260 Responses to “Pitch a Show: 1/4/07”

1. hurley Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

   This my favorite thread, so forgive me if I rush in avidly, elbows akimbo, Filene’s basement-style. You do so many things so well that I won’t even pretend to complain. Your cultural coverage exemplary, but I wonder if it isn’t slanted too much toward things we’re already supposed to know (Roth, Updike)- Most of us cower in our ignorance of, um, Spinoza, but who here has heard of Harry Partch, Ray Johnson, William S. Wilson, to name just three overlooked contemporary figures in music, art, and literature, respectively. I could go on, as most here could. You might pause to tease out some of the hidden figures. Happy to help in the event.

2. allison Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

   Chelsea wrote: “Allison: we can’t promise a series but we’ll look into ways in which can do some more shows on the economy. But if we were to do a series what is the first show that you would want to hear? Who would your dream guests be? I’m reading a paper about the economics of happiness, which does bear on quality of life issues, we’ll see if that becomes a show…”

   Ted Halstead founded Redefining Progress. He’s in DC now, but might be interesting to hear. Or whoever is the latest Ex. Dir. Also, Paul Hawkins. His book “The Ecology of Commerce” is practically “old” now, but he’s immersied in the subject.

   Hazel Henderson has been working on this stuff for a long time.

   I’m sure there are people in Europe, particularly Germany and the Scandinavian countries. A lot of the environmental sustainability laws are meshed with the concept of thinking about the economy differently. Sustainability is simply so different that GDP. I’ll see what kind of names I can drum up.

   thanks for considering this.

3. mcasemo Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

   Category 5 Levees. Is the busiest port in the U.S. (20% of all U.S. exports, and 60% of our grain exports) worth it? Is the area supplying 20% of domestic oil production worth it? A show educating folks about the importance of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast would be timely. Explaining things like why port cities are near sea level and often below. A show educating folks about other nation’s technological commitments to protecting such cities (Dutch, England and the Thames…)
   http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0112-15.htm

4. emmettoconnell Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

   Libertarians and Democrats

   This topic was kicked around a bit before the election when Markos Moulitsas wrote this essay. Basically, are the Republicans so turning off hard core Libertarians that they’d cross over and vote Democratic? I haven’t found any poll data to show that, but it was an interesting discussion.

   Here are some links.
   The Case for the Libertarian Democrat
   The Libertarian Democrat: This Year’s Jackalope
   Should Libertarians Vote Democrat?
   Libertarian Democrats

   And, my favorite corner of the conversation (because I was part of it) Matt Singer’s of Left in the West “F*ck You Democrats” and my response.

5. emmettoconnell Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 7:49 pm

   Also, an addition to the library thread from last time around, here is an article on libraries as third places.

6. patsyb Says:
   January 4th, 2007 at 8:34 pm

   With the now twenty-year-long demise of independent bookstores, it’s time to pay attention to what our libraries are up to. Consider this: the Fairfax Library (VA) system’s circulation numbers dictate the library’s weeding policy. Books that haven’t been checked out in 24 months are being discarded. Check out the sample list of books on the chopping block in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100729.html?sub=new).

   I can’t be alone in loving the serendipitdities and joys of browsing, of discovering writers, novels, topics that I’d never heard of or even imagined existed. And where will I find, twenty years from now, any sustained, book-length work that doesn’t rank high enough in circulation stats to be in our public (and later academic/private) libraries, whether I have heard of it yet or not?

   Can we reverse this tide? Or does the short-term thinking that justifies dsipensing with books not read in two years trump the long-term commitments libraries must maintain for their public’s private pleasures and civic edification?

7. hurley Says:
   January 5th, 2007 at 7:41 am

   Get thee to Washington D.C. January 27, 2007 for the Peace March:
   http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3436
   Needless to say, it’s a worthy and timely topic, and it would be an interesting opportunity for you to demonstrate your chops in the field. Why not bring Norman Mailer with you, have him compare and contrast the occasion with the March on the Pentagon he wrote about so beautifully in The Armies of the Night…In the event, I have a friend in D.C. who might be able to put someone from ROS up for the night.

8. patsyb Says:
   January 5th, 2007 at 9:51 am

   I just want to add to my post the comment of one of my favorite, thoughtful bloggers in the world of libraries, Lorcan Dempsey: http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001237.html. It’s a treasure trove of considerations regarding libraries information ROS folks will find engaging if you all don’t already read it regularly. Thank you.

9. baileyman Says:
   January 5th, 2007 at 11:00 am

   I keep finding my writing suaded in the Word direction. You too? The darn thing underscores the stuff it doesn’t like in green and red, and I want to make it go away. Do I now resemble Bill Gates in print? Is this a good thing? Does anybody who looks at language have any thoughts on this leveling process?

10. Rendfest Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

    This summer I found out that one of my uncles friends works as a teacher in China. Apparently teaching wages are much higher in China than in the US. I think this might make for an interesting show. The Great Teacher Depression or The US Brain Drain.

11. peanut Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    I’d like to see the return of the Passion series, I enjoyed those shows and I miss them. I’m also always interested in hearing from Nicholas Baker about his conservation projects. A show about the Piccard family, three generations of Swiss explorers/adventurers who gone high, low, and long – what’s that family legacy all about?

12. allison Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

    In the world of words, I think it would be fun to have an hour discussing the words that no matter how many times we’ve looked them up, we still can’t recall the meaning the next time we come across it. They jar you in your reading. Your flow is interrupted as you try to remember the nuance or even the core meaning and you know you’ve looked up ten times before and now you are annoyed with yourself. Do you stop to look it up? Do you put down the book in perturbation? Do you just “shake it off” and read on without complete understanding?

    And what is about these words? Why don’t they stick?

13. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    A chat with Randy Olson about his film Flock of Dodos. Here’s another synopsis Flock of Dodos on Wiki

14. Sutter Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    Patsyb, you’ll be interested in the Fairfax County Public Library’s response to the WaPo, which I received by e-mail (I’m a member) and have pasted below:

    You may have seen or heard media reports this week claiming that our
    library system is eliminating classic literature from our shelves.
    These
    reports are absolutely incorrect. Although we occasionally reduce the
    number of copies of a particular title — perhaps trimming Hemingway’s
    “For Whom the Bell Tolls” from 110 copies to 108, for example — we’re
    committed to offering classic texts by western culture’s leading
    authors.

    Here are just a few examples of the number of books we offer which a
    January 2 Washington Post article implied that we’ve totally “weeded”
    off our shelves:

    “Dr. Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak — 50 copies of books, CDs and
    cassettes.

    “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner — 99 copies of books,
    CDs,
    cassettes and large print books.

    “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams — 116 copies of books and
    videos, including in some volumes of collected plays.

    “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee — 359 copies of books, CDs,
    cassettes, DVDs, videos, e-books and large print books.

    Because of the growing demand for more books in more formats and
    languages, we do have to balance the need to offer classic literature,
    and satisfy public demand, with our limited space. We can’t warehouse
    every book that every resident may want to read. We use industry
    standards, computer data and the expertise of librarians with decades
    of
    professional experience to offer a dynamic collection of classics, new
    literature and reference materials to an increasingly diverse
    population.

    We take our stewardship of public property very seriously and strive to
    prudently manage the public’s investment in the library. Our efforts
    are
    paying off: we’re on track to have our books checked out more than 12
    million times by the end of this fiscal year, a 10 percent increase
    over
    FY2005 when we began our new “weeding” process.

    To find other classics we offer, go to:
    http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/catalogindex.htm

15. emmettoconnell Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    On my libertarian/Democratic idea, this is as close as I’ve come so far to a discussion about how libertarians voted:

    Exit polls do not ask people whether they are libertarians. My thought – yet another guess – would be that libertarians might identify themselves as independents in party and either as moderate or conservative in ideology. If so, the GOP lost their vote too.

    Commentators often say the Republican party is a balancing act between economic libertarians and social conservatives. A GOP majority is always precarious: what pleases economic libertarians must alienate social conservatives and vice-versa. In 2006, the Republicans’ conduct of government along with the Iraq war alienated both aspects of its base along with many other voters who are not attached to one of the parties.

16. patsyb Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    Hey, Peanut — Nicholson Baker was unable to manage that conservation project. He donated the collection of newspapers to Duke University in Nov. 2005, I believe. But how we preserve “the news” going forward and what news we’d select to preserve would make a great show, especially now that it’s all electronic and there’s so much of it.

17. patsyb Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    Ok. Fair enough, Sutter, there’s always more to these stories. I won’t quibble on the Fairfax case as all I’ve read is the same story everywhere (perhaps indeed cut-and-pasted around the globe; or just another endlessly reproduced UPI feed).

    All of what you explain is precisely what needs airing. Given the many formats that you allude to, for example, how are users’ requests being met while libraries maintain their commitment as stewards of our culture? Is circulation the only way to measure stewardship, especially a stewardship that dares to think for the long haul as well as in the short term? I’m not sure what the answers are, but I know this is not being discussed enough.

18. Sutter Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 5:07 pm

    Just to be clear, my entire post was a paste from FCPL’s e-mail — I have no basis for evaluating FCPL’s claims.

    Emmett — there was a good back-and-forth on your issue in The New Republic over the last couple of weeks, but I don’t believe it is available online. The articles were entitled “Liberaltarians” (advocating a progressive-libertarian truce, mostly on the libertarians’ terms), and “Kiss Me, Cato” (rejecting that proposal).

19. RobertPeel Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    Two ideas: 1. Clergy Sexual Abuse five years later: has it changed church and society http://www.bishop-accountability.org is a great source of information. Also, Rober Blair Kaiser.
    2. regular updates on global warming.

    Your shows on Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Bach’s Chacone were wonderful.

20. emmettoconnell Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    Sutter: Here they are:

    TNR: Move On

    TNR: Kiss Me, Cato

    I love the subhead for “Kiss Me”: “Buzz off Ayn Rand”

21. emmettoconnell Says:
    January 5th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    And Liberaltarians.

22. tdevotta Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 12:11 am

    The problem Christianity has with Islam, is Islams claims to the connection it has with Christians – most Christians seen no common ground. For e.g. Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet but Christians say He is the Son of God. http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Islam-Bible/5MuslimJesus/index.htm. There are many others examples.

    It seems that Muslims are the true enemies of the Christians from the point of view of doctrine and belief. Today Evangelical Churches are hinting that Armageddon will be between the Christians and the Muslims.

    Jesus asked us Christians to love our enemies, to do good to those who harm us; I believe the root to world peace is not the extermination of the Muslims but a formula of love, as Jesus and the apostle Paul preached. To love them for what they are – not what we want them to be. But does Americanism and true Christianity have any thing in common?

    Over to you ‘Open Source”!!

23. Johnny Wharton Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

    In the ‘Edge.Org’ programme, Juan Enriquez mentions that Botswana is the second fastest growing country on the planet for the last two decades. I would very much like to hear the story of Botswana. Why is this the case? What has this meant on the ground for its population? What can be learned about Botswana that could be transferred to the rest of the African continent?

    2007 seems to me the right time to look at the positive models of African future, especially in the light of the recent invasion of Somalia and the continuing plight of those in the Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, etc.

24. hurley Says:
    January 6th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    IMPEACHMENT: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/4489
    It may not be a practical possibility, but the grounds for it should be raised, addressed, broadcast.

25. hurley Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 7:42 am

    Another message from yours truly, old softie:
    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070108/ap_on_sc/colombia_animal_shelter
    This woman deserves more than a radio show, but maybe some day you can fit her into some elaborately conceived show about human-animal interaction.

26. Jason Hoppes Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    I would like to hear a show on the “Space Elevator” idea. NASA wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on 40 year old appollo type idea. What we need to do to actually atain the benefits of space is to make the Earth to orbit costs much cheaper. I have heard shows on whether or not the direction NASA is going is correct but no talk about alternatives.

27. enhabit Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    david,

    i have a series of films (on one dvd)about Jockin and “slum dwellers international” that i would like to send you. it says a lot. e-mail me your the address and i’ll send you a copy.

    still looking for carlinous.

28. chena Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

    Pitch a Show: Cheney’s Last Days

    It is finally beginning to appear that the VP has lost substantial control over day-to-day operations in the world’s affairs. As this calculating man is preparing for his own exit strategy, he’s doubtlessly setting the stage to not only ensure his personal financial gain, but very likely also preparing a litany of pardons for crimes committed by his followers.

    Why not a show on the indictments awaiting Cheney? It could be on laws criminalizing whatever war profiteering he’s personally involved in. Maybe on laws that should be passed before he’s no longer a sitting VP.

29. Greta Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

    hurley: Maybe we could find her for a feature pegged to the anthropomorphism show? Kissing lions on the mouth. Sheesh.

    Jason Hoppes: We got this pitch over the summer and determined that it wasn’t going anywhere for a while. If you hear differently, let us know.

    enhabit: you can reach david at david radioopensource org (turn it into an email address).

    chena: I haven’t heard that Cheney is awaiting indictments, and we try not to do shows that are too speculative. Can you back this up with a couple of links?

30. Greta Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 8:54 pm

    Shoot. Read that wrong. Sorry, enhabit. If you’d like to send something with stamps and mailboxes and all the trappings, we’re at 15 Mount Auburn St. Cambridge, MA 02138.

31. bicyclemark Says:
    January 9th, 2007 at 11:23 pm

    One Word.. anything related to: prisons.

    the prison industrial complex is so big.. lots of subjects worth discussing in there.

    Here’s my biggest one which ive been unable to get done on my own program: Prison Labor. Is his old film The Big One, michael more talks about how airlines were using prisoners for operators, and microsoft was packaging their software in Washington state prisons.. that was ten years ago… I wonder what the scene looks like now? What companies are laying off civilian workers and making deals to have prisoners make their stuff for substandard wages and big profit margins?

    One potential guest: Morgan O. Reynolds, Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the NCPA and professor of economics at Texas A&M University. who has written on the subject.

    Or try Chris Levister of Wiretap Magazine.

    Ill probably do this one eventually.. but Id love to hear you guys tackle this.

32. Brian Dunbar Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 12:03 am

    I would like to hear a show on the “Space Elevator” idea. NASA wants to spend tens of billions of dollars on 40 year old appollo type idea. What we need to do to actually atain the benefits of space is to make the Earth to orbit costs much cheaper. I have heard shows on whether or not the direction NASA is going is correct but no talk about alternatives.

    Jason I’m as big a fan of space elevators as anyone (bias warning I work part-time for Liftport) but a space elevator is not ready to be considered a replacement for conventional solutions.

    We don’t know that we _can_ build one, or that it would cost less than existing solutions.

    That said a show about ‘what to do’ in space would be pretty keen.

33. pboake Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Brian “Kilroy” Dunbar is totally correct about the fact that nobody has ‘proven’ that building a Space Elevator (SE) can be done.

    I’m not trying to disagree with that when I point out that a lot of smart people (including those at BKD’s employer, Liftport) are putting a lot of time and money into solving the engineering problems involved with building an SE.

    There are also a lot of smart people who would like to see it done. Some of whom I interviewed for my article about the post-SE commercialization of space in my article for the Liftport book (excerpted on my blog, The Space Elevator Journal, Permalink: http://spacelf8r.blogspot.com/2006/11/space-elevator-roi.html).

    I feel like we’re at the same place rocketry was before WWII. They got it done then.

34. chena Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 11:20 am

    References to Cheney’s impending criminal prosecution(s)
    ++++++++++++++++
    The Nation
    article | posted December 29, 2003 (web only)
    “Will the French Indict Cheney?”
    by Doug Ireland
    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040112/ireland
    (bribes related to Halliburton)
    ********************************
    The Nation
    article | posted October 31, 2005 (web only)
    Did Cheney Know Plame Was Undercover?
    by David Corn
    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/cornweb
    (valerie Plame affair)
    ********************************
    Christian Science Monitor
    from the November 03, 2005 edition
    “Dick Cheney: no change of role visible”
    By Linda Feldmann
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1103/p01s01-uspo.html
    (The indictment of Scooter Libby indicates Cheney personally discussed Plame to be a cia undercover agent)
    ********************************
    Counterpunch
    November 7, 2005
    The Vice President Lied About What He Knew
    Cheney and the Cover Up
    By JASON LEOPOLD
    (Cheney lied when he said Wilson was a stranger to him)
    ********************************
    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s website:
    http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Oct05/scooter.html
    Pelosi Statement on Criminal Indictment of I. Lewis Libby

    Friday, October 28, 2005
    Contact: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616
    Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following
    statement today following the criminal indictment of Vice President Cheney’s
    Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby:

    “The criminal indictments of a top White House official mark a sad day for
    America and another chapter in the Republicans’ culture of corruption. At the
    heart of these indictments was the effort by the Bush Administration to
    discredit critics of its Iraq policy with reckless disregard for national
    security and the public trust.”
    ********************************

35. hurley Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 11:53 am

    Should you ever contemplate a show about police violence, of which there seems to be a lot in the US lately (the groom to-be recently shot in New York, the 13 year-old killed in Los Angeles, no charges filed by LAPD, etc.) you might want to incorporate the episode related here:
    http://improbable.com/2007/01/09/historian-jaywalks-police-take-him-down/
    in which celebrated Spanish historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (World, no less), an almost parodically Oxbridge type, is thrown to the ground, man-handled by five beefy cops, handcuffed, and arrested for J-WALKING as he attempts to cross a street in Atlanta en route to a conference of historians. The interview with him would be funny — frankly, it sometimes is — were it not for the institutional state of mind the incident suggests…He’s a bright chap, as he himself might put it, who has written widely on many matters, including the environment, and he’s an indefatigable talker…Actually, instead of a show about police violence, you might construct a show around him, giving this incident all due significance in the process. Have a look if you can.

36. Robin Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    Hey Jason, Brian Dunbar and Pboake-

    (Following up on Greta’s response to the space elevator pitch) I didn’t realize we were hosting a a colony of space enthusiasts here. Cool. I think we’d be willing to do *some* show on space, if you could pitch/help us think of something compelling. Brian Dunbar – can you explain what you mean by a show about “what to do in space”? It sounds kind of interesting, but without a fleshed out pitch I have no idea what that means.

    Also, I notice from a quick glance through pboake’s site that there seem to be some cool space blogs out there. Any you guys read on a regular basis that you think are good or worth reading for ideas?

    Also, hurley are you pitching us a show about police violence? I can’t tell.

37. hurley Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

    Robin says: Also, hurley are you pitching us a show about police violence? I can’t tell.
    Neither can I, Robin. Sorry for the confusion. A show about police violence worthwhile, but I was trying to point your attention to the surreal episode visited on your neighbor from Tufts, Prof. Fernandez-Armesto, as an example of police violence and perhaps any number of other things.. If you do a show about police violence, you might refer to this event. If you don’t, you might consider a show about him, incorporating the ridiculous and disturbing events in Atlanta into your show. He’s not my favorite contemporary historian, but in the spirit of the ROS venture, I thought I’d point these things out.

38. Greta Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    Katherine and I are catching up on pitches that came in on Friday the 5th.

    hurley: I don’t think we’ll be able to make it down to Washington on the 27th, but Katherine’s been thinking about/pitching a global warming protest in April. Chelsea’s also been thinking about a broader show on contemporary dissent. Help us with those?

    patsyb: thanks.

    baileyman: I think “spellcheck-as-leveler” is too small for a full hour, but your questions might fit into one of our language in the digital age shows.

    Rendfest: Sounds like an interesting feature with your uncle’s friend. Can you send me his/her contact info or links if you see this emerging as a larger trend?
    greta radioopensource org (turn it into an email address).

39. Katherine Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    peanut: Yes, it would be fun to revive the Passion series. The way we think about Passion shows, though, is not so much as hours about interesting people, but as hours about interesting phenomena with interesting guests. Does that make sense?

    allison: I’ve wondered about these teflon words a million times, too, but however frustrating and perplexing they are, I don’t think they’d sustain a full hour of radio.

    OliverCranglesParrot: We talked briefly with Randy Olson a while back before Flock of Dodos was released (when were doing shows on Intelligent Design and Intelligent Design in Dover and Kansas). We wouldn’t devote an hour specifically to his film, but we’d certainly consider him when we revisit I.D.

    emmettoconnell: Nihilist pitched liberaltarians a while back, and the idea’s on our story board. The libertarian-Democratic mix came up in some of our pre-election shows (e.g., on the Montana Senate race), but what do you think would make a good peg at this point? It’s definitely something we’re watching.

    RobertPeel: Clergy sexual abuse we probably wouldn’t do without some kind of news peg, but on the global warming front, we do have a few ideas percolating to add to our ongoing series.

40. Steve Heffner Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 6:52 pm

    Hello Christopher Lydon! Your show is fabulous! I listen whenever I can. How is your saintly brother, Patrick? I’ve lost touch with him directly, but I take comfort in thinking that he is still out there somewhere, doing his wonderful work.

    I’m including a short piece for your review that I’ve just offered to some Op-Ed pages around the country – and I wonder if there’s a show for you in my basic suggestion: that, as George Bush has shown us, an imperial Presidency is possible in modern America, directed by a President who is unresponsive to almost anything and anyone but his own ideas. And, if Congress, for whatever reason, is unwilling or unable to challenge such a President, now or in the future, what is our recourse? In Europe, parliaments can vote “no confidence” and force changes at the top. In California, the citizens can spur a recall. What if American voters, through a Constitutional amendment, had the option in every mid-term election to recall the President, the Vice President, or both?
    Here’s the piece

41. Steve Heffner Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Chris, My transmission was interrupted. Here’s the piece I mentioned. Keep up the great work.

    Big Deciders, Little Deciders, Mad Deciders,
    And Mid-Term Decisions

    “Recall the President of the United States: ☐ Yes ☐ No”
    “Recall the Vice-President of the United States: ☐ Yes ☐ No”

    There he goes again. The Decider has made another Decision – to escalate his
    war in Iraq by adding thousands of American surge troopers.
    If you haven’t been paying close attention to the Decider, it might seem an
    odd Decision. After all, it was only two months ago that millions of voters (the
    “Little Deciders”) decided to toss out the Decider’s enablers – Republican
    hamburger helpers who assisted him in making a hash out of things like American
    foreign policy, New Orleans, oil prices, public ethics, privacy rights, the
    Constitution, environmental policy, Social Security reform, the budget deficit, etc.
    The post-election wisdom was that the Little Deciders had declared that the
    Big Decider was really a Bad Decider, and that he ought to start correcting his
    course. Turns out, that’s not the Bad Decider’s M.O. Instead, he’s a Decider who
    makes a Decision and then holds to it, no matter how Bad it proves to be. Worse,
    the more that people criticize Big Bad’s Decisions, the more he digs in the heels of
    his cowboy-like boots and stays his wayward path.
    Now, we face two more years of a Decider run amok – a powerful yet unruly
    fellow pinging off the walls of his personal reality bubble, like a mutinous teenaged
    emperor who has locked himself in his room but persists in issuing Decisions that
    get people killed, drain the Treasury, and trash what’s left of our civilized standing
    in the civilized world.
    At this point, we must acknowledge the worst: that the Bad Decider has
    devolved, frighteningly and tragically (like Old Yeller with rabies) into the Mad
    Decider. Clearly, this is not what the Little Deciders bargained for in November.
    So, what to do?
    The I-word surfaces often in these conversations, but current political wisdom
    holds that, after the Republicans’ crass impeachment stunt in 1998, Americans
    aren’t keen to have that circus back in town. The irony is that, while the Senate
    appropriately found Bill Clinton innocent of high crimes and misdemeanors, the
    Chinese menu of charges Bush might face today could cling to him like sticky-rice.
    Even if Democrats could summon the political stomach to try to impeach
    Bush, they couldn’t stop there. They would have to aim also at the Decider-Behind-
    the-Curtain, Dick Cheney, and there just isn’t time or sufficient political will to
    impeach and convict both, no matter how much they deserve it.
    Does that mean the only option for America’s Little Deciders is to huddle
    under their desks for two more years and hope things don’t get irrevocably bad?
    Maybe. But, in the mean time, let me propose a Plan B: a strategy to revoke the
    political power that a Mad Decider like Bush might use to abuse, and, instead, give
    it to the Little Deciders to use as they thought they were in November.
    The plan is for a Constitutional amendment I call the “Mid-Stream Look-
    Around.” Beginning in 2010, it would require mid-term election ballots in every
    state to carry the following two items:
    “Recall the President of the United States: ☐ Yes ☐ No”
    “Recall the Vice-President of the United States: ☐ Yes ☐ No”
    If the nation’s Little Deciders are happy with things as they are, they simply
    can check “No” in both boxes. Or, in a situation like the 1930 mid-terms, when the
    country was neck-deep in the Great Depression, such an amendment would have
    allowed voters to dump Herbert Hoover for VP Charles Curtis, if they thought it
    might have helped. Or, remembering Dan Quayle, the amendment would let voters
    keep the boss, but fire a shaky Vice President before he could do any (more) harm.
    And, of course, in November, 2006, voters could have gone beyond just
    sending a message to a man who would refuse to hear it. They could have sent him
    packing, along with his snarling Vice Presidential puppeteer (“Pay no attention to
    the man in the bunker!”).
    That last option leaves the Speaker of the House in line to make the Big
    Decisions for the ensuing two years – in this case, Nancy Pelosi. Granted, she
    wouldn’t be most folks’ first choice for the First Job, and she might not turn out to
    be George Washington or Thomas Jefferson – but at least she’s not the dangerously
    flawed George Walker Bush. And that’s a Decision a lot of Little Deciders I know
    wish they could make.

