It’s another presidential election year; the American people are deeply divided and deeply entrenched in another unpopular war. The topic is not 2008, but 1968. If 1967 was the Summer of Love, maybe 1968 was the Summer of Hate.
We hear Dale Minor report from the battleground during the “Tet Offensive;” part of from Pacifica Radio Archive 1968 Revolution Rewind.
We go live to the “Chicago 1968” DNC demonstrations, mixed by Barrett Golding. (Voices: Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, journalist, police, and demonstrators at Chicago 1968 Democratic National Convention. Music: “Ballad of the Green Beret” by Sgt. Barry Sadler, “For What It’s Worth” original by Buffalo Springfield and cover by The Staple Singers.)
Post-Madonna Prima Donna (2001) is a one-act opera. The subject is language, sepcifically, in this excerpt, the Minnesota vernacular. “Post-Madonna Prima Donna: Recitative 1 | Aria” (1:01 | 3:02 mp3):
Also on the CD is an 11-part Odi et Amo (2006), a cantata inspired by the love poems of the ancient Roman poet Catullus.
You just got back from checking RealClearPolitics polls, didn’t ya? What’s that, like the fifth time today? I know, bro, I’m there w/ ya.
That’s why I’ve resolved to drastically change my daily routine. No, not by mindlessly checking polls any less, but rather by adding another site to my hourly obsession list: Five Thirty Eight.
These guys are baseball stats folk who, for the last few months, have turned their mighty number-crunching powers from earned-run averages and stolen bases to Electoral Votes and Senate races.
Like RCP they average all the recent polls. But to 538 all polls are not reported equal: “we assign each poll a weighting based on that pollster’s historical track record, the poll’s sample size, and the recentness of the poll.”
Their result is not the typical whose-up by how-much number, but instead their more baseball like Win Percentage pie chart (mostly blueberry right now, with a small slice of cherry). 538’s Super Tracker graph plots trendlines, with points for daily averages. An Electoral Vote Distribution chart uses 10,000 voting simulations to outputs the probability for a range of possible outcomes, based on daily data. And their Senate Projections are likely the best in the biz.
Why the name 538? It’s the number of electors in the electoral college.
Aired on NPR Day to Day, a wide-eyed glimpse into the world of Michael White, insomniac; how it feels and sounds to spend night after sleepless night. By producer Matthew Swenson for SALT, “Night of the Insomniac” (4:45 mp3):
iProRecorder is a 99-cent  audio-recorder app for the iPhone/iPod Touch (w/ external iPod mic), from BIAS (makers of Peak and Deck editing software): AppStore | MacWorld article
Kert Dees is now 98. In October 1929 he was a Houston college student with a keen interest in finances. Producer Ben Trefny of KALW news (SF, CA) presented Dees’ recollections in a series of Crosscurrents features called “Witness To History.”
Hearing Voices from NPR®
034 To War: Getting In and Getting Out
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-11-18 (Originally: 2008-10-22)
An NPR chronicle leading up to the last day of US flights out of the Vietnam War, 30 April 1975: the fall of Saigon, with original recordings by one of the helicopter pilots.
UH1 helicopters at sunrise in Vietnam, photo by Lowell Eneix, 121st Assault Helicopter Company, US Army (from Vietnam Helicopter online gallery).
Literal Video Versions, from DustFilms, answer the musical question: What if a music video’s lyrics had something/anything to do with the inane stories you’re seeing on screen? Posted at Funny or Die is A-Ha’s “Take on Me: Literal Video Version” — an ode to squiggly lines and pipe-wrench ass-kicks:
It’s all at WikiAudio, a “free online pro audio encyclopedia and information database that anyone can contribute to,” with everything audio from AAC to XLR.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
033 Political People: On the Campaign Trail
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2010-10-13 (Originally: 2008-10-15)
In 1992 producer Barrett Golding found remnants of Jefferson’s theories and Toqueville’s writings still very much in play, as he followed Montana’s two incumbents US Representatives, one Democrat, one Republican. Due to re-apportionment, they were vying for the state’s one remaining Congressional seat, on a yearlong statewide game of political musical chairs. (Image above-right: Presidential Electoral Vote map, 1968-2008, animated, see full-size here.)
Barron’s this week interviewed an institutional money manger named Jeremy Grantham.
They asked “Do you think we will learn anything from all of this turmoil?”
His answer:
We will learn an enormous amount
in a very short time
Quite a bit
in the medium term
And absolutely nothing
in the long run.
That would be the historical precedent.
Although it’s just a year old, the site already has more than 800 recordings. The goal is to catalog the nearly 1,200 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that roam 11 Western states. It will also feature “ambient soundscapes” from wild places across the region.
Two microphones, a card table, NPR’s Alex Chadwick, and intimate stories from passers-by. In this episode, Alex talks to a woman whose business lets average voters make their own political ads.
Audio aritiste extraordinaire (and USA Fellow) Susan Stone’s new project is IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK “Inside Youth Speak Out: testimonial writings by the youngest members of America’s prison system.” Lots of poetry and audio there, some w/ music by Malcolm Marshall. A couple of my faves…
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
It’s another presidential election year; the American people are deeply divided and deeply entrenched in another unpopular war. The topic is not 2008, but 1968. If 1967 was the Summer of Love, maybe 1968 was the Summer of Hate.
Aired on NPR 
Excellent 
HV’s Jeff Rice is interviewed in this Associated Press article “
Audio aritiste extraordinaire (and