Listening ideas for 30 March 2011

Indicast
India Vs Pakistan
India takes on Pakistan in the second semi final later today at Mohali. In the universal set of India and Pakistan, if set A were cricket and Set B were politics, then A intersection B is confusion, tension and a false sense of security. But we do rely on hope. In this podcast, we talk about this and more. Warren Buffet is in India. The DGCA spanking continues on pilots who have forged their way into the service. And Adityas better half makes her debut in a film titled Bal Gandharva which is going to the Cannes Film Festival.
(review, feed)

Witness
Reagan assassination attempt
On March 30 1981 a man tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States. Special Agent Jerry Parr was one of the men who helped save the President's life.
(review, feed)

Rear Vision
The history of nuclear power
The magnitude 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan caused a massive tsunami that killed thousands and flooded the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As Japan comes to terms with its worst nuclear disaster, we take a look at the history of nuclear power.
(review, feed)

The Economist
Malcolm Grimston on a nuclear future
As Japan struggles to cope with the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, what next for the nuclear industry?
(review, feed)



KQED's Forum
The California Supreme Court's New Chief Justice
Tani Cantil-Sakauye took over as chief justice of the California Supreme Court in January, making her the second woman and first Asian-American to hold the job. She joins guest host Scott Shafer in the studio.
(review, feed)

August Willemsen

Even een korte recensie.

Kan je een stotteraar voor de radio (of podcast) interviewen? Een hardnekkig haperende August Willemsen verscheen voor de VPRO microfoon in 1999 en die Marathon van drie uur is nu als podcast uitgekomen. (feed)

Ik kende Willemsen niet alleen van de vertalingen uit het Portugees, maar ook van een aantal gedichten die hij in Paradiso had voorgedragen. Wat je er bij krijgt in het interview is heen en weer gepraat over zijn alcoholisme. De AA in Australie duwden hem naar contact leggen met Hogere Machten, maar daar moet hij niets van hebben...

Meer Het Marathon Interview:
Ernst van de Wetering,
Isaac Lipschits,
Ger Harmsen,
Het Marathon Interview met Kerst 2010,
Michiel van Erp.

Listening ideas for 29 March 2011

Mahabharata Podcast
The Kauravas React
Episode 50 - Sanjay returns to Hastinapur with messages and intelligence from the Pandava camp. The king's charioteer delivers this information before the royal assembly, while Dhrarastra, Duryodhana, Bhisma and Karna argue over the significance of these threats.
(review, feed)

EconTalk
Vincent Reinhart on Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the Financial Crisis
Vincent Reinhart of the American Enterprise Institute talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the government interventions and non-interventions into financial markets in 2008. Conventional wisdom holds that the failure to intervene in the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated the crisis. Reinhart argues that the key event occurred months earlier when the government engineered a shotgun marriage of Bear Stearns to JP Morgan Chase by guaranteeing billion of Bear's assets and sending a signal to creditors that risky lending might come without a cost. Reinhart argues that there is a wider menu of choices available to policy makers than simply rescue or no rescue, and that it is important to take action before the crisis comes to a head.
(review, feed)

Witness
Bangladesh independence
It is 40 years since a brutal crackdown by Pakistani troops marked the beginning of the war of independence in Bangladesh. Meghna Guhathakurta lost her father to 'Operation Searchlight'
(review, feed)

Inspired Minds
Gregor Zubicky – Artistic Manager of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra
Gregor Zubicky was an internationally renowned oboe soloist and principal cor-anglais with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra until medical problems with a hand forced a change in his career path. Today he is artistic director of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. This week Gregor Zubicky talks to Breandáin O’Shea about this career change, establishing a chamber music festival and the challenges he faces in his new position within an orchestra.
(review, feed)

Lyrics Undercover
Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
A wistful song written in Aspen, reflecting the humbling landscape, is the topic of this week’s Lyrics Undercover. “Landside” first appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled 1975 album.
(review, feed)

TED Talks
Don't insist on English! - Patricia Ryan
At TEDxDubai, longtime English teacher Patricia Ryan asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages? (For instance: what if Einstein had to pass the TOEFL?) It's a passionate defense of translating and sharing ideas.
(review, feed)

Hans Kundnani about Germany's left after the war

The flag ship of the New Books Network is of course the podcast New Books in History. Marshall Poe interviews authors of newly published, interesting, history books (feed). He has been doing it for three years and there is a wonderful wealth of subjects to choose from. One of them is the modern history of Germany.

