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®
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.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
032 Soapbox— Sampling 20th Century Political Speech
Host— Sarah Vowell of This American Life
Airdates— 10/8/2008 – 10/15/2008
We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and Scott Carrier, in “Lafayette Square” across from the White House.
“Memory Waltz” is from composer Oliver Nelson’s LP: The Kennedy Dream; A Musical Tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy., with musicians Phil Woods, Hank Jones, George Duvivier and Grady Tate.
Bonus audio: The Kennedy Dream “A Genuine Peace” (2:35 mp3):
We hear excerpts from All the Presidents’ Inaugurations:
• Calvin Coolidge— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1925
• Franklin D. Roosevelt— First Inaugural Address, Saturday, March 4, 1933
• Harry S. Truman— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1949
• Dwight D. Eisenhower— First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1953
• John F. Kennedy— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1961
Audio artist Jesse Boggs choreographs a bipartisan “WMD Waltz.”
And more Presidents’ Inaugurations
• Lyndon B. Johnson— Inaugural Address, Wednesday, January 20, 1965
• Richard M. Nixon— Second Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 1973
• Gerald Ford Remarks— On Taking the Oath of Office, Friday Aug. 9, 1974
• Jimmy Carter— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1977
• Ronald Reagan— Second Inaugural Address, Monday, January 21, 1985
• George H. W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Friday, January 20, 1989
• Bill Clinton First— Inaugural Address, Thursday, January 20, 1993
• George W. Bush— Inaugural Address, Saturday, January 20, 2001
Audio by Jesse Boggs; video by Trent Harris, “Bushisms” (the cryptomusicology of Presidential patter):
Sarah Vowell’s on The Daily Show this Tuesday night: . The day before Michelle Obama and Robert De Niro and after Tim Robbins. She keeps good company.
Sundown last night started the year 5769, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Rest, repent, blow the shofar, and get ready for Yom Kippur.
Music: Bela Fleck and the Flecktones- “Stomping Grounds” Live Art, Keith Jarrett- “Americana” Dark Intervals, and Ry Cooder- “Dark End of the Street” Boomer’s Story.
A highly interactive, heavily linked history of Internet Memes, from the inception of terms like Internet and Cyberspace, thru the South Park short, Hamster Dance, JenniCam, and Steve Colbert WH Dinner, up the to present and future — it’s community user updatable. The timelines’ full features and flourishes are at Dipity; here’s their embed version:
Poland battles against the Germans and then the Russians at the start of the Second World War.
A German foot soldier and Polish townspeople recall, differently, the first days of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and Poland’s later battle to fight years of environmental poisoning during the Soviet era.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
020 The Old Country: Back to the Homeland
Host: Neenah Ellis of If I Live to Be 100
Airs week of: 2009-07-29 (Originally: 2008-07-16)
Hearing Voices from NPR®
018 Flags and Fireworks: For Fourth of July
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2012-06-27 (Originally: 2008-07-02)
Hearing Voices from NPR®
017 No Place Like Home: Shifts in Time and Towns
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-07-08 (Originally: 2008-06-25)
The places we live and the people who live there; a desert, a city, two small towns, and another country:
Scott Carrier has a cultural history of the Great Salt Lake’s “West Desert,” a land of polygymists, bombing ranges, and toxic waste incinerators. There’s chlorine gas in the air, anthrax stored underground, and people who call the place home.
Sarah Vowell‘s childhood move from rural Oklahoma to small-town Montana was, for her, a change from the middle ages to a modern metropolis.
And two Stories from the Heart of the Land: NYC native Natalie Edwards hates grass, bugs, dirt, and trees, but attempts a walk thru Brooklyn’s Prospect Park; and Carmen Delzell tells why she moved to and has stayed in Mexico.
Tony Schwartz died Sunday (NY Times obit | Wikipedia | Tony’s site). In 1945 Tony Schwartz began documenting life in sound. He recorded New York City cab drivers, French folk songs, kids’ street games — tens of thousands of field recordings made all over the world. His work, now collected at the Library of Congress, is an aural history the way we sound.
