dan flies

Saving Trees Is Music to Guitar Makers’ Ears – New York Times
Do SOMETHING: Go to the Forest Stewardship Council, make a donation, get educated and help put pressure on the companies that won’t join, by buying products from companies that have joined.

See how you can make a difference as a musician with the Musicwood Coalition.

Election Junk
I could not stand to watch the Republican Debate. Just as I’ll guess that most Republicans didn’t watch the Democratic Party debate. I hope the Republican Party fields a good candidate that will produce good debates. One of the debate topics will be universal health care, the NY Times has a good article on it to day, check it out.

Architecture Note
Behind the Glass Wall: Philip Johnson’s Glass House. The NY Times has a story about Johnson and his “Modernist masterpiece”. I really like the house, much more than the IDS Center in Minneapolis he designed.

Buy your own soccer club (in England)

Scores Rise Since ‘No Child’ Signed
The Washington Post lead with a story of elementary test scores across the country have risen since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act. The story doesn’t reference any of the data that is used to make these conclusions. Hopefully more details will come out of the hearing tomorrow by the House subcommittee on elementary and secondary education.

U commits library to Google Search
The University of Minnesota and other Big Ten school have opened up their libraries to Google’s book indexing project. In the project the U will open its many volumes to Google to be scanned and indexed. The project is a part of Google’s mission to organize and index the world’s data for easy access. The project will cost the U nothing (but a library card).

2008 Political Futures — Slate
Slate outlines the political futures markets including the Iowa Electronic Markets. The markets allow people to bet on who will win the parties nominations and which party will win the general election.

Another lesson from PBS
PBS had an awesome 3 episode series on the Arts and Crafts movement called Craft in America. It outlines the origins of the craft movement out of the Industrial Revolution and profiles some of the artists continuing the traditions.

I typically don’t post any quotes, but here is a great one I heard the other day. From Chuck Close, painter; “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of just show up and go to work.”

That it from Des Moines, IA.

A local doctor and amateur photographer paid for lighting of the Cathedral of St. Paul for the 100th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone.

Many local photographers were out for the event. The local camera clubs sent out an emails for the event. Many people came just to see the cathedral’s main facade lit for the first time. Typically just a few lights in the bell tower and on the dome are lit.

for more photos see: http://flickr.com/photos/danflies/

I’m succumbing to the pressure of the early presidential race. Not that we have all learned from our mistakes over the last decade, lets not elect any more idiots. Now I believe that the president is really an idiot, but it seems like it at times.

Here is today’s first glimpse:

Slate on Sen. Fred Thompson
But wouldn’t Fred Thompson the aphorist look at a guy like Fred Thompson the presidential candidate and say: “What’s he ever done? Before he runs a country shouldn’t he at least run a coffee shop?”

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything, but thanks for checking back. Now that summer has unofficially arrived I should be posting more photos and making more blog entires.

The Sunday before Memorial Day has become a new family tradition in the last few years. It is a wonderful day, definitely a highlight of each year.

My brother is tending the fire while, in the foreground, my dad supervises.

Tagging the Mayor’s Ride – Los Angeles Times

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was promoting a new bus stop near a school south of downtown L.A. when his bus was tagged by student as it stopped at a traffic light. The mayor didn’t think it was funny or ironic. The bus stop was added because the violence and harrasement on near the campus. The two-block walk to the previous bus stop was considered the worst in L.A.

The mayor was riding with the superitendant of the Los Angles Unified School district, other officals and reporters. Students have been trying for months to get a new stop on the bus route to ease gang related crime near the old stop. But as the mayor found out, even the maiden trip on the route isn’t free from harrasment.

A reminder to all of you about taxes. There is a one time telephone refund for all years of getting ripped off.

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 02/26/2007 | It’s free money: IRS urges Minnesotans to claim telephone tax refund

I’ve posted a few pictures from Saturday. We had a great mix of people from past and present, Montana to Lake Park.

Check it out. You may also notice that these pictures are going to my second Flickr account where I’ll put more of the random photos from events like this. The account is Flies et (and) Friends. Check it out!

photo by M.C. Bernard

We’ll it has been made official Al Franken is running for the U.S. Senate. His focus is squarely on the senior Senator from MN, Norm Coleman. Now if we can only get UMM alumnus Robert Fitzgerald to run again for the Independence Party, we could have a really interesting race.

Overall 2008 (actually 2007) will shape up to be a very intersting year for races. The MN Senate seat will get national headlines for the names involved and MN’s status as a “swing” state and which ever party is leading in the Senate seat will also give a large advantage to the presidential race.

There will be a lot of canidates not only trying to convince voters they have the better plan, but to prove that they are serious contendes. For Al Franken, he is trying to prove that he may tell jokes, but he is not a joke. Barak Obama is out to prove that his rock-star rise is just as much substance as flash. And Hillary Clinton is out to show people that she isn’t who liberal nut that people like to think she is (or was).

There can be a lot of firsts that could become reality this time next year. We could have our first woman or black president and we could have our first comedian in the the US goverment.

We’ll see, it should be fun.

Al Franken’s YouTube Message

CHECK OUT AL’S OPENING MESSAGE!