42. Sutter Says:
    January 10th, 2007 at 11:14 pm

    I’m having a little trouble formulating this, but I wonder whether there’s something in the idea of the concept of institutionalized dissent. Shortly after 9/11 (maybe not THAT shortly — could have been when the 9/11 Report was published), there was a piece in the New Yorker about how FDR used to essentially pit members of his administration against one another and have them argue opposing positions in front of him to help him figure out the right approach. In contrast, my sense from reading about the Cuban Missile Crisis was that JFK was his own internal dissenter, deeply questioning what the generals and others were telling him at every step. And in contrast to both of these, it’s no secret that the current administration punishes dissent, including internal dissent.

    How can, should and do organizations manage dissent? There’s always a stigma associated with the sqeaky wheel — this is why we have statutes protecting whistle-blowers — but these people serve a critical function within organizations, be they corporate, governmental, non-profit, or whatever. What, if anything, are the prospects for institutionalizing dissent? And what can government and private institutions do to promote dissent and carve out a place for the gadflies?

    Ideal guests for such a program would probably include organizational behaviorists, and perhaps some newspaper folks (newspapers being one of the few institutions with a long history of institutionalized dissent, in the form of the ombudsperson).

43. Steve Petersen Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 1:45 am

    Bomb testing in southern Nevada (in fact, really close to Las Vegas)

    There is a mini-row brewing in Utah and Nevada over the postponed Divine Strake bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. These tests involve powerful bombs meant to determine how a nuclear bunker buster would affect an area, but these tests concern many people.

    Nuclear bombs were tested at the Nevada Test Site, which is only about 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas, from 1951 to 1992, and these tests have caused elevated cancer rates in Utah, Nevada, and their neighboring states. Those who developed cancer in this area are commonly referred to as “down winders.” Further, I have even heard stories of it raining mud in Salt Lake City, which is several hundred miles away from the test site, soon after tests back in the 50s and 60s.

    Although the Divine Strake tests do not involve nuclear devices, people are concerned that the bombs will kick up dust contaminated with nuclear waste from the tests. People in the region do not want another generation of down winders, and what infuriates people even more is that the government admits that tests will kick up toxic dust but states that Divine Strake tests pose no risk.

    I don’t think a discussion on the ethics or need for weapons testing is warranted since that subject is discussed from time to time. How about these talking points: Should governments conduct large scale weapons tests like this so near major cities (Las Vegas in the instance)? Since governments do test weapons and test side effects are experienced over large areas, where would you recommend as a test site — in the middle of a desert like in southern Nevada, in the ocean, on a deserted island, etc.?

    Hopefully, this story can lead to a fruitful discussion.

44. Brian Dunbar Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 3:03 pm

    Robin

    “(Following up on Greta’s response to the space elevator pitch) I didn’t realize we were hosting a a colony of space enthusiasts here. Cool. I think we’d be willing to do *some* show on space, if you could pitch/help us think of something compelling. Brian Dunbar – can you explain what you mean by a show about “what to do in space”? It sounds kind of interesting, but without a fleshed out pitch I have no idea what that means.”

    “What to do in space”.

    You hang around obsessed nerdly people and you start speaking shorthand. Then jargon. Pretty soon your only company is your dog and people who speak that dialect of jargon.

    We have several billionaires building rockets and standing up companies to send tourists to space. Several others are building new launch systems for cargo. The ESA wants to do more in space, we (via our agency NASA) are heading back to the moon.

    The solar system is becoming a more mysterious and complicated place, the more we push out and explore. There are a half-dozen known Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) the size of Pluto, and they have moons of their own!

    We might be on the cusp of a true space age. 98% of the resources in the solar system are extra-terrestrial, the sun is pouring energy across the solar system – we can go up and just _get_ it for free. Given some luck and hard work it’s possible to relocate industry to orbit.

    Previous societal changes ‘just happened’ and we paid a price for that. No one knew what changes would be wrought by the introduction of a reliable steam engine for example, and we got slums and polluted skies for our troubles.

    It’s easy to get distracted by current event. Iraq, Bush, those are immediate problems. Still, it might be a good idea to start talking about what happens next now and not letting the coming changes smack us in the face.

    Also, I notice from a quick glance through pboake’s site that there seem to be some cool space blogs out there. Any you guys read on a regular basis that you think are good or worth reading for ideas?

    He doesn’t blog that I know of but Neil degrasse Tyson is taking up the slack left by Carl Sagan’s death. He’s hyper-intelligent, personable, and knows a great deal about subjects like this.

    Plus he sounds like a good guy to have a beer with – I’m not sure if that’s rare for an astrophysist but there you are.

    Rand Simberg – Transterrstrial Musings
    http://transterrestrial.com/

    Hit up his blogroll for the best ‘blogs on space’.

    I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you to Liftport’s blog
    http://www.liftport.com/progress/wp

    I did excise a long screed on all this (then lost my re-write by closing my text editor without saving). I’m always happy to yap on at length about this or other topics – links , guest ideas etc.

    brian dot dunbar at liftport dot com

45. Scarequotes Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

    Possibly a Passion show, possibly an interesting discussion in its own right, possibly an entree into a larger issue:

    Is Morse code the Latin of the digital age?

    As of this past December, ham radio operators no longer need to learn Morse code to get a license. Some peopel think this spells doom for the language, but some aren’t so sure.

    Paul Saffo argues that
    

    Passionate amateurs will gather around this “dead” language, cherishing it, promoting it, using computers and the Internet to teach it, communicating in it and building a new community of Morse fanatics to match their Latin bretheren. I’ll bet the total number of Morse-tappers actually increases and their average age will drop to something less than the entry age for AARP membership.

    There’s an extensive discussion at eham.net, where ham radio enthusiasts argue for or agains the idea.

    Even the New York Times (reprinted online here) did a write-up, putting “dead” in quotes.

    I know nothing much about this, but it’s an interesting story — and a case in point of how the Internet allows some very small subcultures to gather and preserve identities that might otherwise be lost.

46. Scarequotes Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 5:31 pm

    Another idea for a show:

    You’re approached by an eccentric billionaire. They want to carve Mt. Rushmore 2.0, reworking the face of another mountain to feature portraits of four individuals. But instead of US presidents, this Rushmore will be dedicated to US artists.

    You get to pick which four US artists will be carved into the mountain. Who do you pick?

    The few ground rules:

    The artists must be representative of the United States, though they don’t necessarily have to be from here.

    The artists must be dead.

    Representatives from any artistic discipline are fine — painting, writing, film, whatever.

    The group of 4 must be somewhat diverse, meaning that you can’t pick 4 novelists or painters or directors. Sexual or ethnic diversity is encouraged, but not required.

    Your decision is final.

    I first came up with this idea in 2004, and I’ve revisited it a couple of times. My own current picks: Harry Houdini, Charles Mingus, Charles M. Schulz, and Preston Sturges.

    Who’s on your mountain, and why?

47. Peter Mao Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    Maybe this is too obvious, but how about a show about open source software: Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds, what the Novell-Microsoft deal means, Nicholas Negroponte and the One Laptop Per Child initiative.

48. emmettoconnell Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Can’t seem to think of a news peg for the libertarian/Democrat idea, but there is one today for the “Political Party 2.0” idea I had a month of so back with a statistical analysis of Dean’s 50 State Strategy.

49. faithandreason Says:
    January 11th, 2007 at 9:07 pm

    Here’s an idea, playing off of Peter Mao’s and the above libertarian/Democratic ones: the emergence of emergence as a political philosophy.

    Hobbes posited a “natural society” of all against all, where everyone raged only for their own sakes, stealing food from babies. Anthropologists and anarchists like Murray Bookchin say that that never really happened, so why base a political philosophy on it?

    Modern democracies have seemed to move away from a distinct political philosophy and more toward pragmatism, but even then, we hold onto a lot of the beliefs that go back a long ways.

    But Time Magazine, for all its cheesy delivery, acknowledged that the distributed user communit of the internet is “Person of the Year.” From kiva.org to Wikipedia to Linux, a distributed world of direct, person-to-person (p2p) interaction is vibrantly altering our economy. And in the real world, church and radical groups stayed in New Orleans to help long after the cameras left, without government direction.

    Bill Gates said he couldn’t see how innovation in software could occur without a profit motive, yet Firefox is gaining market share with the GPL “viral license.” Why?

    Could it be that we’re living, but the political machinery has yet to grasp, a world where p2p, radically libertarian, yet inherently community-oriented (and still capitalistic) social structures are doing more to organize daily life than the actions of government? Or maybe it takes the DARPA’s innovation and the guarantees of private property and civil liberties that make the mojo work!

    Show capsule: is the market taking over and government falling away, or is democratic capitalism just doing its job?

50. jfink Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 9:40 am

    A pitch: Slow is Beautiful

    With the era of American excess winding down, we might be forced to give up our Mega-Loud, Super-Fast lifestyle. Don’t worry. Celebrate the Slow!

    In the kitchen:
    The “Slow Food” movement might have been the start of it all. The tenet of Local Eating will get you organic potatoes from your Community Supported Agriculture farm. It will also fuel the waiter’s endless description about the bucolic lifestyle of your chicken dinner. Check out the folks at The 100 Mile Diet. They pledged to eat only foods that were grown within a 100-mile radius of their home – in Canada.
    http://www.100milediet.org/

    On the streets:
    London-based podcast “The Bike Show” describes Patrick Field as “the world’s slowest professional cyclist”. He is the man behind the London School of Cycling, and the Dunwich Dynamo – a midnight charity ride for Kicks. He explains, “I ride a bike by choice, but if I thought that driving a Cadillac would make my life more beautiful, I wouldn’t have any problem getting a Cadillac.” (Part 2 of the interview is best – link follows)
    http://bikeshow.blogspot.com/2007/01/8-january-2007-doorstep-adventures-with.html

    At your office:
    Carmine Coyote’s blog “Slow Leadership” trashes your typical performance metrics and motivational posters. His pillars are Tempo, Attention, Balance, Perspective, Direction, Relationships, Enjoyment and Gratitude. His manifesto states, “Slow Leadership opposes the pressure for homogeneity in leadership, especially the urge to equate leadership purely with getting short-term results.”
    http://www.slowleadership.org/2006/05/why-slow-leadership.html

51. allison Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    Low-tech ,ancient open source.

    I was making an announcement to my Circles community on our forum, when I found myself writing this:

    SPA is a time to relax, hang out with other fiber artists, and learn and teach. All in a very informal setting. There are no classes. The Doubletree Hotel is fully booked with attendees of SPA, so they literally take over the hotel. You’ll find a lobby full of spinning wheels, knitters by the pool (where you might see a syhnchronized swimming performance), every you turn you will see people plying their craft. Most likely with their slippers on. Your only obligation if you attend the SPA is to be willing to teach someone what you’re doing if they ask. You can’t get more ‘open source.’

    It made me wonder if there isn’t a topic here for ROS. “Open source” is a mindset. Bucking up against the concepts of intellectual property, fear-based competition, etc. Human societies have been faced with the tension of these opposing philosophies forever. As I was writing about the event above, I was prompted to think about it from the lineage of “women’s work”. Certainly, from the dawn of time, some women have withheld that secret ingredient to their deaths. In the same timeline, there have also always been the open sharing of new weaving techniques or home maintenance tricks. The SPA, which is held in Portland, ME has, in all previous experiences, exhibited a wonderfully warm and open exchange amongst women. It is representative of the most ancient form of open source.

    Interesting?

52. Chelsea Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 4:46 pm

    Allison: We finally did an economics show. We’ll continue to pursue more shows on behavioral economics and economic trends.

    Mcasemo: We’ve been talking about producing some more New Orleans shows. We can’t guarantee that we will specifically do a show on port cities…we have to see where our research takes us.

    PatsyB: We have talked many, many times about doing this kind of show and we never come to an agreement, which means that we will probably never do a library show.

    Steve Peterson: As for bomb testing we’re going to get the ball rolling with a web feature.

    Scarequotes: For now Curains for Cursive has satiated our need to mourn the loss of outdated modes of communication.

    Peter Mao: We don’t foresee doing an entire hour on Open Source software though we did discuss it on our Changing the World show.

53. Robin Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 5:05 pm

    Steve Heffner – Presidential powers is an important topic, one we’ve looked into quite a bit. Most recently just this past week, on the show we did about how Congress should oversee the war. We will continue to follow that story though. BTW, if you have a long op-ed type piece like this you’d like to share with us, the best way to do so is to post it on your own blog and then put a link on the thread.

    Sutter – the institutionalized dissent idea is interesting, and I can almost hear it as a high-concept show. But what would we say after the points you’ve just made? Who is going to argue against dissent being a crucial component to functioning democracies? Still, I think there could be something there. I’ll bring it up, but more thoughts are appreciated.

    Brian Dunbar – thanks for replying to my request for more info, and for posting those space blog links. I like the “what to do in space” idea! If I hear you correctly, it sounds like, we have all this money and all these toys, but what should we actually be *doing* up there? And the point about extracting resources from space is totally new to me. I’d like to hear someone talk about that. Anyway, I’ll bring it up and see if it takes.

54. faithandreason Says:
    January 12th, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    Here’s another idea: elitism in America.

    For all the talk of decentralization and progress, movies like “The Good Shepherd” remind us that there is still an elite that, unoficially, holds enormous power in America. Yale has Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key. DC scientists and their friends have the Cosmos Club. Michigan has Michigamua, where Gerald “Flippum Back” Ford once donned Native American headgear and painted his skin red to engage in downright cultic initiation rituals. Discussion of that elite has been almost invisible in the mainstream media.

    Yet a large fraction of the time that NPR airs a guest on foreign policy, they come from the Council on Foreign Relations. When Bill Gates wants to go golfing and have time to chat with a senator, he might fly out to The Vintage golf club in southern California, where you have to own a home in the Vintage neighborhood to be a member (and it’s not cheap).

    G. William Domhoff asked “Who Rules America?” years after Mills wrote “The Power Elite.” Yet a look at a chart of which other corporate boards to which Citigroup’s board members belong is makes you think you’re taking a class in knitting. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/corporate_community/Citigroup_corp_L1.gif

    With all the liberated netizens now “powered up” on broadband and Christopher’s inspiring announcement of the Open Source community as a “churning, breathing community of learners” (approx.), might we now have the gumption to ask? And the listeners, to lay out their local scenes?

55. Marc McElroy Says:
    January 13th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    This is kinda hard to relate, I’ve been trying to articuate it for some time, but have been unable to find a word or even a sentance to sum it up. Here goes: The enlightenment era idea of democracy keeping us happy, is gone, we used to believe that democracy and capitalism went together, as well as totalitarianism and comunism, however this no longer appiles. It seems the greatest capitalists on the earth are the Chinese, also with a repressive government. So… all these years we thought it was democracy that was keeping us happy in the US, when maybe it was capitalism. And now, all over the world opressive reqiemes are giving the people what they want (stuff), as in China and Russia and everyone is happy to go along with the politics of those governments. 10 years ago the Russians were free-er, but poor, and with 21st century conviences. Ask them now and they will say life is better, but it’s less free. In the US we are less “free,” wiretips, survalance, and an impending national identifcation car, and a majority of people seem to welcome it, why are they so passive? Stuff! This is a focus of the Bush whitehouse. Keep the economy strong at ALL COSTS, because that’s how you keep power. Keep the stuff coming! And China, don’t tell them they live under opression, with all the opertunity created by their “experiments” in capitalism, they would easily tell you they’re better off. So, freedom is on the way out, all over the world, and is replaced by gadgets, digital cable, cheap goods, and low interest rates.

56. heri rakotomalala Says:
    January 13th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

    hi

    i am interested right now on the topic of microcredit. It was touted as an answer to the poverty circle in developing nations but has raised many criticism, some saying that it raises dependence upon loans and does not really increase revenues on long term. Also, it might push borrowers into the formal economy instead of having a steady income from a standard “job”.

    I believe however that the possibilities of microcredit has not yet been fully untapped and that it might be the solution. I am thinking for example about kiva.org, a project that relates citizens from “developed” countries and microentrepreneurs from various third-world countries. In the year that saw Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammed Yunus, awarded the Nobel Prize, and the United Nations declaring 2005 as the International Year of Microcredit, can we build upon this recent public recognition ? Isn’t Microcredit a new way to redefine capitalism ?

57. hurley Says:
    January 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    17.

    You’ve probably read this:
    http://bostonreview.net/BR31.6/scarry.html
    but if you haven’t you might. The wonderful and truly scary Scarry, with whom Chris conducted a
    facinating interview years back about citizen governance aboard the plane that crashed in Pennsylania on 9/11, here turns her attention to material and theoretical breaches by the US of the Geneva Accords and much military doctrine besides, and their likely consequences. This from toward the end:

    And what if the military does manage to hold the line? What if over time we come to see again and again that our civilian leaders do not obey the law and our military leaders do? And that our civilian leaders do not know how to safeguard the American population and our military leaders do? (Hurricane Katrina is an example: only when the military arrived did rescue begin.) Would this lead to our eventually preferring military over civilian leadership? It is exactly this situation that Charles Dunlap—the writer with whom we began—warns against in an earlier, 1992 article entitled “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012,” an article that ought to be as widely read and debated in the civilian world as it has been in the military world.

    I haven’t read the article she refers to, but I will. She’s up to something deeply interesting and important, and I’d be happy to hear her again in conversation with Chris.

58. nother Says:
    January 14th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

    Let it ride! The most blatant example of political hypocrisy is the lottery. Gambling is illegal in most states unless the state is your bookie. I used to bartend at a bar that sold Keno tickets and I would watch with dismay, as people would bet up to $50 every five minutes. The bookies are everywhere; look no further than your local convenience store. In fact, try going into a store in a low-income area, you’ll be waiting 10 minutes for the clerk to deal out all the tickets to the desperate people in front of you.

    The lottery is a tax on the poor. The money people spend could be better spent on essentials.

    Lottery sales in Massachusettes in 2005 were $4.48billion, of which 935 million was profit returned to the state.
    Invite State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill on the show. Go over the figures w/ him. Two thirds of the revenue goes to advertising (selling false hope), administrative costs, and winnings. Of the 935 million profits, much would have been received anyway as sales tax on the essentials bought.

    So, at a time when MA. Is contemplating slot machines, lets examine the merits of the lottery. Interesting guests or angles would be someone who was addicted to scratch tickets. Someone who has won the lottery would make an interesting guest, how did it change his or her life?

    A great guest would be Melissa Kearney who just published a paper called “State lotteries and consumer behavior.

59. nother Says:
    January 14th, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    Melissa Kearney

60. Katherine Says:
    January 14th, 2007 at 7:14 pm

    jfink: A good pitch in that you thought of a number of ideas for a high-concept show; but the slow-food movement has been covered pretty extensively in public-radio world…

    allison: A fun conceit for a show. It would need a fantastic talker with a real “sermon” in order to work; and do you think there’s enough to say to sustain an hour? Let us know if you come up with possible guests.

    faithandreason: There’s no question that America still has an elite. We’ve talked about this in a number of our Race and Class shows. But what’s the new angle here, and who would be it’s champion?

    OliverCranglesParrot: Thanks a lot for elaborating on your ideas. Kearney sounds interesting, but the show idea is still somewhat vague in that hermaneutics of religion is a huge thing to tackle. Do you have a specific angle in mind? We’ll certainly tuck Kearney’s name away for future shows that touch on Biblical interpretation. As far as the Peninsular War goes, I’m afraid the Thucydides show probably filled our historical-parallels quota for the moment.

61. David Says:
    January 15th, 2007 at 10:18 am

    Marc McElroy: This is a good example of what Robin was talking about when she described the think piece in a response to a pitch a few weeks ago. It’s an interesting thesis, but really more of a personal argument than a show.

    heri rakotomalala: We talked about microcredit and the Grameen Bank for a segment of our recent Edge.org Optimism show, and I’m not sure that we’re ready to do a full hour about it so soon.

    hurley: We’re big Elaine Scarry fans, too, as you know, and I hadn’t seen this Boston Review article even though the most recent issue has been on my desk for a few weeks. I’ll give it a quick read and bring it up at a meeting soon. Thanks for the tip!

    Nother: I’m skeptical that we could make this fresh or new. It’s been covered so much, you know? (Having said that, I’ll check out the Kearney paper — as soon as the Brookings web site is back online…)

62. David Says:
    January 15th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    (Note: because of a holiday backlog (think of it as a yulelog), these responses are from pitches made on January 6th and 7th.)

    Johnny Wharton: We’ll think about this. Knowing virtually nothing about Botswana — which, I suppose, is part of the reason for your pitch — I wonder if this could be included in a series we’ve been kicking around the office for a while: Best Practices.

    hurley: As you wrote, impeachment “may not be a practical possibility.” So much today is — from increased Congressional oversight to questions about purse string power to rancorous bi-partisan war policy questioning to dramatic falls in popular support for the war — that I think for the time being we don’t need to play what-if games. The reality is interesting enough!

63. Brian Dunbar Says:
    January 15th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

    The lottery is a tax on the poor. The money people spend could be better spent on essentials.

    No it’s not. A tax is non-optional – no one forces anyone to play the lottery.

    Me – I’m not much for state- sponsored gambling but but a tax on anybody it ain’t. Fuzzy verbage clouds the issue.

64. Krusty Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 3:02 am

    There is a topic that was bought to my attention recently that has not received any “main-stream” press that I am aware of, the 911 conspiracy theories. I have always scoffed at these accusations but after spending some time researching, I have some doubts about the “Official Story.” While I am not fully convinced of any of the theories to date, some of the evidence provided by various online sources seems very robust.

    Regardless, if the folks like Dr. Steven Jones are wrong, I would like to see it put to bed once and for all. Likewise, if they are right, we better do something about it.

    Consider watching some documentaries available on YouTube:
    911 Mysteries
    Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic
    Oil, Smoke & Mirrors
    In Plane Sight

    Consider reading a few sites:
    http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/
    http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf
    http://www.911truth.org/
    http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
    http://belowgroundsurface.org/

    I took the time to read some “debunking” articles such as those found in Popular Mechanics, The American Thinker and Skeptic magazines. I found that they addressed some questions but left those that I found most disturbing unanswered, namely, the molten steel in the basement, rate of collapse of the towers (including WTC7) and the hole in the Pentagon before the outer wall collapses. I am a Mechanical Engineer working for an aerospace company and have a firm grasp of physics, that is why I am so concerned about these allegations.

    An interview with BYU physics professor Dr. Steven Jones would be nice. Obviously, you would need to find some individuals that could address the conspiracy theories without resorting to name calling.

