Voices of the Past

In 1948, philosopher Bertrand Russell sat in front of a microphone at the BBC. Listeners didn’t realize how cool he looked.

Russell, a Nobel laureate, gave the inaugural Reith Lectures, a series of radio transmissions aimed at connecting experts in various fields with the general public. The lectures focused on topics of significance for their time, by the likes of J Robert Oppenheimer and George Kennan. If you don’t know who those folks are, then look ’em up, cause they’re kinda important.

Yup, big names and their ideas were made accessible to people listening to their radios. Now, the lectures are all available in an online archive, which can be found below.

Give a listen to the unwritten.

The Reith Lectures 1948-2010

The Reith Lectures homepage 

BBC Article: “BBC Radio 4 unveils 60 years of Reith Lectures Archive”

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This was Not a Conference, Encore

Do you remember 2010’s This is Not a Conference?

It was, of course, where Graduate Music Student Association (GMSA) & the History and Classics Graduate Students Association (HCGSA) at the University of Alberta (UofA) joined forces to make an even longer acronym (GMSAHCGSAUOFA) and host a combined panel as part of their respective conferences.

Well they did it again this year too:

The following videos are from a talk called “Who said you could label dissent? The Punk Attitude in Folk Music in the Twentieth Century”

Dr. Michael B. MacDonald & Rylan Kafara

And go ahead and check out other videos from the 2011 GMSA conference:

Video from Ncounters: the Audible Past, the Mutable Future 

Getting the Facts Together on the Collective West

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but recently the mainstream media has really been lacking in the investigative news department. We used to have journalists like April O’Neil willing to go down in the sewers of New York City to get to the bottom of the whole mutant ninja turtle business – and now all we have is TMZ trying to find out which b-list celebrity has anchovies on their pizza.

A reporter from a bygone era

So when I heard rumblings of a new group forming in Edmonton called “the Collective West” – I thought this was my chance for a big scoop. Were they a new political organization like the Alberta Party or the Wild Rose Alliance Party? Were they an underground network of anarchists set to throw off the authority of the federal government? Or were they a group forming to protest the inability of Western Canadian hockey teams to win the Stanley Cup?

To find out, I used the investigative journalist’s secret weapon, Facebook, and asked members of the group some serious questions that would unravel the web of intrigue that surrounds the Collective West. And what I found out was more shocking, more important, and more banjo-filled than any story on tired old western alienation adages, far right-wing political parties, or Canadians that would take to the streets to violently protest the loss of a hockey game…

That’s right, I found a group of people that aren’t idiots. And not only that, but they are in a band.

Give the Edmonton Show a High-Five!

…and so here’s an unbiased article on Nextfest, the best festival around

Pop quiz hotshot!

Take the word “revitalization.”
Do you use it when:

A) Talking about using taxpayer money to help build a new ice hockey arena for a billionaire and other fatcats that don’t want to leave downtown.

B) Talking about an arts festival that’s accessible to everyday folk, and showcases talent from within the community.

C) You can’t think about revitalization right now, thanks to the ridiculous Speed reference.

If you answered “A“- quick, stop reading now! Unfortunately, this article won’t lead to you making more money, so you’ll consider it a waste of your time. Go check your stocks!

If you answered “C” – fair enough. Next question: What are your top 5 favourite Keanu Reeves’ films?

If you answered “B” – well then, you’re in luck, because at this very moment an arts festival is on in Edmonton with that exact purpose!

It’s called Nextfest.  Here’s a bit about it.

(The people interviewed in this article had no notice of the above multiple choice pop quiz, and may not share the opinions expressed within the answer options “A” and “C.” …ESPECIALLY “C.“)