The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

I live in a world neither of great believers or of great skeptics. I grew up in a world of believers though, especially in alternative medicine, and when I made it to university I began to lean towards skepticism, even if I let my mom drag me to cold readings on Tuesday evenings. However, leaning towards skepticism is sometimes not enough. Much of alternative medicine has taken on a patina of credibility and consequently the larger public, though no great believers, forget to be skeptic. The same goes for the wide arrange of self-help books and workshops that are delivered. Hence, I think many good people need a skeptic wake up call and the academics, tooled with healthy doubt and skilled in method, should be less lax in bringing this to average person at large.
What is more, skepticism has become a political need. Claims of creationism 'to be heard' in the secondary schools seem a prima facie evidently justified, so that one loses sight on the threats this implies for the quality of education. The next step is that 'to be heard' can be claimed by alternative ideas of history that are just as poorly founded as creationism, like all sorts of conspiracy theories or even Holocaust Denial. Before you know it, Science will be viewed as just one of many perspectives on truth and reality. Democracy as a justification of just any opinion, grading irrefutable religious, esoteric and wildly fantastic ideas in the same class as those that are collective, conventional and connected and those that are arrived at methodically and open to scrutiny at all times.

So, it is very good that some people take up the challenge and send around the skeptical wake up call. One such call is the weekly podcast: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Especially when the podcast features an interview with a professional in one field or another (even of pseudo-sciences), such as this week's issue, #94, are in my opinion especially worthy.

הכתובה - אפרים קישון

למה היינו בקמרי אמש?

קומדיה משעשעת המתרחשת בישראל של שנות הששים.
גיבורי המחזה הם אלימלך(שלמה בראבא) השרברב ואישתו שפרא (ענת וקסמן), יוצאי קיבוץ. בתם איילה (שירה קצנלבוגן) עומדת להתחתן עם רוברט (אבי גרייניק) נצר אקדמאי שמתכנן את החתונה בדיוק ליום ההולדת של אמו השלטנית. כדי לאשר את הנישואין על הכלה להציג את הכתובה של הוריה. אלימלך, שמנהגיו גסים אך לבו רך ושפרא עקרת בית שחוטא מדי פעם בתפירה לא בדיוק זוכרים מתי התחתנו ומי חיתן אותם. הם זוכרים שאהבו, שעברו לחדר משפחה וזהו זה.
לאחר חיפש והכתובה לא נמצאה מתחילים לחשוב שאולי לא התחתנו כלל.
איילה מציעה להורים להתחתן, מה שגורם לחשבון נפש מר אך קומי האם זה/זו הבן-זוג שהיו בוחרים אחרי עשרים וחמש שנה של נישואין כשניתן להם לבחור מחדש. שפרא מעקרת בית כנועה הופכת לאישה אסרטיבית שיודעת מה היא רוצה. השכנה האלמנה (רוזינה קמבוס) מנצלת את המצב ומנסה בכל קסמיה לפתות את אלימלך. קיבוצניק צעיר(דן שטג) שלא מבין למה הוא הגיע לבית המשפחה אך יודע טוב מאוד למה הוא נשאר, הבת. ובסוף כמו כל קומדיה כל בא על למקומו בשלום, אלימלך מגלה את אהובת לבו מחדש, הלו היא שפרא. הבת מבטלת את החתונה ומוצאת את עצמה בזרועות הקיבוצניק הצעיר. והשכנה היא מוצאת מושא צייד חדש, החתן שזה עתה נזרק. והכתובה.... אפילו אותה מצאו.

In our time

Talkradio is dead, podcasting is alive, long live Talkradio reincarnated. Radio stations understand the power of podcasting and deliver a pick of their programs after broadcast to the podcast community. One such station is the cream of the crop in media land: the BBC and among the podcasts they deliver is the great radio four rubric In Our Time.

On the site is plainly says: "Melvyn Bragg and guests investigate the history of ideas." However this could mean anything. Bragg is a well informed and well prepared host and receives in this program great scholars who generally do a wonderful job at bringing the peak of their understanding into the discussion. Just the perfect setting for discussing the history of ideas. Nine out of ten items are truly interesting and beyond.

The only minor point being, given that this basically is radio and not podcast, the show lasts some 40 plus minutes, not a minute more. If you look at similar high level podcasts you will see that up to eighty minutes can keep you bound to the pod with such stimulating conversation going on. So, quite invariably I am left with some sense of having nearly scratched the surface and missed out some truly worthwhile remarks from the guests, but all in all, In Our Time is a beacon in my week of podcast listening.

Every Thursday I urge my reader to get updated on the feed asap and when download starts, I am a man giddy with anticipation. And when by Friday morning I come round listening and I hear the opening voice, an upper-class British accent announcing: "This is a download from the BBC," I am one happy man.

And the latest edition? On Victorian Pessimism. Sounds boring? I admit I didn't expect much myself -- though I should know better. Victorian Pessimism could be current pessimism. The subject comes to life, you forget it is about the nineteenth and not the twenty-first century.

Shrinkrapradio

If I were to write an introduction into podcast listening, I'd start out to state podcasting for me has pushed talkradio to the edges of the universe. Podcasts are better, deeper, more diverse and you can get them on a play by need basis, talkradio has none of that.
Another great point for podcasts is the educational value. Listening to a podcast is a great way of getting to know your way around in any kind of subject. Great universities are beginning to fathom the possibilities and are publishing their lectures as podcasts. Professionals also deliver podcasts on their subject and if you browse the directories for educational podcasts you'll find a plethora of subjects and entry levels.

