"No man ever steps in the same river twice" - Heraclitus, pre-Socratic Greek philosopher
While the philosophy of Heraclitus and his pre-Socratic peers is debatable, fans of Word of Mouth can attest that they never listen to the same WoM show twice. Ideas change. Concepts Change. Times change. Even when the segments stay the same, the takeaway, the emotion, the value in context of your life can change. Today, we bring you new ideas, old sound with new meaning, and new sound with retrospective importance. So join us, scholars of WoM, for today's show, and share your thoughts on Facebookand Twitter.
Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments
Defending Millennials
- Here to provide us with a contrary perspective on millennials is David Burstein, author ofFast Future: How the Millennial Generation is Shaping Our World. He is also the founder of Generation 18, a nonpartisan young voter engagement organization, as well as a documentary filmmaker.
- Producer Lauren Oberof WBUR's Only a Game brings us this story of Aaron “Wheelz” Fotheringham, a wheelchair motocross athlete.
- Check out videos of his spectacular wheelchair tricks here.
College Soundtrack
- As part of NHPR’s series A Matter of Degrees we asked you to think back on your school days and tell us: what was on your college playlist? Here’s a little sampling of what you were jamming to back in the day.
- George Saunders, Macarthur fellow, winner of the Pen/Malamud award and the story prize. His new book is called Congratulations, By The Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.
David Foster Wallace's Commencement Speech
- Back in 2005, writer David Foster Wallace delivered the commencement address At Kenyon College. Three years later, the acclaimed novelist committed suicide, but his speech lives on – and has become sort-of The Places You’ll Go of the digital age: shared on social media, and re-published in print around graduation time. Here is just an excerpt of his enduring speech.
"I Didn't Type This Article"
- Will Oremusis senior technology writer for Slate. Given that wearable computers that respond to speech commands are predicted to be the next big digital thing, Will wanted to test how far speech recognition software has come. He dictated an article to Siri for Slate called, funnily enough,“I Didn’t Type This Article”.