Friday, April 24, 2009

got lost on the information super highway…

Now I have no freaking clue what the heck twitter is but I feel pretty dang special to have recently become a podcast fanatic. Not having a TV and never picking up anything in English on my shortwave radio I've been out of the loop for some time. But a few months ago, due to far too much time spent in bed to keep warm, and a new ipod gadget from family I finally started getting into podcasts, and I'm obsessed. It's not like I read the newspaper everyday in the states, but there's a danger in being uninformed, so I'm catching up. Ashley and I had a nice ritual of watching This Week with George Stephanopoulos on one of two stations we picked up on Sunday mornings (so long as our Saturday night hadn't gotten too crazy, though George's cute little smile was always a great cure for a hangover, even if it was the only productive thing we'd do on a Sunday).

Anyhow, that and Obama's Weekly Address are the only video podcasts I take time to load, and they take FOREVER. This weeks This Week, on April 19th was alright, but I laughed out loud and complained to my cat about John Beohner's asinine answers, or lack thereof really. I fully admit I don't have a real opinion on what is being done to combat the various current crises because I'm certainly not well enough informed. But to say the issue of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is laughable as a contributor to climate change? Ugh, it was too ignorant to stomach.

But anyway, the point is, though I am mighty integrated into bled life here, I'm keeping well informed about your alls whereabouts and issues too. Much of it gives me a headache, but ignorance is not bliss, so I keep downloading. My favorites, for anyone with some time to hear some great stuff are: the hilarious How Stuff Works guys, Radio Lab which is just too awesome to be free and yet it is, This American Life of course, Green Festivals Radio whose interviews I don't like so much, but the speeches are awesome, particularly Van Jones and Deepak Chopra, there are some good interviews on GreenLivingIdeas.com's GreenTalk Radio, the recent ones with Sam Bozzo on his film Blue Gold: World Water Wars were amazing. I also get plenty of PRI including The World: Science, Living on Earth, To the Best of Our Knowledge, and NPR's News Summary, Fresh Air, On Health and On Science. I also download The Onion sometimes and am trying out some new agriculture news and BBC podcasts. I feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with these and then I think of how much time most Americans spend watching TV, and it's really not so bad. At least I'm getting educated while being entertained. Let me know what other podcasts you consider necessities!

2 comments:

Ian Gamble said...

Yay RadioLab!

I just got into that a couple of months ago, so very very good

Jeremy said...

I don't know much about podcasts, but if you want to immerse yourself into some enlightening material, I'd recommend Ted.com