The two remaining Bee Gees (Robin and Barry) picked up "Commanders of the Order of the British Empire" at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, the sudden death last year of Maurice (too often overlooked as the 3rd brother behind the keyboard -- lacking the early ear-cupping 60s star power of Robin, or the huge 70s career of lion-beared Barry), left the honor ringing tinged with melancholy. In fact, Barry reveals his fear of flying after 9/11 may have cost Maurice the chance to receive the award in person, before his sudden heart attack last year.

This doesn't really have much to do with the category here of as a 20th Century composer, at least the serious brand that filled my 20s. But the BeeGees were a childhood favorite (I always cupped my ear in elementary school for sing-a-long like Robin), and a guilty pleasure ever since. I don't know that I'm actually *sad* that they won't perform as a group anymore, since except for the 1989 album ONE, which was great, they haven't done a lot more than receive awards and accolades. Well-deserved, in my opinion. Nobody gets too much heaven.

Away on vacation, visiting family (as you can see by my last location on the right, and the lack of activity recently). I've tweaked and polished red | blue for release, available here.

By taking your current GPS location, and finding the nearest individual donors of campaign funds from the publicaly available data from the Federal Elections Commission, red | blue is able to provide you an accurate reading of the political leanings of your surroundings -- red for Republican or blue for Democrat.

It really works well -- I'm pretty impressed with what it can do, and the speed of development. The magic, of course, if there is any, is the power of democracy, and the fact that this data is not only available but can be used to provide a curious, possibly powerful window into the flow of money (thus, influence) into the political machine.

A big thanks to Mike Frumin at Fund Race for the geocoded FEC data.