Smithsonian Folk Life Festival

I got down to this year's edition of the Folk Life Festival on Thursday. The themes this year were Giving Voice, Las Americas and Wales. For more information follow this link.

It seemed a little scaled back from previous years. It didn't take up as much space as it usually does. But it was as always very entertaining. Here are some pictures and a couple of video clips from my visit.

Music from Las Americas

Here are a couple of pictures from one of the groups I listened to. Also a video of another group. Both were great.

Welch Musical Instruments

This guy talked about how in many cultures this type of music and musical instruments emerged. The basic unit was the flute like part of this instrument minus the bowl. It then morphed into all sorts of things with the addition of different parts to the original piece.

Spinning Wheel

This gives you an idea of what can be spun from the sheep in Wales.

Building A Wall

This was very cool to watch as this guy built this wall. As you might notice there is nothing keeping the stones together except the stones themselves. It was interesting to see him pick out the next stone.

Before he put the stone on the wall in the picture he said I need a corner stone.

More Music from the Folk Life Festival

Here's some Welsh music from the Folk Life Festival

Pictures from Tom Drymon's Show

Here are the picture's from Tom's show.

The artist and his work.

































































































































And here's a look at what's next on the agenda for Tom.

2Political Episode 10

2PP010 - 2 July 2009

2Political Podcast Episode 10 is now available. You can listen to it on the widget on the right side of my blog, or you can go the podcast site, 2political.com. You can leave comments there as well as download or listen to any episode.


Get 2Poltical Podcast for free on iTunes

Two Senators from Minnesota, Finally

Minnesota finally has two senators.

Here’s some of the opinion from the Minnesota Supreme Court:

•Coleman did not establish that, by requiring proof that absentee voting standards were satisfied before counting a rejected absentee ballot, the trial court changed standards that violates Coleman’s due process rights.

•Coleman didn’t prove that either the trial court or local election officials violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

•The three-judge panel did not abuse its discretion when it excluded additional evidence.

•The panel court ruled correctly when it included in the final election tally the election day returns of a precinct in which some ballots were lost before the manual recount.

“For all of the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. 32 Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota.”

At least Norm Coleman conceded graciously:

“The Supreme Court has spoken. We have a United States senator,” Coleman said in a news conference outside his home in St. Paul. “It’s time to move forward.”

It took rather a long time to get here. But sometimes that’s how the democratic process works. Coleman had a right to all the appeals. He should have realized a little earlier that he was not going to win.

There’s a very interesting analysis of how Franken won in the Post.

Perhaps the most important:

• It Pays To Be Ahead: When the statewide recount ended, Franken led by 225 votes. As we wrote at the time (and many times after that), it’s hard to overstate how important the fact that Franken was ahead was to setting public perception regarding the legal fight that ensued. Coleman was forced to be the aggressor legally, claiming that all sorts of ballots had been illegally counted (and not counted) while, through it all, the fact that Franken led by 225 votes hung over the proceedings. Voters tend to lose interest in politics quickly -- particularly after an election as nasty and long as this race was -- and that sort of fatigue played right into Franken’s hands.

The most important lesson to learn is how important it is to vote and to count every single vote.

Fitness Odds and Ends

Biking on Saturday
I did my longest ride of the year on Saturday. I got up very early. I was on my bike by 5:20 am. It was just starting to get light. I decided that I would just take my sunglasses. One less thing to carry. It always take a long time to get out of DC. That’s especially true when a little over a mile from my house is the hill up Rhode Island Ave. I also decided since it was still dark to take things a little slow heading out.

There’d been a storm on Friday night and there were several limbs of trees blocking the bike path. A couple times I had to go off the path to get around them. I made very good time down the Mt. Vernon trail. I reached Mt. Vernon a little after 8. I then went down the road and turned around at Gunston Hall.