A remembrance by Major Robert Schaefer, US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. (with the sounds of a Military Honor Guard funeral for a fallen Navy Seal.) For Memorial Day and for the memory of the Major friend and fellow Green Beret, Joe “Super” Suponcic. Airs today on NPR Day to Day; by producer Barrett Golding. “Memorial Day Memory” (8:41 mp3):
The Military Honor Guard at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island was recorded by Charles Lane. The voices were Navy Lt Commander Snyder; Captain Coe and Staff Sergeant Trigger, U.S Marine Corps; and Petty Officer First Class Curt Wolz, US Navy. The bugler was Lt Denny Lortez , U.S. Sir Force Reserve. “Echo Taps” was played by the US Marine Band.The Military Honor Guard at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island was recorded by Charles Lane. The voices were Navy Lt Commander Snyder; Captain Coe and Staff Sergeant Trigger, U.S Marine Corps; and Petty Officer First Class Curt Wolz, US Navy. The bugler was Lt Denny Lortez , U.S. Sir Force Reserve. “Echo Taps” was played by the US Marine Band. Major Schaefer is currently serving at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir, VA. He was also in this 2006 HV/NPR report.
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
009 Shoah— For Holocaust Remembrance Day
Host— Rabbi Samuel Cohon of Temple Emanuel, Tucson
Airdates— 4/30/2008 – 5/7/2008
Rabbi Samuel Cohon of Too Jewish Radio, presents stories of survivors, for Holocaust Remembrance Day:
In “Descended from the Holocaust” Dr. Alan Berkenwald records his trip with his parents to the Holocaust Museum — it was first time they talked openly about their experience in the concentration camps; this audio diary is of Jay Allison’s Life Stories.
“Yom Hashoah 1994” is Shoah services in Billings MT and Cleveland OH, survivor interviews, and the story of the Billings communities united “Not in Our Town” response that stopped a series of anti-Jewish crimes. The Rhino Records documentary project “Voices of the Shoah: Remembrances of the Holocaust” is drawn from interviews with 180 survivors.
Also survivors sing Hebrew, for the first time in years, in a live May 1945 BBC report by Patrick Gordon Walker from the just liberated “Belsen Concentration Camp.”
The traditional, 1000-year-old song Dayenu is a part of the Jewish Passover (April 19-27 2008). This piece is an audio essay, a poem of sorts, on the song, the holy day, and what, if anything, the tales of Egyptian first-borns and parted Red Seas have to do with us today. Original music by Frank London, founder of the Klezmatics. Aired on APM Weekend America; by producer Judith Sloan of Crossing the BLVD, “Dayenu (for Passover)” (6:15 mp3):
Yesterday on StoryCorps®— Pinky Powell could pick 100 pounds of cotton by lunchtime. Her great-granddaughter tells her tale of life on an Alabama plantation. This one hurts, “Mary Ellen Noone” (2:15 mp3):
John and Abagail Adams played by Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. Nuff said, no? Parts 1 & 2 of the HBO 7-week mini-series “John Adams” rocked, rolled, tarred, feathered, cannon fired, and created a nation. “He United the States of America.” Based on the David McCullough 900-pager, “John Adams (HBO) full-length trailer”:
From this weekend’s NPR/WNYC On The Media, a report on Mexican border radio.
“For over 50 years, outlaw American radio broadcasters exploited a legal loophole and aired powerful pirate radio from the Mexican side of the border. So called ‘border blasters’ – or ‘X stations’ – were true innovators whose influence continues to be felt today. OTM’s Jamie York tells the story.”
With powers as high as 1M Watts — 10X that of the largest legal US transmitters — “locals saw it electrocute birds in mid-flight,” sez reporter Jamie York. From selling goat glands and baby chicks, to live love-making, to giving Wolfman Jack, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family an international audience, “The X Factor” (16:49 mp3):
We hang with the mostly homeless protesters, and 
Sundown last night started the year 5769, 
The stars of this show are Americans, expressing their opinions, participating in our democratic discussion.
A remembrance by Major Robert Schaefer, US Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. (with the sounds of a Military Honor Guard funeral for a fallen Navy Seal.) For Memorial Day and for the memory of the Major friend and fellow Green Beret, Joe “Super” Suponcic. Airs today on NPR 
Rabbi Samuel Cohon of 
The traditional, 1000-year-old song Dayenu is a part of the Jewish Passover (April 19-27 2008). This piece is an audio essay, a 
Yesterday on 
From this weekend’s NPR/WNYC