65. disgruntled Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 7:01 am

    Confessions of another, older economic Hitman,

    Hi, I am an enthusiastic and long-time listener of your show but this is my first post here. Having been in journalism for a long time, I am well used to having my story ideas brutally rejected – No wallflowers here!
    One show I remember you doing very well was the confessions of an economic hitman, a kind of kill and tell on U.S. foreign policy. The impression Chris left me with was that he would really have loved to believe it all but couldn’t quite let himself be swayed, due mainly, it seemed, to the sheer enormity of the claims. Here was a man who so tantalizingly offered us the proof for all the conspiracy theories we so love to flirt with (apologies to those who wholeheartedly espouse them) on an, unfortunately, all too shiny silver platter.
    Recently, in my reading – perhaps skimming is a better term as it was on the web – I came across Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC. He was a highly decorated marine who apparently almost rose to the rank of commandant of the Marine Corps. His career blocking characteristic and the one that interests me is that he was a spectacular whistle blower and critic of the involvement of corporate America in U.S. foreign policy. Again though and for the same reasons, I find myself asking whether he was completely on the level. It would be interesting to hear what historians think of the validity of his claims about the driving force behind foreign policy, especially in light of the seeming determination of this administration to widen the conflict in the Persian Gulf or indeed, to start it in the first place.
    More interesting than that though would be to put to the historical test, his most explosive claim that American industrialists planned to overthrow Roosevelt in a coup d’etat, leading to the question: whether and in what measure they were successful in achieving their aims without having to resort to a military coup.

66. hurley Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 11:12 am

    disgruntled: On the subject of whistleblowers and the military, you might be interested in Very Personal War (1971), James Hamilton-Paterson’s book about Cornelius Hawkridge, an employee of the US administration in Vietnam and a fierce critic of the war. In a recent letter to the London Review, Hamilton-Paterson (a fine writer) mentioned Hawkridge in the context of current events in Iraq:

    Ed Harriman’s catalogue of the corruption and financial shenanigans surrounding the US presence in Iraq reveals remarkably consistent practice (LRB, 7 July). In 1971 I wrote a book about Cornelius Hawkridge, a Hungarian-American who conducted a vendetta against the military and civilian corruption that dogged the American presence in Vietnam. I still have many volumes of corroborative evidence presented to US Senate hearings at the time: Improper Practices, Commodity Import Program, US Foreign Aid, Vietnam; Military Club Fraud and Currency Manipulations etc. They detail the same kinds of practice as Harriman does. The General Accountability Office’s report of May 1967 revealed that the civilian contractor RMK/BRJ could not account for $120m worth of materiel shipped from the US to Vietnam. RMK/BRJ’s name crops up frequently in investigations from the period in connection with the disappearance of huge sums of taxpayers’ money – one reason for this was the company’s gross overcharging for gasoline (Harriman found evidence of the same thing). The acronym stood for Raymond, Morris-Knudsen, Brown, Root and Jones. Much of the current investigation surrounds Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR, which stands for Kellogg, Brown and Root. I have yet to see anyone point out KBR’s genealogical connections.

    A few years ago in Manila I had dinner with John Negroponte when he was still US ambassador there. Later, he would become ambassador to post-Saddam Baghdad and then George W. Bush’s intelligence supremo. He was a Vietnam veteran, and I plied him with questions about the massive corruption during the war. ‘Yes,’ said Negroponte, who had also been involved in the covert funding of the Contras in Nicaragua, ‘we learned an awful lot from that war.’ Foolishly, I took this to imply repentance.

    James Hamilton-Paterson

67. Seattle_Evan Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    Sorry if I’m a bit “unintellectual” for the pitch a show blog, (apologies for no famous writer references). but I am a politial junkie, and an optimist, and a “relatively young person”; and I’d like to see a show on how to shift the poltical thinking, talking, and doing in this country from short term mode to long term? This is an ongoing problem manifested often at the national level, but one that is particularly pertinent right now even in the local sphere, as manifested in Seattle’s local political struggle with what to do with our waterfront freeway. That conversation is all about short term cost and inconveneince, and not about long term benefits and possibilities. Don’t just identify the problem either – I want to know what the experts think we should do about the problem – how do we SHIFT THE PARADIGM!

    thanks! Evan B

68. faithandreason Says:
    January 16th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

    Katherine:

    The new angle on elitism in America is that while theories of race and class have been with us since Plato and earlier, the new fandagled internet era is helping us visualize the pockets within which elitism hides. The series on race and class sprung out of real visions of post-Katrina New Orleans, and laid bare the “two Americas” that brought John Edwards to the 9th Ward to announce his candidacy.

    In another way, the internet is doing more to make available information on what may be one version of the modern elite.

    http://www.theyrule.net is a chilling (but fun) exploration of the network of interconnections linking the corporate boards in America with major institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University. On its own it gets people talking, in my experience.

    At the same time, groups such as the Center for Responsive Politics has made searching for local big money contributors to political campaigns an easy thing. Google Earth has been sprouting posts on the geography of elitism, such as the Bohemian Grove in California.

    Who would be the “champion” for such a show? I would propose G. William Domhoff, sociology professor at UCal-Santa Cruz, who has updated his theories with better technologies… not a perfect champion, and his theories have plenty of holes, but he discusses not just the stratification of society by race and class, but who it is we’re talking about and what are the factors that make them up.

69. Scarequotes Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 3:33 pm

    Skeptics vs. psychics.

    James Randi recently revised the rules of his $1,000,000 Paranormal Challenge. Once, anyone who claimed a paranormal ability could try to claim the money; starting in April, Randi’s foundation will focus on high-profile psychics and specifically target some people (John Edward, Sylvia Browne).

    Apparently Randi always meant for the challenge to take down high-profile spreaders of bunk, rather than delusional no-profile individuals. But it hasn’t really worked to that effect. Why would John Edward risk millions of dollars in revenue to prove his power?

    I read “Randi’s challenge has been a failure” on the Straight Dope Message Board this morning, and I’ve been thinking ever since that it’d make an excellent starting point for a show. After several decades, psychics are no scarcer on the ground than before. Is taking on paranormal claimant’s a sysiphean task?

    Good people to talk to would be Randi, of course, but also some of the great skeptical bloggers out there: Skeptico, the Two Percent Co., or Orac. Or Robert Carroll of The Skeptic’s Dictionary. I’m not well aware of reputable psychics, but I’m sure there are people to talk to.

70. Ben Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 5:41 pm

    5 Minutes to Midnight
    Citing a Second Nuclear Age and adding Global Climate Change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock on January 17, 2007, ahead to 5 minutes to midnight. The clock has been steadily advancing since 1991.

    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded by former Manhattan Project physicists and has campaigned for nuclear disarmament since 1947. There are so many authors, topics, and places for elaboration and departure in the announcement and the new issue of the Bulletin I’m not sure exactly where to aim a tightly themed show suggestion. There was a question inside the issue asking whether the scientific vision of an impending doomsday has stripped us of hope that seems worth leading from. It’s countered by a shorter piece on 21st century technologies being solid grounds for optimism.

71. Sosa Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    How about a show on “Open Source Intelligence” which is the government’s use of pubicly available information (the internet, commercial databases, blogs, wikis, radio, TV, etc.) for intelligence purposes. I find this very interesting because it seems to indicate that the U.S. intelligence community has failed in its traditional espionage efforts. To answer the question of why now, I think given the recent appointment of a new Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell who was involved with the Department of Defense’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) project which raised the hackles of civil libertarians and Congress, it might be a timely topic. I also understand the DNI has appointed a senior intelligence officer to oversee open source intelligence and created a new Open Source Center at the CIA.

    Links include:
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-01-04-mcconnell_x.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_intelligence
    http://www.gcn.com/print/25_6/40152-1.html
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/10/eveningnews/main1198667.shtml (article and interview about the new Open Source Center at CIA)

    Possible guests include:
    DNI Appointee – Admiral Mike McConnell
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_McConnell
    Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source – Eliot A. Jardines
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_A._Jardines
    Congressman Rob Simmons
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Simmons
    Former Asst. CIA Director – Mark Lowenthal
    http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/h032005.html

72. AlexanderBArredondo Says:
    January 17th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Massachusetts activism is alive and well…From raging grannies to Gold Star and Military families to vets against the war….check out work done by http://www.peopleunited4peace.org

73. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
    January 18th, 2007 at 3:50 am

    How to Delevitate Beyond Hegemony

74. faithandreason Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    I second Sosa’s suggestion on open source intelligence… one think I would like to add is the possibility that intelligence today may be less about what data you gather than how you analyze it, and the country with the fastest computer wins! Social networking analysis is letting the NSA’s program of obtaining call records from major phone companies (but for brave Quest) guess what your intentions are, not by what you say on the phone but by statistically grouping you with people you phone… better not call Quetta, Pakistan! Statistical techniques like singlular value decomposition and its nephews on crack, postively-constrained matrix factorization (PMF), latent class modeling, structural equation modeling, and their friends let the government do facial recognition, voice recognition, gait analysis, etc. If you ever watch the CBS show “Numbers,” you’ll see a layperson’s description of what I’m talking about within a few episodes.

    My suggestions for guests:
    Kevin Bankston, Staff Attorney, or Cindy Cohn, Legal Director, for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org);
    Mark Rotterberg, Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC);
    Fernanda Viégas, MIT investigator of the “Blogger’s Expectations of Privacy” report.

75. drpeacerose Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    I’d love to hear a discussion about how the idea of groupthink might relate to what is going on in the Bush Administration. I am bewildered how can a small group of people in power (at this point it seems like hardly more than a handful) can be so focused on their particular perspective that nearly everyone else, not only in this country, but, indeed, in the whole WORLD can see that their actions are crazy, and yet they are so entrenched in their perspective that they seem unable to change their course and their minds. It seems like some kind of group paranoia is becoming a self fulfilling prophesy that is making the world a frighteningly dangerous place.
    The term Groupthink was originally coined by William Whyte of Fortune Magazine, in 1952. He defined it as a level of conformity that goes far beyond “normal” conformity to group norms. He described it as a “rationalized” conformity to an open, articulate philosophy which holds that group values are not only expedient but right and good as well. He said that when engaging in groupthink, members go along with what they believe is the consensus. Groupthink can cause groups to make irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance. Irving Janis, of Yale, developed an extensive theory of groupthink. He described it as a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group and the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action. He felt that highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink. The group isolates itself from outside experts and the closer they are, the less likely they are to raise questions to break the cohesion. Does this sound familiar?
    Several political incidents of the 20th Century have been described as possible cases of groupthink. The one I see as most like what we are now dealing with, in terms of the level of dangerousness to the world, was the state of mind within the Kennedy Administration during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Although, in retrospect, it was clear to many that the plan was fatally flawed from the beginning, no one within the administration spoke out against the plan. Kennedy’s top group of advisers fit every one of the main causes of groupthink. They had all been educated in the country’s top universities, causing them to become a very cohesive group. They were also all afraid of speaking out against the plan, because they did not want to upset the president. The President’s brother, Robert Kennedy, took on the role of a mind guard, telling dissenters that it was a waste of their time, because the President had already made up his mind. [I borrow from Wikipedia here, so feel free to correct my facts]
    A discussion of the Bush Administration polices, in light of the idea of groupthink, might be enlightening…or at least interesting.

76. Greta Says:
    January 19th, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    From Tuesday, the 16th:

    Krusty, we’ve had the alternate 9/11 theories show pitched a few times before, and we’ve never gone for it. Chris once spent a rare free afternoon watching one of the documentaries (I’m sorry that I can’t tell you which one, and also sorry to lump them all together), but we decided we didn’t buy it as a show.

    disgruntled, could you send a link to help us pursue web-skimming? I’m not sure if there’s a show there or a feature, but it does sound interesting. I’d also love to hear your ‘confessions of an economic hitman’ if you have good stories yourself. (greta radioopensource org)

    hurley, thanks.

    Seattle_Evan, we welcome you to the pitch thread with open arms. We love doing high-concept shows, but I think your short term/long term politics show might be too high-concept, even for us. I’ll mention it in Monday’s meeting and see what everybody thinks.

77. interstitial Says:
    January 21st, 2007 at 12:19 pm

    First off – I just discovered this program a short while ago and having been devouring the most recent podcasts. It’s fantastic listening.

    Now, for the point of my post – I was listening to the show on micromanagement vs. oversight and was struck, not so much by the arguments, but the styles of argumentation used by the guests: Dr. Rudalevige and Dr. Turner. Whereas Dr. Rudalevige seemed to be making short arguments based on logic, and frequently agreeing with Dr. Turner, the latter seemed more interested in making appeals to emotion/morals and somewhat rambling arguments about history that seemed to evade the actual point at hand. (Now, I’m not interested in making ad hominem attacks, merely pointing out some differences. I readily concede that I tended to agree with Dr. Rudalevige, who represented more of a “liberal” position, skeptical of the war and president Bush – so perhaps I’m biased in this regard.) Dr. Turner even expressed surprise at how often Dr. Rudalevige agreed with him – which, to me, indicated that it wasn’t so much that he was surprised by the logic of the arguments themselves, but by the fact that Dr. R wasn’t playing the game according to the rules as he understood them: that is, adamantly disagreeing on all points, consistently distancing himself from his opponent.

    What this made me think about is the limits of discourse. We are all familiar with the often adversarial style of the current administration’s press briefings, debate in Congress and rapid-fire Sunday morning talk shows, wherein few questions are innocent and most sides seem interested only in trumpeting their own point of view, not in arriving at some kind of consensus or revealed truth between the two (or more) competing versions on offer. Is this real discourse?

    It seems that this program itself is based on the enlightenment ideal that a diverse collection of voices, each responding to the other, can arrive at some kind of worthwhile truth, to the benefit of all. The reason we listen to other people, according to this logic, is not because we just want to be informed about what they think, but because, through deliberation and argument, their point of view will strengthen our own. But is this ideal achievable in reality? Is it necessary or even desirable?

    Now, I realize this is an issue that the producers of ROS have most likely thought about once or twice, and may be a little too high concept or “meta-” to be a show topic, but it seemed to me to be relevant to Sutter’s earlier comments about institutionalized dissent (a fascinating topic on its own).

78. David Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 am

    Interstitial: First off, great name! Secondly, I agree with a lot of what you write, including the last worry. A whole hour devoted to talking about the best way society should talk things out? It does sound too high-concept or, yes, as we say often around here, “meta.” Anyway, to the extent that we do live up to your enlightenment ideal — and, admittedly, some days are better than others — we’d rather show than tell.

79. danielsomers Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm

    A show on the deeper, historicla roots of Iraq and the Middle East (perhaps already covered?) or better yet, on why and how and to what effect we FORGET that background in our daily discussions.

    Ted Rall had a column recently in which he reminded us that Sadam notified the state dept. of his intention to invade Kuwait because they had been drilling diagonally and tapping into Iraqi oil. He was given essentially a green light. I have always been unclear on the accuracy of this interpretation, but, if true (and Rall is pretty reliable, I think) it is a very important reminder. If we add that to our earlier meddling in Iraqi government and support of sadam, and the sanctions imposed after the first war and their effects on iraqi society at large, and then pile on the current situation, the implications of our involvement beome far, far worse than we tend to think–and that is bad enough already. Then of course we can take a large part of the responsibility for Iran’s current state, having overthrown their democratic government and installed the Shah. Add our propping up of the Saudi regime…

    None of this is entirely new, but of course it is all consistently downplayed. The power of the dominant (false) discourse on the middle east becomes especially clear when skeptical people like me, and, i would say, thoughtful programs like Open Source, somehow loose sight of it. We know it, but it slips quietly into the background amidst the constant din of more superficial but immediately compelling discussion. As I write this, it seems that the topic for a show might not be so much what I described in the first paragraph, but this process of forgetting (or backgrounding) what we know. And that process, as it happens among people who do know, of course, leads to the larger mass of people, who depend on mainstream outlets, never knowing at all.

80. Katherine Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    faithandreason: We’ve actually tried two separate times to put together an hour on open-source intelligence, but for some reason we never found quite the traction we needed. It’s definitely interesting, though, and I’ll pitch it again.

    drpeacerose: It’s certainly an intriguing question, but unless you could suggest a guest who’s been a real insider in the Bush Administration and who wants to make the case for groupthink, it feels like it might be a little too much in the realm of conjecture.

81. lhall Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 2:07 pm

    Is it possible to locate a man, given only his photograph and first name?

    A UK games company is testing the power of the Internet by asking that very question; they have recruited one of Earth’s 6 billion residents – a man named Satoshi – to participate in this experiment.

    We are each only five to seven people away from any target in the world. Someone, somewhere, knows Satoshi — so we must track these people, and thus Satoshi, down using word-of-mouth communication. People from over 40 countries are already participating in the hunt, with more joining every day.

    Visit FindSatoshi.com for more information, or write to findsatoshi@gmail.com.

    This project was recently featured on Neatorama (http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/19/find-satoshi/) and made it to the front page of Digg (http://digg.com/gaming_news/Is_it_possible_to_locate_a_man_given_only_his_photograph_and_first_name).

82. nother Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    I have a pitch that incorporates politics and poetry, hip-hop and hope; a pitch that makes connections and then blows those connections to smithereens.

    I’m pitching for a show with the spoken word artist Saul Williams. He is performing at Bridgewater state college on February 10, so maybe you can get him in studio.

    Would love to hear a conversation with him that incorporated performance.

    He is involved with the “Not in our name” project he helped write the pledge.
    Performing the pledge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_cN5kxQgI0&NR

    Here is a interview

    Check this out:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7NikU7ZvhU

    Great music video!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ_cT8anP20

    raps from a jail cell with a real prisoner:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vapwh7HCBU

83. Sutter Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    Robin, sorry to take so long to respond (I don’t regularly check this chain). I wasn’t envisioning a pro/con show about dissent, but rather a show about how institutional dissent can be promoted. We all agree on the value of dissent in theory, but we really don’t care much for dissenters “in the event.” The dissenter is the gadfly, or the squeaky wheel — the one who wishes to stop that which the rest (or most of them) want to do. (The term “whistleblower” has some positive connotations, but mostly because the word itself presumes that the whistleblower is “right,” and that the activity complained of is wrong.) Given this, how can we design institutions — political, corporate, and so forth — to ensure that dissent is promoted and is heard without adverse consequence to the dissenter? Who in the current administration, or within Enron, or in the Red Cross or Amnesty International for that matter, is paid to criticize the organization’s approach and to raise concerns? And who among them is paid more, or promoted, or otherwise recognized for being especially aggressive? Is the tension between the organization and dissent so strong that institutionalized dissent can’t work?

    One reason it might be hard to conceptualize this problem is that the type of person likely to read this thread is likely to work in a particularly “enlightened” setting. But not all work settings are like this, as is evidenced by repeated scandals and missteps in all sorts of organizations. My interest is in making organizations better and promoting that which will necessarily make the powers that be somewhat queasy.

84. Sutter Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    I’ve also been thinking about a show on Clifford Geertz. Geertz, one of the most important anthropologists of the 20th century, died in late October. I’m not an anthropologist, but his work (to which I had some limited exposure in college) influenced me a good deal. On several occasions here, I have commented on the importance of understanding the complexities of a given culture, a given set of referants, etc., and the foolishness of theories that attempt to abstract away from the particulars. I think that comes from Geertz. I know there’s a show in here… perhaps I need to flesh it out more. (But in the meantime, you ROS folks should march down the The Harvard Bookstore and buy a copy of “The Interpretation of Cultures”!)

85. Sutter Says:
    January 22nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    Some background on Geertz:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/obituaries/01geertz.html?ei=5070&en=57ea1f7385e21f20&ex=1169528400&pagewanted=print

    http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article1951236.ece

    http://conservationfinance.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/clifford-geertz-obituary/

    http://chronicle.com/news/article/1221/clifford-geertz-1926-2006

    http://www.acls.org/op45geer.htm

86. aido c Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 4:29 am

    The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
    Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. © 2005 defines a Sociopath as…

    Someone whose social behavior is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.

    Listening to your show on the body count in Iraq, its staggering the scale of destruction that this pre-emptive war of choice has achieved. Given that this war was championed by so few, and has certainly benefited some of those personally, and given that we are in the business of redefining it (e.g. Civil War vs. Counter Insurgency), is there now a case for re-labelling this administration as Sociopath rather than just Hawkish/Neoconservative ?

    I would love to see more of your shows visit the psychology of why we do things.

87. BB Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    I think you’ve done poetry in the past, but it bears repeating, doesn’t it? I saw that there’s a big poetry gala at Lincoln Center every year where they get celebrities, artists, politicians, etc., to read their favorite poems. How about something similar on the radio?

88. BB Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    Sorry, meant to say that it should be in April for Poetry Month.

89. Robin Says:
    January 23rd, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    Hi folks. Answering pitches here from Wednesday, January 17.

    Scarequotes, people who care that much about debunking psychics are sort of interesting as characters, cause really, is it *that* important to prove that these people are crazy or charlatans or both? But I can’t envision us devoting an hour to it. Sorry.

    Right when we started producing ROS someone here came up with the idea of doing an “Apocalypse Week,” kind of like what you’re proposing, Ben. Our idea was four shows in a row about all the different greatly feared phenomena that could end life as we know it – global warming, nuclear war, disease, and…something else. The idea never got much further than that, I think in part because we’ve done shows on most of those topics. However, coincidentally, we are planning on doing a show about Utopias and Dystopias. If you can think of ways to fold in some of the interesting questions you’ve seen in the BAS or that you’ve had yourself, that would be awesome and really productive. Also, dunno if you’ve already heard if, but friend of Open Source Sean Cole did a piece about the Doomsday Clock for Weekend America this past week.

    Sosa, I’ll refer you to what Katherine says about the open source intelligence idea. It’s in the “To Pitch” column of our story board right now.

    Hi Alexander, glad to see you’re posting pitches after we spoke to you last week. I think it might be a little soon for more about anti-war activism following our protest show, but if you hear of any specific or fascinating examples of this kind of thing let us know.

90. hurley Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 8:57 am

    Chelsea, I may have folded the WATER proposal into another message. In any case, it’s impossible to over-emphasize the importance of water, no? There’s a telling symetry in that we as human beings and the world around us are both seven-tenths water (Seven Tenths the title of a beautiful book about the ocean(s) by James Hamilton-Paterson). And it is an inescapable fact that water scarcity will influence our lives in ways we’re still struggling to comprehend. I’ve read that both China and India will effectively run out of water within a decade. Imagine the consequences…The Israelis have worked marvels with their concept of “virtual water” (importing water-heavy commodities such as rice), but as I understand it have begun to negate that wisdom by siphoning off the Jordan River for agricultural exports, threatening severe environmental and political consequences. Two examples among many…I was recently in a remote mountain town in southern Italy that had been all but abandoned for lack of water, except by one family that had managed to reclaim it to some small degree by starting a small restaurant catering to anyone who cared to walk two arduous hours up a mountain to eat and drink simple food and wine raised from their terraced plot while looking out over the Mediterranean (that would be me). Anyway, when I asked the mother about the difficulties they faced, water was at the top of the list, she pausing to add that to wash the dishes with the tap running was “a sin against God.” I’m not religious, but I could see her point. Anyway, the subject is limitless, or used to be. If you want to take it up, I’d be happy to join in. In the meantime, a link to a fascinating work-in-progress by the American writer Joseph McElroy (a great guest, in the event):
    http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/criticalecologies/resourceful

91. Potter Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 9:41 am

    I just read the terrific essay on Norman Mailer by Lee Siegel in the NYTimes Book Review. It would be great to discuss the book “The Castle in the Forest” with or without Mailer himself. This is the second mention of Mailer on this page so since Mailer is in the air, a show about Mailer, not just the book- Lee Siegel’s review is really about Mailer and all of his writing- would be wonderful. Please note the great picture of Mailer by Tyler Hicks that appeared on the cover of the NYTimes Book Review at this link:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/books/review/Siegel.t.html

92. Potter Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 9:44 am

    Portrait… it’s a portrait, not a picture.

93. faithandreason Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    Here’s another idea: the new family of the 21st Century!

    As the world has become “globalized,” from the Renaissance on, humanity has had to adjust to families being separated by vast distances.

    My own great-grandparents migrated from Eastern Europe as young single adults on steamers bound for the U.S., forever leaving their families behind. They met in Ohio, and started a family. I grew up never knowing whether I even have any cousins in “the Old Country,” but long to reconnect with my cultural roots.

