This week’s HV cast is Sleepless in Tbilisi. A twenty-four hour tour, from Turkish baths to Batumi beaches, through the country of Georgia. High-speed sight-seeing driven by the accidental tourguide: “a ‘detective,’ or ‘special police,’ or ‘security force.’ It’s not clear. Sometimes he even says ‘KGB,’ though that no longer exists… does it?” A story by Larry Massett, “Long Day on the Road” (14:52) mp3):
Researchers at Jacobs Univerity at the University of Technology- Berlin have published a International Podcastersurvey (pdf) of 1000+ podcasters, with results such as:
Quantify motivations
- Podcasting is not mainly a techies‘ affair
- It‘s more about identity and relationship management
- But most of all, it‘s about information and expression of opinion
Laurie Anderson has a new song (“Only an Expert” @ Lincoln Ctr), if indeed something by her can be “new,” cuz it still sounds like Laurie Anderson which ain’t a new sound. But, hey, I’m still a half-a-fan, so I’ll post something old that sounds new and looks great, the “Sharkey’s Day” vid by Laurie Anderson:
The entire Internet has crashed. All data lost:
Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash
inogolo: English Pronunciation Guide to the Names of People and Places— “the practical, easy-to-use website devoted to the English pronunciation of the names of people, places, and miscellaneous stuff. The site contains a searchable database of names with both phonetic and audio pronunciations in English.”
E.g., Nietzsche is:
A white wine:
Iran’s prez:
RadioSutton posted a clip from WOUB-Athens OH the acurrately imagines How Listeners Hear Fundraising (1:50):
KPFA Guns and Butter interview with Michael Hudson (59:00):
“America: Host or Parasite?”
Interview with economist, Dr. Michael Hudson. Dr. Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of “Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire”. We discuss the US balance of payments trade deficit which creates US credit to finance the US national debt and war abroad; Russian economic shock therapy as the final stage of the cold war; the real estate bubble; permanent war and the inevitable collapse of the current US dominated global economic system. Visit his website at www.michael-hudson.com.
Boon Doc breaks down da beats:
If I ever hear someone say the trite expression, “Think outside the box” I immediately think: Only a person who can’t think outside the box in the first place would utter such a thing. But this now, kind reader, is something entirely different and even amusing so check out this page.
Pinky Show, “Cats with Guns”:
This week’s HV cast is a trip to Easter Island to gather recordings of local musicians and theories on who made and moved the “moai,” the ilse’s famous stone heads. A mystery of aliens, archeologists; and arboreal emptiness: What happened to all the trees? A story by Jack Chance, “Big Stone Heads” (6:09 mp3):
House protects public broadcasting – CNN.com:
The House on Wednesday evening overwhelmingly rejected President Bush’s plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The 357-72 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting. The outcome was never in doubt, unlike a fight two years ago when Republicans tried but failed to slash public broadcasting subsidies.
If you don’t know Odd Todd (mentioned in prev post), check his stories on NPR, his talk at Transom, his cartoons at Comedy Central:
NPR’s Robert Krulwich teams with flashmaster Odd Todd for a “science-y” series of cartoons: NPR : When Carbon Falls in Love, the World Heats Up.
Polls of Presidential voters are remarkably accurate. The day before the 2000 Iowa Democratic Primary, the MSM News folk were still reporting Dean as the frontrunner he’d been for months, despite the several polls that showed a last-minute turn towards Kerry. The news was wrong, the polls right; Kerry won.
Then in November the Voter News Service was criticized for picking Al Gore the winner of the 2000 election. But it turned out (years later) Gore did win. Again, the polls proved correct, even when the margins were so slim.
Most media folk, including myself, are notoriously pitiful at prognostication (hell, we’re not even any good at evaluating the present), so you really shouldn’t pay us any mind when we mindlessly try to predict wuz gonna happen. But do pay attention to those polls we pay for, cuz when several say the same thing, it’s likely an accurate reflection of reality.
All a long way of saying, check: RealClearPolitics – Polls. It’s an up-to-date listing of the major Election 2008 polls, averaged and listed individually. Then click their National Head-to-Head Polls and see who’d beat who if the prez were picked today. (Answer: Hillary’s kickin’ ass.)
This week’s HV cast is a portrait of the non-fiction writer Charles Bowden, told by the people he’s written about and the editors he’s worked with. Bowden lives in Tucson, Arizona, and has written extensively on the cultural and physical environment of the Southwest. His style is both harsh and beautiful, and somewhat painful to read, as he takes the position that we are all to blame, or perhaps that there is no one is to blame, for the violent and destructive acts committed against nature and society. He writes about child molesters, drug traffickers, savings and loan executives, real estate developers, and crooked politicians in a way that implicates all of us. And so his work has been largely ignored. These interviews, hopefully, will help end his anonymity. A story by Scott Carrier, “The Thing Just Beyond Our Reach” (22:41 mp3):
From the IMAX documentary “Straight Up! Helicopters in Action:”
Been thinking about that catch-phrase and have decided…
Speaking Truth to Power wastes you breath:
1) Power doesn’t listen.
2) Power doesn’t matter
(“If man chooses oblivion, he can go right on leaving his fate to his political leaders.” –Bucky Fuller
“Don’t follow leaders; watch the parking meters.” –Bob Dylan
“Laurel and Hardy, that’s John and Yoko. And we stand a better chance under that guise because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot.” –John Lennon)
From Salon.com Audio George Plimpton does a damn fine reading of Denis Johnson’s short story (from Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond) about the Rainbow Gathering, “Hippies” (18:02 mp3):