Whither the Middle East - Dennis Ross on UChannel

While the war has escalated around Gaza and the Middle-East seems less stable than ever, it is refreshing to hear a relatively old podcast on the subject, that is from December 10th before the IDF offensive started. It is a talk by Dennis Ross delivered at Princeton and published in the UChannel Podcast series. Only yesterday another one came out, which I still have to listen to (with Martin Indyk, Richard Haass and Gary Samore)

Ross talks about the diplomatic possibilities in the Middle-East, getting into the details with regards to Iran and to the Israeli-Arab conflict. I found it very interesting to hear a case being made for diplomacy, without being starkly anti-war, nor being blissfully optimistic. Ross seems to soberly paint the various options there are. His leading principle is that of leverage. With leverage you can pressure anybody towards where you want them to go and the point is to see where you can have some leverage. The US has little leverage on Iran, but China and Russia have and and through Saudi-Arabia, the US can put pressure on China - for example. Along this kind of chain thinking, Ross proposes way for diplomacy, rather than military to steer Iran away from its nuclear program.

Similarly, and perhaps not by chance also with an important role for Saudi-Arabia, Ross proposes approaches for Israel. However, here he also introduces another dimension: the deepest lack of confidence between Israel and the Palestinians, most notably Hamas. Ross calls it 'disbelief', which in his view goes further than just distrust. The situation of disbelief is the conviction that there is absolutely no partner for diplomacy, no basis for talk whatsoever. Hence, the start Ross proposes, is to deal with that psychology of the conflict and take measures that bring the populace to reevaluate its beliefs and hopefully draw different conclusions. What the current war, however, does for disbelief is dishearteningly predictable.

More UChannel:
Kafka comes to America,
Lord Lawson and the alarmists,
Terror and Consent,
Nudge: improving decisions and behavior,
Hot, Flat and Crowded.

More Israel:
Desiring Walls,
Gabriela Shalev,
UCLA Israel Studies,
The Arab-Israeli conflict,
UCSD MMW 6.

Angela Merkel (Angie) in Volkis Stimme

If you subscribe to the feed of Volkis Stimme right now, you will be offered the last episode of this comedy news podcast. This chapter contains Volkis retrospect on 2008 and this means he is not producing his news items but rather converses with a rather exceptional guest in the studio.

The guest on the podcast is nobody less than Frau Dr. Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel. With her host Volker Klärchen discusses the past year of 2008. There are many great achievements for Merkel to mark and this gives for a very close atmosphere. The chanceler surprises us by allowing Klärchen to thaw a bit and address her less formally. For as long as it lasts.

Klärchen's podcast is released every weekend promptly and usually marks for me the beginning of the working week. Every Sunday morning, when life has started too soon and it is hard to shake off the relaxation of the weekend and pick up working life where I left off before the weekend, Volkis Stimme manages to cheer me up and start the week with a smile on my face. And Angie Merkel, she made me laugh out loud. The year went out with a bang. Einfach Klasse!

Previously about Volkis Stimme:
Volkis Stimme - German podcast review.

Kafka to America - UChannel Podcast Review

I have both legal and sociological training. I usually take a sociologist's perspective on things as, apparently, that is the mode of thinking and viewing that comes to me naturally. However, I can easily switch to legal, just as I can switch between languages and that should come as no surprise. The sociological view of a profession and of training provides ample explanation: when you learn law, you do not only acquire the knowledge of the trade, you are also initiated into the trade, that is, educated in the social norms and the cognitive logic of the field. The norms are: the rule of law, due process and fair trial.

And so this is where I stand on the subject of detaining terrorism suspects indefinitely at the discretion of the administration, without the suspect ever being allowed access to one or more of the following: a charge, a process or a defense attorney. Even if you have only weakly internalized the principles of the rule of law, due process and fair trial your hairs must stand on end. If at all, any remote case can be made for this policy, it is through the bleakest utilitarianism, the mechanics of the world should be such that these draconian measures are the only means to the end. Even such is case is feeble to say the least; the means are not the only means and the chosen means are not the least intrusive means. Hence, this is such a shut case, I find it mind-boggling we need to discuss it at all.

