Listening ideas for 22 May 2011

Tapestry
Don't Fear the Reaper
This weekend on Tapestry Mary Hynes delves into questions of the afterlife - how our ideas of heaven and hell evolved through history and across cultures. She speaks with journalist Lisa Miller about her book Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife. She also hears from Eileen Gardiner who runs a website called Hell On Line. And finally she talks with Jeff Greenberg, a psychologist who specializes in death anxiety - our fear of the unknown.
(review, feed)

Philosophy Bites
David Eagleman on Morality and the Brain
Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores questions about responsibility and culpability in the light of recent brain research in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
(review, feed)

Veertien Achttien
István Tisza en de bijval in des keizers kantlijn
'Zo moest het wel eindigen', zijn in november 1918 de laatste woorden van István Tisza. In juli 1914 ging hij om: ook de premier van Hongarije legde zich bij de noodzaak van oorlog neer.
(review, feed)

Kritisch Denken
Was dat de oorsprong van het leven?
Het is paradoxaal dat terwijl onze toonaangevende microbiologen de bouwstenen van het leven in aardse labs proberen te creëren, ons heelal vol zit met de bestanddelen voor DNA en RNA. De reusachtige gasnevels in de ruimte zijn gevuld met suikers die ribose kunnen vormen - de ruggengraat van RNA. Er is geen rationele reden waarom het systeem van DNA en RNA, dat het leven op aarde heeft vormgegeven, beperkt zou blijven tot onze afgelegen biosfeer.
(review, feed)

A podcast on climate, energy and food - Saeed Ahmed guest post

I am very happy and proud to present you another guest post by Saeed Ahmed. Saeed is a psychiatrist, a Pakistani by origin who lives and works in the US, where he has also received his professional training. He is a very thorough podcast listener, taking on themes and building wide playlists around them. Or he takes on podcast university courses and carefully goes through the whole series.

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Despite the fact that food and energy are probably the two most important "things" (after air and water) for us to live, a remarkably small number of available academic podcasts have focused on these. Classes on environment may mention or perhaps spend a few lectures on these, but in general these don't get a comprehensive treatment. Furthermore it is shocking how few non-academic podcasts are devoted to these topics, although you'll find science podcasts will cover these sporadically.

It may be of some interest to podcast listeners to check out BIBC 140: "Introduction to Biofuels" by Stephen Mayfield, currently offered from UCSD (feed). As with other UCSD podcasts, if you are interested in this, get it now, before it might disappear (although I hope it is one of the one's they retain, and both the material and delivery is excellent.

Everyone has heard of global warming by now (despite the best efforts of Fox News), but how many people realize that this is the century when many things we take for granted will start to run out? Peak oil in the US occured in the 1970s, and worldwide peak oil is probably occurring now (there is some dispute about this, because for a variety of reasons, oil-producing countries and companies are not very transparent about the reserves they control). But peak oil isn't all we have to worry about; there is peak coal, and peak gas, and peak phosporus. Peak phosphorus? Turns out it is may become one of the rate limiters in food production. Food and fuel are more tied together than ever before. The reason food is comparatively cheap is because of fossil fuel. Locovores may be on to something, despite what some pundits say, who discount the transportation element, which is going to become much more expensive. On the flip side, renewables aren't cost-effective yet. But things are improving. Storage, intermittency, and grid issues limit growth here. At some point in the not to distant future, they will catch up economically.

Mayfield covers these topics and their interrelationships systematically and comprehensively, occasionally with the help of other lecturers. It seems to, given where we are in the early part of the 21st century, we may all benefit from learning about this material (even if much of it is very scary). In addition, I believe that after listening to these lectures, many items in the news and market trends become much more comprehensible, and often faulty analyses by medial talking-heads become more apparent.

