New Channels for Creativity
1 year ago
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
This American Life
If you don't already listen, This American Life is this fantastic podcast about (wait—guess first.. yeah. no.. no.. yes.. ok.) America. They do these wonderful stories about random people doing surprisingly interesting, mundane things (in America).
But they also join NPR* now and then to do shows about the economy, cutting through media clutter to make wonkish, complex things you read about in the news jargon-free and easily understandable (and remarkably captivating) via a mix of plain language interviews and anecdotes. The reporters are curious, humble, thorough, non-partisan and appropriately exasperated.
This week's is about the collapse of the regulatory system over the past few years—specifically, the failure of federal regulators with AIG, and the over-reliance and poor design of credit ratings agencies like Standard and Poors.
I feel like I'm a fairly smart guy who reads a lot, but I'd be much much much more confused without these shows. They're simply enriching. You can only download the current week's show for free, so I recommend you do it quickly (they post a new show each Sunday).
*They also have a thrice-weekly NPR podcast called "Planet Money," that does essentially the same thing in shorter, somewhat less-produced shows.
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6 comments:
I love both This American Life and Planet Money...
This weeks This American Life was great, all the talk about OTS and the ratings firms...i found it so interesting and intriguing, I had never heard any of those things before.
Two weeks ago was a great one as well (Turncoat...loved the story about the Anarchist from Austin)...
Good to see you back...I drank all those beers before...gotta love the ABC Stout
yeah.. I spent a bit of time with the Common Ground people in New Orleans (from the Anarchist episode). They may or may not play a prominent role in a book I may or may not finish one day.
Another little known fact is how I let you win the World of Beers Challenge.
We both know you didnt let me win anything...yeah i was curious whether you had ever come across the common ground guys...did you ever meet the main guy? or Malik?
i can't remember, and it's killing me that i can't.
they aren't characters as much as prominent parts of the setting, if that makes sense. just knew them as the guys organizing protests, the guys a lot of people loves, the guys a lot of people hated, etc.
but i met some of them on my first day in the lower ninth, and then were always somehow "involved" when stuff would go down.
I don't know if you saw in my recent blog post about trying to raise money for a charity for my climb, but do you have any suggestions on a charity?
yeah.. i don't know how you choose one.
if it were me, i'd try to choose something personally meaningful or something connected with the activity—even if only for the sake of choosing. perhaps something local to the caucasus, or something to do with mountaineering like greg mortenson's foundation in the himalayas (https://www.ikat.org).
you could also find local microfinance opportunities through kiva.org, which would allow you to continue to invest sustainably in poorer communities near elbrus.
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