Consequently, with Steve Wax's lecture at UChannel Podcast in which he discusses specific cases he has handled as a defense attorney in which individuals were held under these foul measures and he eventually could take the cases to court, my stand is a slightly abashed: this is an open and shut case, what is there to say? Wax uses the title Kafka Comes to America: Fighting for Justice in the War on Terror to underline this part of this sentiment. Yet, he apparently feels he must persuade the audience emotionally and embarks on a lecture that has nothing to do with Kafka or the indignation any true legalist should feel. He produces the melodramatic argument that possibly is needed for a jury and a TV audience, but lacks the sharpness of a true legal argument. This only becomes visible when the question and answer round commences and the first response from the audience is someone accusing him of murder and conspiracy against the US. Only then Wax exacts the cool refutation that was needed in the first place: the execution of state power was deemed to be in need of procedural monitoring and it is only this that I aim to enable.

If you are interested what exact excesses unmonitored state power exerts, given the chance, Wax's lecture is very instructive. If you are remotely like Kafka, or convinced a priori by the fundamental value of the rule of law, due process and fair trial and can sufficiently imagine excesses by yourself, the podcast will only be going through the motions. Even the pathetic shouter at the end is a predictable obligate.

More UChannel:
Lord Lawson and the alarmists,
Terror and Consent,
Nudge: improving decisions and behavior,
Hot, Flat and Crowded,
In 2050.

Cambridge Alumni Podcast review

The Cambridge Alumni Podcast of the University of Cambridge contains mainly vodcasts, that I must admit, I have not paid any attention to. I am trying to concentrate on the content you can take with you on the run, on the drive and along with menial tasks, or in other words: I concentrate on the audio. The vodcasts may be worthwhile, or are likely to be so and I may write about it in the future, but for now, I will talk about the few audio only in the Cambridge Alumni Podcast feed.

It was, as so often, Dara of DIY Scholar who put me on the track of this podcast. She wrote about the historic yet amusing lecture about Cambridge's codebreakers. MI 5's historian, Professor Christopher Andrew, lectures in a very light mood about Cambridge's contribution to the intelligence efforts in both World Wars and the Cold War. I recommend, just as Dara did, everybody to listen to this lecture. Yet, what I took away from the podcast was a lesson for the blog and for reviewing more than anything else. Since Dara so warmly recommended this specific lecture, apparently, I went in with high expectations and was slightly disappointed, not at the entertainment level, but rather at the historic content. This is hardly fair on Christopher Andrew, I suppose, but must be put down on the immense subjectivity of the listener. Subjective to the extent that the same listener under different circumstances can come to a radically different appreciation. (Should I stop writing in acclaim?)

While we are at the subject of Cambridge, its mathematicians and Intelligence, two more lectures deserve mention. For one: Cambridge Computing, 1937 - 2007: A history of not quite everything. What most fascinated me in this lecture is the development of computing altogether. How different computing was in the pre-PC era, how it developed and how this made for such a different set of users and experiences.

The next is Enigma and the Turing Bombe. Especially if you heard the first podcast, this is one not to miss. After the eccentricity of Alan Turing was mentioned in the previous podcast, this is the podcast to get acquainted with the actual problem he was faced with, when he attempted to crack the German's Enigma code.

Investeren in veertien achttien

Elke week luister ik trouw naar Veertien Achttien, de podcast van Tom Tacken die het verhaal van de Eerste Wereldoorlog terugvertelt in korte biografieën - podcasts van ongeveer een kwartier. Tacken plant hiermee nog vier jaar door te gaan, daarbij de Grote Oorlog op de voet volgend. Ik heb al een maand niet meer over podcast geschreven. Laat ik dat proberen te repareren.

