Quick History Podcasts

For me personally, history is a major field of interest. Consequently, history podcast can't be long enough for me, should be in-depth and take me on an extended tour from one podcast episode to the next. I can imagine though, other people may not want to invest long tracks of time into history, yet would like to learn some history as well. For them I'd like to recommend History According to Bob, which has short issues and a long, long list of episodes to choose from. Most of those, however, need to be ordered on CD, as they are no longer in the feed. I'll give two more of those history podcasts, not running too deep, not running too long. (Thanks to the reviews by Historyzine)

The first is the History Podcast by Jason Watt. Not all issues are done by Jason himself, but persistently there is a short monologue about a larger variety of historical subjects. The next is Parnell's History podcast, which in addition to the facts, also delivers some analysis.

These are fine podcasts if you want to get some passing acquaintance in a certain subject. Necessarily there is a disadvantage, the episode can tell the story in a less balanced or less accurate way. This I noticed most profoundly in Parnell's 18 minute delivery of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which I know only too well. I guess for many people who know nothing and want no more than a twenty minute historical overview, this must do, but I spotted a number of sentences that in my opinion cannot be said, without error or leading to error. Like suggesting that after the Balfour declaration the British started stimulating Jewish migration into Palestine.

Doll Work and what with the brain

The latest of Shrinkrapradio features an interview with Geri Olson from Sonoma State University. She has integrated into her approach of psychology the making of dolls. She makes them herself and she organizes workshops to have her students make dolls. She has found that the making of a doll has a significant effect on people. It allows them to express and mold into an image what effects them most deeply.

While on the subject of Shrinkrapradio, I would like to point you to two other shows that I find particularly valuable. I usually comment only on the latest shows and so, these issues, that were published way before I started a blog, are constantly overlooked. The first show is the interview with Daniel Amen. Amen is a psychiatrist and a neuro-scientist, and his approach to the psychology of man is first ad for all, through the brain. He actually gets quite angry psychologist and some psychiatrists know so little of the brain. He claims to have found many 'mechanical' brain relations to all sorts of symptoms in psycho-pathology and hence proposes to deal with them with medication and/or surgery in stead of wasting time on psychotherapy.

This brings me to the interview with David Sinclair who, after a life time of study in Finland, has found a medication that can effectively (up to 90%) treat addiction. He has analyzed how the brain learns as it were to be addicted and his medication, proven with alcohol and heroine abuse, basically helps UNlearn the addiction. The medication needs to be taken throughout life. Its effectiveness to generally unlearn, leads Sinclair to investigate on other fields where it could be applies, for example with eating disorders.

I have listened to the last two issues in conjunction and it has often made me wonder, what will be our fate. Once we know everything about the brain and we can chemically learn and unlearn whatever we like, what does that mean for our human condition?

More Shrinkrapradio on this blog:
Confronting Death (and more),
Process Work,
Authoritarianism,
Leadership and AI,
Dysfunctional personalities in the workplace,
Adventure Therapy

My Three Shrinks Podcast

By chance I ran into the podcast My Three Shrinks. I was looking something up on the web about the podcast Shrinkrapradio and found a blog named Shrink Rap which is the written complement to the My Three Shrinks Podcast. There is no relation with Shrinkrapradio and it also has a slightly different focus. Shrinkrapradio is a psychology podcast. My Three Shrinks is a psychiatry podcast.

Three psychiatrists, Dinah, ClinkShrink and Roy, write in the Shrink Rap blog and speak as a panel in the podcast about subjects in psychiatry. As in other panel podcasts, the tone is very light, there are some inside jokes, or maybe running jokes, but there is also the serious talk on various subjects. In the latest show,which was the last of the year edition, they spoke about New Year Resolutions and answered questions received on the blog and discussed the podcast reviews they had on iTunes.

What I like very much about this podcast is the fact that is an enhanced podcast. The cast is also available in regular MP3, but the feed, by default pushes the MA4 format. Users like myself then can enjoy the segments of the show and view their separate titles. The light and natural conversation tone of the show have advantages and disadvantages; it makes it more fun to listen to, but at certain moments can interrupt the handling of the subject go in depth. All in all a good podcast for anybody interested in psychiatry.

