Listening ideas for 15 March 2011

Inspired Minds
Guy Nattiv- Filmmaker
The Israeli director's debut film "Strangers" participated in the 2008 official selection competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Guy Nattiv has completed three shorts and two feature films. "Offside" and" Mabul" received several awards at international film festivals including Berlin International Film Festival's "Crystal Bear" and Best Short at Sundance Film festival.
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London School of Economics
Philosophy in the Public World
Philosophy has an important role in public life. Anthony Grayling is one of the most prominent public faces of philosophy in the UK. He is professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College and a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.
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KQED's Forum
Cokie and Steve Roberts: 'Our Haggadah'
When Cokie and Steve Roberts tied the knot 45 years ago, they vowed that they would continue to observe both their Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths as a couple. The renowned journalists have just written a book, "Our Haggadah," in which they present their interfaith approach to the Seder, part of Jewish holiday Passover, as well as discuss what they have learned over the years as an interfaith couple. They join us in the studio.
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Engines Of Our Ingenuity
Winged Words
Episode #2696: The Homeric Epics as Oral Poetry
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The Biography Podcast
Joe DiMaggio
Chris Gondek interviews Jerome Charyn about his new biography, Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil.
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Mahabharata Podcast
War by other means
Episode 48 - The Pandavas have come out of hiding and are demanding their lands back from the Kauravas. Duryodhana has already indicated that he has no interest in giving these back, so it would be best to negotiate from a position of strength. An arms race ensues, with both sides scrambling to get commitments from their allies across India and beyond.
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Notes on history

The amateur podcast Notes on History which comes out infrequently, has begun a series about American Presidents which looks quite promising. At this opportunity I would like to turn your attention to a much older issue in the series which I found particularly good and originally executed. (feed)

Host Paul Stoetzel took on the challenge of retelling the historic events of 1066, William the Conqueror's taking over of England. In a two-part production he turns the story into a veritable drama, complete with suspense and surprise turns of events and a touch of comedy. In the process he manages to bring clarity in the facts and keep track of the multitude of characters involved including their confusing names (three Harolds to name but a few of those challenges). 1066, part 1 ; 1066 part 2.

Duke Ellington

The great Jazz Musician Duke Ellington had a career that already started in the 1930's and while it went on until his death in 1974, as of the 1950's new musical trends began to compete with Ellington and his popularity dipped.

In the New York Review of Books podcast Geoffrey O'Brien talks with Chris Carroll about Duke Ellington's mid-career crisis and stunning comeback, revisiting his often-overlooked albums of the 1960s and 1970s. Caroll gives a lively account of how Ellington underwent the crisis and struggled to find a way out. He plays splendid audio fragments to illustrate the new musical compositions Ellington came up with and induces a great appreciation of the later Ellington sound. (feed)

More NYRB podcast:
Changing medical profession
David Cole,
Amateur Science - Freeman Dyson,
Roger Cohen in Tehran,
Ronald Dworkin.

Listening ideas for 14 March 2011

The History of Rome
Lost in Transition
Less than two years after Diocletian's abdication, the Tetrarchy was left in shambles following the power plays of Constantine and Maxentius.
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New Books In History
Hans Kundnani, “Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust”
In his enlightening Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (Columbia UP, 2010), veteran journalist and policy analyst Hans Kundnani tells their story. It’s somewhere between a farce and a tragedy, at least in my reading. On the one hand, to think that West Germany was a fascist state, to classify Zionism as a kind of Nazism, and to believe that the leftist students were persecuted “new Jews” is of course absurd. At least some of the West German radicals were so out of touch with reality that it defies understanding. On the other hand, they were in fact surrounded by ex-fascists, keenly aware that Israel was (to put it delicately) “asserting itself” in the middle east, and constantly on the run from Federal authorities. In such a situation I might lose touch with reality too. For the terrorists, who never regained their senses, it all ended badly. But for those whose heads cleared (Joschka Fisher, for example), it ended in power, though a different power than they had imagined in 1968.
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Social Innovation Conversations
Jonathan Reckford - The Power of Leadership in Social Enterprise
Habitat for Humanity is an exemplary social enterprise that has helped build more than 350,000 houses for low-income people in thousands of communities worldwide. In this university podcast, Jonathan Reckford, the organization's CEO, talks about what it takes to be a great leader. He shares lessons learned from his own career, and how he put his knowledge to work in successfully guiding Habitat for Humanity since 2005.
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EconTalk
Townsend on Development, Poverty, and Financial Institutions
Robert Townsend of MIT and the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about development and the role of financial institutions in growth. Drawing on his research, particularly his surveys of households in Thailand, Townsend argues that both informal networks and arrangements and formal financial institutions play important roles in dealing with risk. Along the way, he discusses the role of microfinance in poor countries and the potential for better financial arrangements to lead to higher growth and the accumulation of wealth.
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Isaac Lipschits