    In the 21st century, that’s all changed. Indian, Pakistani, and British friends of mine who live state-side still maintain contact with their families back home at least once a week, maybe more. They get together once or twice a year, thanks to the miracle of transcontinental flight. My brother-in-law in Michigan set up a “cradle [web]cam” so his mother in Boston can check up on her new grandbaby any time of day. And I maintain close ties with high school friends in Chicago, Hong Kong, Washington DC, and California through a private e-mail group that’s been running since about 1997.

    In my read, since about 1950, when the telephone and the automobile became widely available, first in the West, and then more broadly, the very definition of family has become mediated by the technologies that make our modern society work. Many modern people still feel the need to see their families on the holidays, yet spend the rest of the year hours away from them. Yet somehow, family abides…

    In my opinion, the global market does a wonderful job of speeding commodities and people around the globe with sometimes milliseconds of contact, mediated by no face-to-face “rich channel” encounters. With reproductive technologies on the rise, research has made it possible that the reproductive function of families goes by the wayside down the road (but let’s remember the Epsilons of Huxley’s Brave New World..!).

    Families, in my opinion, are one of the few things that still keeps us from evaporating as people. Whether bound in biology or in consensual acceptance of another wholly, everyone seems to need a family.

    What is the purpose of families in the modern world? How have the technological changes of the last 10 and 50 years changed families? What about greater acceptance of “alternative” family structures (e.g. gay marriage). With the “reproductive imperative” gone, and mobility faster than it’s ever been, what makes us (if we do) keep coming back?

    Great grist for this particular mill:
    Jodie Foster’s film, “Home for the Holidays.”
    Orson Scott Card’s _Ender’s Game_
    Turgenev’s “Spring Torrents”
    Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”

94. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
    January 24th, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    Just a quick chiming in: I too would love to hear a show on Norman Mailer. Here’s James Walcott’s post regarding Mr. Mailer’s latest: Whacking through the Woods

95. herbert browne Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    It’s been a few years, now, since I called up the School of Business at our local gigantic land-grant University here (near Seattle) and asked if anyone taught a class on the History of Insurance. In my consideration it is (along with organized religion) at the apex of social engineering… no longer something of which the wealthy may avail themselves, but has become more like a public utility- a “must-have” commodity (eg if you want to drive legally, here). Where did it start?.. and how did it happen? Of all the cash-flush industries, insurance and oil are the truly deep pockets. When our local timber giant, Weyerhaeuser, needed cash to take down the debt they incurred when buying British Columbia’s largest timber corp, they sold something like a quarter-million acres of timberland to a branch of Hancock, which now has a logging infrastructure, locally. For my own part, I see insurance (&/or the demand that one must have some, in order to pursue some activity) as both a drag on the entrepeneurial spirit & a barrier to many community activities, especially those undertaken by the poor. How did this happen? Who gains.. and who loses? Is it part of some ideology that we must all strive to leave our progeny, our genes, our family name, etc in some position of power in the future? If so, to what end? Is unbuffered risk such a terrible thing?.. or are we failing to allow our society the full range of experience, in a similar way that we disallow the development of immune systems in our young by depriving them of any contact with the soil? How are we subsidizing the insurance industries, in their various guises and pursuits? Whither insurance… and Why?
    If I were to recommend speakers, I’d like the same line-up that I’d like to see at the WTO, ie an anthropologist, an ethicist, and an economist… and maybe a Benedictine monk (since I saw somewhere that this insurance bizness may have started with THEM)… what say? ^..^

96. herbert browne Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

    What?? Did I say “ethicist?” I meant “ecologist”/// It’s so easy to forget that our lives depend upon the health f other creatures, sometimes… & that, when it’s “all about people,” that an intrinsic part is missing- our support system. ^..^

97. journeyingboy Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

    2007- 400th Anniversary of Monteverdi’s Orfeo and (arguably) the birth of Opera. Opera companies around the world are presenting their own tributes to this historic musical drama. Check out the Orfeo blog for Opera North in England:
    http://theorfeoblog.typepad.co.uk/orfeo/2007/01/a_serving_of_ri.html

98. mulp Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 8:56 pm

    I have been struggling with the counter to the various economic theoristic arguments that say we should consume almost all the oil in the world over a span of just two centuries.

    And this is part of US government policy, in rather odd and perverse corruptions of economic theory. For example, theory says that when the market price for a good declines, the suppliers of that good are discouraged from producing more of the good because it will merely drive the price down. But perversely, the Federal government sold the oil belonging to We the People for a price of effectively zero, in order to promote more oil production, so that the price of oil will be driven further below the cost of production of some of the oil. During the time when the Federal government was encouraging drilling for deep oil in the Gulf of Mexico, stripper wells were being mothballed because the price of the oil from these wells, wells that are decades old, dropped below the cost of trucking the oil to be refined.

    So, I have been trying to figure out the economic logic that says this is totally nuts.

    I have also realized that the reason so much stuff is shipped from China where the raw materials have been shipped from the US is that the cost of oil is so low that it makes sense to ship tons of goods thousands of miles in order to save a few cents in the cost of transforming them into finished goods. Of course, one mantra of the economists is “we must have free trade because everyone benefits!”

    Ok, here’s my thought.

    What if we could trade, not only in space, but also in time. What if we can trade between centuries just like we trade between continents?

    Imagine if we could trade $50 a barrel oil today with renewable energy technology in 2050, and in return, we give them oil for the same price we pay today.

    What I am asking is whether it shouldn’t be an economic principle or objective to conclude that Hotelling’s Rule is not the optimal outcome for the world’s economy. Hotelling theorized that the price of depletable resources will slowly rise over time, with the price of the cheapest slowly rising to match the price of the next most expensive, and so on to infinity when clearly the economy will have substituted a renewable resource for the finite resources.

    The most common argument for free market capitalism (whatever that is) is “the rising tide lifts all boats.” In other words, while the gap between individuals in the society might widen significantly, the poorest and most disadvantaged will be better off then before he benefits from unbridled capitalism.

    Ok, then the best economic minds, as far as I can tell, argue that unbridled capitalism with regard to finite resources, like oil, will “raise all boats” but this time, the “boats” are the cost of energy. Are you reassured by “don’t worry, while our energy policies are going to ensure that our unborn grandchildren will pay a lot more for a gallon of gas in real terms, the grandkids of the poor are are going to pay relatively more for a gallon of gasoline.”

    Anyway, if it is a virtue to have governments entering into NAFTA style agreements to promote trade between regions, why shouldn’t government enter into agreements to trade between generations, with the current generation having nothing to offer those now dead, and likewise, they can’t respond in kind, so we need to look to the future generations. While it might seem impossible, I believe that we can construct a market mechnism to approximate it. At the first order, what if we taxed all the oil the US uses today no matter what form it enters the US – if a barrel of oil was used to make that TV in China, then the tax on a barrel of oil would be imposed on the TV on import – and then we use that money to construct a larger capital base that we pass on to our children and grandchildren. In exchange, these future generations take care of us when we are old. Of course, they will want to make the same deal with their children and grandchildren.

    I don’t have a clue who can talk about this – the response I’ve gotten from several “professional” “economist” is “you are totally lost and clueless, with one notable economist telling me that “you just don’t understand the oil business” when I observed that no one produces oil, they merely extract it – all oil was produced over millions of years by nature, or maybe God, but it was certainly never produced by man.

99. hilde Says:
    January 25th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    THE COMING INVESTIGATIONS. The Democrats took power with the promise of accountability and answers. The hearings will soon begin.

    Questions: What will they investigate? Will they dig deep, looking for the real discontent behind the “wrong track” numbers for this Administration, or will they pull their punches, anticipating the next election cycle?

    Will they question the war in Iraq only, or will they dig into the whole Orwelllian premise that we’re in a permanent war against Terror?

    Will the runaway giveaways to corporations be rooted out, or will just the Republican baddies be spanked? Where is campaign finance and real accountability headed? Will Fred Wertheimer and Bill Moyers and Ralph Nader be satisfied with inquiries and reforms?

    Will we find out what was in the Cheney energy bill or will the deals made then be forever shrouded?

    And finally, what about all the classification of documents that this Administration has accelerated? Will future historians EVER figure out what went on in this, and recent, Adminitrations?

    David in Denver

100. Forton Twelve Says:
     January 25th, 2007 at 11:18 pm

     In his last two addresses to the nation, President Bush has indicated a desire to get more civilian involvement in missions abroad:

     January 10 Speech to the nation regarding military strategy in the Middle East:

     “…we also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas – where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny. …”

     January 23 State of the Union Speech:

     “… A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time. …”

     This is the first I’ve heard of this – and the President’s language is vague: Would the corps provide advisors to business and industry of an occupied country? Or administrative expertise? or soldiers? — and so I’m wondering what the President envisions.

     I found a “CRS Report for Congress” which seems to address this concept. The title is “Peacekeeping and Conflict Transitions: Background and Congressional Action on Civilian Capabilities”. The report is online at:
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32862.pdf

     The Report indicates that a fair amount of thought that has been put into this by the White House and Congress over the past few years. By one reading it describes a paramilitary constabulary force (with a judicial component) organized under the jurisdiction of the State Department (not the Department of Defense). Size of force will probably be contingent on size of the country being controlled. The plan is not specific to Iraq – the Report implies that this sort of force will be needed for a number of conflicts to come. The CRS Report references a BearingPoint study which has developed a preliminary outline of the new force including training, length of service requirements, benefits and salary, and overall program costs.

     There’s alot of interesting implications here – it would be good to hear some more insights -maybe you know someone who could shed some light.

     Thank you for your excellent work!

101. emmettoconnell Says:
     January 25th, 2007 at 11:44 pm

     I really enjoyed the series last fall that covered hotspots in the congressional races. Actually, I’d say I miss it now. Those shows were classics, especially the way your brought local bloggers to the front of the conversation. Dee Vantuyl, though I disagree with her (a lot) was a great guest during the Missouri show.

     In the spirit of those shows, I’d like you to take a look at MassInc’s Ten Regions of US Politics. Given the long window between now and the next election, I could see a slow roll out of shows, covering each of the ten region between now and this time next year when the primaries kick up.

     Thomas F. Schaller in Whistling Past Dixie has put the idea of political regionalism front a center in the conversation, why not dig deeper?

102. hurley Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 2:32 pm

     IMPEACHMENT: Forgive me for continuing to nudge you, if ever so discretly:
     http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0126-25.htm
     No need to respond until the answer is YES!

103. Chelsea Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

     herbert browne: I’d like to find someone who can talk about the History of Insurance too. I’m researching a show on how the insurance industry is thwarting any chance of growth along the Gulf Coast. After we do this show maybe we’ll feel the need to further explore the insurance industry.

     journeyingboy: I suggested your suggestion in a story meeting and I’m a fraid to say it did not receive a standing ovation. But please keep these music pitches coming.

     Forton Twelve: Katherine is researching a show that in many ways addresses some of the points you make re: civilians doing their share abroad. Stay tuned.

104. Sutter Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

     PLNelson’s recent post in the Utopia thread (http://www.radioopensource.org/the-history-of-utopia/#comment-41200) reminded me that there may be a show in the changing face of retirement. They say the boomers will change the meaning of the word, and by the time I am there, we’ll be needing to work far later into our lives to pay the bills. In any event, though, maybe it’s just that it’s easy for me to say this at 34, but I don’t really see myself retreating into the gated Florida community in which my grandfather lives, and many of my peers seem to agree. We’re envisioning part-time work, or volunteerism, or teaching, and we’re thinking about university towns, which offer classes and culture and (not incidentally) good doctors.

     Where is retirement going? How is it changing? And what are the implications?

105. sana Says:
     January 26th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

     mcasemo -Some further thoughts on issues for port cities include -
     need for solutions to the lack of inspection of cargo entering US,
     anticipated new or enhanced sea routes complete with new port cities on thawing waterways (russia, canada, northwest passage?),
     the near-transfer by the Bush administration of a US port to foreign control,
     the impact of new docks built for cruise lines on local pollution and strain on public services in the cities where they cruise and dock (first-hand observation from Seattle!),
     beautification and gentrification replacing working waterfront, and
     privitization of domestic transport of military cargo.

106. herbert browne Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 3:09 am

     To sana’s observations about port cities I’d include: a look into “invasive” species, plants and animals, that can cause enormous economic & environmental damage (see some reports from APHIS); the destruction/conversion of former farmland around growing ports, because of a need for warehouse space (& places to pile empty containers); and the yearly flap as a gaggle or two of Asian “immigrants” climb out of containerized freight. (Is Seattle the only place these things are going on? i doubt it…)

     To chelsea, re Insurance: another interesting aspect might be a comparison of “no-fault” auto insurance with the “traditional” variety. I saw a news item (from Vacouver, BC) a few years ago that reported provincial drivers were going to get a rebate on their “province-issued, single-payer, no-fault auto insurance” because the driving of the citizens there had exceeded the positive expectations of the actuaries… and so they were getting refunds!
     (and, if this can take place next door, why not here, in the former “Soviet of Washington”?) ^..^

107. Sir Otto Says:
     January 27th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

     The Mediated Life, TV, computer, radio, Ipod, vs the Unmediated
     Life, feeding the birds, working in the garden, breathing. I don’t know if there’s enough for a show here, and it may have been done before, but it sure is a fact that most of our lives, and the greater percentage of each individual life is mediated via electronics and “real life” is becoming rare.

108. sidewalker Says:
     January 28th, 2007 at 10:25 pm

     I was looking at the NY Times site today and saw that the most emailed story was:

     Unhappy Meals
     By MICHAEL POLLAN
     Published: January 28, 2007

     Michael Pollan, a contributing writer, is the Knight professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” was chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2006.

     The title is, of course, mouth-watering for the anti-MacD crowd, of which I include myself. But in fact, the 12 page article does not dine on that provocative old morsel. Rather, it is about the ideology of nutritionalism and the science, politics and journalism wrapped up (to go) in this.

     It starts out with some very simple folk wisdom. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Funny thing is my mother, who was a home economist –> nutritionist during her career always gave us the same advice growing up. Especially when she served a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

     I try to follow mom’s advice and living in Japan makes this much easier since the traditional diet (now disappearing) contains so many varieties of plants and smaller portions of fat and carbohydrates.

     But I wonder why so many people, including the youth of Japan and now the French, opt for the industrial diet? Is it our belief in scientific engineering? Is it poor public policy tied to the power of lobby groups? Is it economies of scale and overproduction? Is it advertising? Is it our fast-paced lifestyle? Is it a lack of alternatives? Probably all of the above and more. Also, what are viable counter movement, such as organics (though that has now become big business)?

     Michael Pollan’s article offers some answers and I think his insights and those of someone with knowledge about the business and marketing of processed “food” and someone else grounded in alternatives could make for an interesting hour.

     Better yet, what about a new series on Food and include nutritionalism as one show?

     and the last word goes to comedian Dennis Miller:
     “You’ve got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in 7-Eleven okay?”

109. sidewalker Says:
     January 28th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

     I want to second Sutter’s pitch for a show on Geertz. He helped us better understand our own and other cultures and the ethnographic endeavor itself.

110. orangescissor Says:
     January 29th, 2007 at 1:02 am

     Pitch a show: Tiger Woods 2.0 an American Dream?

     Earlier today Tiger Woods won his 7th straight PGA Tour title, leaving him second to Byron Nelson’s record 11 consecutive wins in 1945. The 7th Victory also eclipses his personal best that ended in 2000 and in the process of returning to levels of previous dominance, he is exhibiting a slightly matured game that was showcased in his British Open win when he used his driver only once. In his last major championship, the PGA, Tiger also surpassed Walter Hagen’s mark of 11 Major titles, leaving him second to only Jack Nicklaus in career majors.

     In between the two streaks, Tiger Wood’s life has changed dramatically. In his personal life, Tiger’s got married, his father passed away and just recently announced that he is expecting a child. In his golf life he lost and regained number 1 ranked status, changed swing coaches, equipment and his swing. In his public life, Tiger was heavily criticized for some of the changes he made but is now is being hailed as the best ever by many journalists, recently opened the Tiger Woods Learning Center, signed a contract extension with NIke, and designed his first golf course in Dubai.

     I think that it would be interesting for Open Source to discuss the transformation of one of America’s most public figures. How is this new Tiger that we are seeing different than the younger Tiger that grew up in the national spotlight? I would also think that it would be interesting to discuss the topic with regards to the question: where is Tiger on his journey to achieve the American Dream? In other words, what is next for this intriguing American who has matured in the national spotlight deftly handling fans and critics alike? Furthermore, in Tiger’s run to the American Dream, has an understanding of the idea changed? In this respect, I would maybe try to contrast him with other figures like Oprah Winfrey and Barak Obama–hopefully considering the racial, social and political differences between these Americans. [maybe listeners can suggest others to include in the list]. Finally, it would be interesting to put aside the 2.0 Tiger discussion for a second and debate how Tiger is unique both then and now.
     I apologize that this though has become so long and am interested to here what others think about this thread. Thanks for reading.

111. zeke Says:
     January 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am

     Does Father Drinan’s death yesterday provide an opportunity for a show that would be both topical and braoder than the headlines. I was surprised to learn that he had proposed impeachment for Nixon a year before Watergate on the grounds of his “crimes” in Cambodia. And I was also struck by Tip O’Neill’s response that “Morally he had a good case. But politically he almost blew it.”

     The title of his book “Can God and Caesar Coexist? Balancing Religious Freedom and International Law” (2005) suggests one frame to hang a show on. His self description as a “moral architect” another. What are today’s today’s “moral architects” doing?

112. mynocturama Says:
     January 29th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

     God is here on earth, and his name is Roger Federer. Please do a show on this current manifestation of the deity.

     Reason #1: He represents athletic and aesthetic perfection.

     Reason #2: It’ll make me happy. And isn’t that reason enough?

113. hurley Says:
     January 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm

     You beat me to it, mynocturama. He makes me happy, too. His destruction of Roddick one of the greatest athletic performances I’ve seen, inspiring even a bit of pity for Roddick as he approached the net, black feathers protruding every which way from his trash-talking mouth.

114. Alexandre Enkerli Says:
     January 29th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

     Suggestions: Open Access.

     The Hook: high profile international petition (with U.S. equivalent and precedent)
     Possible guests: Stevan Harnad, Peter Banks, John Cornyn, etc.
     Elements of a rationale: “Open Source” angle, policy issue, link to academic community, U.S. “access to information” ideology, Public Health, self-help, emerging economies, critical thinking, growth in consciousness, public knowledge…
     Caveats: pressure from publishing industry, tendency for divisive debate, possible “Ivory Tower” obscure speech, lack of “cult of personality” factor.

     Chelsea, or anybody else in charge of those topics: if you need help pitching this, please feel free to contact me or any other OA enthusiast. There are many of us around and the changes are happening right now.

115. herbert browne Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 5:17 am

     I support an Open Access show, as well… as it seems that, with the growing quantities of info available, the quality stuff is becoming hard to find, &/or expensive, &/or secret. One angle to this might be an examination of why the EPA just decided to close its 3 MidWest branches- North to South- while promising that all the data that’s being boxed up & hauled back to DC will eventually be put “on the ‘net”… Well- aren’t the people at those regional libraries capable of data entry?.. especially when it’s data that they may know personally? (& more…)

     One more thing: as a component of a “words ‘n Language” show, I plump for some time spent with the (alleged) Advent of “Homonym Nation.” It seems as if spell-checker has done for true word comprehension what the calculator did for the arithmetic skills of a nation- ie they’re going the way of the slide-rule… ^..^

116. emmettoconnell Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 10:26 am

     I know I’m pitching shows left and right here, but I ran into this piece from a reference on the Open Democracy podcast.

     Leg Drain is a similar phenomena to Brain Drain in that many poor countries lose their football stars in the same way that they lose their science and technology stars. But, in international football there is a way for countries to benefit from the experience their stars are getting overseas, eventually lifting all boats.

117. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

     Andrew Romanoff: Shrinky Dink autobiography tells storybook life of Russian prince in Inverness

118. nother Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

     Put your money where your mouth is. There is no shortage of doomsayer’s in our society and it’s easy to get weighed down by the din of demise the air.

     I’ve always felt that it’s much easier to be negative than hopeful in our society, so if you feel that strongly about your dire predictions, put your money where your mouth is at longbets

     Of course, my pitch originated from the article in the Times today called Can Humanity Survive? Want to Bet on It?

     The article references this guy Dr. Martin Rees who in his book, “Our Final Hour” gives civilization no more than a 50 percent chance of surviving until 2100.

119. thomas Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 2:33 pm

     Will morality emerge out of science?

     1. Today, I came across Steven Pinker’s article about the mystery of consciousness.

     Here is Pinker’s view: MY OWN VIEW IS: the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul…The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.

     2. I am currently reading Paul Farmer’s forceful book “Pathologies of Power.” Farmer, the influential, and also Harvard educated, physician points to what he calls “structural violence,” which influences “the nature and distribution of extreme suffering.” He is writing to explain, “a physician-anthropologist’s effort to reveal the ways in which the most basic right—the right to survive—is trampled in an age of great affluence.”

     But Farmer does not attribute his empathy for the poor to biological training at Harvard Medical School. Farmer acknowledges the moral influence of the Latin American primarily Catholic theology: liberation theology. Proponents of liberation theology have argued that people of faith, people interested in human solidarity, must make a preferential option for the poor. Farmer affirms, “liberation theology has been one of my intellectual resources…It adds this constant interrogation: how is this relevant to the suffering of the poor and to the relief of that suffering?”

     Here is Farmer’s view:
     Farmer adds “it is my belief that the liberation theologians, in advocating preferential treatment of the poor, offer those concerned with human rights a moral compass for future action.”

     So, the show I am suggesting is: how is modern science, a comparatively young metaphysical worldview, evolving a morality?

     Paul Farmer’s example suggests we might have an alternative to the science/religion impasse. So, this topic is a unique frame on the age old question: can science and religion coexist?

120. thomas Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

     I meant to add,

     Pinker is suggesting that as our understanding of the biological similarities continues to evolve, we will have a sounder basis for morality. Where finally do we locate the impetus for action, from acting on our intuition that we share common capacity to suffer?

121. Andrew Kinney Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

     What is the soundtrack for the Iraq War? NPR asked this question today and Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post (author of the recent Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq) attempted an answer (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7064853). Ricks’ soundtrack is Josh Ritter’s “Girl in the War” (from Animal Years). Later a caller suggested Tom Waits’ 2004 song “The Day After Tomorrow” from Blood Money, which surely is a strong candidate, too. I would hasten to suggest others, such as M. Ward’s “Post-War” or (my personal favorite) TV on the Radio’s “I Was a Lover.”
     Questions to ponder may include: why haven’t we heard more anti-war anthems? Why are so many of these songs couched in the language of the love song? Do these songs (or others like them) capture the current American zeitgeist? Or, am I all alone out here?
     I don’t suppose Andrew Ross and Paul McCartney are available for interview?

122. Scarequotes Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 3:25 pm

     What does information want?

     We’ve probably all heard the saying “Information wants to be free.” Turns out Stewart Brand, who coined the phrase, had a little more to say about that:
     

     On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

     Opponents of digital rights management and people who want to reform copyright law tend to focus on the free side of the equation. DRM holders and copyright enforcers tend to focus on the expensive side of the equation.

     Where’s the compromise? What is information worth, to whom? How free should information be?

     It’d be interesting to talk to Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing.net — he’s a great voice in the anti-DRM camp. Beyond that, I’m not sure who to talk to — but even if this isn’t the approach you take, I’d be interested in a program about copyright and DRM and whether or not Apple’s iPod is trying to reign in something that should be unreignable, or successfully straddles a middle ground that’s been hard to find.