Wat is er in te halen? Vijf afleveringen te beginnen bij August de Block. Dat is het verre van eenvoudige verhaal over de Belgen die naar Nederland uitweken. Voor hen die soldaten waren, wachtte een verblijf in kampen. Ze werden geangenen van een buurnatie die krampachtig neutraal bleef.

Daarna ging het over Christiaan de Wet en hoe de boerenoorlog in Zuid Afrika doorwerkte tijdens de Grote Oorlog in de nieuwe eeuw. In de biografie van Sir Alfred Ewing komen we het bestaan van kamer 40 te weten, de plek waar de Britten codes kraakten.



Ten slotte is er de briljante uitzending over Alfred Anderson. Anderson is een van de laatste getuigen van het befaamde, spontane Kerstbestand van 1914. Tacken maakt, in tegenstelling tot zovele anderen, het verhaal niet mooier dan het is. Hoezeer de verbroedering van die twee dagen tot de verbeelding spreekt en je er de grootse kwaliteiten van de mensheid in kunt zien, uiteindelijk is het niet meer dan een incident. Wellicht een laatste stuiptrekking van 19e eeuwse romantiek; het is daarna niet meer voorgekomen. Tegelijk is het iets blijvends maar dan ook heel pragmatisch. Tacken betoogt dat er op grote schaal stilzwijgend de hand werd gelicht met de geweldadigheden. Mannen die weliswaar niet muitten, maar toch ook niet in volle heftigheid oorlog gingen voeren.

Je mag veronderstellen dat de podcasts eeuwigheidswaarde hebben en het bewaren waard zijn. Je zal misschien de teksten die Tacken uitspreekt willen kunnen nalezen. Voor wie er wat geld voor over heeft, kan dat allemaal. Tacken biedt zijn teksten in een boekje en zijn opnames op CD aan wie betaalt. Details zijn te vinden op de website van Veertien Achttien (Wordt volger van Veertien Achttien).

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Hindenburg,
Oskar Potiorek,
Kato Takaaki,
Maximilian von Spee,
Khudadad Khan.

Sinterklaas - The Biography Show

TPN's Biography Show just did a show on Santaclaus and with it has outdone itself in sheer entertainment, historic enchantment and even some raised eyebrows on my part. The show was fun, had great historic information which was compelling and thought-provoking, yet produced some details about Sinterklaas that sounded off in the ears of this semi-average Dutchman.

The entertainment lies with the opinionated disposition both David Markham and Cameron Reilly take in this show. Markham minces a few words on some conservatives in the US whose sense of injury is great enough to perceive a "War on Christmas" and feel the need to protect a tradition of which Markham shows that it is hardly a tradition if there is a war at all. And should you think there must be a tradition, wait for Cameron Reilly to deconstruct Santaclaus.

The greatest charm of Cameron Reilly's view of the origins I find is that he links back to Odin and the pagan traditions, just as most of the other rituals around Christmas root in European paganism. It is where he tries to render the morphing from Odin into Sinterklaas, so familiar for the Dutch, I think he makes a couple of mistakes, but nothing awful, to get back on track and reveal how the Dutch Sinterklaas morphs into the American Santaclaus with some of the details around this figure date back less than a century.

Reilly claims that Odin had a staff that was called 'zwartpiet' and that just can't be. But he when he reveals that the Byzantine Saint Nicholas had an Ethiopian servant, the next step makes it right again: for the Dutch, Sinterklaas comes from Spain and has a Moorish servant (or several) and this is Zwarte Piet, black Pete. Even in Israel the Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet and the tradition of giving presents and they do so on the 5th of December. Let this be added to fill out a minor omission in an otherwise fantastic show.

More TPN's Biography Show:
Charlemagne,
Biography podcasts,
Sargon of Akkad and Ramses II,
Helen of Troy,
Alexander the Great - Biography Show.