You could listen to me… or to pro-Obama reggae

Solana Larsen and I had a great time hanging out with Chris Lydon at the Watson Institute at Brown University a couple of weeks ago. Chris is the legendary radio host and reporter whose Radio Open Source challenged our conceptions of how a public radio show could work.

Radio Open Source is on hiatus, and Chris is now challenging our idea of what a seminar at Brown should look like. Solana and I showed up, planning on showing a few slides, touring our websites and having a chat with the students. We didn’t expect to be producing a radio show. Chris realized that a seminar could work as radio show simply by putting mikes in front of himself and his guests, then turning to his students as “callers” with questions for the guest speakers. The results are now online, and you can see how we did – basically, Solana and I talk about the theoretical and practical reasons why we’re involved with Global Voices and what it’s possible to learn by paying attention to the wider world.

I’d like to note that Chris and his webfolk managed to find one of the more egregious photos of me ever taken to accompany the piece. (And trust me, most photos of me end up egregious.) I’ve begged him to replace it with something slightly more flattering. That said, the photo of Solana is accurate. She really is that cute.

In glancing in on Solana’s blog, I came across a post I’d otherwise have missed. Our project, Voices Without Votes, is collecting opinions from around the world about the US 2008 elections. Some of these opinions are in the form of blog posts. Others are more creative in nature. Solana features a pair of pro-Obama songs, one Trinidadian, the other Jamaican, in a post on her blog, and wonders when someone will get the bright idea of releasing a CD compilation that starts with will.i.am and features political songs from around the world. It’s a great idea – give us a holler, Obama campaign, and we’d be glad to hook you up.