123. J.Daniel Lindley Says:
     January 30th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

     I’m new at this. My idea for a show is the purchase of WLVI by Sunbeam and WGBH. My wife and I watched the Ten O’Clock News faithfully. We liked the team and the in-depth treatment they gave local stories in the one hour format. Apparently, the ratings were low. We seldom watched Channel 7 because of the sensationalist approach the self-styled “News Station” gives to the news. Now, with Frances Rivera, the ten p.m. news cast selects the most sensational stories from across the country and around the world and thrusts them in your face. The spontaneous “happy talk” comes across as completely scripted. My concern is that what is “news” and what is considered newsworthy is being selected by some ratings bean-counter on the basis of the “WOW” factor. It seems to me that it does a disservice to the community to shut down an independent voice searching for relevance in the community and to replace it with a formulaic program designed to hold people’s attention so that the advertisers can get at them. I understand that there is a tension between ratings and public service, but is nothing sacred? The news is independently important. It used to have its own ethic. Should we just sit back quietly as it becomes another form of sport or entertainment? Has the world not lost something when searching out and reporting the “truth” is replaced by finding and broadcasting the most sensational stories available, regardless of their information value?
     I took your advice and clicked on Google Blog Search. There appear to be a number of people who commented on the Sunbeam purchase of WLVI and the cavalier dismissal of the entire team. It seems to me that there should be a restraint of trade angle to this story as well. Dan Lindley

124. herbert browne Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 5:04 am

     Ahhh, JDaniel… welcome to the world of “if it bleeds, it leads”- the land of Murdoch, Moonie, and ClearChannel. Somehow this reminded me of a show proposal that I left in another thread- about CEOs, what they do, and why- and my recollection of an interview that the Ford at the helm of FMC gave, a few years ago. He stated, rather apologetically, that, although he knew that SUVs weren’t really a good idea (for any number of reasons), he felt compelled to keep cranking them out because they sold well- and the mark-up was fabulous- and his stockholders were happy with that; and he didn’t feel capable of “educating” them, retooling (& losing some market share & cash flow) to get ready for the “next big thing” (that’s here now: $2.50/gal & hovering). It’d be great to have Mr. Ford, and the mayor of Detroit, maybe, and an UAW functionary, and an economist (a “futurist”- are there any of those left?)… what a fine dull roar that’d be! I’d love a show that deconstructed the World of Arbitrage, as well… ^..^

125. hobie75 Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 2:00 pm

     “If we don’t fight them [the terrorists?, Iraqis?, Muslims?] over there [Iraq], then we will fight them over here [America].” is a phrase I hear frequently and often used in defense of the war in Iraq and staying the course.
     What does this mean?
     Are they talking about fighting in the conventional sense? A siege of Flordia, armies of terrorists storming the Rhode Island shore? Or are we talking about an Israel/Hamas type conflict? Oklahoma City revisited. Suicide bombs in our shopping malls? If they could do this, wouldn’t they have done it by now? Have they tried and failed ala the “shoe bomber”?
     What would that fight look like? World Trade Center 2001 or 1993? How would America respond as a government? As citizens?
     Is this there more to this phrase that the fear that it invokes?

126. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 7:39 pm

     David Maisel

127. mulp Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 8:42 pm

     I’m 59, overweight, family history of premature death from heart disease, eat poorly, sedentary,…

     And most important, I have no kids, no grandkids, no unborn to follow me, in time,….

     As long as the a livable climate lasts for another couple of decades, the environment will seem to me to be in better shape than I am.

     Why should I care about what happens to the oceans, or atmosphere, or climate?

128. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 9:35 pm

     Do we need another Iraq angle? I dunno. This might be interesting Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone

129. patsyb Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 10:37 pm

     Remembering Molly Ivins, smart, sassy, unforgettable.
     Very sad to have lostthat voice today.

130. Sutter Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 10:59 pm

     Yes yes yes — what patsyb said. A show on Molly Ivins should be a no-brainer.

131. Brian Dunbar Says:
     January 31st, 2007 at 11:56 pm

     mulp Why should I care about what happens to the oceans, or atmosphere, or climate?

     Because even if you have no direct descendants what comes after still matters.

     Ever rented a house where the previous tenants were (shall we say) smokers? What about a rental that has a persistent cat urine smell in the corner? The people are long gone, and no kin to you but what they did to the place you now call home matters.

     In Scouts we were made to live by the motto “leave it cleaner than when you arrived” – not a bad mode of thought.

132. hurley Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 7:17 am

     IMPEACHMENT: More links:
     http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0131-25.htm
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5180
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5179

     As above, no need to comment, but I’m still surprised by your reluctance to address the subject.

133. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 12:21 pm

     I’d like to throw my ‘Yea’ vote behind patsyb and Sutter for a Molly Ivins retrospective. No one could whack ‘em upside the head like Molly. The universal entertainment index just dropped a couple points for me.

134. silvio.rabioso Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm

     Expanding from hobie75’s suggestion about the meaning of the phrase “If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them over here”:

     During President GW Bush’s NPR interview with Juan Williams, the commander in chief justified our continued occupation of Iraq with that very logic.

     What about a show on the rhetoric of counter-terrorism?
     An interesting point of comparison could be the recent documentary detailing the Peruvian government’s fight against the Sendero Luminoso, State of Fear. I’m sure the filmmakers would be available for an interview.

     Marc Sageman, author of _Understanding Terror Networks_, might be interesting to talk to.

135. Katherine Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 1:53 pm

     Sutter: The aging boomers no doubt will change the gated Florida vision of retirement. And everything you say about volunteerism and university towns could be interesting. But for this to be anything other than a very straight show (Retirement will change! How will it change?), it would take someone with a great story, a “sermon” as Chris would say. Make sense?

136. Robin Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 3:12 pm

     from Jan 24

     Potter, OCP, hurley and anyone else who’s been craving a Norman Mailer show – it’s is in the works. Chris is in touch with Mailer about going up to Cape Cod to record a show in his home there. So stay tuned! Should be good.

     faithandreason – while this type of subject is technically suited for an hour long talk show, there’s really not anything new or edgy or surprising about that conversation. Even the part about alternative family structures and gay parentage has kind of been covered to death, don’t you think? The one thing that sounds like it could potentially be interesting is the part about the end of the “reproductive imperative,” as you call it. I’m not sure I buy that (there are still an awful lot of people having babies) but if you feel like telling us more about that part or pointing us towards someone who’s talking about it, that would be cool.

     From Jan 31

     herbert browne – I don’t really understand this pitch. It’s a little oblique. It sounds like you want us to talk about what CEOs do and why, but there’s also an element of “why do they make decisions that make sense to their boards but not in the rest of the world.” If you want us to consider a CEO show it would be helpful to spell things out more clearly.

     hobie75 – I agree that this is a claim that’s bandied about as justification for the “War on Terror” without much thought given to what it actually means for us as a country. I’m not sure that there’s a show to do deconstructing it’s literal meaning, because I think the literal meaning is probably more transparent than whether the premise is at all realistic. It seems like the real questions is, have our efforts abroad done anything to make America safer at home?

     In some ways it seems like we tackle this question every time we do a show about Iraq and the far reaching implications for the stability of the Middle East and America’s image abroad. However, there’s something about this question that does resonate to me, so I’ll bring it up in tomorrow’s story meeting and see where it goes.

     David Maisel’s work looks incredible, OCP. Thanks for sharing it. But I’ll ask you the question Mary would ask me if I pitched this show in a story meeting: what is the show for which he is the perfect guest? If you can answer that, then maybe there’s a show to do with him.

     Sounds like an interesting book, OCP. We’ll order it. But what do you think would be the fresh, original Iraq show to do with him?

     patsyb and sutter – I’ll pitch the Molly Ivins show and see if it sticks, but give me some help here. Why is she still relevant and worth of an hour of radio?

137. silvio.rabioso Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 3:29 pm

     Obama to Biden: “Ain’t nobody dope as me, I’m just so fresh so clean.”

     The Hillary show generated a lot of talk about gender roles in politics; after much heated debate, no conclusion seemed to be reached. OCP wanted to expand the scope of the show (even if he was speaking with enraged irony) to include a discussion of race.

     Two recent statements by presidential hopefuls have forced that door open.

     First was Congressman Tancredo’s statement on WNYC that the Congressional Black Caucus is a racist organization that has no place in the US Congress, call-in response segment.

     Then there was Biden’s bomb that caused http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com to revoke his honorary membership. He called Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

     Tancredo’s provocative statement–historically ignorant as it may be–raised questions of how our representational government can best address the racial history of the United States.

     I am not normally one to feign shock at stupid political soundbyte blunders, but pause to consider this…there has NEVER been a black politician/candidate in the US who was ARTICULATE and BRIGHT? Forget about Frederic Douglas, what about Al Sharpton, who shamed the other democratic candidates in the primary debates? NICE LOOKING? I don’t even know what that means. CLEAN? Did Carol Moseley Braun have a hygiene problem I was unaware of?).

     There is a show somewhere in these two comments. Maybe something to do with moving away from ‘gotcha’ racial politics (as in: George Allen…GOTCHA!) and towards promoting candiadates who actually talk TO/FROM/WITH minorities. Maybe about moving the focus away from ‘nailing’ candidates who make blunders that reveal racial blindness and towards actually addressing the issues of race and racism in this country.

138. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 6:18 pm

     Hello Robin, et al. Good questions regarding Iraq/emerald city and David Maisel. Now that you’ve asked them, I think they may fall into the quality-without-a-name category, especially Mr. Maisel’s work. I’ll give it fleshing out and see what happens. In the meantime, I highly recommend viewing Mr. Maisel or reading the aforementioned book.

139. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 6:20 pm

     that last sentence was addressed to all and nobody in particular…glad to see ROS enjoyed Mr. Maisel’s art and are going to order the emerald city book…

140. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 6:25 pm

     I enjoyed and agree with silvio.rabioso’s race and politics pitch btw…

141. Greta Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 7:20 pm

     herbert browne: I still don’t hear the spellchecker show.

     emmettoconnell: Leg drain? Sounds like a sister show to our Japanese baseball show. I’ll read the article.

     OCP: That’s a great profile piece– what a life! I don’t know how we could top it, though. Maybe we should call him the next time we do a Russia show?

     nother: Thanks for the longbets link. Chelsea’s working on a show about the insurance industry post-Katrina. Seems like a feature about people making long term bets about future catastrophes would fit in quite well.

     thomas: Katherine is working on finally bringing the Meaning and Morality show to life– she says the Pinker article and your thoughts will be helpful. As for Paul Farmer, he’s the greatest. As soon as he touches down in the States, his publicist knows to call us.

     Andrew Kinney: We’re not crazy about doing shows that just aired on NPR.

     Scarequotes; Cory Doctorow once came into our offices to pitch a DRM show. I don’t think it ever came to fruition, but David’s working on a show for next week about plagiarism and influence, so maybe this will tie in there.

     J. Daniel Lindley: Welcome! I’ll pitch it in the story meeting and get back to you.

142. Sutter Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 10:46 pm

     Robin,

     We live in an era when progressives’ failures (fewer of late, but the record still isn’t so good) are widely attributed not to the inadequacy of their ideas but to their inability to communicate their message as well as conservatives. We live in an era when the mainstream media is increasingly “embedded” not only in the military but in the establishment and the status quo writ large, increasingly captured by those establishment interests, and increasingly fascinated by process over substance. We live in an era when (as evidenced by the Hillary show) we’re still struggling to work through women’s role in our public life. We live in an era when we’re repeatedly told that dissent is unpatriotic. In light of all thus, I’d say that the burden here lies firmly with those who might suggest that Molly Ivins — articulate, unabashedly independent, female, politically influential, critical Molly Ivins — is or was not still “relevant.” I understand that shows based on a single individual might be hard to pull off (though I still think you all should be reading Geertz), but as I said above, this one is really an easy call.

143. patsyb Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 11:07 pm

     Sutter is right about Molly Ivins.

     A show might be framed around the Art of the Columnist. We rely on the Molly Ivinses of the press to cut through the news of the day. Don’t we need them now more then ever, given how embedded so many others are (as nicelydecsribed by Sutter above)? Their wit, their acute sense of justice and irony, and the sheer power of the Ivins metaphor or quip are nothing if not sobering. All so very relevant. (Suggestion: ask Kate Clinton on the show to discuss Ivins.)

144. patsyb Says:
     February 1st, 2007 at 11:12 pm

     If you’re going to invite Norman Mailer to discuss his new novel, why not introduce Americans to the Franco-American, Jonathan Littell, whose recent novel, Les Bienveillantes, has taken Europe by storm on the very same topic (the Nazi mind).

     See http://www.amazon.com/Bienveillantes-Jonathan-Littell/dp/207078097X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_1_img/104-5038437-4319924

145. nother Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 am

     Hey, I hope you cats know that the master Sonny Rollins is in town on April 4th. PLEASE try to get him in for a conversation at least. He is one of the last originals, dig it!

     It’s like still having a contemporary of Mozart alive. Roy Haynes is in town tomorrow night.

146. gregbillock Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 am

     OK, there’s got to be a show about the Great Boston Lite-Brite Terror Scare of 2007. What a comedown for the most intellectual of American cities. How embarassed you must feel! But it’s a small price to pay for the amazing footage of cops in protective gear blowing up battery-powered LEDs on national TVs while the mayor spouts off about how prepared against terror the city obviously is. The fact that the guy who planted two fake pipe bombs, and that the police “know who he is, but are not charging him” is just too rich for words.

     What do you make of this? Has the post-9/11 fear-gripped society finally gone off the rails? Will the fear of becoming the next laughingstock of the country be more keenly felt than the fear of terrorism? If so, what does that say about our national weakness towards terrorism? Can a country that faced down Hitler be brought to its knees by its own hysteria? Our military may be unbeatable, but as a terrorist, you don’t have to. You can’t even dream this stuff up.

147. katemcshane Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 am

     I’d like to second the requests for shows with Saul Williams and Sonny Rollins. I’m interested in Saul Williams for the language, the politics, and the performance. I’m tired of going to poetry readings where the power seems to have been leeched out of the poem. I listened to a poetry reading recently on Lannan.org by five poets from Cave Canem and all of the poetry was not only beautifully and powerfully written but every poet performed their work in ways that were thrilling!!! Saul Williams embodies the same qualities, even though his writing style is not the same, and I would love to listen to an hour with him.

     Of course, the idea for Sonny Rollins should need no explanation. You should try to get him just for the light it would spread to the Open Source listeners. It did occur to me that Eric Jackson may also have Sonny Rollins on his show, but if not, I’d love to hear Chris in a conversation with Sonny.

148. patsyb Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 am

     Robin,
     Paul Krugman offers help re: the relevance of Molly Ivins. His column in today’s NY Times is precisely about that. In short, the timeliness of her strength in the face of our needs: holding the powerful accountable.

     And, I’d like to second getting to hear Chris and Sonny Rollins chat — voice and music.

149. Scarequotes Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 pm

     Esperanto turned 120 this year, which seems like a great reason to do a show on constructed languages and the people who create them. Their motives range from an idealistic desire to facilitate human communication to a desire to participate in a Star Trek reality to just noodling around.

     A great person to talk to: Mark Rosenfelder, who put together a fascinating Language Construction Kit. I read it a few years ago, and it’s fascinating even if you have no intent to try and create a language.

     Other sources for people to talk to: members of the CONLANG mailing list, or some of the blogs that turn up on a Technorati search for “conlang” — hobbyists!

150. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 6:04 pm

     This might make an interesting framework for discussion: Creative Restraint and Responsibility or influence, ip, and the new-new legacy…anxiety meets ecstasy

151. mcbrush Says:
     February 2nd, 2007 at 10:30 pm

     I am a first year teacher outside of Baltimore, I have used ROS podcasts in my classroom this year when covering Global Warming and the War in Iraq. That said, I would love to see some discussion on education in the United States.

     A Timely Discussion: Last week Buch appealed to Congress on NCLB asking it to “reauthorize this good law.” While the law itself is under review http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/01/16/education.standards.ap/index.html
     And this coming on the heels of a TIME cover story http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html focusing on how we need to rethink our idea of high school as a whole. We have business leaders such as Bill and Melinda Gates calling our high schools obsolete with an administration pushing legislation that reinforces archaic notions of how student achievement should be measured (in a way that lends itself to comparison).

     Educational bloggers http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/a-call-to/ are gearing up to make their voices heard for the upcoming election and may have an ally in Tim Magner, Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the DOE who one blogger notes “is really passionate about starting conversations about different models and different visions for schools.”

     Perhaps a good way into the conversation is to ask what a modern school should look like. The folks at School2.0 will likely have a lot to say on the topic. The School District of Philadelphia opened 4 progressive schools this past fall. One, aptly named “The School of the Future” http://www.microsoft.com/education/schooloffuture.mspx was opened through a partnership (though not monetary) with Microsoft. Another, Science Leadership Acadamy http://www.scienceleadership.org/, is headed by a principal who blogs on progressive education himself http://www.practicaltheory.org/ and has blogged on the topic of School 2.0 http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/747-Some-Thoughts-About-School-2.0-Part-1.html.

     Principals from each school could make for interesting interviews, and if you could land Magner, it would be great to hear how someone in the administration in favor of re-imagined schools feels about a standardized knowledge based testing system.

152. avecfrites Says:
     February 3rd, 2007 at 10:15 am

     I’m not going to work hard writing much, so please just read this brief article and see if it wouldn’t make for a great show:
     http://www.ft.com/cms/s/652fa2f6-9d2a-11db-8ec6-0000779e2340.html

153. mcbrush Says:
     February 3rd, 2007 at 11:51 am

     Here is a blog post with links to some of the many thoughts going into the Schools 2.0 movement (to go along with my previous pitch)

     http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/763-95-Theses-Nailed-on-the-Schoolhouse-Door.html

154. emmettoconnell Says:
     February 4th, 2007 at 2:07 am

     If you guys do a “Leg Drain” show, will I be the go to guy for public radio sports pitches? My fault for listening to the Frank Deford podcast.

     Anyway, I’d still like to see the 10 Americas pitch get considered. I thought I’d flesh out one of the ten episodes. For an El Norte show, a couple of bloggers come immediately to mind.

     Dos Centavos in Houston and the Gleaner in Las Vegas are both pretty good.

     Also, leaning on your previous AZ-8 show, but expanding on it a bit, you could hit on the special election in Texas, that created a long blue line from the gulf to the Pacific (except for one district in New Mexico) of Democrat Country.

     I could scope out a similar show for Sagebrush and Upper Coasts would make an interesting Boston/Seattle collaboration.

155. katemcshane Says:
     February 4th, 2007 at 8:12 am

     Robin, I just read your question about Molly Ivins — “Why is she still relevant and worth of an hour of radio?” — and I feel blown away. I was going to say that you must know nothing about her to be able to ask that question, but, really, I HOPE you know nothing about her to be able to ask that question. From my perspective, there are relatively few journalists whose work has meant as much to as many people — but most of the people inspired by Molly, as a rule, are not counted. The same could be said for her fellow columnist from THE PROGRESSIVE, June Jordan, who also died of breast cancer several years ago. Having been one of the fortunate people who was inspired by these women, I will never forget them, and if I ever manage to write anything that matters, their lives are the ones I want to emulate.

156. vandybman Says:
     February 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

     I’ve listened to the show long enough without being an active participant. I’ll start by throwing an idea out for a show on the potential impending singularity in human history. The singularity is the point when we finally develop an ultra intelligent artificial intelligence. This new intelligence has the ability to make even greater intelligences creating a positive feedback loop with an outcome impossible to predict.

     The idea of an approaching singularity has been around for sometime, but with a new book titled “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil and a seemingly unique conference approaching in May hosted by Stanford University the idea seems to be relevant to the Now of human history.

     Here is a website for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence: http://www.singinst.org/

157. Alexandre Enkerli Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 10:25 am

     On Open Access (OA).

     Thanks to Herbert Browne for the insightful comments and vote of support. Open Source definitely needs to do a show on Open Access ASAP. As in, “the time is now.”

     Just read a recent Scientific American piece on OA, thanks to the
     ScienceTalk podcast.
     http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=60AADF2C-E7F2-99DF-383C632C90DD1AA5
     http://sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=60AADF2C-E7F2-99DF-383C632C90DD1AA5

     It’s related to an impactful Nature article on “PR pitbulls” hired by commercial publishers. In both cases, the keyword is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). And it relates to Herbert Browne’s points about transparency.
     I feel that the SciAm piece may have a different effect on the reader than the Nature article had. And, I must say, I quite enjoyed the podcast segment
     in which SciAm contributors discussed the issues.
     http://sciam.com/podcast/
     Steve Mirsky, the podcast host, went as far as to imply that the
     current peer-review process was, perhaps, not the only possible method of ensuring academic quality.

     I find issues of peer-review (with “publish or perish” models of
     promotion, tenure, and reappointment) to be directly linked with the
     move toward new approaches to the open sharing of knowledge. All of
     these issues also seem connected with the movement toward “Free/Libre
     Open Source Software.”

     One of my favourite resources for discussions of academic quality and open transmission of knowledge is the Language Log blog. Language Loggers have been posting an impressive series of very insightful entries on all of these issues affecting academia in a broad way. Contributors to Language Log really do see the forest for the trees (pun originally unintended).
     Here’s one Language Log entry which brings together important issues:
     http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/001961.html

     The entry also refers to Steve McIntyre’s critical comparison of the peer-review process to the auditing process in business. Given Open Source’s ongoing coverage of the science of Global Warming, that piece is clearly worth a read:
     http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?p=66

     Of course, SciAm journalists (like many others) describe issues of Open Access as
     if they were limited to “hard sciences” in the U.S., where huge budgets represent
     critical issues with visible political implications. (The fact that they only mention English-speaking publications is unsurprising but a bit sad.)

     Could anyone lead me to the more “humanities and social sciences” part
     of this conversation?

158. Chelsea Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 2:50 pm

     From February 1st pitches

     silvio.rabioso: Although we haven’t directly discussed the rhetoric of counter-terrorism, we did explore some of these concerns with Lawrence Wright and Juan Cole, on our show After Zarqawi: “The Enemy” in Iraq.

     As for your pitch on racial politics, we have endlessly discussed doing a show about Obama in that context. We’ve decided not to do this show given our extensive race and class series, and our Election ‘06: Indentities Politics show, wherein 20 minutes were dedicated to Obama and this topic. However, we are looking into a show that explores Obama’s anti-baby boomer campaign.

     PatsyB: Having never heard of Les Bienveillantes, I’ll order a copy and see if it leads to a show.

     Hurley: No comment.

159. nother Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm

     What’s that noise outside our window, it sounds like a mass of water about to gush in – it is water and Al Gore is on it, riding a wave to the Presidency. That wave has been whipped up by nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize and more importantly an Oscar.

     Who is this man and what has he really been doing the last few years? Has this been part of some grand plan, or have we as a nation moved closer to Al?

     All the people who would vote for Hillary because they pine for Bill will now vote for Al, and by voting for Al our nation can collectively give ourselves a big fat mulligan.

     Barak is who I want to see win but I think a Gore/Obama ticket is more likely; let’s talk about it.

160. Katherine Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

     nother and katemcshane and patsyb: Good catch on the Sonny Rollins front — we’ll definitely follow up.

     gregbillock: Sam wrote a feature on the Lite-Brite scare; and you might enjoy the Fear Factor show.

     Scarequotes: That’s a great & helpful pitch (concise, includes a peg, points to resources), but sadly I don’t think constructed languages would be a show for us…

     OliverCranglesParrot: I just sent your link to David for the Ecstasy of Influence show he’s producing.

     mcbrush: You’re absolutely right. We haven’t done our share of education shows. I’ll bring your ideas up in our next meeting.

161. patsyb Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 9:13 pm

     Just FYI, Chelsea, Les Bienveillantes runs some 900 pages, and it hasn’t yet been translated into English yet.

162. Nother_ArtGuy Says:
     February 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm

     What if America is successful in Iraq and Afaghanistan?

     For discussion, let’s assume as but one way to go, that the Democrat’s basic position (“lies, deceit, misinformation, bad historical precedent”) is correct. Let’s assume the Administration’s position is also correct, (What we thought was true, was not– so we have the war we have– generations of citizens may one day have a government based on some kind of newfound freedom and democracy.”). Between these two poles, and including the oft-heard, “There is no solution to Iraq,” — in creative terms, against long odds, what do we do, how do we proceed if this country is to “Win,” and come home?

     How about a show on this topic (if you have not already had one)?

