Go for a walk with Open Source

Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies has a podcast called Open Source. This podcast claims to be not a podcast with a web community, but rather a web community that produces a podcast. After listening to two issues, I have yet to feel the community, but in any case there is a good quality podcast. I have to thank the blog Open Culture, for guiding me to Open Source.

Open Culture directed me to listen to the second part of the three installments long conversation with Harold Bloom. In this part Bloom eloquently laments the demise of literature and its study. "They are teaching Harry Potter these days," he cries out. And what is wrong with Harry Potter he underlines with declaring that he has read in one of the books Harry 'stretches his legs' and explaining that this cannot replace 'goes for a walk' - J. K. Rowling therefore cannot write. She is one of many, so it is in his eyes.

Before that I listened to the last show containing a conversation with Anthony Barnett about 2008. Barnett is chosen on account of his, by Open Source admired, e-zine openDemocracy. A historical perspective is taken on 2008 and Barnett explains what the world's situation is today and where we are heading. In his mind we are living in changing times, where most notably the US are losing their supremacy and will have to start sharing the world's leadership with Europe and China, possibly also India. The decline of the US's power is entirely blamed on the failed policies of George Bush.

Spanish Succession and History Podcasts

The Historyzine Podcast is not just a podcast telling history, though it is also that. In a very enthusiastic tone, spread over four episodes, host Jim Mowatt tells about the War of the Spanish Succession. In addition to that he reviews other history podcasts and on the ones I also know (History according to Bob, Binge Thinking and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History), I mostly agree with the expressed opinion. Furthermore, the reviews are very well done - sharp, to the point and intelligent.

As to the history, this is told very aptly as well. Jim reveals his podcasts are scripted, but his tone of voice is very natural and therefore very entertaining. he manages to tell the story, make some tangents and cleverly bring the story back on track. He effectively takes out a number of main characters and hands a in depth profile. Also the intricacies of the succession itself, how it came to be problematic, who were the pretenders and whose support they enjoyed is mapped out solidly.

Wikipedia lets the war span from 1701-1714, But Mowatt starts telling some two decades before. The good thing is, this makes the whole history very clear, but it leaves me wondering whether Mowatt would disagree with 1701 as the starting year and prefer to start maybe as early as 1689. Anyway. This is a podcast I am definitely going to follow more. I will also pick up the podcasts reviewed, in as far as I haven't run into them already.

My reviews of:
History according to Bob,
Binge Thinking History,
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History.

Amerikaanse kandidaten - NRC FM

Op dezelfde dag dat voormalig VPRO-man Ronald Van den Boogaard de NRC FM podcast afdoet als Een krant speelt radio, beluisterde ik de volgende aflevering van deze aarzelende poging in de nieuwe media. Het onderwerp is de Amerikaanse verkiezingen, meer in het bijzonder de potentiele presidentskandidaten. In het achterhoofd speelt de vraag of NRC FM al iets begint te leren, al dan niet naar aanleiding van de ongezouten kritiek.

Om maar met de kleine positieve kanten te beginnen. De inleiding duurt niet meer ellenlang, de sprekers worden voorgesteld en er worden zowaar geluidsfragmenten afgespeeld. De geluidskwaliteit is iets beter dan de vorige keer, maar nog altijd beneden peil. Het duurt steeds een paar seconden voordat een nieuwe spreker de juiste sterkte in zijn microfoon meekrijgt en er is nog altijd veel achtergrondgeluid.

Wat gebleven is, is het gehakkel van de presentator en dat hij deel wordt van de discussie. De discussie verloopt uitermate rommelig en er valt weinig op te tekenen wat in overige media niet al uitentreure over Hillary Clinton en Barack Obama (want zij krijgen de meeste aandacht) is gezegd. Ten slotte krijgt Heleen Mees de ruimte om haar pet peeve, die van het sexisme in de wereld te spelen, zelfs op een ad hominem manier ten opzichte van andere panelleden. Kortom, het blijft een haastig en onprofessioneel in elkaar gebakken podcast, waarmee een serieuze krant eigenlijk niet voor de dag kan komen.

