Monday, July 7, 2008

Iran Podcast - podcast review

Here is a short review and can't resist to give. It is about a podcast that has podfaded, so it seems, since the last episodes date from over a year ago. I am talking about the Iran Podcast.

I ran into this podcast (pun not intended), because of my unfortunate attempt to listen to The antique history of Iran. In iTunes I overlooked the fact this was in Persian, because name, description and episode titles were in English. When I looked this up, I noticed the list iTunes also always gives: people who subscribed to this podcast also subscribed to... Here the Iran Podcast was listed. Now that I had my mind set to obtaining information about Iran, I had to have at least something.

What makes the Iran Podcast so charming is that it is a paradigmatic example of an amateur podcast, a kind of podcast with which podcasting started in past years, but a kind that seems to be going out of style. A young American with a PC and a personal field of interest, sits down and records short monologues on the subject and achieves a kind of unique and rare content which would never reach regular media. In this case, podcaster Cameron Uslander, has his roots in Iran and in a fresh, light, short and more intelligent than pretentious way tells about his culture. Especially the feast of Norooz receives ample attention.


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Comfort with Obama - Democracy in America

After a rather long pause, during which Barack Obama defeated Hilary Clinton in the primaries, I have abandoned the podcast following the elections Democracy in America (blog), which is part of the entire podcast offering of The Economist.

The earlier instances of Democracy in America had Clinton winning, or were still full of caution regarding a possible victory of Obama, but now that he has won the nomination (if not formally than practically), the podcast of course moves ahead to fully shed its light on the person of Obama.And now I can embed the podcasts, so I give you first Charlie Cook, political analyst, whose conclusion will be that the crucial point for the upcoming elections is whether Americans can start feeling comfortable about Obama:



The last podcast, gives the mic to David Mendell, biographer of Obama, telling of his weaknesses and his drives:


More from Democracy in America:
Democracy in America - podcast review,
Issues of Race,
The primary system,
The Economist in New Hampshire,
A biography for Barack Obama and one for Hillary Clinton.


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