     Do we (The United States) want to prevail?
     What does “winning” require?
     Is there somewhere an “Everybody is a Winner?” solution? (“Win-win” in corporate lingo– very Democratic, empowering in its fashionability)
     What would such requirements actually mean? (The vision reduced to reality, the future, now, so to speak)
     What are the outcomes if we win? (there is way too much already prognosticated about “losing”– I am presuming this info is well understood.

     Then, if we decide across the aisle that “Yes, we want to win,” what kinds of ideas bubble to the surface that are not already in the field of view (possibilities). “Facts,” as we witness them broadcast daily, may not be as important as ideas. Money, the same. Politics the same. History, the same. International law, the same. For the purpose of discussion, let reality slip away. Then, what would winning in Iraq in an unequivocal way, require of America?

     I do not intend the discussion as a “let’s have some Kool-Aid,” kind of exchange, but as an effort to shed light on some new perspectives that may hold value.

163. brent Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 12:36 am

     Wow. Great conversation with Elif Shafak. I will not go into an extensive description of how you might put together a show on this topic, but here is somewhat of a follow-up to the discuss with Elif Shafak.

     I would love to see a conversation on the plight of the Kurdish in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and the greater middle east. This is the largest ethnic population in the world without a nation-state of their own. Most in the West know very little about the Kurdish people, and it would make for not only an interesting educational conversation, but give attention to the Kurdish people and their unique history.

     A guest I would like to see would be Bahman Ghobadi – Director of “Turtles can fly”

164. Delaney Kirk Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 12:53 am

     How about a show on civility (or lack of) in the classroom?

     See my blog at http://www.delaneykirk.com

     article on http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112200166.html

     http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/01/2007012601c/careers.html

165. chuckwadd Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 3:42 am

     I recently read Stephen Johnson’s book “Emergence” from 2001. In it he asks a great question about the philosophy of our time. He wonders if emergence will go down in history as our philosophical zietgiest as science did in the Enlightenment and the dialectic in the modern era. I’d like to see the community debate this one. Forgive me if you’ve been over this topic before, I’m a newcomer to your show.

166. avecfrites Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 11:06 am

     I don’t know if this is a show or a side feature for the web site, but how about soliciting from readers their predictions on the next president and vice president? (They need to get both right to “win”). We can close the contest in, pick a date, maybe 3 months.

     I’ll kick it off:
     President: Al Gore
     Vice-President: John Edwards

     Maybe ROS can give a prize (custom T-Shirt announcing the winner, e.g.).
     Any other predictions?

167. Sutter Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

     I want to second vandybman’s Singularity suggestion. My sense is that stuff like is often dismissed as sci-fi mumbo jumbo. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that the people who know the most about things like artificial intelligence generally don’t come from humanities and social-science backgrounds, and generally (big generalization here, but generally) don’t participate in public-policy and ethical debates such as those routinely hosted by ROS. But it’s important to stop and think about the implications of advances in AI. If and when artificial computing power exceeds the capacities of human intelligence, we will be faced with a host of critical ethical, political, and other issues. If our rights are grounded in self-awareness or intelligence (which in turn give rise to “dignity”), should ultra-intelligent machines be accorded rights? If such machines develop their own interests and ambitions and concepts of self-fulfillment, how will that affect our reliance on such devices for labor and processing and so forth? If we feel free to squash an ant on the basis of its far inferior intelligence and far more limited degree of self-awareness, will machines one day come to feel the same way about us?

     Obvious guests would include Ray Kurzweil and other computer scientists who think about this stuff, but I would also be interested in hearing the thoughts of an ethicist like Peter Singer, who has provocatively explored the role of intelligence and self-awareness in our ethical thought, and philosophers of consciousness, who might have interesting things to say about whether computers, however “smart,” could ever attain self-awareness.

     Again, I know this sounds like a lot of sci-fi stuff, but this issue may one day soon make our current moral issues seem quaint. Please do consider vandybman’s suggestion.

168. Sutter Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

     Avecfrites, I’m going to predict Gore in the number one slot, and Montana governor Brian Schweitzer in the number two position.

169. pelos Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 3:10 pm

     Yesterday I listened to your podcast on “The End of the Foreign Correspondent”. The show touched in specificity on a more general issue that I feel is imperative to discuss: the monolith vs. the every-one.

     In our contemporary culture, emphasis is increasingly being put on a huge collective of the every-one rather than on a few individual “greats”. In the podcast, the “greats” were the various reporters that Mr. Lydon mentioned, in music composition the “greats” could be Bach to Stravinsky, in the visual arts perhaps da Vinci to Picasso. etc.

     In the last 20 years, our culture has increasingly lost the role of the “great” to the role of multitude. In a world where everyone can create and publish instantly, everyone is looking toward one another rather than toward an elite individual (The “Time” person of the year being “You” is a tremendous symptom of this transition).

     It’s not desirable to travel backward, however, it’s important to acknowledge our loss and discuss how we may be able to foster and maintain those positive aspects of the previous model.

     The mythological-great could inspire people to work hard to transcend toward a higher plateau (see Brahms through Beethoven), it gave them an impossibility to strive for, and in so striving they could greater heights.

     The question: how can the contemporary individual foster the phenomenal inspiration that they need to transcend (to this degree of greatness) in our current dirth of iconic and mythological figures, in the face of the current realism of historical portrature? Are these two models incompatible?

170. Robin Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

     Re: Molly Ivins katemcshane, that question of why something is relevant now is the question we ask you guys when you pitch a show, just about any show, without articulating your rationale. It has nothing to do with whether we “know anything” about the subject you’re pitching, and it’s the same question we ask each other here with every pitch.

     Glad you liked the Elif Shafak show, brent. We’ve tossed around the idea of doing a show about the Kurds for what seems like forever now. It’s one of those show ideas that keeps coming up again and again in our story meetings, but we haven’t actually ever moved to do a show about it. Your pitch is a good reason to actually take action. I have a feeling though that the show would be more of a “what’s up with the Kurds right now” type show than a “discuss the plight of the Kurds” type show. I remember thinking when I produced the Iraq oil show that it would be interesting to focus on what the Kurds are up to, and how they’re leveraging the situation in Iraq to achieve their nationalist goals. Anyway, I will definitely pitch this.

     Glad to see the WaPo is paying attention to your work, Delaney (or should I say Professor Kirk?). Seems like you’re doing good stuff, but I don’t think the topic is right for our show.

     Hi chuckwad, welcome to the blog. Always nice to, you know, see a new face. Steven Johnson is a really interesting thinker and he definitely makes good radio. The thing is that he’s kind of been everywhere in the past five years between the book you mentioned and his more recent book. Radio Lab did a whole showon Emergence two years ago (apparently at the time Steven Johnson was the “number 4 Steven” on Google). So, on one hand, the idea you mention is fascinating. On the other hand, we may be a little late to the party. It would be cool to figure out a show with him though, so I’ll bring up your pitch. Hopefully we can get him on the show at some point one way or another.

     This is kind of Brendan and Greta’s territory avecfrites, so I’ll pass it their way if they haven’t already seen your pitch. A question though: would the predictions/answers actually be that interesting? I guess it could make a fun office pool type thing, but I would be more interested in something more unexpected or funny or outrageous. Dunno.

     I don’t know if Katherine has had a chance to respond to vandybman’s original suggestion or not Sutter, but Kurzweil is kind of insane and amazing. (I say insane as a moniker of admiration for his polymathic eccentricity). I’ll confer with Katherine on this one, but it seems like there could be something to the idea of getting him on the show. (Also, I feel like the topic of Singularity has come up here before. Does anyone remember that? Maybe it was somewhere else…)

     I feel like this idea is related to a lot of shows we’ve done on new media and a few other topics, pelos. (Like tonight’s show, for example.) So I’m not sure it’s worthy of it’s own show at this point. Also, do you really believe society has abandoned our reverence for what you call the “greats”? The specter of the artistic genius still looms large; even the bloggosphere has its celebrities, who collectively get more attention and stardom than the rest of the bloggers.

171. Almanch Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 7:57 pm

     Another vote for microcredit (cheers, heri rakotomalala)

     May still not be up to an hour long show yet. Some topics around it:

     In developed countries what is the effect on credit card companies when people can turn to each other to pay off their debts much lower than the astronomical rates they charge?

     Could you earn enough from microlending to retire on? How different would microlending based retirement be then the “old school” family (peer) support that many used to rely on? (And how long before the government mandates that this be a part of the social security net?

     Broader picture: What does it mean if this “third world” idea takes off and shakes up the “developed world” banking industry? Are we moving back to cottage industries? (Is that a bad thing?) Does the established industry lobby against microlending? Does this lead to more equal distribution of money?

     Timing is appropriate as the San Fransisco based microlending company Prosper.com celebrates their 1st anniversary with a conference for lenders Feb 12th & 13th.

     [I have no affiliation with Prosper]

172. pelos Says:
     February 7th, 2007 at 10:58 pm

     Robin: I can appreciate the show having reached it’s saturation with this type of topic, I’ve only recently started to listen regularly and so do not necessarily have the long-term perspective that some here may have. I haven’t listened to tonights show yet, but look forward to it.

     Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that historical and psychological dissection, a tendency away from a type of mythology toward fact-based accounts, paints the reverence with a different color. And even then, I don’t see this color as ubiquitous as of yet, but becoming progressively more so.

     Thanks for the reply, I’ll consider the question some more.

173. hurley Says:
     February 8th, 2007 at 7:23 am

     Chelsea: No comment.
     Global warming and impeachment.
     http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=163597
     Amitie.

174. joycehart Says:
     February 8th, 2007 at 2:25 pm

     I was a little surprised the other night when the topic of feminism was brought up during your discussion of Hilary Clinton. You allowed a statement to be made without challenging it. I cannot quote the exact words of your guest, however, the general sentiment was that when a woman chooses to be a stay-at-home mother or otherwise does not choose to work, she relinquishes her role in the feminist movement.

     This is a common statement among some feminists, however, it is incredibly invalid.

     I would like to hear a discussion on this topic. Why can’t a stay-at-home woman be a feminist? I have worked as an educator, a secretary, a freelance photographer and writer. I have also been a stay-at-home mother. If I were independently wealthy, I would also be a stay-at-home woman…and still be a feminist.

     Joyce Hart
     Seattle, Washington

175. rahbuhbuh Says:
     February 8th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

     Hoaxes. By chance, they’ve piled around me in the past week.

     1. I rented ‘F for Fake’ by Orson Welles. An ahead-of-its-time film essay on fakery, manipulation, experts, forgers, etc… The content was Clifford Irving, a faker, interviewing Elmyr de Hory, an infamous art forger, and Welles’s ruminations on his history as a lier. All the forgeries became massive hoaxes in their own right. Then there is the debate of worth/validity of art when fakers can fool experts. Also, the majority of the film took existing footage and recut it to fit Welles’s narrative (Mandatory Post Modernism comment here). I’m angry I missed the Letham show earlier, it would have seemed appropriate.
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_For_Fake

     2. Boston’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force/Turner/vandalism/bomb scare errupted. “Hoax” was attributed to the event and fingers were pointed in all directions, intent questioned. The media is slowly fixing the misnomer, substituting the deliberate “hoax” with accidental “marketing campgain gone wrong,” which seems more truthful.

     3. The trailer for “Hoax” was released. Hollywood version of Clifford Irving and the fabricated Howard Hughes bio. Before the media outrage, all of Irving’s forged handwritten notes and syntax were verified in court to be genuine.
     http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/thehoax/

     I don’t know where this leads, but a discussion of deliberate hoaxes and lies versus mischief snowballing into badness is a start.

176. hug Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 3:30 am

     WHY CAN’T (OR DON’T) THE MEDIA HELP US (PUBLIC) UNDERSTAND KEY FACTS ASSOCIATED WITH COMPLEX ISSUES MORE EFFECTIVELY? WHY DO THEY OFTEN LEAVE US UNINFORMED OR MISINFORMED?

     The idea for this show came to me while I was listening to today’s show with Chalmers Johnson and Thomas Barnett. In many respects, it was a great show (as usual). But, in one very important respect, it was very frustrating. Listen to it again, after reading this note, and you may see why.

     These two apparently very intelligent, very informed, very experienced people (Johnson and Barnett), each seemingly convinced of his own analysis, presented very different pictures about whether the total U.S. spending on defense and military matters (all related things included) has increased or substantially decreased as a percentage of GDP in recent decades. Although the relative level of defense spending is only one (of many) key factor informing the important debate they were having, it is a vitally important factor and one that would help us make sense of what is really happening. And, it is a factor that should be subject to a reasonably sensible and accurate analysis. Yet, these two “experts” strongly disagreed, both claiming to have the accurate facts, and the audience was left totally up in the air. This is just one of the daily (or at least weekly) examples of how the public audience is left hanging, not having any idea of which facts are correct.

     I graduated in the top 5% of my class at U.C. Berkeley (in engineering) and in the top 5% at one of the graduate schools at Harvard. Yet, having not spent a career and many hours doing the analysis myself, I could not tell whose claim was more accurate regarding the trends in overall defense spending, Chalmers’s or Barnett’s. How is the general public to know? In such a situation, an audience is left with few choices: 1) To take the time to do the analysis ourselves (often too time consuming or otherwise impossible); 2) To “believe” one party over another based on whose voice or political party we like best; 3) To consciously or subconsciously eliminate that factor from our consideration of the overall issue, even if the factor is central to any intelligent understanding of the issue; or 4) To hope or pray that the media will somehow, someday, present unbiased people who will intelligently and accurately perform, and convey the results of, a real analysis. Choice 1 is impractical. Choice 2 results in believing who we want to believe rather than finding the accurate answer and making informed judgments. Choice 3 results in faulty reasoning and analysis. Choice 4 usually results in disappointment, as the media all too rarely get to the bottom of facts (in situations like this), even when the data exist and the question lends itself to analysis.

     So, WHY CAN’T THE MEDIA get to the bottom of basic facts regarding key issues more frequently? Has TOTAL defense spending, relative to total GDP, been going up or down in recent decades, in an apples-to-apples comparison??? Will I ever learn the answer from a credible, convincing, unbiased, well-intentioned, truth-seeking, accurate analyst of some sort (or better yet, several such analysts who more or less agree!) on a show such as NBC News, Andersen Cooper 360, Glenn Beck, or Open Source? If not there, then where? And if I can’t find a credible answer to the question (in this case, trends in defense spending), how can I form an informed view on the larger issue being debated?

     In sum, although the debate was great tonight, and the issue is vitally important, I feel as though I DO NOT HAVE an important fact, an important piece of the puzzle, with which to form or refine my own view.

     What is it about the media that often leaves us high and dry in situations like this? How can we do better?

     With this question in mind, listen again to tonight’s show (especially the Johnson-Barnett debate about defense spending trends) and see what you think. (P.S., not only were they in complete disagreement regarding the direction of defense spending trends, but they were also in complete disagreement on the number of U.S. bases around the world and even if bases existed in several specific countries.)

177. herbert browne Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 3:35 am

     upon reflection, I think my “spellchecker” observation was dealing with a phenomenon that has something in common with scarequotes’ tout of a “made-up” language show- since the advent of the “hand-held messaging device” is changing our language from a “classical roots-based” structure to a “phonetic” structure- and this includes pictographic features as well (where 5 is a stand-in for S, etc). Reading the scribes of earlier days- from Civil War officers to Shakespeare- it’s really amazing (to me, anyhow) the degree of standardization that was brought to the language. (Do we owe that to a more broadly educated populace?) Nowadays, spelling, in particular, & grammar, generally (and the linguistic idiosyncrasies that a former age decided upon) are being ignored, &/or circumvented, as much as the extraneous syllable in “worcestershire” once was. Our language is changing pretty rapidly- for a language- in ways beyond the traditional additions and adaptations of “foreign” words that do a better job than what we’ve got going, and additions from the sciences. Is English going to come to resemble Chinese, with a greater dependency upon phonetic inflexions (& a shift toward pictography)?
     When the phrase “the President of the United States” can be determined from a 3-syllable slur, “tpresnitestae”, we’re definitely on our way… somewhere… Re the Homonym Nation- when people mean “their”, but write “there”, there’s a their there (in their mind), even if there’s no “their” there, on their screen… &, mostly, we “get it”… (This is my rede, that I re-read, readying it for you to read, too…) ^..^

178. herbert browne Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 4:29 am

     There’s no Show in it- but could someone point me to the place where “Red” became the Right- the Conservative (that I once associated with “Blue-bloods” & “old money”), and the Left shed its “Red menace” image, and is now a “true-blue”? How did this happen so quickly? As a correspondent from the Soviet of Washington, I’m mildly bemused by the radical shift… and can only assume that our history-free culture will soon vote for the chameleon as a national symbol. (I was looking forward to the dismissive “hmph!” aimed at all those PC, affirmative-action- supporting Commie professors in their Ebony Towers… & maybe it’ll happen, yet…)

     About a show… How about “The Patriarchy- running on Entropy”? It’s kind of an amalgamation of three previous suggestions, that all seem to have this common thread. mcbrush offers an example from the sphere of education, where the Old Model is still being promulgated, just because it’s there… and pelos points to the “missing piece’ of modern mythic greatness- a Model, based on excellence (with a personality, not a reflection)… and the story from Financial Times (from avecfrites) points to an apparent trend in young males who lack a Model- a moral compass (something we once looked to patriarchs for). Where’s the New Father? Will he be Home for dinner? Do we really want him telling everyone how to behave, and being stern, and noble, and wise, and formidable, (and a’ that)? What does a modern Father-figure look like- and act like- in light of our species’ superdomination of the biosphere? Can patriarchy make a quantum leap?.. or do we look elsewhere for guidance… and relevance? ^..^

179. hurley Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 5:23 am

     Is Bush the worst President ever?
     http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070226/howl
     Sounds like an entertaining show to me, you could fold in my tiresome hobby-horse of an impeament theme, etc.

180. hurley Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 7:38 am

     “IMPEAMENT!, ” Maybe that’s the word that will make you stand up on your hind legs in agreement (to paraphrase Buckley in God and Man and Chris and Me at Yale). Anyway, the Worst President show might provide scope for guests like Garry Wills, Gore Vidal, Kevin Philipps et al. Thanks again for the CHalmers Johnson show. I’ll be listening to it again.

181. hurley Says:
     February 9th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

     I of course meant “impeachment” the first time, “impeament” the second.

182. Timon Braun Says:
     February 10th, 2007 at 6:23 am

     Open Source software, your namesake, is in a remarkable and extremely dynamic phase right now, which has not been adequately synthesized in the wider media, partly because of the efficiency of geek channels. You should really do a show on it. (Ahoy, Peter Mao, of the 1-11-07 comment.)

     A lot of the barriers to widespread free software adoption, and the bushel of issues surrounding DRM, security, etc, are in a major transitional phases. The main dynamics have to do with DRM, multimedia (decoders), and document formats, and are being overcome for the first time (google Adobe PDF and Linspire codec.) there are also intangibles – for example, Cory Doctorow, of boingboing.net, has abandoned Apple, which he has a bicep tatoo of, for Ubuntu Linux. Ditto Mark Pilgrim and other Alpha geeks. Two new major Open Source industry groups have been founded. Some names, who would likely agree to appear on the show and who are so outrageously cool:

     Eric Raymond: Founding figure of Open Source, recently joined Freespire, has brokered major compromises and written two key papers

     Mark Shuttleworth: billionaire cosmonaut, founder of Ubuntu

     Cory Doctorow: beloved internet guru and Sci-Fi bestseller

     Ian Murdock: Founder of Debian, brilliant software developer, recently joined new Open Source industry group.

     Greg Kroah Hartman: Linux kernel developer, recently announced major initiative to provide Open source drivers to hardware manufacturers.

     I’m only scratching the surface. An hour on these topics is sorely needed and will result in literally millions of clicks, and earn you the love of the people you’re named after.

183. geronimoinconroe Says:
     February 11th, 2007 at 7:49 pm

     Karl Rove, talking points, and Sunday morning.

     What if Karl Rove distributes talking points to churches?
     I became aware of this topic during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, while attending church with friends. Appropo of nothing, the preacher threw a sentence about America being a “reluctant warrior” into a completely unrelated sermon. It struck me as being a talking point.
     The Open Source website could find out if other people have had similar experiences.
     Also, I plan to attend church, with a tape recorder, for the rest of the Bush presidency and if other Open Source listeners did the same, we could compare notes.

     P.S. Thanks to everyone involved with Open Source. I listen on my XM radio.

184. Katherine Says:
     February 11th, 2007 at 9:12 pm

     hug: You’re right about the Johnson-Barnett disagreements. It was impossible to know, without doing your own research, whose analysis to believe when they didn’t even agree on the underlying facts. We actually talked about this in our story meeting the next day, and as a result Julia is working on a feature looking into one of the military bases (in Ecuador, I believe) that was in dispute. So stay tuned. I’m not convinced there’s a show in the meta question, though…

     herbert browne: There’s a Language Evolution in the Digital Age show that’s been “warming up” for a long time but that for some reason hasn’t gained enough traction. Do you have any guests to propose?

     hurley: We wouldn’t spend an hour asking whether Bush is the worst president ever; but a more general show about terrible presidents might be kind of fun. It would take champion talkers, though, to pull it off. Can you recommend anyone?

185. hurley Says:
     February 12th, 2007 at 6:25 am

     Katherine: I think the three people I mentioned speak rather well on their feet. (Why no women on my list? Hmm. In my ignorance — there’s a title for a song — I can’t think of any female scholars of the Presidency. Elizabeth Fox Genovese? Molly Ivins via Ouija board?) Wills and Vidal and Philipps nothing if not fluent. Maybe a knowledgeable comic like Bill Maher could enliven things.

186. David Says:
     February 12th, 2007 at 12:10 pm

     Timon Braun: It’s a perfect pitch! Something that should be up our alley, a few pegs, and a whole bunch of possible guests. But I’m still not totally sold. Cory Doctorow visited our office a few months ago and we ended up talking about DRM for a while. I know this issue is completely important, but each time I hear it I feel like I’m getting sucked into acronym world. Clearly this is my own block, not necessarily the fault of the open source movement, but I have a feeling I’m not alone. Earning the love of the people we’re named after is one thing. Having everybody else keep listening for an hour about computer programming is another. Can we do both?

     geronimoinconroe: I guess this is more of a question for the ROS community than a show idea, right? I remember a lot of talk about this in the lead-up to the ‘04 election — in particular mailing lists and brochures and the like — and I think that if we were to do a show on this topic we’d most likely wait until we get closer to ‘08. But by all means: record tape anywhere you want, for whatever reason, and send us the best stuff!

187. martingevans Says:
     February 12th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

     Cuddy Stimson’s attack on lawyers who defend terrorist suspects and the feeble response from Corporate Lawyers who should have told him to back off — only a few companies did that (See Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/01/29/potshot_at_guantanamo_lawyers_backfires/).

     The attack on lawyers is just one more chapter in the overall attack on civil liberties by the Bush administration which can be reflected in an update of the poem, “They came for me”, which Martin Niemöller is said to have written in 1946.

     “First they came for the enemy combatants, and I did not speak out — because I was neither an enemy nor a combatant;

     Then they came for those seeking or providing abortions, and I did not speak out — because I neither sought nor provided abortions;

     Then they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Muslim;

     Then they came for the gays and lesbians, and I did not speak out — because I was neither a gay nor a lesbian;

     Then they came for the buyers and borrowers of books, and I did not speak out – because I neither bought nor borrowed a book;

     Then they came for the remaining non-Christians; and I did not speak out because I was not a non-Christian;

     Then they came for the non-Evangelicals, and I did not speak out — because I was not a non-Evangelical;

     Then they came for the lawyers, and I did not speak out – because I was not a lawyer.

     Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

     Really civil liberties are inseparable — an attack on any of these groups is an attack on us all.

188. hurley Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 7:12 am

     Katherine: Lewis Lapham would also be a good guest, though he and his new magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, might be worth a show in itself. He’s a great raconteur, and certainly knows his American history. I imagine he and Chirs would hit it off nicely.

