Archive for October, 2005

Don’t know that we’ll be able to make a show out of it. [tromasbronot / Flickr]

So we saw the 225 or so posts that followed upon our first call for program ideas back in July. We were a little overwhelmed by them, to be honest. You all have a lot of ideas. We’ve been using them, such as when Mark suggested we do a show on Greil Marcus’ new book on Dylan and we did. There are more examples; we’ve been following the threads on intelligent design, religion in America and global warming, and we have a whole list of suggestion-generated shows that we’re going to start putting up on the site.

But I’m masking our failure, which was collecting 225 suggestions in the first place without responding more often. We’re reading those suggestions, but we’re going to put out a new call on the first of every month, so you don’t feel like you’re pressing your notes into the palm of the emperor to be promptly forgotten. And we’ll be weighing in on the comments thread more often. And I am the emperor, by the way.

There’s a list of indictments on the table, the Arctic ice is melting and “The Warriors” has been turned into a video game. What is it you want to talk about?

Had a long-ish story meeting today and looked through all these. As always, we are pleased and flattered that you would take the time to suggest these, and as always, we’d be better off to pay closer attention to show suggestions, since we were scooped again this week by one of the comments below.

• Rochelle wants to talk about the lockout at the Canadian Broadcasting Company. We’ve tried to figure out how to tackle this a couple of times (it’s one of my pet projects) and can’t figure out how to make it more than a media story about a country none of us cares about anyway. [Note, 11/04: This phrasing has offended more than a few Canadians; since the US imports all of its comedians from Canada anyway, I will in the future leave all attempts at irony to the Canadians themselves. For the record, I did not intend to indicate that Open Source is indifferent to Canada, but that Americans -- the majority of our audience -- tend to be. Apologies.] For better coverage of this, try Tod Maffin.
• Abby asked us to talk about the health care debate in Massachusetts. Abby is right, and this is an important topic, and one about which Mary offers her trademark “I can hear radios turning off all over America.” But we promise to figure it out, and when we do health care we will call John McDonogh as recommended. But it’ll be a national show.
• Nother tells us “Chris and Camille Paglia, ’nuff said.” This is the EASIEST REQUEST EVER, because Chris had lunch with Camille Paglia in April, and because we’re radio producers, WE RECORDED IT.

Chris and Camille Paglia

Chris intros Camille Paglia

Brendan embarrasses himself

And here’s the audio

• Flow asked about the CPB. We were watching this pretty closely at the time; we tried to get Bill Moyers to talk about it, never made it work. Hard to hit again with Tomlinson gone now, and, to be honest, we could never really figure out how to hit this without it sounding like navel gazing. Which, as you know if you’ve ever tried it, is very quiet.
• Well, here we kind of screwed up. And here. Both Potter and Seltzer recommended that we talk about the CIA “black sites” in Eastern Europe. We did, but we were prompted to by our own reading. Which means we’re all thinking the same things, but the whole point here is that you recommend things, we see them in time and then do a show about it. Apologies to both for not moving fast enough to credit them with this idea.
• Jon, we don’t get it. Explain yourself. Seriously. We sat around in a meeting and felt that there was something here, but didn’t really know what it was. By the way, we have taken this liberty with Jon because one of us is related to him.
• Andy Vance, whose blog comment we read over the air during our show on muscular Wilsonians, suggests that we talk about PR. And I thank him for it. A show about PR has been another pet project of mine since June, and when we do it, we’re going to look to Scot Hugh Mcleod’s excellent Gaping Void to help us.
• Oolitic wants climate change, and shall have it. Our archives aren’t the easiest to search yet (changes soon), but in the meantime, here:

Three Open Source hours on climate change

Businesses Take on Climate Change

China and Climate Change

The Politics of Climate Change

• And this is awesome: Mulp says we should be on television. Would that it were so, Mulp. Would that it were so. Unfortunately, none of us is very good looking. We huddle, pale and clammy, in the flourescent light of the radio studio where we were chained at birth. Radio is manned by a race of hyperintelligent hobgoblins, none fit for presentation. Sometimes they throw us meat and tins of water.

David here. It’s my turn to summarize our story meeting responses to the week’s story suggestions. After last week I have big footsteps to follow. Can I find a way to antagonize a COUNTRY THE SIZE OF A CONTINENT? Read on.

