All images this week were taken during yesterday’s rally on the National Mall. [NYT article]

Last Thursday the Sunlight Foundation did a live blog covering the Health Care Summit in the Blair House. It was a very fun and successful event, the next few days will be some photos from that event. Enjoy!

From a New York Times’ story of our event:

There will be a plethora of ways to follow the health care meeting today and talk back live — from cable television and C-Span to live blogs and  social networking sites. But there is a new entry into the media cacophony that hopes to offer something a little different.

The Sunlight Foundation, which advocates transparency and open government, is entering the field with an online venue called Sunlight Live.

Just as the name implies, the site hopes to provide readers with information about the summit and its participants that traditional media might not focus on.

For example, according to the site’s announcement, when a member of Congress speaks, Sunlight Live will show the financial contributions that person has received as well as “their connections to lobbyists and industry, personal finances, and key votes that the leaders have made on health care in the past,” according to a foundation announcement.

Thanks to Aaron for thinking of me and connecting me with Stephanie Armour of the USA Today.  After a very friendly ten minute conversation, here’s the quote she selected for the article, published today:

The ability to work from anywhere also means snow days no longer offer a break from work. Many are like Nicko Margolies, a communications assistant at the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit.

With the federal government shut down, his office closed. Margolies worked at home.

“No snowstorm, no matter how big, will keep me from working. I lost heat, but I had my space heater and network access, so I kept on trucking. It’s actually a seamless transition from home to work,” he says. “The only difference is I’m in my pajamas.”

The full article is on USA TODAY. My quote was also picked up on Time Magazine’s ‘It’s Your Money’ blog and reposted on the Battle Creek Enquirer in Michigan. The image credits on this post go to NASA for this beautiful photograph taken by the Terra satellite (which I cropped).

In honor of the fantastic snow storm that hit the DC area over the weekend, I will be having the next week or so dedicated to the joys of snow.  I hope you enjoy it (though I have a feeling it won’t be as popular as dog week).

Two weeks ago I attended a Crisis Camp event at the Sunlight Foundation‘s offices. It was a bustling scene and a lot of projects were running at full steam. The photos I took there will be the topic of the next couple days.

A number of those images were used in conjunction with video featuring the audio of a report on American Public Media’s Marketplace program:

Yesterday’s post, about my squirrel picture on wikipedia leading to some beautiful original artwork in the Philippines, is actually not the only resurfacing of that image.

In December, I got an email from a woman in Australia (who somehow could pick out my specific squirrel picture from memory) about how she noticed it was on a local TV show. Apparently, an ABC show about zombies used my photo as part of the backstory behind the series, cleverly named ‘Zombies.’

The show is only viewable online from Australia (unfortunately, I think it has expired) and I was able to watch the first part of the episode.  According to Zombies, my furry friend was responsible for transferring the zombie brain-virus to humans in rural Kentucky, hastening the apocalypse.  Oops.