Elvis Costello is nearly 10 years my senior which means, as he was putting out what the first and (for me) strongest three records of his career -- My Aim Is True (1977), This Year's Model (1978), and Armed Forces (1979) -- I was just hitting my teen years and discovering the energy and excitement of punk, post-punk, and power pop. Elvis, along with the Clash and XTC were, so far as I was concerned, too smart, too cool, and too great.... Now the Big Ideas series is something I check out every week although I don't find all of the ideas big or necessarily interesting.Your appetite for individual lecturers will depend on your intellectual tastes but here are my recommendations: - Dec. 8, 2007 - Jay Melosh talks about what killed the dinosaurs - Dec. 15, 2007 - Eric Thurman explains the theory behind the system of microcredit and makes a compelling case that microcredit, more than any other kind of aid program, has the potential to lift many parts of Africa and Asia out of poverty.