Podcasts permit a shift of listening time from a set appointment to virtually
any convenient occasion. I do it while taking my daily (more or less) 3 mile
walk, while I’m “plodding along”. While there are thousands, perhaps tens of
thousands, of great podcasts from other sources, the ones sponsored via public
radio have been vetted through the worthy objectives of the medium. Here’s
what I’ve been listening to recently. I hope you might find these suggestions
— in roughly 90 minute bites -- helpful in enhancing your own enjoyment of
radio, our favorite medium.
__ __
“Graham Plattner is Staying in the Race; Becoming a Centenarian”
THE NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR - NPR and WNYC New York Public Media
• The Republican Susan Collins has held one of Maine’s Senate seats for
nearly thirty years, and Democrats, in trying to take it away from her, have a
lot at stake. Graham Platner, a combat veteran, political activist, and
small-business owner who has never served in office, seemed to check many boxes
for a progressive upstart. Platner, who says he and his wife earn sixty
thousand dollars a year, has spoken passionately about affordability, and has
called universal health care a “moral imperative.” He seemed like a rising
star, but then some of his past comments online directed against police,
L.G.B.T.Q. people, sexual-assault survivors, Black people, and rural whites
surfaced. A photo was published of a tattoo that he got in the Marines, which
resembles a Nazi symbol, though Platner says he didn’t realize it. He
apologized, but will Democrats embrace him, despite ugly views in his past? “As
uncomfortable as it is, and personally unenjoyable, to have to talk about
stupid things I said on the internet,” he told David Remnick, “it also allows
me to publicly model something I think is really important. . . . You can
change your language, change the way you think about stuff.” In fact, he frames
his candidacy in a way that might appeal to disappointed Trump voters: “You
should be able to be proud of the fact that you can turn into a different kind
of person. You can think about the world in a different way.”
• Early in 2025, the staff writer Calvin Tomkins decided to chronicle
turning a hundred in the same year as The New Yorker hundredth anniversary, in
a piece titled “Becoming a Centenarian.” Tomkins first contributed to The New
Yorker at the age of thirty-two, and he soon developed a specialty: writing
about visual artists, and exploring the source of their originality. “I knew
nothing about contemporary art. I had not intended to write about art or
artists,” he said. “It just happened that way. It sort of took hold of me.” The
first of these profiles was published in 1962, and they were eventually
collected in the six-volume anthology “The Lives of Artists.” Just last year,
nearing the age of ninety-nine, Tomkins wrote about Rashid Johnson, who was
mounting a major survey at the Guggenheim Museum. David Remnick celebrates
Tomkins’s life and career on the week of his hundredth birthday.. (53”)
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/graham-platner-is-staying-in-the-race
“The Paradox of Pleasure”
HIDDEN BRAIN - NPR
All of us think we know what addiction looks like. It’s the compulsive
consumption of drugs, alcohol, or nicotine. But psychiatrist Anna Lembke argues
that our conception of addiction is far too narrow — and that a broader
understanding of addiction might help us to understand why so many people are
anxious and depressed. This week, we revisit a 2023 episode that remains of the
most popular in the history of our show. We’ll explore how and why humans are
wired to pursue pleasure, and all the ways the modern world tempts us with
addictive substances and behaviors. (59”)
https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/the-paradox-of-pleasure/
— —
A compendium of these suggestions, plus on occasion additional pertinent
material, is published every other month in the CIDX Messenger, the monthly
e-newsletter of the Canadian International DX Club (CIDX). For further
information and membership information, go to www.cidxclub.ca
John Figliozzi
Editor, "The Worldwide Listening Guide”
11th EDITION, with comprehensive listings of radio programs on AM, FM,
shortwave, satellite radio, internet-wifi radio and podcasts, available from
universal-radio.com, amazon.com. amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.com.au
PLEASE NOTE: Times change and some things just get passed by. Such is the
case with THE WORLDWIDE LISTENING GUIDE. This 11th Edition will be its last.
Once the current crop of issues is sold, the series is sold out for good. For
35 years, starting with THE SHORTWAVE RADIOGUIDE, it has been my pleasure to
provide to select listeners a written record of some of the best programming
available on public media radio everywhere. The media landscape is changing —
much for the good, but some that’s concerning. This is especially true for the
jewel that is public service media. But it’s also clear that radio — all its
platforms — is de-emphasizing schedules and embracing the freeing capacity of
podcasting. It’s also clear that — happily — there are some fine accessible
and more timely resources for finding that piublic audio content available
online. So for the next few weeks I will be compiling some of the best of
those to share with you and provide places where you can still gain the
information that the WWLG has tried to provide for these many years. On to the
future! Happy Holidays!
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