De VPRO podcast Marathon Interviews heeft in de afgelopen weken het een en ander uit 1998 on-line gezet. Vandaag zal ik ingaan op het interview dat Irene Houthuijs met Isaac Lipschits had. Later deze week kom ik op Djoeke Veninga's gesprek met Ernst van de Wetering. (feed)

Een groot deel van het interview wordt gespendeerd aan het door Isaac Lipschits laten vertellen van zijn levensverhaal. Het is een verhaal dat begint bij een joods jongetje in Rotterdam, zoon van een marktkoopman en eindigt bij een hoogleraar aan universiteiten in binnen- en buitenland. Dat is op zichzelf al indrukwekkend en het vertellen waard, maar oorlogen en jodenvervolging maken deze lange weg bepaald niet gemakkelijker. Het is een verhaal dat diepe indruk op mij maakte. Het liet me in het begin ongeveer ieder half uur de band stoppen om het gesprokene op me te laten inwerken.

Lipschits is geboren in 1938 en is daarmee van de generatie van mijn ouders en mijn schoonouders. Hoe voor hem de oorlog begon komt nauw overeen met de verhalen waarmee ik opgegroeid ben, maar dan komt de onderduik en dan het einde van de oorlog en in hetzelfde decor verloopt een ander verhaal. Isaac is verweesd en leeft eerst bij een bevriende familie en dan in een weeshuis. De enige andere overlevende uit zijn familie is zijn jongere broer, die is ingelijfd bij de familie waar hij in de oorlog is ondergedoken geweest. Isaac probeert zijn broer naar het weeshuis te halen, maar als dat niet lukt ontvoert hij hem naar de net uitgeroepen staat Israel. Maar daar worden ze opnieuw gescheiden. Broer David wordt in een kibbutz ondergebracht en Isaac moet meteen de onafhankelijkheidsoorlog in. Dat alles vindt plaats het Israel van mijn schoonouders, het decor van de verhalen die ik tegenwoordig regelmatig hoor. Het bracht deze biografie voor mij heel erg dichtbij, maar ik meen dat iedere luisteraar erdoor gegrepen zal worden.

Meer Het Marathon Interview:
Ger Harmsen,
Het Marathon Interview met Kerst 2010,
Michiel van Erp,
Ger van Elk,
Ileana Melita.

Listening ideas for 13 March 2011

Tapestry
A Call for Compassion
Karen Armstrong joins host Mary Hynes for a feature interview on Armstrong's Charter of Compassion. Her wish for a more compassionate world got the nod, and much-deserved seed money from the TED Foundation. The Charter was written and endorsed by some of the world's leading thinkers, and now, the work begins. And in our ongoing Global Soul series we hear from Tarek Fatah, activist and founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
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Zencast
The Awakened Heart
Dharma teaching by Jack Kornfield.
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Veertien Achttien
Alexander Kerenski
In maart 1917 had Alexander Kerenski het vertrouwen van het volk. Dat hij het kwijt ging raken, is de tragiek van Rusland.
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