Shrinkrapradio is a podcast that brilliantly combines these two outstanding qualities of podcast. It is a podcast on the subject of psychology and the presenter Dr. David van Nuys takes the listener on a tour through the varied fields of the discipline. His voice is great, his sound quality very professional and he delivers consistently on a weekly basis, issues that are around an hour long. Needless to say this is very educational if you are interested in psychology, but that is not all.
Dr. Dave has a great talent as a show host and interviewer and thus produces with his shows, in addition to the educational value the high level entertaining experience that made me a talkradio listener in ancient times.

The latest edition with an interview with Dr. Tobin Hart about his research on Children's Spirituality (#89 - The Secret Spiritual World of Children) is exemplary of the qualities Dr. Dave delivers with Shrinkrapradio. Great chemistry between him and Tobin Hart, wonderful subject, amazingly pleasant atmosphere, informative, thought provoking - what have you. If you are interested in psychology this show is a must have. But even if you are only remotely interested in the field, but love good quality podcasting this show is well worth a try and likely to get you hooked just like me.

Thumbs up for Dr. Dave. All the psychology you need to know and just enough to make you dangerous. :)

Shortcut to Chai

These days one can buy sachets of tea that contain some spices and are sold as Chai. Needless to say this comes nowhere near real Indian Chai.

I know you are supposed to cook the tea with the milk if you want to get the real thing, but apart from the fact I have no time for that, I also do not like the taste when the milk gets overcooked. And this happens very easily. On the other hand, taking the shortcut with the ready-to-go tea bag is a joke.
Some cafes here in Israel pretend to carry chai, but if at all they attempt to brew something that is more than just hot water on Wissotzky with optional milk and sugar, the result is so amazingly bland, I find it justified to publish my embarrassingly simple shortcut to chai.

up to 4 tea spoons sugar
half a teaspoon garam masala
half a teaspoon ground ginger
a quarter of a teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 to 4 servings of black tea
1 liter of boiling water
milk

Throw the dry ingredients in a (pre heated) teapot. Pour on the water, then add milk till the color is right. Stir. Allow around 10 minutes of standing time.

A post scriptum on the issue of spices is in place. The quality of dry spices one is sold in the shops can differ amazingly and this can have a very significant effect on this tea or other cooking for that matter. Notorious, in my experience, are cinnamon and nutmeg, that can vary from tasteless to very strong. You have to be familiar with your garden variety and adjust the amounts in the above or any recipe to your taste and brand strength.
The same goes for garam masala, though the difference, being a blend after all, also lies here in the measures of the ingredients and how fine the spices were ground.
Last but not least, one can pick and choose the spices for this tea, or chai if you will. Other options are: cardamon, cloves, pepper, galanga, cumin and turmeric.

Dan Carlin's hardcore history

I haven't decided yet whether Dan Carlin's hardcore history is a podcast that is here to stay. In any case I enjoyed the latest edition (Show 12 - Steppe Stories), quite well.

What is great about Dan is that he discusses the broad undertones of history. So in stead of going into the history of say, the Scythians alone, he makes connections with all the folk of the steppes of Central Asia. Thus we learn, that apart from the Western sources, also the Chinese report about a people that are similar and contemporary to the Scythians and maybe, in fact ARE the Scythians. He makes connections a.o. with Sarmatians, Huns, Turks and the Mongols. He explains the notion of 'womb of nations' of which I had never heard, but indirectly had bumped into and wondered about.
He also discusses the wide variety of features these peoples had, making it tangible how these are, not strange, wild outsiders, but rather the roots of our own ethnicity. In additon, he is also specific enough to mention key historic events and specific descriptions of the peoples.

The steppe peoples' history is particularly interesting to me as they serve as a template in my roleplay by email game. The central setting of the story is a powerful empire, but as the story develops we meet more and more peoples on the steppe and come to understand that they are not mere wild nomads, but in fact very powerful peoples with whom the history of the empire is intertwined.

So, apart from informing and interesting, the podcast is also very useful for me. I keep on listening and do not let myself be distracted with some aspects that I like less. If I have to mention my criticism, I want to stick it this time around on one point in particular.

In all of his hardcore history podcasts Dan takes very long time (IMHO too long) to get to his point. In this case, he introduced the subject by a lengthy excursion into SciFi, which has two major weaknesses. For one it is superfluous, as the facts of the case already bring home how alien the steppe peoples were for the ones who wrote about them (like the Chinese, the Persians and the Greek for example). Second, and more importantly, it sticks on the features of the steppe peoples as the Mongols had, tuning into the prejudice of Asian savages, which undermines an important notion that is introduced later on: Some peoples looked like today's Europeans, and: The Steppe peoples eventually mixed with and led the finer civilizations they encountered. Hence, they start out as aliens and fearful savages, but ultimately they are us. The become us as they have in previous instances become our ancestors.

My guess is, Dan does this, because his target audience is the wide public and he needs to draw them in with a carefully and popularly built case. I can appreciate that, but observe that this time and again collides with the ambitious aim and subject of the show: to touch upon the core of history. It results in him making a splits from a superficial high school level where the listener needs to be lured into the subject with a childish War of the Worlds stage setting, to an in-depth, beyond the facts of history level, that stimulates the listener to discern the finer subtleties and amazing connections in the subject, which is stuff of academic level.
I am part of Dan's listener public that is, frankly, annoyed by the debilitating angle to the story and then is thrilled by the thought provoking points made afterwards and I can easily imagine another kind of listener, that is taken in by the initial approach, but cannot help but expect this part of the public going lost in puzzlement or boredom, halfway.