A very particular and not often described (at least not in English) part of the history of Germany is the kind of intellectual struggle with the Nazi past that took place in West-Germany. Especially the more left-leaning generation after the war had an intense confrontation with its parents' and teachers' past. On NBiH Marshall Poe interviews journalist Hans Kundnani about his book Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (Columbia UP, 2010).

Kundnani (who grew up in Britain and is the son of a Dutch woman and an Indian man) investigated the new left in West-Germany - he calls it the Federal Republic. He describes how they began to view almost the entire previous generation as 'fascists' and therefore politically bankrupt and began to heavily theorize about right politics. Many of them seriously radicalized, but not all of them ended up as RAF (Rote Armee Faktion) terrorists. Notably Joschka Fischer made it to German foreign minister, for the Green Party. Kundnani is a very captive guest on the show and wonderfully effectively explains the intricacies of the leftist intellectual landscape of West-Germany in the sixties and seventies.

More New Books in History:
Ottoman Age of Exploration
The mysteries of whites and of mass,
A Soviet Memoir,
This I accomplish,
Not your idea of World War II.

Listening ideas for 28 March 2011

The Tolkien Professor
Faerie Course
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Part 1, in which we meet a knight with a funny name and a preternaturally ugly woman.
(review, feed)

New Books In History
Daniel Sidorick, "Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth Century"
When I was in college I had a summer job once working in an aircraft factory. My task was to count screws. Nope, I’m not kidding. I put together parts-kits that were then taken to another station “down the line” for assembly. It wasn’t much fun, and it taught me that I did not want [...]
(review, feed)

The History of Rome
The New Game in Town
With the Tetrarchy in shambles, Diocletian will be called out of retirement in 308 AD to help broker a settlement. But the new new order will prove as bad as the old new order.
(review, feed)

Russian Rulers History Podcast
Catherine, The Early Years
Sophie Augusta Fredericka was an unlikely candidate to marry well. We follow her early years before she wed the future Tsar Peter III.
(review, feed)

Omega Tau Podcast
Megacities
Diese Episode ist ein Interview mit Prof. Dr.-Ing. J. Alexander Schmidt vom Institut für Stadtplanung und Städtebau der Universität Duisburg-Essen. Wir sprachen allgemein über Eigenschaften von Megacities, über Probleme und Lösungsmöglichkeiten im Bereich von Mobilität, Resourcen und Umweltaspekten. Anhand von vielen Beispielen aus dem Projekt Shanghai : Integrierte Ansätze für eine nachhaltige und energieeffiziente Stadtentwicklung – Stadtform, Mobilität, Bauen und Wohnen wird anschaulich, welche Rolle örtliche und kulturelle Gegebenheiten spielen und und welche Potenziale zur Stadtentwicklung es dort derzeit gibt.
(review, feed)

Sholem Schwarzbard - Veertien Achttien

De nieuwste aflevering van Veertien Achttien markeert voor mij altijd het begin van de week. Het is de enige Nederlandse podcast waarvan ik geen enkele aflevering mis - en trouwens, in het Engels zijn er ook niet zoveel. Zo meteen rijd ik naar mijn werk en laatste aflevering van Veertien Achttien speelt op mijn autoradio.

Eerst nog even wat woorden over de voorlaatste aflevering. Sholem Schwarzbard was een vluchteling uit de Oekraine die in Parijs neerstreek. Niet alleen vluchtten hij en de zijnen voor het oorlogsgeweld en had Schwarzbard socialistische sympathieen die hem niet helemaal in het Tsaristische rijk deden passen. Schwarzbard was ook joods en hij vluchtte ook voor de pogroms.

In de Oekraine in de tussentijd, was er een voorzichtige poging tot onafhankelijkheid, geleid door Symon Petliura. Onder Petliura gingen de pogroms gewoon door en toen Oekraine deel van de nieuwe Sovjetunie moest worden, week ook Petliura uit naar Parijs, alwaar hij Schwarzbard tegenkwam. De laatste besloot de pogroms te wreken en schoot de eerste dood. Schwarzbard kwam voor een Franse rechter en opeens werden de pogroms een kwestie die juridisch relevant konden zijn. Luister naar Veertien Achttien om uit te vinden of in Frankrijk wraak voor pogroms een moord konden rechtvaardigen.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Bernard Freyberg,
Richard Huelsenbeck,
Veertien Achttien nieuwsbrief (PTSD versus shellshock)
Sir Mark Sykes,
De Eerste Wereldoorlog in podcast.