Listening ideas for 21 May 2011

The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show
Helen Thomas on Israel, Netanyahu, Zionism, Presidents, the Media, the Arab Spring
a wide ranging conversation covering her views, her experience over more than 50 years as White House Correspondent and journalist.
(review, feed)

London School of Economics: Public lectures and events
Gay Liberation Now: global movements and transformations
Since the late 1970s, Sonia Corrêa has been involved in research and advocacy activities related to gender equality, health and sexuality. She is the founder of various non-governmental initiatives in Brazil. Between 1992 and 2009 she has been the research coordinator for sexual and reproductive health and rights at DAWN – Development Alternatives with Women for a new Era – a Southern Hemisphere feminist network. In that capacity, she closely followed United Nations negotiations directly impacting on gender and sexuality related matters: the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD – Cairo 1994), the IV World Conference on Women (IV WCW –Beijing, 1995) and also the five and ten years year review processes of this conferences. Since 2002 with Richard Parker, she co-chairs Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW), a global forum comprised of researchers and activists engaged in the analyses of global trends in sexuality related policy and politics. In 2006, she co-chaired the expert meeting that finalized the Yogyakarta Principles. Sonia Corrêa has extensively published in Portuguese and English. This list includes, among other, Population and Reproductive Rights: Feminist Perspectives from the South (Zed Books, 1994) and Sexuality, Health and Human Rights co-authored with Richard Parker and Rosalind Petchesky (Routledge, 2008). She has also lectured in various academic institutions. Clare Hemmings is a Reader in Feminist Theory and Director of the Gender Institute at LSE.
(review, feed)

The temptation of Karna - A twist in Dharma

As you all know, I faithfully follow the Mahabharata Podcast. I desperately want to get a grip on this (for me) exotic and ancient string of tales and I must admit: that is not easy at all. The Mahabharata is long, filled with countless characters with difficult names and the stories are following unfamiliar patterns. There does seem to be some kind of inherent logic to the tales, but strangeness also here plays its part. (feed)

Karna

Another idea I tried to project onto the multitude was that this great epic may have one underlying theme. A good candidate for that theme would be the question of Dharma, or in other words, what is the right thing to do? It shows that in the Mahabharata's take on ethics, this is personal or at least class-related dharma. The right thing to do for a priest would be different than what is the right thing for a warrior, or a beggar - obviously. And the Mahabharata seems to help you get a hold on this changeface normativity by means of the many different examples.

If you want to get an unexpected example within this theme, I recommend you listen to the installment The Temptation of Karna and proceed to listen and pay special attention to the unexpected interpretations of the right thing for this character. Where Karna could have joined the good guys in the story as he finds out he is their half-brother, he chooses to stick to his original and mistaken class in life and stay with the baddies. How is that for a twist in Dharma? It makes Karna one of the most fascinating persons in the epic.

More Mahabharata Podcast:
Flood tales; Noah, Gilgamesh and Manu,
Indian roots of the Unicorn,
Endless cloth,
The Mahabharata Podcast.

Listening ideas for 20 May 2011

A History of the World in 100 Objects
A History of the World Special 18 May 2011
Peter Lewis tells a story of love, separation and hardship, through the object he added to the BBC History of the World website: a portrait of a private soldier's sweetheart, painted secretly for his Uncle Bryn in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
(review, feed)

KQED's Forum
Israel and the U.S. - Together and Apart
On the heels of President Obama's major Middle East speech, we speak with journalists and analysts from the United States and Israel about the future of U.S.-Israeli relations.
(review, feed)



Book Review
Harold Bloom on His Life and Work; Comedian Albert Brooks; and Best-Seller News
This week, a conversation with literary scholar Harold Bloom about his life and work; comedian Albert Brooks discusses his first novel, "2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America"; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler has best-seller news.
(review, feed)

Office Hours
Hazem Kandil on Revolution in Egypt
Imagine you’ve been doing research on the possibility of revolution in Egypt and you’ve just published a paper asking why revolutions in Egypt have failed to materialize and then, two weeks after publication: revolution in Egypt. That’s the situation Hazem Kandil found himself in these past few months, and in this episode Kandil, who is a PhD candidate in the UCLA sociology department, talks with Sinan Erensu about the causes and consequences of revolution in Egypt and how sociology can help us better understand what happened and is happening still.
(review, feed)

Listening ideas for 19 May 2011

KQED's Forum
Gays and Lesbians in Pro Sports
This week, the San Francisco Giants became the first professional sports team to join forces with the "It Gets Better" campaign against bullying of gay and lesbian youths. Is the climate changing for homosexuals in pro sports?
(review, feed)


In Our Time
Custer's Last Stand 19 May 2011
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand.
(review, feed)