[Swprograms] Podding Along - Issue 204

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Happy New Year!

Most radio listening takes place in the car or while doing other things that allow freedom for the ear, but not the eyes and hands.  Podcasts permit a shift of listening time from a set appointment to virtually any convenient occasion.  I do it while âpower walkingâ (most) every morning.  The act of putting one foot in front of the other can be pretty monotonous and by âpodding alongâ while plodding along the mind also gets something useful to do. 

Some of the best radio comes from the public networks of the UK, Australia, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.  Apart from the originating programâs web site, most programs are made available through any number of other amalgamation sources such as iTunes and TuneIn. 

Admittedly, these are thoroughly subjective recommendations, but my interests and tolerance for incompatible views are pretty wide-ranging. Hereâs another in a continuing series of small samplings, offered in a 90 minute scope (more of less):

ââ

âHopeâ
IN OUR TIME - BBC Radio 4
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of hope. To the ancient Greeks, hope was closer to self-deception, one of the evils left in Pandora's box or jar, in Hesiod's story. In Christian tradition, hope became one of the theological virtues, the desire for divine union and the expectation of receiving it, an action of the will rather than the intellect. To Kant, 'what may I hope' was one of the three basic questions which human reason asks, while Nietzsche echoed Hesiod, arguing that leaving hope in the box was a deception by the gods, reflecting human inability to face the demands of existence. Yet even those critical of hope, like Camus, conceded that life was nearly impossible without it.  (54â)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00017vl

"The Long March"
IN OUR TIME - BBC Radio 4
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a foundation story for China as it was reshaped under Mao Zedong. In October 1934, around ninety thousand soldiers of the Red Army broke out of a siege in Jiangxi in the south east of the country, hoping to find a place to regroup and rebuild. They were joined by other armies, and this turned into a very long march to the west and then north, covering thousands of miles of harsh and hostile territory, marshes and mountains, pursued by forces of the ruling Kuomintang for a year. Mao Zedong was among the marchers and emerged at the head of them, and he ensured the officially approved history of the Long March would be an inspiration and education for decades to come. (51â)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001fv2

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CAPSULE REVIEW
IN OUR TIME - BBC RADIO 4
In the last couple of editions of PODDING ALONG, IN OUR TIME has been featured.  I have to confess that this has become my favorite programs on radio.  If you listen to a lot of radio like I do, then you undoubtedly will notice that this is a truly unique program--not only for the subject matter it fearlessly tackles, but for the way it goes about its business.  The depth of inquiry that host Melvin Braggâs expert use of the Socratic method prompts from his always learned guests is phenomenal when one considers that each discussion comes in at under an hour.  Itâs uncanny how his questions always seem to reflect what the attentive listener is also asking.  This is an aspiring polymathâs delight.
Consult the programâs website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl - for broadcast and streaming times and/or to download and stream individual episodes.

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A monthly (well, mostly monthly) compendium of these newsletters, plus on occasion additional pertinent material, is now published in The CIDX Messenger, the monthly e-newsletter of the Canadian International DX Club (CIDX).  For further information, go to www.cidx.ca

John Figliozzi
Editor, "The Worldwide Listening Guideâ
192 page 8th edition available from Universal Radio [universal-radio.com] and Amazon [amazon.com]
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