“Who is John Galt?” This question is posed by the characters in Ayn Rand’s monumental novel, Atlas Shrugged. I read this book years ago and then decided to start my own company. If you want to understand capitalism and the true power of the individual, you need to read this book.

Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957, yet today it is ranked #24 overall on Amazon.com and #1 in Literature. I’ve read many books on success, economics and happiness, heck, I even designed and edited one (that’s another story), but nothing comes close to this amazing book. Over 50 years ago, Ms. Rand saw where the ignorance of capitalism and the mind can lead. Recent events have been reminding me of Atlas Shrugged so I decided to read this 1100-page novel again this year and just finished it this week.

If you are a regular reader, you know I don’t talk about philosophy or politics, but the coincidence of my reading it again, seeing it referred to numerous times in the news and discovering its recent surge in popularity inspired me to take a break from photos and introduce to you this book that has had such profound influence on who I am.

Impressive idea and footage, the music is awful, so turn the sound off and enjoy!

Today’s Saturday Moment of Zen features my friends DJ and Werner.

ABC’s Good Morning America has a segment they call “Your Weekend Window” that featured the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes today. It’s a nice overview of why I love living here, except they make a big mistake — they call it the Chain of Lakes in the town of Calhoun, Minnesota. There’s no town of Calhoun around here, the “Chain of Lakes” are four lakes in Minneapolis; you’d think that the fact that all the people they interview are Minneapolis Park Board employees would be a hint. The Lakes are from top to bottom: Cedar Lake, Lake of the Isles, Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. Lake Nakomis is further down Minnehaha Creek.   Watch the video.

Fun fact about Lake Calhoun, it used to be named “Medoza” meaning  Lake of the loons, but after Secretary of War, John Calhoun sent the Army to survey the area around Fort Snelling in 1817, they named it after him.

Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow’s daily photos of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities.

Behind the scenes at MRDI. Production for Lake Pointe Chiropractic & Wellness.

My friend Jack sent this video to me. It’s worth watching, really. He’s in it. You can see him at 2:06, wearing a black cowboy hat on the right. But that’s besides the point.

It’s been a long week for me and this morning I didn’t feel like posting a picture or working on the blog. I’ve been falling behind and loosing interest. What’s it for? Why am I doing this? There is so much I must do and I’m building five websites at the same time right now (today’s pic is from one of them), so why am I blogging every damn day?

Then Jack sent me this video and I realized that I’m in the dance. This video is so beautiful. I makes me realize that all the photo bloggers around the world that I share the daily photo project with are all out there dancing. We aren’t dancing for each other, we aren’t dancing for ourselves — nobody is paying us, nobody might see us, there is no promise at the end, no golden ticket, but we dance. That’s why. Simply for the joy of the dance.

So smile, dance a little and remember that we are all in this together.

My friend Matt told me about this comic strip and I checked it out for the first time today. Comically enough, it related perfectly to my photo today! What the Duck? is a daily cartoon about photography! I just started going back through the archives, but so far I’m enjoying it. Check it out.

Mitchster at the fair! Mitchster will be posting every day during the MN State Fair, from the fair! If you have any tips for locations, free stuff or even plan to be there, please comment!