Tag: religion/Archives

Tahrir Storify

“Voices from Tahrir”, a Storify list of sources, resources, sounds, inspirations, and videos used in the making of the public radio hour: More…

HV131- Voices from Tahrir

Hearing Voices from NPR®
131 Voices from Tahrir: Portrait of a Revolution
Host: Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch
Airs week of: 2012-01-25

“Voices from Tahrir” (52:00 mp3):

Bread, Freedom, and Human Dignity:

January 25, 2011. One year ago, a revolution began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. For the next eighteen days, millions of Egyptians across the country would demonstrate in the streets, demanding the end of their 30-year dictatorship. They were inspired by Tunisians, whose protests, that same month, had forced out the authoritarian regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Now it was time for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to go.

A few weeks after the protests, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch interviewed some of the organizers of the January uprising: union leaders, civil rights workers, young social media activists, family members of of murdered protestors, and mothers who brought their kids to Tahrir to clean after the protests.. These Human Rights Watch interviews provide a rare, eyewitness account of a revolution, told by the Egyptian people, the activists, human rights defenders, and bloggers who persevered during those eighteen days.

The hour features recordings made in the square by reporters and citizen jounalists from around the world, including Daniel Finnan of Radio France Internationale, Al Jazeera, Egypt Daily News, Ramy Roof, and Matthew Cassel of Just Image.org.

Music: “Erhal (Leave)” and “Laugh, Revolution” by Ramy Essam; “Ezzay? (Why?)” by Mohamed Mounir and “Gomaa Hayran (Uncertain Friday)” by Joseph & James Tawadros
from the collection Our Dreams Are Our Weapons – Soundtracks of the Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Mix: Robin Wise of Sound Imagery.

More…

HV126- Joe Frank

Hearing Voices from NPR®
126 Joe Frank: God and Girls
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-11-16

“Joe Frank” (52:00 mp3):

An hour under the influence of radio maestro and radical raconteur Joe Frank. Many of these pieces pulled from the collection Joe Frank Team Favorites- Vols 1 and 2. Thanks to Michal Story for her help with this episode:

Voice: Joe Frank.
From the hour: “Duplicity.”

Voice: Ryan Cutrona.
From the hour: “Great Lives.”
Series: Work in Progress.
On the CD: Work in Progress- Characters and Scenes.

Voices: David Cross, Joe Frank.
From the hour “Jam.”
Series: Word in Progess.
On the CD Joe Frank Team Favorites- Vol 1
Music: James Brown “Papa Don’t Take No Mess” Hell.

More…

HV122- Prisoner of Zion

Hearing Voices from NPR®
122 Prisoner of Zion: Religious Fundamentals- 9/11/11
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-09-07

“Prisoner of Zion” (52:00 mp3):

Shortly after the World Trade Center fell in autumn 2001, it became clear the United States would invade Afghanistan. Producer Scott Carrier decided he ought to go there too. Why? To see for himself: that’s what writers do. Who are these fanatics, these fundamentalists, the Taliban and the like? And what do they want?

For the weekend of 9/11/11, Hearing Voices from NPR presents Prisoner of Zion. Carrier narrates his trip to Afghanistan. With his young guide and translator, Najibulla, they tour the horrors of war.

Years later Naji tells Scott he must leave his homeland — the dangers for a translator have become extreme. Scott gets Najibulla accepted at Utah Valley University. Naji, it turns out, handles the Mormons quite well, while Scott, teaching at the same school, has a hard time with them. At the end Naji is graduating, about to get married, and start a new job; while Scott wonders whether he can stand teaching another year — or if he’ll wind up on the street like Naji.

→ From Afghanistan: A photo-audio-essay by Scott Carrier; with sounds, images, songs and prayers of the Afghan people.

→ At Amazon: Prisoner of Zion: Muslims, Mormons and Other Misadventures.

HV115- Refugees

Hearing Voices from NPR®
115 Refugees: Forced to Leave
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-05-11

“Refugees” (52:00 mp3):

The journeys of people driven from their homeland by war, disaster, and persecution:

From One Thing: The producers spent a year talking to refugees living in USA about why they had to leave their country, how they got here, and what “One Thing” they brought with that reminds them of home. In this first of several stories from the series, the Sher Ali family, a mother and nine children, was the first Afghan family to be resettled in Amarillo, Texas in 2000. They fled the Taliban in the middle of the night with only the clothes they wore. Their one thing was a photo of their father. (Produced for Weekend America w/ photo gallery.)

The stories of Burmese refugees, the Karen people, recorded in the camps on the Thailand-Burma border, and in their new American homes. Thru it all their music preserves their culture. Part of The Mountain Music Project.

The One Thing for the Augustin family was their home movies. Their religious beliefs forced them out of Iraq: Mom Nujood is a Chaldean Christian and Dad Abdullahad is a Latin Catholic. The Augustins left a comfortable life in Baghdad for Jordan, where limited opportunities siphoned much of their savings. They arrived in Detroit, where son Arkan takes pre-med courses at the local community college, while working part-time at a grocery store. (Produced for Weekend America: From Iraq to Detroit.)