Vorige post over NRC FM.
En over podcast bij de Volkskrant.

Is war innate? - Philosophy Bites

Hobbes assumed that if not for the state, humans by nature would live life that was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Implied here is that aggressiveness is innate in human beings. Plato thought otherwise as is explained by Angie Hobbs (sic) in the last Philosophy Bites.

Where Hobbes assumes a nature state with war of everyone against everyone, Plato lets Socrates describe a bucolic state, where a simple rural society leads a peaceful but abstemious life. War enters the scene when man develops desires for luxuries, specifically Sicilian sweet meat and Corinthian call-girls are mentioned. It is accepted by Plato these desires are innate and that the scarcity of Sicilian sweet meat and Corinthian call-girls will inevitably lead to war.

He questions however, if man's desires necessarily need be directed towards the scarce pleasures. He argues, by that time the desires have been corrupted and that is where aggression kicks in, but innately there is just desire. If desire could be directed to elated things, that are not scarce, aggression need not come out. That would show, aggression as such is not innate.

More Philosophy Bites:
Wittgenstein,
Friendship,
Egalitarianism,
Skepticism ,
Thought experiments (and Avicenna).

$1.5 million for revealing sex

University of California Berkeley announced on January 3rd, Professor Thomas Laqueur of the history faculty has won the Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award. He received the award for his unconventional historical research into topics of sexuality, death and dying, and the body and gender. The award comes with an amount of one and a half million dollars, what with even a weak dollar is no petty cash.

On these unconventional subjects Thomas Laqueur has published various articles and books among others the widely read and translated works Making Sex; Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Harvard Press) and Solitary Sex; A Cultural History of Masturbation (Zone Books). Apart from this unconventional work, Professor Laqueur teaches History at Berkeley and we can enjoy his lectures on the history of Europe from the renaissance to today through podcast.

This podcast, known as History 5, was delivered by Laqueur last Fall and previously in 2006, all of which can be listened back through Berkeley's webcast site. History 5 will be delivered again in the spring of 2008 by Professor Margaret Lavinia Anderson. Both professor Anderson and Laqueur make of this podcast a great learning experience and from my point of view, theirs is the best history podcast the web has to offer.

Goldene Zwanziger - OVT

OVT neemt ons weer een jaartje verder in Europa's reis door de geplaagde 20e eeuw. Het station was gisteren 1929 en tussen de demonen van de eerste en de tweede wereldoorlog, doen we een poging om vrolijk te zijn. In de podcast wordt gekeken naar Berlijn en Parijs en geprobeerd om het optimisme van de jaren twintig te voelen.

Hoewel gast Philip Freriks zijn best doet om Parijs op te stoten in de vaart der volkeren, kan de luisteraar zich niet aan de indruk onttrekken dat de echte metropool en daarmee de echte representant van het optimisme van de jaren twintig Berlijn is. De Goldene Zwanziger noemen de Duitsers deze tijd en gast Helmut Hetzel preciseert het tot de tijd van 1924-1929. Berlijn had 5000 bioscopen, talloze nachtclubs en bruiste de pan uit op de manier van New York en New York op de manier van Berlijn.

De vraag waarmee begonnen wordt en die op de valreep alleen door Helmut Hetzel van een kort antwoord wordt voorzien is of dat optimisme, dat Lebensgefühl zoals hij het noemt, nu ook gerechtvaardigd was. Of was het dansen op de vulkaan? Want er was ellende, er was een kwetsbare economie en een onstabiele politieke situatie. Helmut beschuldigt de beurskrach van 1929 - als die er niet was geweest...

Eerdere besprekingen van OVT in dit blog:
1916 - Het neutrale Nederland,
1917 - Het oostfront,
1917 - Russische Revoluties,
1922 - Walther Rathenau,
1925 - Mussolini.