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

I've started working my way through the back catalog of Philosophy Bites, a podcast that produces short interviews with philosophers on specific topics. So in that way it is, they are, "bites." (I'm not going to talk about the whole "bites" name thing. I. am. not.) Anyways, it's clear that the creators, Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds, go into each interview with enough background knowledge to steer the conversation in a meaningful direction. I have a long ways to go in terms of catching up but here are two episodes that I enjoyed so far.
(Philosophy Bites is also available on itunes).

Jeff McMahan on Vegetarianism
Goes into strange territory.




Pat Churchland on Eliminative Materialism
 Her herky jerk over-enunciation can be a little grating, but I like how she manages to talk about her and her husband's theories as well as their academic experience trying to advance the them.



PHOTO:STEPHMCG

There Weren't Even Any Mice Stirring

The latest New Yorker Out Loud podcast, an interview with Louis Menand about parody, has him reading a parody of the Night Before Christmas in the style of Ernest Hemingway, by James Thurber . Listen here and fast forward to 4:30.

Tina Brown on NPR

Tina Brown, currently the editor of The Daily Beast, has been making appearances on NPR for about a year, where she discusses newspaper and magazine articles. I really like her picks and her perspective, which tends to be broad, editorial and oriented toward the social sciences.

This particular piece is one of the best ones, from last May, about privacy:


NPR Site for the segment
MP3 Download

Past NPR segments featuring Tina Brown (among many):
August 25, 2010
June 16, 2010
April 1, 2010
May 25, 2010

Oliver Sacks on Face Blindness

I have some complaints about The New Yorker Out Loud podcast, in particular the strange intro that implies there are audio stories coming up which don't actually exist (they're just print stories), but as with the magazine I am often drawn to its topics and personalities, like this short interview with Oliver Sacks. There isn't much heft to this interview but it's a nice opportunity to hear Oliver Sacks' voice, which somehow sounds both affectionately sheepish and lofty.
 A good companion to this would be this fascinating story from the BBC about super recognizers, people who are the opposite of face blind.

Page from the New Yorker for this podcast
Download MP3

Ayelet Waldman on Fresh Air

Halfway through her interview with writer Ayelet Waldman, Terry Gross thanks her for "sharing," a clumsy impulse that comes across as unplanned. It made me cringe a little, the casualness of it, maybe because I don't think it's really Terry Gross' social warmth that gives her credibility, it's her consistent open-minded curiosity and a deft give-and-take interviewing style. Ayelet Waldman is a confessed over-sharer, so maybe it was the gravity of the personal details which compelled Terry to express thanks in a more personal way. The way Waldman talks about herself here is expressive and direct, and made wonder how she might shape and filter these personal stories in ways to provoke us or to resolve her own fears. 
Listen on NPR's Site

Download MP3


PHOTO: GARRY KNIGHT

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

Download MP3



PHOTO: El Egnigma (Marca Pasos)