Wednesday, January 26, 2011

What is hot on 26 January 2011

Rear Vision
Sudan
Rear Vision this week tells the story behind the recent referendum in Sudan and explores why the people of southern Sudan are so determine to separate from the north.
(review, feed)

Radio Open Source
David Rohde’s Taliban Captivity
What can Taliban captivity do to a man’s judgment, even to his soul? It made David Rohde root for the CIA’s drone missiles buzzing on the horizon, even when his captors assured him the drones were hunting for them and him, and were going to take his life with theirs
(review, feed)

The Christian Humanist Podcast
The Italian Renaissance
Nathan Gilmour moderates a discussion with David Grubbs and Michial Farmer about the Italian Renaissance and the broad spectrum of intellectual and artistic activity that emerges from that period. On the way we focus on the strong continuities between the concrete continuities between this fascinating time and what people in that moment called "the Dark Ages," and that discussion takes us into the realms of sculpture and politics and philosophy as well as poetry. Among the authors, artists, and others discussed are Dante, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Castiglione, Pico de Mirandola, and the Medicis.
(review, feed)

Witness
Conflict in Somalia
It is 20 years since the government of Siad Barre collapsed in Somalia. Since then the country has not had a permanent central authority, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the fighting and famine.
(review, feed)

TED Talks
Drawing upon humor for change - Liza Donnelly
New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly shares a portfolio of her wise and funny cartoons about modern life -- and talks about how humor can empower women to change the rules.
(review, feed)

Meaning of Life - LSE

At the London School of Economics (LSE Podcast) you can hear a lecture by Robert Rowland Smith about the Meaning of Life. As much as this subject is most interesting and the lecture laudable, it is also barely audible. Rowland Smith walks up and down the stage, causing varying levels in the sound and constantly interacts with his audience, while there are no microphones to catch what feedback he is reacting to. (feed)

Still, what will make it worthwhile to spend an hour and a half struggling with this irregular lecture is that Rowland Smith gives an amazing overview of what is implied in questions about the meaning of life. It is the broadest inventory of relevant issues to the meaning of life I recall to have heard. In stead of being bothered by the lapses in the audio, you can take them as breaks and ponder your own reaction to it, until the next tidbit comes up.

Nice, inspiring I hope, but scattered.

More LSE:
Palestinian perspectives - LSE and CNES,
The impending war,
Quest for meaning,
The plundered planet,
China and India.