Starting with the fall of Saigon in April 1975, refugees from Vietnam awaited approval to move to the US and other countries. By 1979, there were almost 62,000 Vietnamese in refugee camps, with more than 140,000 people displaced from Cambodia and Laos. Portland, Oregon, was one of the medium-sized US cities that dealt with the relatively sudden influx of every major ethnic group (Vietnamese, Lao, Hmong, Mein and Cambodian) from Southeast Asia. More than 25 former refugees were interviewed for radio piece, and movie below.

More…

Rock: Devoted to Dope

A friend found this literary gem of musical analysis:

An excerpt:

Wikipedia writes: “Bob Larson is an American radio and television evangelist.” Aka, in RationalWiki terms: “a notoriously sensationalist fundamentalist Christian windbag… He spent at least 1/3 of every show begging for money.”

WFMU has more Anti-Rock ‘n’ Roll Books.

HV110- Mormon Fringe

Hearing Voices from NPR®
110 Mormon Fringe: Life with Latter Day Saints
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-02-16
“Mormon Fringe” (52:00 mp3):

Polygamists, Polynesians, and Indian Israelites:

Mormons believe Native Americans are descendants of the ancient House of Israel. It’s a Mormon mission to bring them back to the Kingdom of God. So they brought children, mostly Navajo, from their reservation homes, and placed them in Mormon foster families across the West. From 1954 to 1996, more than 20,000 kids went through the Indian Student Placement Program. Producer Kate Davidson spent a year interviewing people about their experiences. Her story, edited by Deb George, ran on the Worlds of Difference series from Homeland Productions.

“Take the road toward the top secret army base. Go past Muskrat Spring until you get near Salt Mountain.” A statue of a Hawaiian chief overlooks the Utah desert, with a plaque reading: “Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono,” the motto of the kingdom of Hawaii: “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” A tale of two states, lost tribes, and the Polynesians of Skull Valley who named their town, Iosepa, after Joseph Smith III.

Members of the polygymous True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days were excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not for plural marriage, but because the TLC called the LDS elders the agents of Satan. Then the sect split again, over how many wives can be in a husband’s bed. Scott Carrier spends time in the Last Days of Manti, Utah. Produced for This American Life “Factions.”

More…

Paul Simon: Ready For Christmas

Paul Simon is offering a free download of “Getting Ready For Christmas Day.” It’s off his upcoming album So Beautiful Or So What (Spring 2011; Hear Music/Concord Music Group) and samples a 1941 speech by American Christian preacher and gospel singer, Reverend J.M. Gates:

The original JM Gates sermon “Gettin’ Ready for Christmas Day” is online at Dust-to-Digital, and on their 2004 5-CD set Goodbye, Babylon.

Via Mike Ragogna’s HuffPo column.

First Earth Battalion

The First Earth Battalion Field Manual (4.8M pdf)

The history of this manual is described in the book The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson. In brief, the manual is a new age Hagakure: Book of the Samurai, and was required reading among our elite troops in the eighties and nineties, describing the warrior as a seeker of truth whose main weapons are love and compassion — practices that were ultimately twisted and perverted in a very American fashion into interrogation and torture techniques used in our war against terrorism.

In order to understand how this all played out, you’ll have to read the book. Don’t see the film, it’s a joke.

Journal of Non-lethal Combat, Feb 2000: The First Earth Battalion

Wikipedia: First Earth Battalion

Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon: New Earth Army

The First Earth Battalion Field Manual, Page 1:

Shavuot’s Crushed Heads

Attended the 2nd day of Shavuot ceremonies yesterday. Major Talmudic Mojo: anniversary of Commandments10.0, Jewish people becoming nation, etc.

Especially loved the Yizkor prayer. Gotta love a G-d who, after a hard day of spilling blood and crushing heads “over a vast area,” carves out some personal me-time to sip from the stream…

Let there be known among the nations, before our eyes, the retribution of the spilled blood of Your servants. And it is said: For the Avenger of bloodshed is mindful of them; He does not forget the cry of the downtrodden. Further it is said: He will render judgment upon the nations, and they will be filled with corpses; He will crush heads over a vast area. He will drink from the stream on the way; therefore Israel will hold its head high.

HV091- Bad Trip

Hearing Voices from NPR®
091 Bad Trip: Your Next Vacation
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-06-22 (Originally: 2010-05-19)

“Bad Trip” (52:00 mp3):

Offbeat retreats and obscure tours thru the heart of Americana:

Temporarily insanity during a tour of Universal Studios in southern California. So many cool things to see, to do, to tour. The writer is overwhelmed by the magnificence of it all, and pretty much loses his mind. Based an Mark Allen’s web essay “I Suffered Stendhal Syndrome At Universal Studios Hollywood!.”

Boonville is a small community in Northwest California, founded in 1862, a few hundred feet in elevation, with few hundred residents. And… the town has it’s own language, Boontling. We go sharkin’ and harpin’ thru Boonville with Charles C. Adams, author of Boontling: An American Lingo.

Traveling America’s Intermountain West with a group of visiting Buddhist monks: sand paintings and ski hills, prayers, politics and mountain passes.