Nuclear Terrorism

On November 20 Micheal Levi held a short talk following the publication of his book On Nuclear Terrorism (Harvard). This lecture was published as a podcast both by CFR as well as by UChannel.

The talk, and apparently the book, focuses on the use by terrorists of nuclear explosives. This means not is included the use of a regular device to spread nuclear contamination, but rather any effort to bring about a nuclear explosion as a terrorist act. Author Michael Levi has tried to start thinking like a terrorist and thus made an inventory what is needed to achieve such a feat. The subsequent question is, naturally, how such can be prevented.

As a careful positive bottom-line, it is stated that no matter how easy it may seem for terrorists to bring about nuclear explosion, it is harder in practice. And no matter how impossible it is for authorities to thwart the possible attempt with a 100% certainty, enough barriers can be mounted on the way, to limit the chances of success. Every attempt faltering at some stage, is a thwarted attempt. Even though these days all knowledge and materials are seemingly available, Levi claims, it is still quite a lot of work to bring it all together, which means the terrorist has a long way to go and when one focuses on each step in the way and increase the likelihood of capture or failure during that process, authorities can practically prevent nuclear terrorism.

More UChannel (aka University Channel podcast):
Attack Iran (or not),
Israel, Iran, terrorism,
Less Safe, Less Free (Losing the War on Terror),
The Greatest Threat to Zionism,
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

More CFR podcast:
Africa,
CFR podcast,
Sari Nusseibeh.

No more primiaries in America - Economist

The system is broken. The Economist speaks with Tova Andrea Wang, an elections expert with The Century Foundation. Ms Wang would like to create a system that enfranchises as many Americans as possible, not simply the voters in "two little overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly rural states". Iowa and New Hampshire are dictating the pace.

Somehow the change is already taking place, by having all the primaries together on February 5th. Still, if some primaries take place before the rest, the advantage shifts to certain candidates. In addition, she voices a concern that election success implies mainly the success at rallying money. Reform plans are circulating, but eventually the states decide when the primaries take place. Michigan has made a case in point by deciding only at the very last moment when the caucus would occur.

On a side note, I wonder, again, why The Economist, publishes these podcast shortly before an election result? The miss out on the actuality of the moment. In this case, Romney won in Michigan, where everybody expected McCain. They run the risk of making redundant statements. Nevertheless. These podcasts by The Economist have managed to capture my attention and shed some light on the otherwise rather incomprehensible voting system in the US. The podcasts are short, come out with a pleasant frequency - I will keep up with them and can recommend anybody to do so.

More from the Economist and about the 2008 elections:
The Economist in New Hampshire,
A biography for Barack Obama and one for Hillary Clinton,
The Economist podcast,
Bush - Clinton - Bush - Clinton (UC Podcast),
Religiousness of American Presidents (UC Podcast).

Go for a walk with Open Source

Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies has a podcast called Open Source. This podcast claims to be not a podcast with a web community, but rather a web community that produces a podcast. After listening to two issues, I have yet to feel the community, but in any case there is a good quality podcast. I have to thank the blog Open Culture, for guiding me to Open Source.

Open Culture directed me to listen to the second part of the three installments long conversation with Harold Bloom. In this part Bloom eloquently laments the demise of literature and its study. "They are teaching Harry Potter these days," he cries out. And what is wrong with Harry Potter he underlines with declaring that he has read in one of the books Harry 'stretches his legs' and explaining that this cannot replace 'goes for a walk' - J. K. Rowling therefore cannot write. She is one of many, so it is in his eyes.

Before that I listened to the last show containing a conversation with Anthony Barnett about 2008. Barnett is chosen on account of his, by Open Source admired, e-zine openDemocracy. A historical perspective is taken on 2008 and Barnett explains what the world's situation is today and where we are heading. In his mind we are living in changing times, where most notably the US are losing their supremacy and will have to start sharing the world's leadership with Europe and China, possibly also India. The decline of the US's power is entirely blamed on the failed policies of George Bush.