Photographs from a Bloy in Wisconsin
Here are my picks for best music of the year, including samples of key tracks.
Richard Ashcroft – Keys to the World
The former lead singer of The Verve, Richard Ashcroft pulled from a variety of styles to make an outstanding CD. The Motown flavored “Music is Power,” the brit-pop “Break the Night with Colour” and the Paul Westerburg-like ballad “Sweet Brother Malcolm” are all excellent songs. The title track is another superb brit-pop song.
Look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see… a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.
Sure, it’s a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom… But that’s what makes all this interesting.
Bravo. Excellent choice. It really is amazing how the power of the collaborative web has changed things. Here’s the article and links to related coverage.
I spent a great deal of yesterday evening writing up Christmas cards to send out. As I got to a lot of the names on the list I start to wonder… Why do I have contact with some of these people only once a year? Some I intended to visit, or correspond with a lot more than I have. Where does the time go? It seems like it was just a few months ago when I was writing out my Christmas cards last year.
I spent most of last weekend removing the last traces of wallpaper from my condo, when I stripped it from the downstairs bathroom. Yes, my home is now wallpaper free!
If I were ruler of the kingdom, I would require anyone installing wallpaper to be responsible for its removal. The installers would be required to do that when any future owner of said wallpaper wishes it to be removed. As much as I dislike removing wallpaper, after removing it from my kitchen, and now the bathroom, I’ve become quite good at it. Although I probably shouldn’t admit to that (no, I am not available for outside jobs).
Yesterday I spent a few hours spackling the bathroom walls, and today I painted the primer on. Hopefully I’ll get the final coat of paint on in the next few days.
As I was cleaning the paint brush today, it hit me that I’ve have spent more of my free time fixing up or improving this condo than any other home I’ve lived in. One thing I have come to realize: I would most certainly rather be doing something else. If money were no object…
I just finished watching Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. I don’t care what your political mindset is, there is no way anyone can see this film and not agree that global warming is an urgent crisis we need to do something about. As the former Vice President says, this is not a political issue, it is a moral one. If the rise in carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase at an exponential rate, the planet’s temperature will rise along with it. Billions of people will suffer fates similar to the hundreds of thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims.
The Huffington Post has obtained an internal memo from Fox News, which was written the day after the election. From the memo:
The elections and Rumsfeld’s resignation were a major event, but not the end of the world. The war on terror goes on without interruption… And let’s be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.
I guess the powers that be at Fox News were absent the day they talked about objectivity in journalism school. Be sure and bring this up the next time anyone complains about the liberal bias in the media.
“Fair and Balanced” indeed.
It was a great day for a hike yesterday, so I did a little exploring and headed to New Glarus Woods State Park.
Last night I went to the Bob Dylan concert at the Kohl Center here in Madison. When you go to see such a legendary performer, you bring a lot of expectations along. After all, you’ve heard those classic songs a hundred times before, in their original recorded form.
Over the past several decades, Dylan hasn’t been one to reproduce the song’s original studio sound in concert, and he certainly doesn’t sing the same way he did twenty (or even ten) years ago. However, the outstanding backing band, and that sometimes raspy voice did have more than their share of shining moments. That was especially true when they performed the bluesy songs like “Lonesome Day Blues” or “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” (a song from his newest and highly acclaimed disc, Modern Times). Musically, another strong moment came when the band opened the encore with another of the new songs “Thunder on the Mountain.”
I got to see my great nephew Adam in his Halloween costume tonight. Here he is with his Grandmother (my sister-in-law), who made the swashbuckling jacket.
Say it with me now… “Arrrrrrrr!”
In a couple of weeks citizens in Wisconsin will be voting on two referendums. I’m voting NO on both.
One referendum is asking if the State should institute the death penalty for capital crimes with DNA evidence. Wisconsin hasn’t executed anyone for the past 150 years, and I certainly think we should keep it that way.
The death penalty has always struck me as being a tool of vengeance, which I believe is morally wrong.