Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Reith Lectures 2012 - BBC Podcast

Here is a quick heads up to announce that the Reith lectures Podcast has begun publishing the lecture series that was held about a month ago. Speaker is historian Niall Ferguson and the series title is The Rule of Law and Its Enemies. (feed)

This title is rather reminiscent of Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) in which he pointed at Fascism and Communism as the ideologies that held the greatest threat to society. Underlying these ideologies were theories that, in Popper's view, had the kind of tendency towards totalitarianism that brought these ideologies about and what similar dangerous ideologies could emerge.

In 2012 such discourse is not taken to ideologies, as is to be expected. Ferguson takes a look at the institutions and their role in society. But the question is still the same: what helps and what threatens the kind of nation we would like to live in?

Reith Lectures 2011:
Reith Lectures 2011.

Reith Lectures 2010:
Reith Lectures 2010 (2),
Reith Lectures 2010.

Reith Lectures in 2009:
A new politics of the common good,
The bioethics concern,
Morality in Politics,
Morality and the Market.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Football Weekly - Euro 2012 Daily (The Guardian)

Occasionally I listen to The Guardian's podcast Football Weekly, but when major tournaments come around, this podcast changes to a daily one and is permanently on my playlist. So now we have the Euro 2012 Daily and it is a great listen (feed). In fact it is so good, I did not even bother with other podcasts.

James Richardson, is as always the witty host to a panel of guests who comment on the games and make haphazard predictions of the upcoming venues. In 30 minutes you are informed and entertained.

The podcast comes out immediately after every games night and accompanies me the morning after. And since my team has been met with defeat it was not met with much happiness, but the podcast invariably managed to cheer me up.

More:
World Cup Daily.