way that helps rather than hurts people.
If you like the way that I approach writing, I would love to have you as a reader.
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I did not expect Apple's Tim Cook to testify before Congress that Apple has done anything but stick to the letter of the law. If any company has lots of lawyers on retainer, it is Apple. Yet Apple's billions in profits is something that might trouble those whose consciences are a little more attuned to the world beyond stockholders.
This horde of offshore cash is nothing new. When I was working for Apple as director of federal sales, the lobbyist who helped me get meetings with key government officials was also working to convince legislators that they should create a tax holiday for companies like Apple so that they would bring their billions home. That was an ongoing effort over ten years ago. Not having that cash in the US does not seem to have slowed the Apple steamroller.
It is not a bad thing that Apple and other companies make a lot of money. What I worry about is companies and Apple might be one of them who lose their way and can only think about adding to their corporate pile of cash. When I went to Apple in 1984, we talked about the Mac being the computer for the rest of us. Today Apple's computers are certainly targeted to those with the most disposable income. Those computers might have industry standard parts, but their margins are the envy of the rest of the tech world.
In Apple's case the obsession with money started somewhat through necessity. Apple in 1996 was dangerously close to going out of business.
While many people understand the story that Steve Jobs brought a passion for great products back to Apple, few appreciate how driven he was to be a success as a CEO and generate boat loads of money.
If creating a money making machine is your definition of success, then it is easy to say that Steve Jobs and the Apple executives who have followed him are the epitome of success.
While I would be tickled to figure out how to make money with a little less effort, I am not sure that I would want my legacy to be making more money than any human could spend or give away.
The profit on high tech devices has much to do with low cost factories in China that Apple, other tech companies, and those of us who use the products must shoulder as something we helped create. It is not a very pretty thought.
Beyond the money, large corporations and Apple is just one of them have become a strange world unto themselves. The corporation is the law of the land for those who work there.
I still know several people who work at Apple. While some at them have been at Apple many years, most of them fear Apple. Fear is not an easy companion during your workday.
You can get a taste of the world of Apple in this excerpt, The Strangest Nine Months of My Career at Apple from my book, The Pomme Company. Just because a company makes shiny products that millions love does not mean that it is a good corporate citizen for our country or even that it treats its employees well.
Part of me would like to believe that there is still a chance that companies like Apple can devote some of their resources to making our country a better place to live. That is perhaps the wishful thinking of someone who intentionally lives far from the corporate world.
It is a daunting challenge to let companies like Apple be successful and still hold them to more than just the letter of the law. It is almost written in stone that good CEOs have to jettison their conscience. That's actually a sad commentary on our society, but it is one of the reasons that I like living a different life here on the Carolina coast.
I will not be spending a lot of time worrying about the storm over Apple's offshore billions. We have a real tropical storm, Andrea, heading up the coast. That first tropical weather system of the season means a whole lot more to me.
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