MF GALAXY

Last episode was part one of NOW READ THIS! , in which ten awesome people awesomely awesomed up their awesome reading recommendations. Why? Because a whole bunch of angries didn’t like the Bradford Reading Challenge. What’s the Bradford Reading Challenge, you ask? Simple! Author, tech-reviewer, and fandom activist K. Tempest Bradford suggested in an xoJane.com opinion piece that readers should discover the world of writers who never get confused for Mitt Romney, Stephen Harper, or Patton Oswalt. This episode, instead of ten boffo-socko book baptisers, let’s level up to SIXTEEN SCINTILLATING BOOK SPEAKERS. That’s right! We’ll hear from: Directors Ernest Dickerson, Seith Mann, and Reginald Hudlin Alternative Radio founder and interviewer David Barsamian South Sudanese community activist Buk Arop Sociologist and author Algernon Austin Columnist, author, and activist Bill Fletcher Hip hop artist and activist Young Mav Actors Isaiah Washington, Jamie Hector, Robert Wisdom , and...

Wednesday 6pm Mountain Time FM88 Edmonton cjsr.com World Wide Untapped Alberta This Friday at the Arts Barns in Old Strathcona, check out Untapped Alberta, a showcase of remarkable local musical talent. Two of the featured performances will be by jazz-soul-R&B artist Krystle Dos Santos and the sensational hip hop group Politic Live. On Monday, Politic Live leader Arlo Maverick spoke with me by telephone about the politics of community-building for African-Canadian musicians. But he began by telling me about the gig itself. Ory Okolloh Ory Okolloh, Harvard-trained lawyer, Kenyan government transparency activist and blogger of the site called Mzalendo which provides “an unprecedented look at the doings of Kenya's parliament--information once unavailable to Kenyan citizens.” Her site tracks the performance of Kenya’s parliamentarians by using a vote tracker and offer articles and opinion pieces. She also blogs on Kenyan Pundit.com . Tonight, from a speech she delivered in June ...

From my article in this week's Vue Weekly, and from tonight's edition of THE TERRORDOME , the sad and glorious story of how local hip hop sensation Politic Live got jerked all along the way to making a phenomenal album : "So many of history’s greatest artists reached the heights of fame because some benefactor’s bucks put them there. "But if you fire up the ol’ the Alternate History Scanner and search under keywords 'Accident + Error + Scam,' you can scroll for years through the millions of would’ve-been-titans who, say, dropped dead halfway through writing the manuscript that would’ve been the world’s finest novel, or the composers whose memories and symphonies were erased by the unexpected meeting of skulls and speeding doors, or the musicians whose potential greatness was terminated by the intersection of their talent and a producer’s charlatanism. "Pore over that list long enough and you might find the name of E-Town’s finest hip hop band, Politi...