Watch out with the flour - Making History

Making History with Ran Levi (עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי) will have a live meeting on 31 August which I hope to be visiting as well. In the mean time let's discuss the latest show. (feed)

Levi delivered the history of explosives which goes from gunpowder, through dynamite, TNT to the latest stuff. Apart from the stories about the discoveries, Levi makes sure one is also amply informed about the technicalities of the stuff, of explosions and the two combined.

That combination makes for the title of the show: 'Watch out with the flour, bro!' Once you get the picture how explosives work, you understand how explosions can occur also in situation where it is not intended or even suspected. In an innocent flour factory you can have such a critical situation. Be careful and maybe we meet on the 31st.

More Making History with Ran Levi:
SciFi and realism,
The history of Anesthetics,
Social Engineering for hackers,
Ran Levi, then, now and about the Long Now,
Of nightmares and sleepwalking,

Wachtkamer van de dood - Anne-Mei The

Aan het einde van de uitzending schiet Martin Simeks gemoed vol. Het hele uur heeft hij zich goed gehouden, maar aan het eind wordt het hem teveel. Zijn gast is Anne-Mei The, cultureel antropologe, die komt vertellen over haar participerend onderzoek in verpleegtehuizen. Het gaat over de instituten, het personeel en natuurlijk de dementerende bewoners.

Ze heeft haar boek In de Wachtkamer van de Dood genoemd en dat, verklaart Simek, vindt hij wel erg cru. Maar dat is de realiteit en het is The er niet om te doen geweest om dat te beoordelen, maar eenvoudig te beschrijven. En daar gaat het dan dus over: hoe de dementen wachten op hun dood en hoe ze behandeld worden. Wat Simek zo emotioneert is hoe overgeleverd ze zijn en hoe weinig ze eigenlijk krijgen en hij realiseert zich hoe dichtbij het is, als niet voor je geliefden dan voor jezelf.

Het gesprek vond plaats in juni 2005, toen RVU's Simek 's nachts nog op het hoogtepunt was en het een van de beste Nederlandse podcasts was. De RVU feed biedt deze gouden tijden niet meer aan, maar de feeds die ik gemaakt heb nog wel. Het interview met Anne-Mei The is te vinden in de Huffduffer feed. Verder zijn er nog drie andere feeds Simek1, Simek2, Simek3. Al deze feeds zijn door mij samengesteld dankzij tips van lezers die deze oude afleveringen on-line hebben gevonden. Wie helpt ons aan meer?


Meer Simek 's Nachts:
Pieter Winsemius,
Jan Lenferink,
Sjoerd Kooistra,
Ik ben een geraffineerde vrouw - Naema Tahir,
Fabienne (dochter van Lucia de B).

Heads-up for 26 August 2010

Hidden Heritage (National Heritage Week Podcast Series)
A Medieval Witch Burning: Petronella di Midia was burned as a witch in Kilkenny in 1324. She wasn’t even one of the main suspects. Hear how she became the one of the first people in Europe to executed for witchcraft……(this is the final episode in this series)
(review, feed)

Thinking Allowed (BBC)
Alienation: Professor Laurie Taylor talks to Sean Sayers, Donna Dickenson and Ian Fraser about Marx's Theory of Alienation.
(review, feed)

The Memory Palace
Episode 33: Lost lobsters
(review, feed)

Forgotten Classics
The Riddle of the Sands, chapter 26: In which Carruthers discovers what "seven" means.
(review, feed)

History According to Bob
Great Gaulic Revolt Background: This show is about the background to the final blow up by the Gauls to try and throw the Romans out.
(review, feed)

Classic Poetry Aloud
There be none of Beauty's daughters by Lord Byron:
THERE be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
(review, feed)

Quest for meaning - LSE Podcast

Tariq Ramadan spoke at the LSE (feed) about his book, the Quest for Meaning. Although one must argue that religion has more function than just the quest for meaning, Ramadan takes on this aspect and makes a plea for pluralism and tolerance. As he describes it, we are all climbing the same mountain top, but everybody is on a different route. Or if you want to take another metaphor: we are all lost in the desert and looking for the way, but each we have found ourselves in a different spot and in different circumstances and hence we all take a different road.

His argument is against dogmatism in all cultures and his approach is that dogmatism is not exclusive to any one religion, or religions in general, but that it is a state of mind. And he wants to make us aware to stand up against the state of mind.

It is worthwhile to keep listening through the ensuing Q&A, as the questions push him much more to elaborate his points. Had I been there I had challenged him some more about relativism and the pitfall of that. Or with the other task of religion: giving community, which by nature is exclusive.

More LSE:
The plundered planet,
China and India,
The China Hegemony,
The myth of work,
Pasts and futures of Christianity.

Heads-up for 25 August 2010 - Anne is a Man

A blog to follow is Open Culture which not only points out some excellent podcasts, but also other free cultural and educational stuff. For example last month I was happy to be alerted about Tarkovsky films (all of them) that can be viewed for free on-line. And this weekend it has begun posting about places on-line where you can acquire free text-books.

Naxos Classical Music Spotlight Podcast
JoAnn Falletta and the music of Marcel Tyberg: Were it not for Dr. Enrico Mihich, the music of Marcel Tyberg would almost certainly be lost forever. Tyberg entrusted all of his scores with Mihich, just before he was deported to Auschwitz. For more than six decades, Mihich carried the scores with him, trying to find a conductor who would pay attention to them. Finally, in 2005, Dr. Mihich met with JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Maestra Falletta saw what so many others had failed to see – that Tyberg’s music was original, beautiful and worth performing. This podcast, with it’s interview with JoAnn Falletta, traces the history of how she and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra came to rescue the music of Marcel Tyberg.
(review, feed)

Rear Vision
Understanding Pakistan: Pakistan was born on 15 August 1947 and when it emerged from British India, Muslims around the world rejoiced, believing they were witnessing the birth of the first democratic Muslim nation. So why has it all gone so wrong?
(review, feed)

Three new issues of Engines of our Ingenuity. (review, feed)

KMTT - The Torah Podcast
Rav Soloveitchik on Shofar - part 1: The first part of a four-part series on the mitzva of shofar, based on a lecture of Rav Y.B. Soloveitchik delivered in Boston in 1968.
(review, feed)

The Lonely Funeral

I guess this does not happen in small communities, but it does happen every so often in big cities: someone has died and no one shows up to take care of the funeral. Then it is up to the authorities to handle the affairs. The municipality of Amsterdam has some 10-20 of such cases each year. On The State We're In, a podcast by the RNW (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) (feed), there was a documentary by Michele Ernsting about a civil servant and a poet who have taken it upon themselves to do the honors for the municipality in a more special and dignified manner. (Broadcast as part of Last Respects)

I was alerted to this documentary by a podcast from the RTE (the Irish national broadcaster). RTE's Doc on One has a rubric, The Curious Ear, which brings interesting sound bytes such as The Lonely Funeral. (feed)

Ernsting speaks with the civil servant Ger Frits and the city poet Frank Starik. We learn how Frits took up elaborating the municipal funerals. Starik learned about this effort and managed to convince Frits to let him join in. Since they started the anonymous funerals by the city of Amsterdam are attended by them, accompanied by music and ritual, part of which is the reciting of a poem that was specifically written for this lonely case.

Last Respects can no longer be had in the feed of The State We're In, but it can be reached through the website. The Lonely Funeral is available there for download and so I have used Huffduffer to make this documentary a podcast. Check out this feed: Huffduffer funeral.

Reports about Lonely funerals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities can be read on the blog Eenzame Uitvaart.