Russell

Here’s a link to my Q&A with Peter Russell, one of our foremost constitutional scholars who has a new book out on the virtues of minority government. Prof. Russell’s previous book, Constitutional Odyssey, is one of the best primers on the quest to patriate the constitution; it wasn’t till I read that book that I fully grasped how the amending formula is essentially a definition of the country. 

If Toscanini was broadcasting’s first superstar conductor, then Leonard Bernstein may have been the last. His “Young People’s Concerts” on CBS’s Omnibus made him one of the few American classical musicians ever to be a household name in America. This 1958 show, where he explains (influenced by his friend Aaron Copland) that music has no inherent meaning and should be appreciated for itself, rather than for non-musical associations, became so famous that Mad Magazine’s Dave Berg did a cartoon about it, where kids follow Leonard Bernstein’s instructions not to think about the Lone Ranger during the William Tell Overture, but their father screams “Hi-ho, Silver!”

I’m willing to give credit where credit is due: For better or worse, Howard Galganov has single-handedly debunked the notion distance makes the heart grow fonder. He’s been out of Quebec language politics for a while now, and I haven’t missed him one bit.