Year in the Life of the U.S. Supreme Court

 President Obama, Malia Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts.
Here's Nina Totenberg's summary of the past year of cases and politics at the Supreme Court. She does a great job of explaining the big picture behind how the court ruled and the meaning of how the votes split between the judges. (You also get to hear the word "opprobrium" used in a sentence.)

Listen on NPR's Site

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PHOTO: El Egnigma (Marca Pasos)

Bob Edwards Weekend - Author Gabriel Thompson

Bob Edwards interviews Gabriel Thompson about working as a laborer for a book about the working conditions in low wage jobs.

Listen on Bob Edwards Weekend site

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PHOTO: CHRISTINA KENNEDY

Aging Out of Foster Care

This short NPR story Pam Fessler describes the struggles of teenagers who age out of the foster care system when they turn eighteen, research on their their progress and the existing state programs which aim to help them through that transition. I was surprised by how this story, which is largely about social policy is given a lot more depth and emotion through a few expressive details. Straightforward, conversational, informative.

To listen, go to the NPR Page for the Story

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PHOTO:ANDREW CHELLINSKY

Williams Syndrome and Trust

Alix Spiegel offers a fascinating two part story about a disorder that affects trust and friendliness with others and what this might show about trust in general.

Part 1 (MP3 Download)
Part 1 on NPR's site

Part 2 (MP3 Download)
Part 2 on NPR's site

PHOTO: BATEGA

Radiolab Limits

Radiolab cranked out another excellent episode, about physical and mental limits and the limits of human knowledge. The most gripping story is an account of a cross country bike race that left racers physically broken down and hallucinating.

MP3 Download

PHOTO: DICK ROCHESTER

Bail in the US - NPR

A very good 3-part series by Laura Sullivan at NPR. (There are tons of comments on the NPR pages for the shows).
Part 1 (MP3 Download)
Part 2 (MP3 Download)
Part 3 (MP3 Download) 


PHOTO: TEOFILO 

Teddy Diaries

Last week's episode of Thinking Aloud exposed the novel idea of using the classroom tool of Teddy Diaries as a sociological resource. Teddy Diaries are where young children take a class teddy bear home and write a diary entry with their families, then return the teddy bear to class, and the next child brings the teddy bear home, and so on. Sociologist Randi Waerdahl is pouring over Teddy Diaries to take a peek into how families want present themselves to the rest of the class or to the outside, and she's comparing them from different communities around the world.

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The Sound of Young America: The Best Comedy of 2009 Special

 Great collection of 2009 comedy clips compiled by Jesse Thorn on The Sound of Young America. Below is my favorite, by John Mulaney.

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Entire show MP3

 Listen to Entire show:

The Sound of Young America

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Studio 360 Story on Avatars, Generally

"So if I'm running around or flying around or sexing around in a virtual world, my brain still ultimately reads that as real. Media is real. It ultimately says that you're living this experience that you're viewing."

A story this week by Eric Molinsky from WNYC's Studio 360 discusses the nature of avatars and the mind/body questions they play around with.  How do we represent ourselves online and how do we control that image? It's a pretty short report, but it enouraged me to re-examine the contradiction between our desire and interest in worlds online and the very constrained physical mode of interaction, screens and keyboards, that we have to use to participate in that world.
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PHOTO: JARED TARBELL

Code Switching

I grew up hearing the voice of Bob Edwards almost every day on the radio. When he left NPR, I didn't get satellite radio, so he was just gone, and I hadn't heard him since. A couple weeks ago I discovered his shows, The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend, finally, through podcasts. Hearing his voice again, and his voice is unchanged, gives me solemn, nostalgic, near-religious feelings that the world really does have some kind of continuity and that Bob Edwards will live forever.

Below are a couple segments from a recent episode where he interviews writer Sarah Lyall about British culture. It's a good interview in its own right - she's got plenty to say - but it's also good example of Bob Edwards' interviewing style.

Bob Edwards' shows are on Sirius XM satellite radio, in itunes and on the websites.

(Update 8/2012, Links no longer available, sorry)

PHOTO: Jonathan Gill