Substance abuse in the midwest - NBIH

The latest issue of New Books In History would have served in a history show just as well as in one on criminology. I used to study criminology and my professor, the now 85 year old Herman Bianchi, would point out to us that the field of History was as important for criminology as was Sociology or Law. It is shown in Marshal Poe's interview with Nick Reding.

The history is of a small rural town in Iowa, but it could be about an remote place in the decaying midwest. Together with the rising economic despair came an increase in the use of drugs, the sample drug discussed by Reding: crystal meth. It is the history of meth, the economic history of the midwest and how the two came to meet never to part. It is the history of how a town such as the one in Iowa, was firmly gripped by the use and the local household manufacture of crystal meth.

It is criminology in the type of social questions that are raised and get answers, if tentatively. Why did this population turn to drugs? Why exactly this drug? How does law enforcement fail and why? How did authorities react and managed to reduce the use and manufacture to a certain extent? What were the medical and social care facilities available? If there was some success in bringing the problem back, will it lessen even more, or is it awaiting a return? While this is about one town in Iowa and it is claimed to be representative for the midwest; is that warranted and if so, could it be extended further - to all dwindling rural areas in the Western World perhaps? I thought it just might.

More NBIH:
How could they continue - NBIH on WW1 soldiers,
After slavery was abolished,
Populism,
Two great shows on New Books In History,
Two old and one New Books In History.

George Best - Oxford Biographies

It is really nice to occasionally pick up a biography from the podcast Oxford Biographies. I should be trying the unfamiliar names as well, but lately I have been mostly attracted to the famous ones. Currently, the latest in the feed is such a well-known name: George Best (mp3).

The tale of George Best is hardly as pleasant as it was to see the footballer on the pitch in his heydays. George Best the footballer was quickly overshadowed by Best the phenomenon, Best the seriously flawed person and Best the race to decay. The frustration for the lover of football is that a great talent was squandered and not all of this is the fault of Best himself. His stardom was so new, nobody knew how to handle it, but nowadays he'd receive more protection and guidance. His Northern Ireland nationality, barred him from serious contention on the World Cup and other international matches, but surely he is not the only one.

The flaws of Best's personality are in the biography merely described. No effort is being made to begin to explain and this is a pity. It demotes the narrative to that of a going down the drain from beginning to end. The addictions to alcohol and gambling kick in early and never stop to ruin his life. It begs for some psychology or socio-economic thinking, but that is left to the listener and the larger biographies. Check out more on the Oxford DNB website.

More Oxford Biographies:
Roald Dahl,
Biography Podcasts,
Oxford Biographies podcast review.

Mass Extinctions - Making History with Ran Levi

Israel's most popular podcast is עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי (Making History with Ran Levi), about the history of science. The latest issue was yet again a great one, this time about Mass Extinctions. (article)

If you put aside the finer distinction between what can be called mass extinctions and less massive extinctions, you will have to accept, based on the geological record, there must have been around 5 mass extinctions and some 20 minor extinctions. These are waves of loss of species in a relatively (geologically) short period of time. The podcast enters into discussing the most accepted theories of how and why the mass extinctions occurred, leaving it as open-ended as things stand, even in main stream.

The relevance of the subject is poignant. Today species are going extinct at a rate that is beyond a geological eye blink. Climate change and pollution, that is, us human beings, seem to be the major causes of this. Yet, in the accepted theories about previous extinctions, we never accused any species within the system itself. So, in how far is the current extinction different or similar?

More Making History with Ran Levi:
Making History with Ran Levi - עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי,
From Pavlov to Milgram,
A history of pandemics,
Surviving the atom bomb,
Robert Heinlein.

Hardcore History: Stalingrad

The most innovative and creative podcast about history is Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. Carlin tries to tell history with a passion. He breathes life into the data, evokes the emotions, emphasizes the experience the contemporaries must have gone through and he also engages in questions of historiography. And sometimes he tries to do this all at once. When such enormous ambitions cannot always be met, one should not be overly surprised. One of my fascinations is to hear him try.