My goal was to do 60 miles. I’d hoped to add additional miles by taking the Four Mile Run trail that you pick up just south of National Airport. The problem well actually there were two problems. The most important is that this is where I ran into the wind. I just don’t ride well in wind. It really slowed me down. The other problem is it didn’t add the additional mileage I thought it would. Where the Four Mile Run trail meets up with the trail out of DC, I headed back into DC. The wind had really tired me out so I did some quick thinking and decided to head back on the Mt. Vernon Trail and turn around at National Airport.

This did the trick. I did just over 63 miles. I got back to my house around 11:30 after making a short stop to pick up something to drink. All in all I think I did pretty good. I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be in the morning so I probably lost about 10 minutes there. That doesn’t seem like a great deal of time but after 10 am or so the trail started to get really crowded.

I have this Friday off for the 4th. The goal is to equal if not exceed Saturday’s ride. This time it will be straight out on the W&OD Trail and I hope to leave right at 5am.

Cholesterol News
I got my cholesterol back. Some good news on the bad front and a slight disappointment on the good front. The good news on the bad front is that my bad cholesterol (LDL) went from 142 to 128. The slight disappointment is that my good went from 70 to 61. Overall my total cholesterol went from 228 to 205.

So to do a quick recap from January of 2008 my total cholesterol has gone from 230 to 205. Good cholesterol from 50 to 61. Bad cholesterol from 160 to 128.

The numbers are definitely moving in the right direction!

July Goal
I’m going to try and alter my diet. Well I think a better way of putting it is what I eat. I’m going to work with my trainer and drop out some of the bad things I’ve been eating. Today I had my last Coke for a while. I’m going to see how long I can go without having one. It also means laying off all the junk food that I eat. I don’t a great deal but it’s enough. It’s probably the reason my good cholesterol dropped.

I’m also going to increase my exercising. I’m hoping to move training days to Tuesday/Thursday. This way I’d be able to add an extra day of spinning. I’m not sure that will work. In the mean time I’m going to be adding a walk after dinner. When the weather gets too hot, I’ll probably ride the stationary bike. I’m also going to get to the gym early in training days and do some cardio before the work out. I’m hoping to loose around 4 or 5 pounds this month.

Newest Republican Stupidity

No someone else hasn't had an affair. A woman by the name of Joyce Thomann of Republican Women of Anne Arundel County has equated Obama to Hitler.Yes, Obama to Hitler. Here's the letter:

Dear Friends: Obama and Hitler have a great deal in common in my view. Obama and Hitler use the "blitzkrieg" method to overwhelm their enemies. FAST, CARPET BOMBING intent on destruction. Hitler's blitzkrieg bombing destroyed many European cities - quickly and effectively. Obama is systematically destroying the American economy and with it AMERICA. First the banking/investment industry, next private enterprise (GM and Chrysler) and now HEALTH CARE.

We too CAN fight back. Contact everyone you know. Start a blitzkrieg of our own. Shut down the Capitol switchboards and the White House switchboards! Say NO to the Obamination of Obama Care!

Here's the site to go to and the incredibly lame excuse they use. The board of directors never saw the article.

Then there is an even more unbelievable defense from this women's husband:

"It wasn't meant in the way people are taking it."

Thomann conceded that "maybe she wasn't as artful as she could have been," referring to his wife's comments, but said he and his wife view Obama's push of what they deem socialist programs similar to the way Adolf Hitler spread the Nazi ideals in Germany.

"The methods that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [President] Obama are using to get the socialist view point across, is similar to what Hitler did. And the German people regretted it. I just happen to be up on it. I happen to be a history teacher."

Maybe she wasn't as artful. You have got to be kidding me. People are taking it out of context! How is there any other context for people to take away from this statement. Instead of defending it they should be apologising for what was said.

What alternate parallel universe do these people live in. Oh that's right they're Republicans.

Tom Drymon's Exhibit at Athenaeum

Here's some information about my friend Tom's exhibit at Athenaeum. I'll post pictures from the opening reception in my next post. Visit Tom's site by clicking here.