• FRED02472 pointed out a new book that documents a link betwen anti-environmentalism and the Christian Right. This is intriguing to us because we’ve already been looking into the exact opposite: a growing movement of Christian environmentalists. We’ll do some more poking for our ongoing climate change series.
• Elevine wants us to talk to Stewart Brand about his “surrender” to nuclear energy. Brand makes good radio, is the consensus here, and we’ll look into it. Nuclear energy was mentioned in passing in our most recent climate change show, and it probably deserves worth more time.
• Potter’s suggestion about Helen Vendler’s recent arts essay reminded us about a related show we’ve been talking about for a while. Its shorthand in our office has been the “Sputnik” show, and the basic question has been what it would take, given the rise of China and India, to jump-start math and science education in the U.S. the way Sputnik did 48 years ago. Larry Summers’s 2003 life sciences manifesto remains one of the more visible salvos in this discussion. We’re thinking of Vendler — or someone like her — as a dissenting voice: someone who can say, yes, the sciences are important, but “the arts present the whole uncensored human person–in emotional, physical, and intellectual being, and in single and collective form–as no other branch of human accomplishment does.”
• Garym suggested a show about our television habits, and how current events shape them. Mary’s response: Garym himself would have to guest-host, since Chris doesn’t own a television. (Of course, Garym also pointed out that Chris did an X-Files show on The Connection, during equally TV-less days, so perhaps we need to come up with a better excuse.) We’ll put down these damn blogs and start watching CSI: Framingham and get back to you.
• Rcman wants more about Bush’s role in Plamegate, and Jimbob3450 wants more about intelligence in the leadup to the war. We’re hoping that our upcoming show with Larry Wilkerson will satisfy both of those cravings.
• Trazillion pointed out an Italian report about U.S. chemical weapon use in Fallujah. It’s the first we’ve heard of anything like this, and we’re intrigued. This doesn’t seem like why we went in, after all. Brendan is looking into it.
• Flow asks “what’s brewing in Latin America?”, and we totally agree. (As Chris said in the meeting today, “We’re down a quart on Latin America.”) We’ve only done one such show so far, on Cuba; what else do you want to hear? Where should we begin?
• Flow also wants a housing bubble show. That we can deliver.
• Nother wants a show about the good old American flag, and wrote a heartfelt post about it. We’d be happy to hear (or see?) your documentary, Nother, but right now — in late 2005 — it doesn’t seem like an hour of live radio.
• Allison wrote some provocative questions about marriage that we’re still mulling over. We’re not sure where the hour of radio is, but it’s on our radar now.

Hi — this is Katherine. I posted some thoughts here that came out of our story meeting today on how we work through your show suggestions. And based on that: Scottbenbow (on Ethiopia) and flow (on the 2-party system) and Stankay (on Chernobyl) and Dana (on education) — these are all great questions, and we’d like to know the answers, too — but we’d have to figure out the right moment to take them on. If it makes you feel any better, Mary’s always telling us this, too, when we come in fired up about an idea: “Yeah, start looking into it, the right time for this show will come up.” And Mary, by the way, has finely honed instincts on that front.

• scottbenbow on Ethiopia: Chris is right now in Tunis, and we’re really hoping he’ll come back having met lots of people who’d be good guests for some shows on Africa.
• flow’s specific ideas on Latin America: Robin is going to look into this, and specifically Chavez. Our intermittent series with Jeff Sachs might be a good place for a first plunge into Latin America.
• Potter on how we ended up in Iraq: The question of how we got into this war is one that we keep exploring, from different angles — and we’ll stay on it.
• Dana: Have you seen the recent Slate series on this?
• farreDV on Dover and intelligent design: Yes — we’re going to do this on Tuesday of next week — stay tuned for a relevant post.
• nother on race & class and pop culture: Check out Robin’s post on Race & Art — we’re thinking about a hip-hop show, and Robin’s also tracking Chris Rock’s publicist. The McWhorter show brought up living on credit.
• bstenger on steroids: David said he will look into this.
• flow on Ohio’s 2005 referenda: We hadn’t heard about this, but Robin’s volunteered to dig around.
• mjking on the $100 laptop: We think this could lead to something, too, and started making calls a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully Chris will return from Tunis having connected with Negroponte.
• bicyclemark on live music: It was so much fun having the Dresden Dolls in the studio. We’d like to work on bringing in more live bands, too.
• DebbieR: We considered doing a Red Cross / philanthropy show in the Katrina aftermath but didn’t quite find the right angle. The idea’s still slowly percolating, though.
• jgershman: Over the summer we did a China & global warming show. And yes, we definitely want to do more China shows and more other Asian shows. China’s a subject that’s covered widely, so the trick is finding an original way to tackle it.
• rpmcestmoi: We may get at some of these questions about God when the meaning/morality show firms up.
• pecos on habeas corpus and Guantanamo inmates: Thanks, we’ll look into this.

Hi folks. Robin here. Lucky me, I get to relay the last two weeks of show suggestions, thanks to our Friday-less Thanksgiving week. Woot. Look for a “suggest a show – December” page soon.

• Loay on Robert Fisk: we’ve

  ordered the book, and hope to have him on the show. Thanks.

• Ewayland’s Emerson request: in case you haven’t heard it, we already did an hour on Emerson. Hear (here) again for your listening pleasure.
• UtahOwl, cheesechowmain, and ChrisTover all point to the Al-Jazeera bombing story: we’re watching this story, and we’re also totally taken with it. And trying to figure out how to tackle it. In the meantime, you might want to check out this piece in the UK Guardian by Al-Jazeera Director General Wadah Khanfar, and this Juan Cole piece published in Salon.
• diogenes on Sam Harris: we’re looking at this in conjunction with the meaning and morality show. Thanks.
• Leonplays on hip-hop, international: we love it. Totally great suggestion. We will take your challenge, and make it the second of our two shows on hip-hop. First we’ll look at it domestically, then we’ll tackle your idea!
• Potter on Hacker and democracy: got it.

  We’ve ordered the Hacker book and we’ll see where it goes from there.

• Nother on citizen journalism site:

  great suggestion. We might be able to use this. (And I love Laura Mulvey.)

• Tisha on ID: check out the two ID shows we did with Ken Miller, here and here. He pretty much fits your bill.
• Avecfrites on the $100 laptop: we hear you on the lap top story. You’re not the first to recommend it. We’re fascinated too, and we’ve put in a request to Negroponte. Stay tuned.