Letter writing day – December 7

Who the bloody hell still writes letters?

I ask this question in a day were I converse with my friends over a minimum of 6 different mobile phone applications. They are easy, instant, powerful, and reliable.

Through an application you can send words, emojis, links, photographs, and even sneaky dickpics. Most of the communication applications out there run on the internet, this means direct and immediate contact. Great for long distance relationships.

Billions of dollars are invested in communication technologies, social networks, and digital platforms every single day. Why? Because millions of people use them daily, and they’re great ways to make money. Their almost undoubtably perfect reliability makes these communication technologies so helpful and hand.

So why write a letter?

Even though letters are slower, they can be poorly written, they don’t hold context very well, and they can sometimes be illegible (my own handwriting could be compared to a dyslexic 4 year old), we should still engage in letter writing.

Letters are personal. They offer an original way of letting someone know that they mean something to you. Everyone has different handwriting, different tones, different ways of explaining things. I’m trying to suggest that every letter is different and unique, unlike those sterile, black and white, unimaginative, communication applications.

Further this idea is the invention of the stationery. Stationery is what separates the novice letter writers and the professional letter writers. If you pick the correct stationery, the mean of the letter can increase by one million percent. It can also decrease the meaning by the same amount of percents. For example you write a letter to your cat loving buddy, but you use stationery that has dogs and lizards all over it. At that point in time you need to reassess the stationery situation.

From observations that I’ve made whilst wandering around the local shopping centre, I believe that humanity is becoming more and more materialistic. Everyone needs the newest iPhone for Christmas, or the best new playstation, or a diamond ring! So why not support this upward trend and send someone a letter? They’re physical, they’re collectable, and sometimes it can start an obsession with hoarding things.

So on this Letter Writing Day, pull out a pen and paper and write something beautiful to someone that you care about, or maybe someone that you might moderately care about, or maybe someone you don’t actually like, maybe a politician?

Sorry

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a little slack recently.

I should have made a new episode, I should have written a new blog post, but my only excuse is that I’ve been engaging in the all Aussie tradition of bludging.

This post is also the first of what is to come. Because podcasts take time to write, edit and produce, I can only do them every so often. BUT I’d love to keep ya’ll engaged with these blog posts in between episodes.

We are back (I don’t know for how long though) and we are ready to talk about days!

International mother language day – February 21

In 2014 there are a range of ways we show our opinions.

You can craft an aggressive tweet, share a link on facebook, sign a petition on change.org (or even sign the petition for the White House to send Justin Bieber back to Canada), or simply go down to your university campus and hand out pamphlets.  But what happens if more than half of these options aren’t available to you? How do you then get your voice heard?

In the 1950s you didn’t have facebook, twitter, or online petitions. Protest was shown through direct action and demonstration.

Protest is all good and well minded, particularly if its peaceful, but what happens if you can’t even protest. Suddenly you find yourself voiceless.

The story of International Mother Language Day came about because of population of voiceless people, and their fight to gain a voice.

Produced and Written by Keegan Thomson

Music by The Womb, szdl, Red Berry Plumb

World radio day – February 10

Someone took it upon good authority to dedicate one of the 365.242 days of the year to one of the greatest inventions and methods of communicating.

In 2010 the Spanish Envoy to the  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation stood up and asked, “Why don’t we have a day of the year dedicated to the radio?”

Damn good question if you ask me!

So in 2012 we celebrated our very first, World Radio Day.

Now I know that I’m very biased towards this topic but I say finally, some smart Alec decided to make a day for radios!

This is the story behind the creation of World Radio Day and why it is important to have it on our calendar.

Produced and Written by Keegan Thomson

Music by Crooked Colours