“David Lynch goes into clean neighborhoods and finds the germs and bugs beneath; I go into dirty neighborhoods and find the life.” That’s how filmmaker Tony Buba describes his twelve documentaries about his hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Buba is the son of Italian immigrants, part of the wave of Europeans who came to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work in the steel mills of Braddock and other towns around Pittsburgh. Now the steel industry is almost dead, and Braddock is the prototypical post-industrial “‘rust belt” town, a town where a person either lives by his or her wits or lives in poverty. Buba tours through the streets of Braddock, past the old Croatian and Slovak social clubs and through streets, now empty, that once bristled with activity.

From LHP’s series of radio works: Place Portraits. Music: “The Very Thought Of You,” instrumental version by Eddie Lockjaw Davis off the 2006 compilation Jazz For Lovers, and Elvis Costello singing on Marian McPartland’s 2006 Piano Jazz: McPartland/Costello.

Dubai: Jumeirah Mosque

The clerics at the Jumeirah Mosque in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai are opening their doors to tourists. To help demystify Islam, visitors learn the basics of the religion with a guide.

Aired on PRI The World; by producer Jake Warga, “Jumeirah Mosque” (3:04 mp3):

© Jake Warga

© Jake Warga

Four Lions

A clip from maybe the world’s first “jihadist comedy” film:

The flick’s from Chris Morris of the UK mockumentary TV series Brass Eye. Premiered at Sundance, distributed by Warp.

Christmashup

For your Holiday loosening pleasure, we offer a couple hours of Chrismukkah music & mashups, an HV playlist compiled at Grooveshark. More…

Soundscapes of Faith

The radio program Interfaith Voices has a new series of sacred sonic features called The Soundscapes of Faith. There’s a shofar, shape singers, Sikh hymns, and several more.

Check this Islamic prayer, with elaborations by Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University (2:34):

One of the most beautiful sounds of Islam is the call to prayer, or adhan. It rings out in many Muslin countries 5 times a day, asking believers to pause their day and remember God.

Dear God

XTC’s lovely, lyrical, laughable, laudable, “Dear God”:

via MTV 120 Minutes: Archive.

Lyrics: More…

HV078- Shopping for Santa

Hearing Voices from NPR®
078 Shopping for Santa: A Season’s Greeting
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-12-09

“Shopping for Santa” (52:00 mp3):

Holiday spirits and communal consumption:

We go shopping at “City X,” a sound-rich history of America’s malls and their creator, architect Victor Gruen (PRX | Radio Lab | 3rd Coast).

The producer, at age 2, sings “Silent Night” with her Dad. A woman homesteader remembers brutal North Dakota winters in the 1920s. Blues legend Brownie McGhee describes homemade Christmas presents. Adi Gevins’ father reveals that all New York Santas gain entry through the fire escape. And an Oroville grandfather uses a snow machine to make his plastic Christmas tree even more realistic. Produced for the series A Gathering of Days, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and KQED-San Francisco. Thanks to Adi Gevins, psychiatrist Ray Posie, John Langstaff: creator of Christmas Revels, and the late Peter Allison for the family recordings.

Eli Boggs, age 3, sings “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. His dad, Jesse Boggs, plays guitar.

Hearing Voices wishes you lotsa Holidays Spirits and Prosperos Anos Nuevos.

Images from Coke Lore. Ads painted by Haddon Sundblom
1942 above, 1951 below:

Holy Land Tour

Jake Warga takes us on a personal tour through the Holy Land, looking at how the conflict started and what it’s like today between Jerusalem and Bethlehem… between birth and re-birth. (Also a PRX radio story.):

Holy Land Tour from Jake Warga

Sub Genius

Join the Church of the SubGenius:

…or triple your money back.

via AH3.

HV074- Bloody Hell

Hearing Voices from NPR®
074 Bloody Hell: For Halloween
Host: Tom Lopez of ZBS Productions
Airs week of: 2011-10-26 (Originally: 2009-10-28)

“Bloody Hell” (52:00 mp3):

An hour of horror for All Hallows’ Eve, the first half is bloody, the second goes to hell:

Based on a conversation with Edna Wofford about ESP, dreams and intuition. From the 2003 CD, Mayor of the Tennessee River. Artist David Greenberger of Duplex Planet has been collecting the thoughts, memories and stories from elderly Americans for more than a quarter century.

From birth, a young Native American has been bleeding from his chest. The government keeps him locked in a cell, refusing to heed his uncle’s warnings. A 3D ZBS adaptation of Cherokee writer Craig Strete’s short story from The Bleeding Man and Other Science Fiction Stories.

La Llorona — the weeping woman — is the Mexican equivalent of the bogeyman. The man she loved rejected her, in madness she drowned her children, then herself. Now she roams the night wailing “Aaay, Mis Hijos;” a scary story that keeps children from wandering at night: “La Llorona will get you.”

Gene Moss’s 1964 Beatles parody mixed w/ SFX by MP3J. Full vers at Mashuptown, “I Want to Bite Your Hand”” (2:50 mp3):

From a cassette tap found by The Professor of WFMU (mp3) & TheAudioKitchen.net. A video vers with images added by Kenneth Salt: More…