189. Sutter Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 11:14 am

     Martin, I’d go more broadly than that even: It’s part of the administration’s attack on process per se, and on objective fact. By undermining the elevated role of fair process in determining truth, the administration undermines what it calls the “reality-based community.” When the facts aren’t on your side, it makes sense to challenge the very idea of fact. Hence, the administration has challenged the idea that there is a right or wrong in science, the idea that terrorists are entitled to due process, the idea that the President’s only options w/r/t legislation are to sign, veto, or pocket-veto, etc. etc. etc. It’s a broad war on process, and a key part of a war on the truths they don’t want to deal with.

     Now, there’s a pitch!

190. hurley Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 11:18 am

     Sidereal Seidel: A very fine contemporary poet (I pasted in a few of his poems on the Space thread). It would be a worthy hour on its own merits but also, in your evolving coverage of American poetry, an interesting contrast with the show about Major Jackson. Seidel could hardly be more different — white, wealthy, cosmological when not scatological (though in at least one instance both), patrolling the precincts of the super-rich with gimlet eye and gimlet penis (read his stuff and you’ll see what I mean). You can listen to some of his own superb readings of his work here:
     http://frederickseidel.com/
     A review:
     http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021230/creswell
     A profile:
     http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/24986/index.html

191. Sutter Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 11:29 am

     Sorry — have to apologize for “Now, there’s a pitch!” I wasn’t meaning it the way it “sounds” on the page (i.e. as a comparison to Martin’s topic). I just meant that it’s a big, big topic — it’s the Republicans taking lefty postmodernism and pushing it to the extreme in pursuit of a right-wing agenda. It permeates this administration. It is, I think, THE meta-story of the past six years. It’s just so hard to get one’s hands around. That’s what I was trying to imply. Apologies again for being so inartful about it.

192. hurley Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 11:41 am

     Two more reviews of Seidel::
     http://bostonreview.net/BR26.5/bedient.html
     http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2007/01/savage-genius-of-frederick-seidel.html
     A link to a poem (others there if you look around):
     http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0374523967/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-6832164-8772966#reader-link

193. martingevans Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

     Hi Sutter, no need to apologize.

     Your idea of expansion into the “we create our own reality” (cite from Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker) perspective of the Administration is a good one.

194. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 6:05 pm

     I vote for any show with Lewis Lapham.

     Oh, and this too: Welcome to America’s Favorite Architecture Once again, no yurts in the top 100?

195. geronimoinconroe Says:
     February 13th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

     The War on Terror, John Forbes Nash, and Darth Vader.

     Does the War on Terror make terrorists stronger or weaker?
     This question goes to the heart of what Decision Theorists call a “Nash Equilibrium”. This, besides being what won John Forbes Nash the Nobel Prize, is the concept that says that, in some situations, by trying to get more, you get less.

     The scene in A Beautiful Mind that illustrates this is the one in the bar, where Nash realizes that if the men approach the prettiest girl, they will end up with nothing, but if they approach the other girls, they could achieve a success.

     Also, a good way to understand the Nash Equilibrium is to think of the scene in Star Wars, when Princess Leia tells Darth Vader that the tighter he squeezes, the more slips through his fingers.

     What if fighting a war on terror makes the terrorists stronger? What if our strategy is counterproductive?

     I didn’t find anything on the web that speaks directly to this topic, but that just means that it’s a possible scoop! (I did find one source, http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/personal/terror_strategy.html, that is tangentially related.)

     David: I think you are 100% right about my other idea. And I can’t wait to send you an mp3, if I get anything good.

     P.S. Congratulations Open Source. The 2/13/2007 show about the Libby trial was absolutely rivetting and one of the best radio programs that I’ve ever heard.

196. Paul Massari Says:
     February 14th, 2007 at 12:01 pm

     I love it when you do shows on classical music or literature. I’m re-reading Moby Dick and listening the the Andre Segovia version of Bach’s Chaconne because of Open Source.

     In the vein of your shows on the Chaconne and Verdi’s Requiem, I wish you all would do a show about Brahms’ string quartets and/or his piano trios with Yo-yo Ma, who played the trios brilliantly on a Sony recording with Emmanuel Ax. These are some of the most moving, passionate, desperate, and beautiful peieces I’ve ever heard. Hot music for the cold winter!

197. Robin Says:
     February 14th, 2007 at 8:32 pm

     Hi Paul -

     David and Chris are our resident classical music experts. We’ll throw this one to them and see what they say.

198. ChuckSL Says:
     February 15th, 2007 at 12:38 am

     I’d love to hear a program on health insurance. Fundamentally, why are Massacheusetts and California pushing toward universal coverage, but using the private providers system to achieve it.

     For the life of me, i can’t figure out how we can hope to get universal coverage using private providers. The fundamentals of competitive economics seem to make private providers separate us (insurance subscribers) into small groups. This allows them to set their premiums so that the outlays are all covered, but still allows new subscribers to be lured by low premiums.

     It seems to me that what we (the subscribers) need is LARGE groups so that the risks are averaged over broad spectra of participants. I’m convinced that a single-payer system is the only way to go, but echoes of the Harry and Louise ads and “socialized medicine” seem to keep pushing us back toward the private provider system.

     Can anyone help me understand how/why one’s access to health insurance should be dependent on your employer? This is especially confusing when I think how one’s employment situation is HIGHLY UNLIKELY to remain steady and solid throughout the length of time that we need health insurance!!

199. hug Says:
     February 15th, 2007 at 11:36 am

     Global Warming and Corporate Responsibility: A Case Study Of ExxonMobil.

     A responsible parent would not allow her/his young child to dive into a murky creek of unknown depth. A sane bicycle rider would not go down a steep hill, at increasing speed, when approaching a blind corner around which she must turn at the bottom of the hill. Yet this is exactly what we are doing, in effect, with respect to global warming.

     The most profitable company on the planet, ExxonMobil, has recently run a series of advertisements (which they are apparently calling “op-ed”) in The New York Times on global warming and their view on how we should think about the risks from their standpoint. Wow! You should read them. I won’t quote them or dwell on them here, but suffice it to say that they seem (very much) to me to diminish and minimize the issue, raise more cautions about addressing the issue than not addressing it, and in many ways continue to cast doubt on the issue. After reading this morning’s ExxonMobil “op-ed”, I am seriously considering a personal boycott against buying my gas from ExxonMobile. Although I realize that I will still need to buy gas from one of the other companies for the time being, I would rather give my money to a company that is at least acknowledging the issue, genuinely, and supporting measures to address it.

     In any case, I’d suggest that you read the ExxonMobil op-eds (ads) in The New York Times, consider the gravity of the issue, invite a few experts (not necessarily on global warming, but on the issue of corporate responsibility), and run a program on this issue. It is shocking (at least to me) the attitude that ExxonMobil seems to be taking on this most vital of issues, as they continue to make BILLIONS in profits that make all other companies look small in comparison.

200. emmettoconnell Says:
     February 15th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

     Since I said it would be easy to scope out a Sagebrush region show for my 10 America’s idea, here we go:

     First blogger/guest is easy. Matt Singer of Left in the West. As a former (can we ever be former?) Deaniac and Jon Testeriac, Singer can pretty much cover the show from the progressive side of things. On the other side, I’d say Joshua Sharf of View from a height.

     Might also be interesting to include Ivan Doig as the literary voice of the show. Even though he lives in another region now, he very much writes with the voice of the Sagebrush.

     Someone with the last name Udall would need to be on the show too.

     Themes for the show: Where does “Sagebrush,” come from? A short history of the rebellion and how that colors everything.

     Is the West turning purple? If so, is it just a personality thing (elected Jon Tester and Brian Schweitzer) or is it a reaction to the South?

     Also, a note back to my El Norte idea above, I think a another good guest would
     be Alisa Lynn Valdes who blogs at La Queen Sucia.

201. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 15th, 2007 at 5:42 pm

     Love Hotel

202. Scarequotes Says:
     February 16th, 2007 at 2:47 am

     The secret life of t-shirts.

     The seed for this show idea was planted a couple of months ago by a blog roundup post on Fimoculous. “I’ve got this theory,” said Rex Sorgatz, “that the t-shirt is becoming its own legitimate form of media — informative yet dispensable.”

     He was recommending Tcritic, a blog that, as its name implies, critiques t-shirts. One a day. From all sorts of vendors.

     It hit me: t-shirts have come a long way. It used to be you went there, you did that, and you bought the t-shirt. Now buying the t-shirt is being there and doing that.

     And not just buying the t-shirt: making the t-shirt. Look at Threadless. It’s a social networking site, it’s a t-shirt manufacturer, and it’s a Warholian art factory that produces t-shirts instead of canvas. Anyone can design a shirt, everyone can vote on it.

     T-shirts are art, and political commentary, and social signifiers, and of course they’re cool — but not the same way the pure white James Dean t-shirt was cool. There’s t-shirt etiquette.

     I think you could tease an excellent show out of the boom in t-shirt design. There are other t-shirt blogs: Preshrunk and I Love Your Tshirt and Tshirt Island. It’s fertile territory.

203. icantgoon Says:
     February 16th, 2007 at 7:42 pm

     What about a show about how the media regularly marginalizes women as “experts” with something to say? I did a random sampling of your last dozen shows and… not surprisingly… 79% of the guests were MEN. Accepted as the norm.. nobody bothers to question this ridiculous “status quo”. I’ve previously bitched about this and I can only say that you’re not exactly making much of an effort, particularly appalling when you have women running the show behind the scene. (That’s really their only place, isn’t it? Propping up and supporting the men so they can bask in the limelight?) Can you imagine a program that was comprised of 79% WOMEN guests? People would be talking about it as the most unusual phenomenon/dangerously subversive experiment. The FBI would be looking into it. This is really puke-inducing. OK, I’ll brace for another answer about how so very difficult it is to find articulate women out there… This is 2007 and we are still living in the Darkest of Ages… Surprise us and have a political show where four out of five droning talking heads “experts” happen to be female instead of male…

204. Brian Dunbar Says:
     February 16th, 2007 at 10:34 pm

     icantgoon
     What about a show about how the media regularly marginalizes women as “experts” with something to say? I did a random sampling of your last dozen shows and… not surprisingly… 79% of the guests were MEN

     That would be very interesting.

     Can you imagine a program that was comprised of 79% WOMEN guests?

     Depends on the subject, I suppose. Some fields are dominated by men; the ’space’ industry for example. IT for another. Look around the room and .. guys.

     I’ll brace for another answer about how so very difficult it is to find articulate women out there…

     I’m not a subject matter expert on why this is, I can only report what I observe. The only woman in a position of technical authority that I can name is Aleta Jackson from XCOR.

     Surprise us and have a political show where four out of five droning talking heads “experts” happen to be female instead of male…

     Reverse ‘ism is just as bad as the plain ol’ variety yes?

205. hurley Says:
     February 18th, 2007 at 4:58 am

     Conyers and the Impeachment Table:
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5552

206. Robert Boulrice Says:
     February 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm

     (original letter & attachments snail-mailed 2/10/07)

     February 10, 2007

     My Dear Mr. Lyman & All Affiliated Associates:

     AT the very great risk of like, totally bumming out you and your audience, I humbly suggest the following topic for discussion on your esteemed radio program:

     Who has it right?

     1. Randy Newman in his new song (attached) “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country” where he sings, “The end of an empire is messy at best and this empire is ending like all the rest.” Or,
     2. Ludwig Von Bertalanfy who, in his General Systems Theory (published 1948) posits that all open systems store “negative entropy” as a means of forestalling the process toward “equifinality,” it’s ultimate final state. The law of negative entropy “states that systems survive and maintain their characteristic internal order only so long as they import from the environment more energy than they expend in the process of transformation and exportation.” (Hong, et al, attached.) As evidenced by several decades of expanding negative balance of payments, it’s clear we’ve been giving more than we’ve been getting and that’s a dangerous sign that our warehouse of negative entropy is depleted and equifinality may be close at hand. In layman’s terms, an empire is an open system and as such, has a finite life cycle and ours is deep into the back nine. Perhaps our tab at the 19th hole has already been called. Or,
     3. Charles Frazier, who, in Cold Mountain, suggests, through his much-challenged protagonists, Inman and Ada that, “And though it is true that every age considers the world to be in a precarious state, at the very edge of dark, nevertheless Ada and Inman doubted if at any foretime in history the sense of an ending was as justified at it had been then.” (Cold Mountain, p. 419).

     So what is it, enlightened ones? Is the end of this (semi) glorious American experiment at hand; or are my worries the common worries of all ages; or am I like so many of my peers, just getting old and cranky?

     Certainly, there is ample evidence to suggest that our tenure as emperors, or even empire-builders is passed. Kirkpatrick Sale (attached) suggests that all empires collapse eventually and four causes are usually seen: Environmental degradation; Economic meltdown; Military overstretch; and Domestic dissent and upheaval. Doesn’t take a magnifying glass or an acute depressive condition to see evidence of those four almost everywhere one looks.

     One might ask, how do we compare with the more noteworthy empire collapses in history? The Wikipediasts offer an abundance of reasons for say, the collapse of the Roman Empire, if indeed it fell, instead of merely transforming itself. Cultural dilution; lethargy; complacency and ill-discipline among the legions; loss of civic virtue; the “Christianity vs. pagan” theory; that it was rotten from its inception; the economy became based on plundering resources rather than replenishing them; a diminishing marginal return on investment (oh no, anything but that!); unsound economic policies; a vicious cycle of political instability; foreign invasion (economic, in the current case) and reduced tax revenue; even the emergence of Iran was seen by Peter Heather has the coup de grace for the Roman empire. As someone said, if we don’t learn from history…

     Therefore, I suggest you great thinkers chew over the question: Are we doomed or just depressed?

     By way of disclaimer, I would like to state, with no fear of contradiction that I, for one have never been happier. Things may well be going to hell in a bucket, but I’ve never been happier and for that I am most grateful. During the day I work in a school helping people improve themselves and their families. In the evenings, I write plays and most of them are funny. At least to me.

     Also, I do believe that the general improvement in my spirits occurred proximate to my turning off the television and tuning into shows like Open Source. Keep up the good work. It is much needed and appreciated.

     Optimistically yours,

     Bob B.

207. herbert browne Says:
     February 18th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

     (from Brian Dunbar) “Reverse ‘ism is just as bad as the plain ol’ variety yes?”

     Sometimes that’s what it takes to get complacent people’s attention… so it can be instructive (if a little annoying- but that’s the point)… ^..^

208. herbert browne Says:
     February 18th, 2007 at 6:40 pm

     Perhaps martingevans & sutter could help develop a show around the recent dismissal of certain Federal Prosecutors- and whether that bodes well, or ill… or means nothing at all. It seems to be related to sutter’s outline of an attack on Process, though, by the Bush administration…

     Katherine, for the “Language Evolution” show, (outside of, maybe, your homeboy, Chomsky, and Andrei Codrescu) I’m still looking for some linguists for whom English is a “second language”- who are also “gamers” (or, better, programmers)- but haven’t found them out, yet… I’ll keep looking… ^..^

209. Skywalkerwalking Says:
     February 19th, 2007 at 11:37 am

     I just finished Jimmy Carters new book Peace not Apartheid and found it just right on the button regarding the stalemate in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I appreciated so much to hear JC tell it like it is without all of the normal whitewash that construes the subject. I think it is time for an adult conversation about what Israel is doing and Americas support of what is well documented violations of international law and the absurdity of the US position to not talk to our adversaries? ie. the separation wall and the use of illegal cluster bombs in Lebanon on innocent civilians. Talking can only help in any conflict.There is blood on both sides of the isle but it is surely a case of occupation to which the rest of our Terrorism problems have and will stem from. I applaud Mr. Carter for taking the leap into the snake pit and telling the truth, may we move forward from there without the fear of being called anti semitic etc. That is like W’s use of “not patriotic” if you question anything the government is doing. Let’s call it like it is.

     Sky

210. herbert browne Says:
     February 19th, 2007 at 7:31 pm

     Is it time to ask “How can the U.S. Military Budget be scaled back” yet? After that brilliant strategy of Casper Weinberger’s was put into place (where various military contracts depended upon components from as many congressional districts as possible), the cost has gone nowhere but up. With our adventures in the Middle East we’re putting a greater strain on vets’ services. Despite the changes in the nature (and the scale) of our military “encounters” around the globe, we’re still hanging on to systems developed for Cold War-type confrontations. The effect of channeling something like 3/4s of scientific R&D spending through the Pentagon obviously has some effect on what’s researched (& who’s getting the money). Bases on foreign soil, while the actual numbers may be debatable, are numerous (running into the hundreds), and not especially welcome, locally (eg in Italy, this past week, & Okinawa forever); and there’s no question that these affect the way our country, and its professed values, are judged around the world.
     As our manufacturing infrastructure dissipares offshore (&/or across borders), and our auto industry experiences meltdown, military spending appears to resemble a “jobs” program, complete with government as principal purchaser (of a lot of stuff that later sells for less than pennies on the dollar- if it can be sold or reused at all). Is this what we’re left with, as the major component of the manufacturing sector? Would we be better off if the government supported some other kind of domestic spending? Who cares? ^..^

211. patsyb Says:
     February 19th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

     There’s a fair amount of serious, good films these days, many of the foreign. Much has been made of Babel, Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth (all foreign), but relatively little has been made of surveillance films like Cache (French), The Lives of Others (German), and Breach (US). Each is well worth a serious discussion. Angles might include the times that nurture these films’ considerations; their divergent treatments of cultural and political secrecy; and the effects of slow, insidious, and unrelenting surveillance. What are these films telling us? It’s time to listen.

212. hurley Says:
     February 20th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

     The Fierce Urgency of Impeachment:
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5612

213. Chelsea Says:
     February 20th, 2007 at 7:59 pm

     Response to 15 February 2007

     ChuckSL: We did a show on health care coverage last fall. Please let us know if there is another angle that we should think about. If so, who do you want to hear from?

     hug: as part of our global warming series we have already produced a show on businesses response to climate change. Let us know if you think we need to do PART II. If so, what else should we talk about? Do you have any guests in mind? Who would you like to hear from?

     emmettoconnell: As always this is a great, well thought out pitch, but can you convince us that this is a show that people want to hear?

214. herbert browne Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 5:31 am

     Since we’re not going to get many war brides out of either of our latest conflicts, perhaps a show on “War Refugees: Whither from Iraq?” would be a good way to illustrate a nexus of issues on peoples displaced by war (in this case Our “War on Terror”- that’s presently Not an occupation of Iraq). There have been around 7,000 Iraqis granted U.S. entry… and maybe a million or so into Syria, Jordan & other Middle-East locales. Question: do we owe Iraqi refugees anything? Q: do we owe any support for their plight to the countries which have/ are taking them in? Q: should we be supporting some kind of repatriation ?.. and, if so, How?
     Since this wave of emigration seems to have begun with our entry into the country, shouldn’t it be a concern of the U.S. government- and its citizens- just what upheavals our actions have caused in civilian lives in Iraq? There’s also a “brain drain” side to this story… but maybe that’s too much for one show. I’d want to hear what people in Jordan , Syria, Lebanon have to say, as well as any apologists for the U.S. administration, and the Iraqi government. Maybe Rami Khouri, Deborah Amos, Ahmed Chalabi, someone from Al Jazeera’s Jordanian bureau, & someone from INS? ^..^

215. herbert browne Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 5:34 am

     hurley’s right, you know… at least you could “warm up” an impeachment show- just in case it should become relevant, somehow… & maybe give the “Morality” thread a run for its money… ^..^

216. the annie Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 9:59 am

     At this moment in time the decision to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is in debate. But, as is the nature of the act, the teachers are left out of the dialogue. Why? Teachers are evidentally the biggest threat to this business-induced “model” of “education.

     Who profits from NCLB? Think “Reading First.” Think SES. Think textbook companies who control curriculum. Think testing and scoring comapnies. Think about political ties to the business world; who is floating who?

     Who is harmed by the act? Think elementary school students whose days are marked by the torture of test prep and test drills, who lose recess to chant in nonsense phrases so they can “learn to read.” Think students whose teachers no longer have time to read an actual book. Think middle school children who are standardized into math classes whether thay are ready or interested. Think high schoolers who have little alternative but to take multiple AP classes to boost their school’s “reputation. And think special ed kids, non-english speaking kids, and disadvantaged kids who carry the weight of their “failing” schools when they are unable to regurgitate proficiently on standardized tests that do not fit their ability.

     The Educator Roundtable is a growing force designed to return the classroom and teaching to the teachers. Learning and teaching can not take place in an oppressive environment designed by greed and political bandstanding. If there is a script that is appropriate for classroom use, let it be of a play, not a classroom lecture. Teachers need time and support to plan and to teach. Students need time to wonder and question.

     It is urgent to counter the destructive policies of large think-tanks like the Aspen Institute, and large, powerful business lobbies with the voices of parents, teachers, students and citizens interested in grabbing back the public schools from this horrible and destructive control.

     Give teachers back their voices; give children back their childhood; give education back its sacred and valued place in our society.

     http://www.educatorroundtable.org

     REASONS NOT TO RE-AUTHORIZE THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:
     Misdiagnoses the causes of poor educational development, blaming teachers and students for problems over which they have no control.



     Assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior and that market forces can cure all educational ills.



     Mandates data driven instruction based on gamesmanship to undermine public confidence in our schools.



     Uses pseudo science and media manipulation to justify pro-corporate policies and programs, including diverting taxes away from communities and into corporate coffers.



     Ignores the proven inadequacies, inefficiencies, and problems associated with centralized, “top-down” control.

     Places control of what is taught in corporate hands many times removed from students, teachers, parents, local school boards, and communities.



     Requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive,compliant workforce than creative,resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, engaged members of our democracy.

     
Reflects and perpetuates massive distrust of the skill and professionalism of educators.



     Allows life-changing, institution-shaping decisions to hinge on single measures of performance.



     Emphasizes minimum content standards rather than maximum development of human potential.



     Neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines.



     Applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities, and a healthy democracy.

     
Forces schools to adhere to a testing regime, with no provision for innovating, adapting to social change, encouraging creativity, or respecting student and community individuality, nuance, and difference.



     Drives art, foreign language, career and technical education, physical education, geography,history, civics and other non-tested subjects, such as music, out of the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.



     Produces multiple, unintended consequences for students, teachers, and communities, including undermining neighborhood schools and blurring the line between church and state.



     Rates and ranks public schools using procedures that will gradually label them all “failures,” so when they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress, as all schools eventually will, they can be “saved” by vouchers, charters, or privatization.

217. emmettoconnell Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 10:20 am

     Chelsea:

     “can you convince us that this is a show that people want to hear?”

     Ok, for reference, here’s my original 10 America’s pitch. Here are the sub-pitches for El Norte and Sagebrush (two of the American regions).

     Over the next year, before the first real pulse of primaries, we’re going to hear a lot about America politically. The two main nominating contests are different than the run up to the 2006 campaign (which you guys did a great job covering) because they’re intensely national in nature. Both parties are trying to bite around the edges of who they think America is, and which candidate makes their case best and what their case is to begin with.

     This is the most important, or at least interesting Presidential race since 1920. Their are no built in favorites, so who ever wins, wins on their own merits. We have now 20 or so Presidential candidates, a lot of political talent on the line. Instead of covering the nominating races candidate by candidate, or issue by issue, we should cover it through the lens of America (if that doesn’t sound to hokey).

     MassInc’s 10 America’s map gives the opportunity to take a slow, deep look at America. This isn’t one show, but rather 10 (or 12 if you introduce and then close the series).

     People would be interested in listening to this series because it would give them the opportunity to consider politics in a different manner than the typical media coverage would afford. This is a major break from the typical, candidate driven coverage that is going to dominate for the next year and beyond. They’ll be interested because you can take the topic, turn it over and look at it from the other side, the side that most of us are considering politics, if not from our personal but from our regional views.

     Wow, that was a long post.

