We’re a young organization, but we’ve had success in CO already. In July, I moved to Austin with my family to both open the Texas branch of the consulting company at which I work (Thought Ascent) and to expand Brilliant Life into Texas.

Part of that expansion is a push to get the word out, which is where South By Southwest (SXSW) and this post come in. SXSW is a music, film and interactive festival that takes place in Austin each year. The Interactive portion of the festival draws thousands of tech professionals to hear about subjects from social media to emerging technology to how technology is being used to make the world a better place (that’s us).

What’s more, the public is given a role in helping to select the sessions that will be offered for each track.

This is where you come in. We need your vote.

We have submitted a session for SXSW under the title: ”Turning Criminals into Coders: The Brilliant Life Story.” Here’s the abstract:

“Can coding literally save someone’s life? Can it change America’s broken prison system? The non-profit, Brilliant Life, will discuss how they’re teaching juvenile delinquents to code, how to work on a software development team, as well as how they’re providing opportunities to work after their prison time ends.”

Voting is open to the public, and we’ve had a pretty good response so far. But we need your vote as well. So, please take a moment to go to the link below and vote for our session. You will have to register, but SXSW doesn’t spam, so sign right up.

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4435

And leave a comment for us if you can.

Thanks for your support!

P.S. If you’re interested in knowing more about Brilliant Life and what you can do to help, email me a brandon.satrom AT brilliantlife DOT org

“But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.”

- GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Emphasis mine)

This is not just beautiful prose. Today it gives me pause, and encourages me to analyze my own rebellion.

I do consider myself more than a bit of a rebel within the circles I run².

But I’m also more mystic³ than skeptic, which means my insurgency must have a cause, lest it become insurgency for its own sake.

So I protest war because I believe in the value of all human life, including those who want nothing more than to end mine.

I protect the environment around me because I do not believe that subduing the earth is the same as rendering it uninhabitable.

And I fight poverty, not to justify my undeserved wealth, but because dignity is a birthright of all human beings.

I am not, as Chesterton describes, a rebel in search of any cause. Rather, I rebel because of what I uphold to be true.

1. or, in this case, on a digital screen fashioned to look as much like paper as possible without actually being paper.
2. of course, perhaps I’m being melodramatic
3. as some would define it, this means that my faith is wholly knowable, but that I can not know it within myself completely. Or more simply put, God has all the answers, while I do not.

I stood in the courtyard playground of that child development center in Bonao, hours outside of Santo Domingo and less than a day after arriving in the Dominican Republic (DR), and the sun’s heat felt more like that given off by an interrogation lamp than life-giving warmth.

Why was I really here anyway?

Teasers only here, gotta go to the site to read the rest.

When you’ve read it, leave me a comment there. Or here. Or both. I love comments, and my mom does too. So if you don’t comment for me, do it for her.

And be sure to read the rest of the Compassion blog and leave comments for all of the people who work a lot harder than I do.

Compassion has been nominated for the MySpace Impact Awards, along with Kiva and Mercy Corps. Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but you should go to MySpace and vote for Compassion. Once per day until the 24th of January, 1930’s Chicago Democrat-style¹.

Now I know what you’re thinking. And I agree. Since moving on to Facebook, I too feel as though MySpace is the uncle you never visit because his house is a horrifying mess that smells like old cat litter and rotten chicken wings. But your visit is for a good cause. So go there now.

In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, I do work for Compassion, so I’m biased. However, my wife and I also sponsor three children through Compassion, two that we started sponsoring after I started working there. So I’m biased, but not because they pay me to be. I like the other two nominees (We even support Kiva as well). But as Chris said, “$10,000 buys a lot of mosquito nets”

1. I am a Democrat, so I can make this joke