More thoughts on the Metro

I think all things considered Metro handled the accident on Monday fairly well.

The problem with Metro has always been their inability to get information out to people in a timely manner. They still need to improve things.

Something I noticed on Monday is that when you are sitting in a car at a station with the train doors open, you don’t hear any of the announcements that are being made in the station. I think the train operator needs to relay that information to the people in the cars. Also get the speakers in the cars and in the stations to work properly. Pump up the volume so people can hear what is being said. People making the announcements need to speak loudly, clearly and slowly so everyone can not only hear what is being said but understand what is being said. This is especially true in an emergency situation.

It was only when we came out from being under ground after Union Station that we learned about the crash. I think Metro needed to say to people there’s a major problem at Takoma. Maybe saying there’s been an accident involving two trains and there are injuries. This would have shown the seriousness of the situation. It wasn’t necessary to let people know there were fatalities.

Now to switch gears a bit. I have some comments on the coverage on television. It seemed to take a very long time to get the information out that these were inbound trains. I will say even Metro had a problem with this. But this should have been determined as soon as possible. It would have reassured a great many people. It being rush hour the bast majority of people are traveling out of the city not into it as these trains were. If this had been two out bound train the numbers of dead and wounded would have been much higher.

Another thing the stations couldn’t seem to get right is the difference between a train and a car. This happened on several stations. At one point a reporter was talking about people in the third train when he meant the third car. There is a huge difference. They needed to get this right or to have someone correct them but that didn’t happen.

As always seems to be the case these days on any major event, when there is no new video, you keep seeing the same stuff over and over and over and over again. There should be some sort of a rule that if you’ve run video more than say six times in an hour give it a rest.

My favorite line well we shouldn’t speculate but what the hell let’s do it any way. There is a difference between speculating and presenting probably reasons for the accident. Or giving a history of what’s happened in the past.

The saddest part of course is that fact that nine people died. The most important thing now is to make sure this type of an accident never happens again.

Zipper Redux

Can you believe it?

But I guess when it comes to the party of family values, it’s old hat. Yet again another Republican politician who can’t keep his zipper zipped. The Ensign story seems tame in comparison although there are plenty of additional questions to be asked about that one.

But I think it was best summed up this way [and this was before the affair was revealed from CNN]:

Earlier Wednesday, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler said in a statement it was the “height of irresponsibility for the governor to walk out on his solemn duty to the people of South Carolina.

“When it comes to the real needs and concerns of South Carolinians, Mark Sanford has been pretty much missing in action for the last six-and-a-half years. But it is not acceptable for him to be actually missing.

“However, as disturbing as it is to walk out on your responsibilities without telling anyone, what’s more troubling is that the governor and his staff have been less than truthful about his whereabouts,” the statement said.

This from the Washington Post:

This is not the end of the story. The problem for Sanford is that he appears to have willfully misled his staff, the lieutenant governor and the people of the state about his whereabouts -- signaling that he was likely headed to the Appalachian Trail before hopping on a flight to Argentina. There will almost certainly be some sort of investigation into whether Sanford misused state funds on this trip -- remember that he took a state-owned vehicle and parked it at the Columbia airport -- that will keep this wound raw for the foreseeable future.

I guess it can only be summed up that the Republicans really do seem to be a party of hypocrites. There’ve been comments that Democrats have had affairs Clinton being the person always cited. Or there is the track of this is between the politician and his wife.

Except for a couple of things. Republicans love to look down their noses at Democrats and just about anyone else and talk about their moral values. How they are better than everyone else. They are also the party that is conducting the fight against gay-marriage by saying marriage is a sacred institution and must be protected. So the level of hypocrisy is running very very high. So these politicians deserve everything that comes there way [pun intended].

Before they talk about any sort of values they need to figure out how to keep their zippers' zipped.