218. hurley Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 1:30 pm

     Thanks, herbert browne, for the vote of support on the impeachment suggestion. Any other votes out there?
     I’m not gnashing my teeth and rending my garments (or vv) about George W. Bush — though the mood overtakes me now and again. But it has to be said that by any objective standard Bush is the worst, most reckless President in US history. Much as I detested him from the start, I really do wish it had been different, that he had surprised us all. But look around you, look at the world we find ourselves in. The damage he has inflicted not only on his own nation but on the world is impossible to tally, and will be felt for at least a generation. More wars, more terrorism, more death, more waste, more loss, more debt, more enemies, more poverty, more cultural and environmental degradation, more missed opportunities — maybe among the last we’ll have — to create some semblance of a better future. The destructive folly of this administration joins the sun and our own death in Stendhal’s select list of the things we can only contemplate briefly before turning away.
     And there’s the matter of the Constitution…but I promised not to go on about this. More link though, as I run across them.

219. Katherine Says:
     February 21st, 2007 at 2:59 pm

     Scarequotes: It sounds like good conversation among friends — and fun stuff to wear — but I think the tough critics in our story meeting wouldn’t hear it as an hour of radio.

     icantgoon: There’s not much to say that’s different from Mary’s answer the last time you asked, but the lack of female guests is something we’re painfully aware of, so it’s not quite true that “nobody bothers to question this ridiculous ’status quo’” — we question it constantly. Our job, though, is to put the best talkers on the air every night. For whatever reason, Brian Dunbar’s right that it’s often much harder to find women (and we try hard) than men. We wish it were otherwise. It’s not just a question of sex, either: also race, class, etc… The good news is that you can help by suggesting female guests in the comment threads for each show!

220. hurley Says:
     February 22nd, 2007 at 8:45 am

     Why not a series on contemporary Europe, a subject you’ve yet to address. Blair will be bowing out soon (in large part because of the Iraq war); France will be holding elections soon; Spain is doing remarkably well under Zapatero (who rose to power due in large part to the Iraq war), but it seems ETA is back, or never went away…
     More urgently, Italy’s 60th or so government (no one seems to know anymore) since WWII is poised to fall, due in large part to plans for an expanded US base in Vicenza and Italy’s participation in the coaliition in Afghanistan, though there are all sorts of other sinister machinations afoot as well. Whether or not it does fall, there is no denying that Italy is a mess, due in large part to the legacy of Berlusconi. I doubt there’s one league table where Italy holds a respectable position. The health care system is in tatters (organs transplanted from someone infected with HIV to three people in Florence last week); the crime rate is soaring (there’s tallk of placing Naples under martial law); there are massive problems with illegal immigration (a band of Romanians now suspected of involvement in a string of killings of homeless people along the river not far from where I live); the Church is a constant and, under Benedict, increasingly baleful presence; the educational system is in crisis (Italy, the home of the Renaissance, boasts not one university among the top 40 in the world)…Even football is a scandal, with match-fixing rife, hooliganism (policeman killed in Sicily last week)…And so forth and so on. What statistics and anecdotal evidence cannot give an adequate impression of is the sense of a nation in a deep cultural malaise, and I, among many, would lay much of the blame at the feet of the mind-bogglingly corrupt and powerful Berlusconi…
     I could go on, but for now I’ll just mention that the fine Italo-American journalist recently published a book bearing on the subject of Berlusconi and Italy called The Sack of Rome.
     Happy to add to this and to contribute as I can.

221. Brian Dunbar Says:
     February 22nd, 2007 at 11:17 am

     Herbert Browne
     As our manufacturing infrastructure dissipares offshore (&/or across borders), and our auto industry experiences meltdown

     Now here is a show: Manufacturing is going overseas – is that a completely good or bad thing? Yes a country should not be merely a service sector economy and yes it’s spreading and creating wealth for people in other, poorer, countries to have access to those middle-class jobs.

     But not all manufacturing is heading overseas. The company I work at for a dayjob is a case in point. We employ about 7,000 people worldwide. Headquarters in the Upper Midwest. About 30-40% of our manufacturing is done in the U.S. (varies by quarter and by customer demand) but north of 50% of the revenue is derived from the US manufacturing sites.

     Why? The US sites tend to manufacture the more expensive and intensive bits. The overseas locations manufacture the less complicated widgets.

     And too … we’re a mid-sized global company. I work with peers in the US, UK and Asia, daily. I recently attended a training class in California – of my IT peers in that class (all from the sophisticated urban metropolis of San Francisco) I worked for the only company with a global reach, and the largest employer.

     Headquarted in a fly-over state in a town no one has heard of.

     We’re not the only company like that here. There is a metal fabricator with national and international contracts – housed in their nondescript shed are state-of-the-art computer controlled milling machines. Companies overseas can’t afford to purchase them – so they get contracts for delicate and massive machinery part requiring mm precision.

     This does come at some cost – you’re better and making widgets but at the same time you also employ fewer people that ‘of yore’.

     American firms getting better at manufacturing; this does not seem like a trend isolated to a small Upper MIdwestern town – just an under-reported one.

222. hurley Says:
     February 22nd, 2007 at 11:36 am

     …Mafia resurgent, industry in crisis (Fiat, Parmalat, Alitalia…), the Po running dry…
     Forgot to name the journaliist I refered to above: Alexander Stille. Paul Ginsborg another. More if this is of any interest.

223. JuliaR Says:
     February 22nd, 2007 at 5:51 pm

     Scarequotes: I think your T-shirt pitch is great for a feature, and I’d like to work closely with you to get the most out of it. I’ve already put a line out to Threadless, but would like to do some email brainstorming with you before I start soliciting other T-shirt bloggers. Would you email me at julia radioopensource org? (Anyone else interested in talking about T-shirts on the internet, feel free to fling me some ideas as well.)

224. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm

     Ala Bashir

     Ala Bashir

     The usual pitch, er, my dog ate the pitch…

225. herbert browne Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 4:33 am

     (from brian dunbar) ..”American firms getting better at manufacturing; this does not seem like a trend isolated to a small Upper MIdwestern town – just an under-reported one..”-

     For all of our, and our children’s sakes, I hope you’re right about that… but if foreign shops can come up with the money, there are an awful lot of rave halls, new dance clubs, rock ‘n’ roll band practice facilities & miniwarehouses to be found around the industrial NW- and used CNC machines in the local “Little Nickel” want ads- where one found small shops a decade ago who were subcontracting a part or two for Boeing… I think the third big NW aluminum smelter just closed recently, despite having the “night-time rate” Bonneville Power available. Even cheap hydro can’t keep ‘em around forever, if there’s cheaper wages & cheaper power down the road (or coast) somewhere. The economic “boom” waiting in the wings in the former logging settlements and fishing villages in this part of the country will be retiring baby boomers- and a new service economy- that will, hopefully, make some of that scenic, old infrastructure valuable again. Software & IT development, and the moving piles of Asian-produced goods flowing through the local ports have kept the NW alive, economically… and there’s still a lot of people making airplanes… but a lot of that “manufacturing middle” has gone. It may be transitory on some levels, but the aftermath of some transitions can kill ya- like watching 3/4 of the local bottomland for 20 miles around fill up with warehouses & subdivisions, where there were working truck farms 10 or 15 years ago. If oil goes way up, and the sea rises a little more, that agricultural capacity, close in, could be a godsend… but it’s mostly gone, now… & i miss it. ^..^

226. hurley Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm

     State Senator from WA with resolution to petition House to impeach…
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5675

227. danielsomers Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm

     what could possibly be more disturging and relevant than this?

     The US psychological torture system is finally on trial
     Naomi Klein
     Friday February 23, 2007
     The Guardian

     [This post was edited because, in copying an entire copyrighted article, it violated the guidelines. The full article is available here. --Katherine]

228. hurley Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 pm

     danielsomers’ link worthy, and points up yet again:
     http://www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html
     The epigraph says it all; Lapham elaborates in his usual elegant fashion.

229. Tom B Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 3:07 pm

     A recent comment on this site caught my attention: “once again you have let partisan journalism get in the way of truth. This seems to be fairly common on this site. — Good job.” — Why not a show on the use of sarcasm in political dialogue?

230. Paul Massari Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 4:32 pm

     Hey guys.

     Why not do a show about how stuff we thought was unhealthy, indulgent, or bad is now turning out to be good for us?

     Remember Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper? Allen plays Miles Monroe, a health food store owner who goes into hospital for an operation and wakes up 200 years in the future. He asks for wheat germ, granola, soy milk, etc… while the doctors look quizzically and say that back in the 1970s, people didn’t know that red meat, tobacco, and hot fudge were really good for them!

     In a case of life imitating art, researchers at Harvard Medical School now say cocoa may play a key role in “reducing the risk of (several) devastating diseases” such as dementia, alzheimer’s and stroke. Check out the Harvard Gazette story here:
     http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/02.22/01-cocoa.html

     It’s old news that drinking red wine not only staves off heart attack. The latest is that it actually prolongs life. Researchers have found the polyphenols in Madiran wine from southwest France correlates with the high rates of longevity in the region. (times of London story here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article654413.ece)

     Finally, the afternoon nap was always a sign of sloth, right? But researchers have found that naps actually protect against heart disease too: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17115245/

231. Paul Massari Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 4:43 pm

     How is it that you all have not had the brilliant writer and teacher Michael Pollan on your show? http://www.michaelpollan.com/

     Pollan’s latest, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is at once a modern day version of The Jungle, a meditation on taking responsibility for what we eat, and an ode to farming, cooking, and eating well. His story of investing in a steer and following its trail from birth to slaughter to McDonald’s in the “Military Agricultural State” is both enthralling and deeply disturbing. Best of all, Pollan connects the dots: between industrial agriculture and our pertoleum culture; between big farming and ranching and our distance from nature; and between the corn based food chain and the obesity epidemic.

     Put Pollan on with someone from Whole Foods (who come in for plenty of criticism in his book), a chef dedicated to cooking with locally grown food, and maybe an agribusiness guy. Terrific stuff!

232. Brian Dunbar Says:
     February 23rd, 2007 at 11:57 pm

     Herbert Browne
     if foreign shops can come up with the money

     It’s more than just having the capital. The fab shop I’ve done a minor amount of IT work for has a set of laser mills. Suckers cut metal to greater than a thousandth of a millimeter tolerance. The point is it’s not just about having enough money to purchase the gear you have to have skilled operators, quality control over the finished product, transportation to get it to the customer, and most important skilled techs to fly in and fix it when it breaks. Foreign shops can certainly gear up for all of this .. by which time the domestic places can buy the really-truly latest and greatest. It’s a never ending game but the advantage is to the capital rich and connected.

     a lot of that “manufacturing middle” has gone.

     I have no doubt of that. But I’m convinced that a great deal is still here just .. hidden from view. Some of it is new. My employer employs maybe 3,000 people domestically, 1500 local to my town – a lot of that growth is within the last decade. You’ll never even have heard of us unless you’re in our industry – and we have a world-wide presence and we’re _good_ at what we do.

     Granted I am optimistic by nature but this can’t be an isolated datum.

233. Choogler Says:
     February 24th, 2007 at 3:09 am

     I’d love to hear a show about the effects of class sizes and per-student spending in public schools. I often see TV news reports and election campaign ads championing small class sizes and more money per student as the solution for our education woes. This has never sat well with me, though. In grade school and high school I always found that having interested peers and a competent teacher made all the difference, regardless of how full the room was. I also received some of the best education of my life in university lecture halls packed with 100 to 300 students. I wish I had some concrete data for average class sizes by state, but I haven’t found that online yet.

     As for spending per student, I have managed to find some data that pokes holes in the more-money-is-better theory. In 2004, out the the 50 states and the District of Columbia, DC spent the most money per student: $13,317. Thia is about 62% more than the national average of $8,248. In 2004 DC students also averaged the lowest composite SAT score in the country: 965, compared to 1026 for the nation and the highest average score of 1195 in Iowa. Iowa happens to be well below the national average for per-student spending, at $7,279 a head.

     The SAT scores for 2004 were pulled off of an Oklahoma state web site here:
     http://www.sde.state.ok.us/test/SAT/SATstateSCORES.pdf

     Per-capita spending data was taken from a National Education Association report, tables H-11 and H-12:
     http://www.nea.org/edstats/images/05rankings.pdf

     For potential interviews, Class Size Matters (www.classsizematters.org) is one organization I found promoting smaller classes. There are probably many others. I’m sure the NEA would have comments, as would local school boards.

234. GodzillaVsBambi Says:
     February 24th, 2007 at 8:48 am

     The site connected to the pictures on the home page of Radioopensource.org, is classified as “Hacking and Proxy Avoidance Systems”. I received a virus in the mail recently by someone I corresponded with on Open Source. So for me this subject is ‘very’ topical. I think these things should be out in the open for all to observe. I think that my right to free speech should be protected – not co-opted to some sidebar criminal enterprise appointed to do the Devil’s work against those whom the users of Open Source happen to disagree. The Equal Protection Clause to the Fourteenth Amendment clearly states [sec.1] “…No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges [of the individual] “…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.

     To bring everyone more up to date however, I would like to draw their attention to that which can serve as a basis for prima-facie litigation. Sufficient enough for liability are the more internet-generated terms such as “causation of damage” and “intermeddling” – related to ‘hacking’, and the instalation of virusus and/or spyware. Should any attempt to steal my identity, damage my reputation, or cause loss of productivity occur – a lawsuit will be filed as soon as possible.

     I would expect behavior like this from the Pope, but not from the advanced hominids on Open Source.

     Daniel: BramGolah@gmail.com

235. GodzillaVsBambi Says:
     February 24th, 2007 at 8:58 am

     I made a mistake. Instead of: “the users of Open Source” in the previous post, it should read ‘the management at Open Source’. My apologies.

236. hurley Says:
     February 25th, 2007 at 11:44 am

     Impeachment talk in the land of herbert browne, Nick, et al
     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5702:

237. herbert browne Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 2:45 am

     http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5675 is the link, hurley- and, yes- the Wa State Senate is going to hear a request to impeach from one of its members, in the coming week. There are strong grassroots orgs in the NW that support this effort… and the story from smirkingchimp offers hope that New Mexico & Vermont will also have similar offerings. Wouldn’t that be something, if the 2008 presidential jockeying were put on a back burner for the rest of the Federal fiscal year while impeachment proceedings were being decided… sweet! ^..^

238. hurley Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 9:20 am

     Thanks for correcting the link, herbert browne. And yes, wouldn’t it be sweet…

239. David Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 10:43 am

     Choogler: Class size and money spent per student are interesting parts of a rancorous education debate, but I think they might make more sense in a magazine article or news piece than as the basis for a radio conversation. We DO need to do more shows about education, and we’ve been throwing more ideas around in recent story meetings. Hopefully we can get something on the board soon.

     Hurley and Herbert Browne: can you guys give me a quick civics lesson? Does a bill in the WA state senate have any bearing on the impeachment of a president? Is this anything more than the taking of temperature in places like the Pacific Northwest and Vermont?

240. hurley Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 12:04 pm

     David: I’ll defer to herbert browne, being the deferential sort and not living in WA (any more). And then there’s the small matter of my ignorance. This useful link while I try to get up to speed on your question:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush
     And thanks for reconsidering the idea.

241. hurley Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 12:21 pm

     David: From the article linked above:
     Vermont Democrats
     Certain Democrats in Vermont, as per guidelines from “Jefferson’s Manual”, a supplement to U.S. House of Representatives rules [sic] are attempting to initiate a Bush impeachment. Its section on impeachment specifically allows a state legislature to transmit charges to initiate impeachment proceedings

242. hurley Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

     Click on the link to Jefferson’s Manual, scroll down to this from Jefferson, followed by a quote from the Wiki author:
     In the House there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion: by charges made on the floor on the responsibility of a Member or Delegate; by charges preferred by a memorial, which is usually referred to a committee for examination; by a resolution dropped in the hopper by a Member and referred to a committee; by a message from the President; by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State or territory or from a grand jury; or from facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House.[3]

     Several states have therefore introduced bills which, if passed, could begin the impeachment process.[4]

243. Lumière Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

     I would like to suggest a show based on the book The 48 Laws of Power

     When David Brooks says that Chaney’s irretraceable positions are self destructive – that insight is found in the book The 48 Laws of Power.

     When Hillary Clinton says, if attacked, decimate your adversary – that insight is found in the book The 48 Laws of Power

     The 48 Laws of Power parallels the teachings from Sun Tzu’s the Art of War and Niccolo Machiavelli’s the Prince

244. mynocturama Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 1:01 pm

     I strongly, STRONGLY suggest that all you fine folks at ROS check out the Sky Maul catalogue by comedy troupe Kasper Hauser:

     kasperhauser.com

     It stirred in me the sort of intense laughter that’s practically indistinguishable from crying.

     Some highlights: Garden Emoti-Gnomes (p.31), Nazi Grandpa Locator (p.54), and Home Beluga-quarium (p.58).

     Kasper Hauser puts out a successful podcast (produced in part, I think, by Jesse Thorn, one of the guests for the Borat show). So I frame the pitch in terms of the reach of the internet and the technology of podcasts in relation to sketch comedy, a form once accessible/experienced only via TV and live performance.

     But, frankly, I suggest it just to share something deeply, liberatingly funny. Part of my own private utopia would have to include all Sky Mall catalogues on planes replaced by Sky Maul. It may very well help the airline industry.

245. herbert browne Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

     Re: impeachment by a State legislature- my understanding is that it requires only one U.S. congressperson’s willingness to accept and file the measure brought from a State body. What I don’t know yet is whether a member of that particular State’s representatives is required- or whether anyone in the U.S. Congress can be the processor of the request.

     I strongly second mynocturama’s pitch above, re the popularity & growing power of on-line video sketches, as they relate to opportunities to inform the public with perspectives that won’t appear on anyone’s “nightly news” broadcasts. Ultimately, this format may be the answer to the rules change (under Reagan) that ended the “equal time” fiat for broadcasters. It may also presage an increase in the exercise of the vote by the young… or at least give “talking points” a wider audience. ^..^

246. herbert browne Says:
     February 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm

     I saw an item that the SEC wants to add to the minimal regulations of “hedge funds”- that limits of individual participation will be bumped up from $1 million in net worth (or $200,000/yr income), not including home value, to $2.5 million. I suppose this makes as much sense as demanding that hi-stakes gamblers prove that they have sufficient resources to be in the game, since hedge funds are not about investing in anything- they’re essentially bets on the performance of various markets (&/or facets of those markets). They seem to have attracted a bit of “public” money, as well- pension funds, etc- which seems like a bad idea, maybe, for those who pay into them ( none of whom have the “stakes” as individuals to be in this sort of “game”). Letting these funds into the marketplace at all seems like a bad idea, since they aren’t about supply, demand, goods, services, etc- they’re about using the marketplace as a system which can be “gamed’, in order to make money. I see them as someone who buys a fast sprinting horse, enters it in a long-distance race, takes as many bets as possible that its horse will be in the lead at 2 furlongs, and sells the horse before the race is half over. Aside from the proposal (& actuality) that these funds require fewer regulations than “traditional” forms of investment (I suppose because they’re limited to the very wealthy, who have always indicated a flair for self-regulation), do you think you can find an apologist for (& explainer of) hedge funds, someone from a large pension fund, an independent economist (or student of economics- what’s Dave Warsh doing, these days?), and maybe a former government regulatory agency person, to run this down for us? ^..^

247. Lumière Says:
     February 27th, 2007 at 10:17 am

     ///…since they aren’t about supply, demand, goods, services, etc- t.\\\

     How are the secondary markets about any of the above ?

     Once the insiders have distributed their shares, the secondary markets are only there incase insiders need to sell more later.

     It is a game of musical chairs – don’t get caught when the music stops!

248. Katherine Says:
     February 27th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

     danielsommers: Padilla’s case might be a way to revisit Guantanamo — I’ll bring it up in the meeting. We’ll also probably talk about Gitmo in the Hannah Arendt show(s).

     Tom B: Sarcasm in political dialogue…how would you flesh this out into a whole hour? What would you want to talk about? Who’s good on this subject?

     Paul Massari: The bad stuff turning out to be good might have the makings of a blog feature, but probably not a show. Where would you hear the conversation going after the first five minutes on chocolate, wine, and naps?

     Paul Massari Hi again. You’ll find Michael Pollan on The Children of the Corn Subsidies and on We Say Potato. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is indeed a wonderful book.

249. herbert browne Says:
     February 27th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

     To reiterate my suggestion from Feb 18 (maybe not a real pitch, I guess), the NYT has a story about Fed attorneys dropping like flies in Spring at fungo time:
     http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/opinion26mon4.htmlem&ex=1172725200&en=7fa211baa4bb4830&ei=5087
     Looks like more indications that we’re becoming “a nation of ideologues, not laws”…
     There’s also a note in the article that the patriot Act has some “language inserted” that makes it possible for the President to appoint replacement attorneys without consent of the Senate. Is that slick, or what? Maybe more to the point- is it Legal? ^..^

250. Ruth Urbach Says:
     February 27th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

     The Forman Thesis: Paul Forman, a physicist, is curator of the Division of Medicine and Science at the National Museum of American History. His primary research is in the history of physics and the application of cultural history to scientific development.
     The first part of his Thesis regards the influence of German culture on early interpretations of quantum mechanics, to wit: Weimar culture’s emphasis on acausality, individuality, and visualizability contributed to the acceptance and interpretation of quantum mechanics.
     The second part of the Thesis concerns the influence of military funding on the character and course of scientific research. During WWII and the Cold War there was a shift to applied research.
     Why now? Military spending is on everybody’s mind right now. What has been neglected (in basic physical science) as a result? How does our culture influence scientific progress?
     Perhaps Dr. Forman would be the best person to explain all this to us laypersons.

251. Lumière Says:
     February 28th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

     This is a great topic: mandatory vaccination for the human papillomavirus (HPV)

     At first, it appears to be about medical science.
     Then it appears to be about politics.
     Then again, it turns out to be about religion!

     Government/health programs – sex – the religious right – this has it all !

     You can get women speakers !

252. hurley Says:
     February 28th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

     Water: The future geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s vast water resources:
     http://www.repubblica.it/2007/02/sezioni/ambiente/acqua-russia/acqua-russia/acqua-russia.html

     An abstract might run: Water is the oil of the 21st century. By 2050 two billion people will lack sufficient potable water. Russia has enough to satisfy the needs of two planets. The Kremlin hopes to use these resources for financial and political gain through a network of piplelines similar to that used to transport oil, though in this instance water would be conveyed even farther afield, to the Middle East and Africa. As water resources literally dry up, Russia would be able to position itself at the head of the “alimentary chain” governing the lives of millions of people. Water is an increasingly precious financial commodity…

253. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

     I’m reflecting over some ROS shows and it seems to me ROS has covered aspects of the following: Frontline: news war. It would be great to hear Lowell Bergman on ROS, either solo or part of a larger round table.

254. Lumière Says:
     February 28th, 2007 at 5:28 pm

     Seymour Hersh was on that show…Bergman would be good

255. OliverCranglesParrot Says:
     February 28th, 2007 at 8:23 pm

     Seymour Hersh was on that show…Bergman would be good Thanks Lumière for the heads up… One of the few times I think a TV would have served me well. I just found the interviews at the site. The only reason I knew about this show was an interview with Mr. Bergman on a competing radio show.

256. Lumière Says:
     March 1st, 2007 at 8:38 am

     I look forward to the day I will have no TV

257. Alexandre Enkerli Says:
     March 1st, 2007 at 11:28 am

     Is there a specific reason there seems to be fairly little discussion in mainstream media about Richard Mellon Scaife’s change of heart about Hillary Clinton? Seems a bit strange that it’s not making headlines (though bloggers have talked about it a lot).

258. Lumière Says:
     March 1st, 2007 at 2:23 pm

     Jazzman:
     ////jazz in the most intimate of settings \\\\

     You’re too young to have gone to Lulu White’s, Jazz Workshop, or Pall’s mall?

259. Helpdesk Software WebLog » Blog Archive » DECISION WITH REASONS Says:
     July 27th, 2007 at 2:23 am

     [...] percent increase over FY2005 when we began our new “weeding” process. http://www.radioopensource.org/pitch-a-show-1407/ http://www.whitehouse.gov Off”**]½,*[$ [...]

260. Radio Open Source » Blog Archive » Sonny Rollins in Conversation Says:
     February 25th, 2010 at 3:06 pm

     [...] Thanks to nother for pitching this show. [...]