China and the West - UC Podcast

I have so little knowledge and so little time to check things out. Just like anybody else I tend to take things for granted if media present it in some plausible fashion. The UC podcast about China and the West presents the facts thus:

China’s phenomenal economic growth is paralleled in scale and speed only by the rise of the United States between the Civil War and the First World War in 1914. Since 1978 the economy has grown ninefold, and is set to become the second largest within a decade. From inauspicious beginnings, China has become a $2 trillion economy because the Communist Party has channeled huge savings into investment, and encouraged millions of workers into its booming cities, the biggest migration in history.

So, in simple terms, is China going to take over the West as the major power (economic, political, cultural)? We tend to believe so. The podcast features Will Hutton as a speaker and he points out some huge weaknesses of China and its economy. In short, China has serious economic problems to tackle but hardly the means to do so. More fundamentally an efficacious social fabric, institutions, lack, to take this on. So, not only is China hardly capable of taking over, in spite of the presented figures, it needs proper address and it seems the West is urgently needing to get this straight.

Not only ignorant me, also policy makers seem to fall prey to the apparent rise of China and fail to see its problems and weaknesses.

War's effect on the soul - Shrinkrapradio #109

A veteran lives next door to me. He roams the street like a living corpse. He is heavily sedated, so the neighbors tell, otherwise his battle traumas will throw him in a frenzy. Unshaved and dressed in rags, he aimlessly wanders between the synagogue and his parents' house which is in the same apartment building where we live. His state is the result of the first Lebanon war which raged in the early eighties. For him it has been twenty years of living in a haze like this.

The latest guest on Shrinkrapradio, has written a book on how war affects the soul. His name is Edward Tick. The interview Dr. Dave conducts with him is representative, once more, of the best this podcast has to offer. And so we learn how war wounds us, not just the soldiers who fought the war, also everybody who is touched by war, who took it into his conscience that he lives through a time of war. And we begin adapting our lives to it. Even when the war is over, our souls tend to go on living in a state of war.

In other words, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But Dr. Tick doesn't regard this as a behavioral disorder, but rather an identity disorder. A wound to the soul - uncanny term for psychology. He also points out that the frequent occurrence of war and the awareness we carry through the generations of war being around, has caused us to seek it out. We must live war. However, we must not keep carrying it with us. We must be allowed to leave it behind. PTSD is the soul that has remained in the state of war. Just like my neighbor. Dr. Tick indicates to techniques and approaches that could take him out.

The best History courses on podcast

The academic year has started and we podcast listeners can hook up to the courses as far as they are being put on line. Market leader in this world of lectures on podcast is the incomparable University of California Berkeley. Naturally also my favorite subject, history, has taken off. This year is better than others. We have a total of three course available.

First there is the classic History 5. European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present, this fall presented once again by Thomas Laqueur. I have followed these lectures already a couple of times. So I will be browsing them in search for bloggable items.

In the second we meet last season's lecturer of History 5: Margaret Anderson. She is delivering a course labeled History 167B. Here she will teach all there is to know about the rise and fall of the second reich. Yes, the second. Not the first and not the third. I have already run one lecture (more about that below) and can disclose with my, yet, limited knowledge, that the first is the Holy Roman Empire, and consequently the second is the German Empire as it became established by the Prussians. I expect we will be talking about Frederick the Great and Bismarck among others. And the fall will be either with Wilhelm the Second or the Weimar Republik.

The first lecture has low audio. In general the Berkeley lectures tend to be on the low side. I want to point out again that with free and easy to use utilities you can crank up the volume. The lecture was on ~70dB and on 90 it was much better to listen to on the iPod. Even 90 is a bit low; next I'll try 100. For this cranking up I use MP3Gain.

A third history course hasn't started yet. It is History 4A, allegedly about the history of the Ancient Mediterranean World. As one who lives in the modern Mediterranean world, I do not want to miss it. Well, I wouldn't want to miss it, even if I lived somewhere else. History is my thing.

The Word Nerds gave me a plug...

...and talked about inside language, using many examples from bicycling, which is very good in itself isn't it? The Word Nerds is a podcast about words, language and why we say the things we do - or so it is presented in the opening tune. As so many other podcasts you have the opportunity to give a shout out through mychingo. I had completely forgotten I had taken that opportunity.

I gave a mild persiflage of the opening sentences and without any comment whatsoever, show #91 opens with exactly that clip. And a link to this blog is put on the show notes. My statcounter reports a significant surge in visits and a considerable portion of the visits are redirects from the Word Nerds home page.

So, welcome to my humble blog, dear Word Nerds, Word Nerd listeners and Word Nerd affiliates. But now that we are talking. Do you also feel a bit gigglish about the opening formula 'say the things we do' and the rating? I just had to make fun of that. Did you notice?

Another thought: hopping on the show like that and comfortably draw some web attention, isn't that a bit 'wheel sucker'-ish by me? Hehehe.

Marathon interview J. A. A. van Doorn

Arend jan Heerma van Voss zoekt naar woorden. Er is een zekere passie in de interviewer. Ik heb het gevoel dat hij niet alleen ongelofelijk veel respect voor de geinterviewde Van Doorn heeft. Hij is ook geinspireerd, maar nog op zoek om zijn gedachten te ordenen. Van Doorn wacht het geduldig af.

Zo gaat het interview. Heerma van Voss zoekt en Van Doorn blijft geduldig. En zo zoeken we onze weg. Door de vaderlandse politiek, door het Duitse Socialisme (opnieuw) en de ontwikkeling van de sociologie. Wat mij betreft mag het nog wel langer dan drie uur duren. Wat ben ik blij dat deze radio ook als podcast uitgebracht wordt.

The Byzantine Empire on podcast

The history of the Byzantine Empire has greatly escaped me on the whole. Only podcasts and a book by Umberto Eco (Badolino) have bring it closer to me and I have begun to understand its tremendous importance. One podcast series is entirely dedicated to the Byzantines: 12 Byzantine Rulers.

Lars Brownworth, who presents the podcasts, is a lecturer of History at the Stony Brooks School on Long Island, New York. In order to squeeze in the podcasting with his other duties and still maintain a professional level of the show, he puts them out about once every two months. As a consequence, the series is still running after 2 years - though the last episode is expected by the end of the summer. He conducts the lectures in a straightforward monologue style producing episodes taking twenty to thirty minutes. In spite of his great diction, sound level and text, it makes for the more demanding sort of podcast. Tougher to listen to, but in its style, the very best I have met.

So if you are in for a light and easy introduction to Byzantine History, the series is far too heavy. Too long, too many details, too slow a pace. This is the stuff for the discerning. You wanted the history of the Byzantine Empire? You will get it all. In 15 lectures, going from the third century, step by step, touching on all the leaders up to the fifteenth century, without too much analysis, mostly the facts.