The current huge project is to capture the horrors of the Ostfront in World War II. So far Carlin has produced three massive podcast episodes on the subject, having spent four hours of audio and he still is not done. At the end of the last, the third chapter (Ghosts of the Ostfront III), he announced there will be a fourth. I wonder whether it should be as long and I wonder whether there could not be more and shorter chapters, if it has to be this long. There has to be some aspect at work of a researcher who takes precedent over the creative producer and pushes all the material in. Nevertheless, in style with the subject, as huge as the product is, as hard as it is to swallow, it is one impressive set of podcasts.

Carlin turns the Ostfront into Dante's Inferno with circle upon circle of ever increasing suffering. With all the evils, depravities and eternally prolonged suffering one can possibly imagine. In a harrowing retelling with poignant quotes from letters, diaries and other primary sources Carlin puts our faces with our mp3 players in the mud, the ice, the pain, the deprivation. Not only does he seem to want to make us experience and never forget the sheer scale of the history, but also drive the point home how this is so much larger than the other battles and wars we know of. The abyss of the Ostfront is larger than anything, apart, maybe, from hell itself.

More Hardcore History:
Ghosts of the Ostfront,
Dan Carlin about the East Front,
Slavery,
Gwynne Dyer Interview,
Interview with Victor Davis Hanson.

Bennie Jolink - KRO's voor een nacht (zomer versie)

Het programma KRO's voor 1 nacht gaat in de zomer door, zonder vaste interviewer Marc Stakenburg en zonder de openingsformule waarbij de gast moet antwoorden op tevoren geprogrammeerde tegenstellingen. Wat overblijft is een gewoon interviewprogramma met elke week niet alleen een nieuwe gast, maar ook een nieuwe interviewer.

Martijn Grimmius interviewde Bennie Jolink, de zanger van Normaal. Net zoals andere rockers, is ook Jolink inmiddels van middelbare leeftijd en gezegend met kleinkinderen. Als er al een tegenstelling aan de orde komt in dit programma dan is dat de rode draad van het gesprek: in hoeverre is Jolink de rauwe pop-artiest en in hoeverre is hij de lieve opa. Het antwoord hoeft niet te verbazen: hij is het natuurlijk allebei. En omdat het imago van de rocker op de voorgrond staat, probeert Jolink vooral de opa te benadrukken.

De opa in Jolink blijkt een opa als alle anderen, die op de kleinkinderen past op de vaste dag in de week en die het liever ziet dat de kids buiten spelen dan achter TV of computer zitten. Het komt er net zo authentiek uit als de popartiest. Deze is eveneens een gewone jongen met een degelijke mening. Daarin is de muziek uit zijn tijd veel beter dan de hedendaagse. Eigenlijk deugt er sinds de jaren tchtig weinig meer van. Man en paard worden genoemd. En als het over Oerend Hard gaat: eigenlijk speelt hij dat liever niet meer.

Meer KRO's voor 1 nacht:
Henk Spaan,
Maarten Ducrot,
Candy Dulfer,
Olga Zuiderhoek en Paul Rosenmoller,
Gijs Wanders en Adjiedj Bakas.

Human Impact on the Environment - lectures 9 and 10

I have directed you to UCSD's podcast BILD 18 before. Make sure you download all lectures, in order to secure them, before they are taken off line, which is to be expected by the end of the summer semester. While doing that, you can skip lecture 9 because it is empty.

Immediately after that, lecture 10 is highly recommended. This lecture is not as planned according to the BILD 18 course website about Ozone Depletion, but rather about Species Extinction (see lecture 11). The greatest merit of this lecture is that it relates less to the issue of species extinction and more to the problems of making this and similar problems of the environment known to the public and be perceived as to the problems as they are according to the scientific consensus. The lecturer tells of his own experiences of how he is publicly attacked and taken into doubt so effectively that the wide public thinks his and similar messages are not hard facts as they according to the real specialists are.