12 New podcasts in December 2008 - Anne is a Man!

Podcasts reviewed for the first time on this blog in December

Freedomain Radio (review, site, feed)
Community podcast for an on-line movement of anarchists. One of their ideas being that one has a choice whether to stay connected with one's family of origin. An actual event of a follower breaking with his family let to a media storm at, among others, The Guardian and the BBC.

Hoor! Geschiedenis (review, site, feed)
A very adequate and from the onset complete history of the Netherlands, going back to the earliest roots of Dutch culture and coming into existence of the state. (Dutch language)

Thinking Allowed (review, site, feed)
BBC radio program about the social sciences.

Game Theory (Yale) (review, site, no feed)
Economics course on Yale, bringing the basics of Game Theory with as little math as possible, making Game Theory and its application accessible also beyond the field of economics.

RSA Current Audio (review, site, feed)
Podcast of events at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Skythen-Podcast (review, site, feed)
Very extensive promotional podcast for an exhibition on the Scythians. (German Language)

Media Matters (review, site, feed)
Talkshow on NPR with Bob McChesney in which he speaks with guests on current themes in the media, mostly on economics and politics.

Family History - Genealogy made easy (review, site, feed)
Podcast for beginners in the field of genealogy.

Genealogy Gems Podcast (review, site, feed)
A professional podcast for anybody who is taking genealogy seriously.

Cambridge Alumni Podcast (review, site, feed)
Podcast of events for Cambridge Alumni.

Introduction to Ancient Greek History (Yale) (review, site, no feed)
Open Course on Yale delivering the history of the Ancient Greeks tracing the development of Greek civilization as manifested in political, intellectual, and creative achievements from the Bronze Age to the end of the classical period.

New York Coffee Cup (review, site, feed)
Audio blog of a man scrambling to put up with New York City, the past and his teenage daughter simultaneously.

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New York Coffee Cup

Dave went to New York on two missions, each of which was difficult enough to cope with, but to combine them should be deemed impossible at the outset. One mission was to guide thirteen year old daughter Georgette around and let it be her trip, along her rules, the rules of the Apple Store, the ice cream parlor, sleeping in and the vibes of 'you are not going to embarrass me dad, are you?' The other was to confront the past life in New York, from beyond Georgette's time and beyond Georgette's capacity to fathom. This mission was ruled by grief, by guilt and old scares, enough to make an innocent podcast listener cry, terribly confusing and taxing for one to whom these memories and emotions are his own unfinished business.

The New York Coffee Cup podcast is not one of stylish fiction, as is Dave's other podcast Namaste Stories. This time we are reading the dairy, we are listening in on an audio blog, with the confusion as raw, unpolished and direct as real life. Dave reports silently whispering into his recorder as events unfold. He does so in his familiar serene voice, but more naturally and more shaken, than in Namaste Stories. My heart goes out to him, as the hours creep by, he tries to keep control, gives in, gives up and somehow, if weakly, manages to reach out to both goals.

The events are long passed. It happened in August; just a few days in New York, but the podcast hasn't rolled out till the end yet. Now we are at episode #26 and in the middle of one of the cataclysmic confrontations. One of the truly important reasons Dave came to New York after all, with all due respect to Georgette. Unfinished business, stuck up emotions and guilt, but as things go in real life, the solution, if there is one, out of reach and petty frustration dominating. My heart goes out.

Yale Classical - this is not a podcast review

The Open Courses on Yale are not brought as a podcast. You will have to use other means than a podcatcher to download the episodes. I import them into iTunes as music and then alter the file settings to those of podcasts, which most importantly is setting 'remember playback position'. Many courses this semester and in others, are very interesting on face value. The one that I picked up first and I wish to review here is Donald Kagan's Introduction to Ancient Greek History.

An initial snag in the course is Kagan's throat condition. He coughs and scrapes and rattles so frequently, unable to clear his throat, especially in the first lectures, it nearly put me off. After nine lectures this has either nearly died down, or I have grown so used to it and become so engaged, I am hooked. There is still lots to come, but even at this early stage into the history, I have had so many questions answered and so many new things learned, the course has become extremely rewarding.

Simply irresistible is Kagan's self-acclaimed inclination towards the 'higher naïveté', which means he accepts the factual possibility of anything mentioned in the old sources about Ancient Greek history, as long is it is not supernatural, or falsified by archeology. It turns the story of the Greeks into a narrative full of imagination and wonder. And while wondering, asking for example how the Greeks could have acquired their economic and cultural wealth and how hoplite warfare would have been, Kagan delivers answers. His answers, he credits specifically to Victor Davis Hanson, which is exciting for those who have heard Hanson in other podcasts as well as for the charm of Kagan - both naive, great story-teller as well as modest, who wouldn't love a professor like that?

More Yale:
Game theory - Yale online course review.

More Classics:
Political Science - UCLA Podcast review,
Some things Classical,
Roman History in podcasts,
Berkeley's History 4A.

More Victor Davis Hanson:
Hardcore History.

Enver Pasha - veertien achttien podcast recensie

In de uiterst verdienstelijke serie over de Eerste Wereldoorlog, de podcast Veertien Achttien, geeft Tom Tacken in de laatste aflevering aandacht aan de Turkse bijdrage in die oorlog. Met alle aandacht voor het Westelijke Front heeft het oosten nogal eens last van onderbelichting. Als het al aan de orde komt, is het in de relevantie van het oostelijke front op het westelijke. Met andere woorden: zolang de Russen de tegenstanders in het oosten nog bezighouden, kunnen ze in het Westen niet domineren.

Dan gaat het vooral over Duitsland. Dat er ook nog meer zuidelijk oorlog werd gevoerd, kwam al aan het licht in de aflevering over Oskar Potiorek, zodat we iets meer over Servie en Oostenrijk te weten komen - daar was het ten slotte allemaal begonnen. De Turken maakten ook deel uit van de centrale alliantie en door middel van een biografie van Enver Pasha komt de rol van het Ottomaanse Rijk in de oorlog ook eens voor het voetlicht.

Het is achteraf bezien vooral een verhaal van een rappe modernisering van de Turkse staat. Het is een vergeten voorloper van de dekolonialisering, waarbij de laatste hand werd gelegd aan de ontmanteling van het Ottomaanse Imperium en het Turkije begint dat we vandaag nog kennen. Enver Pasha is niet de laatste in die ontwikkeling. Hooguit de wat ongemakkelijke brug van Sultanaat, naar Kemal Ataturk's gelatiniseerde democratie.

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

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.