Recent Slate Political Gabfest Legalese

Emily Bazelon's discussions of current legal issues are my favorite part of the Slate Political Gabfest because she really gets at the sometimes abstruse legal questions that make the cases note-worthy. I've collected a few of those recent segments. The Slate Political Gabfest is also available free in itunes.

Online bullying and school.
Download MP3

Bans on violent video games.
 Download MP3

The class-action case against Walmart brought by women who claimed they were discriminated against.
Download MP3

Contracts for Safety

     I'm starting to delve into medical podcasts and this is one of the first episodes I've listened to. Dr. Rob Orman invites guests onto his show, ERCAST, to discuss topics in Emergency Medicine.
     Many of these episodes are labeled EXPLICIT in itunes, not because of strong language but because of gore (the C Diff episode carries a strong warning: "There are descriptions in this interview that may make you pass out or possibly vomit"). This episode is not gruesome but does contain sensitive topics relating to suicide. The focus is on assessing suicide risk in the emergency room. Originating from the perspective of clinicians makes for different language and different details than you'd get from public radio.

MP3 Download



PHOTO: GABRIELA PINTO

Recent New Yorker Fiction Podcasts

I recently listened to three terrific episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, each story very different from the next. Host Deborah Treisman ends up asking almost exactly the same questions in every episode, which gives the show an even perspective episode to episode.


Click on the links below to listen:
Thomas McGuane's "Cowboy"
There's something very funny about hearing Sam Lipsyte read in a cowboy dialect. He tries hard but he enunciates too perfectly, it sounds too correct to be real. To be fair, I'm not sure who could read this story aloud without sounding stilted.

Roberto Bolaño's "Gómez Palacio"
So mysterious to me, hope to read more of his stories.

John Cheever's "The Swimmer"
Anne Enright's reading brings so much to this story. Perfect for a hot day.

PHOTO: LEE COURSEY

WTF Podcast comes to Public Radio

Happy to see Marc Marone's caffeine-fueled pet project get picked up by Jesse Thorn & co to be distributed by PRI. Promos by Ira Glass (I guess public radio is a small world):

NPR: Young Catholic Nuns

This story discusses the growing number of young nuns at a Catholic convent in Tennessee. In addition to religious training the women are educated as teachers at St Aquinas College and then work in the schools associated with the congregation. What I found interesting about this report is that Barbara Bradley Hagerty, who regularly produces reports on religion for NPR, describes their role in the community as well as the specifics of how they orient themselves to questions of love and society. The way they talk about their love for Jesus using the language of person-to-person romance is definitely surprising to hear from young American women.
NPR page for the story


PHOTO: CELINE NADEAU

What Shouldn't be Sold

"I don't think of it as constraining peoples' freedom. I think of it as taking on an impoverished conception of freedom that is concerned only with individual or consumer choice in the marketplace."

Professor Mike Sandel explores issues surrounding controversial forms of wage labor and market transactions, such as paid surrogacy, prostitution as well as buying and selling body parts in a conversation on Philosophy Bites with host Nigel Warburton. Is consent on the part of the seller enough? What's the limit of what the market should decide? Excellent questions and responsiveness from Nigel Warburton. A great conversation starter and philosophical brain teaser.

Link to Philosophy Bites page for the episode

Slate DoubleX Gabfest

This week's Slate DoubleX Gabfest(podcast) is terrific; topics include Julian Assange, crying in public and Christmas cards. Download audio file here.

NPR report on Facebook Issues

This short piece by Laura Sydell talks about some common Facebook complaints and describes a startup social network which hopes to manage those issues better than Facebook does. The idea is creating a network that makes users feel less intimdated by information sharing and the possibility of social gaffes. This report points toward some pretty broad questions, like "Do people like themselves on Facebook?" and "What will come after Facebook?" and it made me wonder whether Facebook has been successful because of its social structure or because of reasons that don't really have to do with the way it's organized. When I think about new or competing social networks it seems like the primary challenge is reaching Facebook's critical mass, and without that critical mass, the issues of privacy and information sharing are kind of irrelevant.
(Also, the comments section for this story on the NPR site included this invocation against Facebook usage, presumably directed toward non-octopi: "LOP OFF THE TENTACLE!!")


Link to NPR Page of the story
PHOTO: NOEL FEANS 

Jay Ipson story on PRX

This is one of those stories that will gray out any other thoughts that are in your mind at the time and demand your total attention. I recently heard on PRX this first-person account of survival through the Holocaust told by Jay Ipson and produced by Charles McGuigan.
You can listen to the story, which is about a half hour long, on the PRX website here, but you do need to create a free account first.

Flying

The Moth podcast recently posted an episode featuring two stories related to flight and flying. The second one, by Moran Cerf, is the one I'm really recommending. It's the kind of story you'll want to retell to somebody else as soon as you hear it. He tells it a little breathlessly, starts at 7:20 in:



PHOTO:DUNCAN HARRIS