The Arts Make Money

      2 min read      Ireland · National/International Politics · Photography · Rural Issues      Professional · CommunityDevelopment

The Wisconsin Arts Board has come out with a new study showing the impact the arts have on local economies. According to the report, “in 2005, Wisconsin’s non-profit arts industry generated over 15,000 full-time jobs and $61,840,000 in state and local government revenue. Cumulatively, the arts contributed $418,055,786 in total economic activity.” The Wisconsin Arts Board hopes to use the report’s findings to improve public funding for the arts in Wisconsin.

Great Quote

      1 min read      Books

“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their own song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their songs instead.

DataPlace

      1 min read      Ireland

http://www.dataplace.org/

Meal in a Wheat Field

      1 min read      Rural Issues

Our good friend Laura has been busy helping to organize a meal in a wheat field on Washington Island. The meal was held to launch a summer of culinary events at the Washington Hotel. The Hotel was involved in the return of wheat-growing to Washington Island, which has been a fantastic rural development initiative. I had the honor of handing the Washington Island folks their honorable mention award during Wisconsin Rural Partners’ Top Rural Development Initiatives award ceremony in 2006.

Colm Tóibín

      3 min read      Books · Ireland

[![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1416534652.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg) Click to buy from Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416534652/irishroseconsult) A couple of months ago we stopped in the town of Wexford on a Saturday when their book festival was being held. Author Colm Tóibín was doing a reading, but we were unable to stick around until he was up. I found a couple of his non-fiction books, Bad Blood and Sign of the Cross, purchased them and left them to be signed and mailed to us.

Wisconsin Blue Books Online

      1 min read      National/International Politics · Technology

The University of Wisconsin has created an online digital collection displaying all Blue Books since the the very first in 1853. The Blue Book is the almanac of Wisconsin state government. This is a great resource for history buffs, and includes many old maps and photographs. It’s also a fine demonstration of the power of the internet to make public resources more available to people. State of Wisconsin Blue Book Collection

Gas Prices Around the World

      1 min read      Ireland

Wired magazine’s web site has an illustration showing gas prices around the world. From a low of $0.17 in Venezuela to a high of $6.65 in London, there’s quite a range. Gas prices are always a hot topic for us here in Ireland - we’re currently sitting at $5.92 after a recent rise. Thank god the island is so small, we don’t do nearly the driving we did in Wisconsin!

Online Cellphone Backup

      2 min read      Technology

Have you got all your important phone numbers stored in your cellphone? Have you forgotten every phone number you ever knew because it’s programmed into your cellphone? Do you have those numbers backed up someplace? Probably not. If you lose your cellphone, or you run it through the washing machine, or it dies some other horrible death, you’re going to lose those numbers. We had a close call with that recently in the Deery household, so I was happy to learn about a new cellphone backup service from a company called ZYB.

Does this make sense?

      1 min read      National/International Politics

“At 10:14 EDT, CBS affiliate KOTV (Tulsa, OK) reported that a lightning strike had caused a fire at an Oklahoma refinery–sparking a flurry of excitement among energy traders and boosting U.S. crude prices 40 cents.” Does it really make sense to base so much of an economy on such a volatile market? With the oil market in such unstable shape, we’re really just waiting for the disaster that shoves things over the edge.

Projector Delivery - Today!

      1 min read      Technology

A company called Meeting Tomorrow is offering the service of delivering projectors and other audio-visual equipment for use in meetings and presentations. They can do same-day delivery for many locations. When you’re done with the equipment, pack it up and FedEx returns it for you. Having struggled with less-than-ideal AV setups for presentations all over the country, I think this service is going to be a big hit.