[Swprograms] Podding Along - Issue 352

[John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Podcasts permit a shift of listening time from a set appointment to virtually any convenient occasion.  I do it while “power walking” (most) every morning.  The act of putting one foot in front of the other can be pretty monotonous and by “podding along” while plodding along the mind also gets something useful to do.  So it can be with the time spent gardening, washing dishes, preparing meals and many other day to day activities.

Podcasting has grown to the point that it can justly be considered a medium all its own.  Therefore, the attempt here has to be to highlight only a small portion of it, just one corner where excellence reigns.

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 program’s web site, most programs are made available through any number of other amalgamation sources such as iTunes and TuneIn. 

This continuing series of small samplings in more or less 90 minute helpings are curated by me.  I attest to the fact that I have listened to every podcast listed here.  So admittedly these are thoroughly subjective recommendations.  But my interests and tolerance for incompatible topics and views are pretty wide-ranging, even if I do say so myself. 

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“Food and the legacy of slavery”
THE FOOD PROGRAMME - BBC Radio 4 
Jaega Wise and Dan Saladino investigate the hidden story of slavery in our food. Between the 17th century and into the 19th, twelve million enslaved Africans were transported to the Caribbean and into the rest of the Americas. Their work transformed industries, including tobacco and cotton, but it was their agricultural labour that made the biggest impact on the world. The modern food system as we know it would not exist without the centuries of the brutal slavery put in place by European powers. The food we eat today, our palates and even the shapes of our bodies, are all a part of the legacy of slavery. And the biggest commodity of all was sugar. Jaega and Dan tell this story with the help of James Walvin, a writer and academic who has spent fifty years researching the role of slavery in making the modern world. Walvin argues that we still haven't acknowledged this fact, and to move forward we will need to come to terms with this history. The most tangible part of lives is in what we eat and drink; tea, coffee, chocolate, all were ingredients made possible with slavery and all were bitter products made palatable with the sugar of slavery. Dan also speaks to Michael Twitty, author of the Cooking Gene, and as an African-American cook, someone who has recreated the lives of enslaved people working in kitchens on plantations. (29”)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000lstp

“Fall of the Roman Empire”
THE FORUM - BBC World Service
In 476, the last of the Roman emperors in the West was deposed; in 1776, historian Edward Gibbon wrote “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, and Rome’s fate became a major point of comparison for all empires. In Gibbon's view, instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed precisely 1300 years before, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. Ever since, there has been a fascination with what changed in Rome in 476 and why, and whether there were more significant changes earlier or later than that date and, importantly, what stayed the same. Rajan Datar explores the ideas about Rome’s Fall with Sarah E. Bond, Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa, USA; Meaghan McEvoy, Lecturer in Byzantine Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; and Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, UK. (44”)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszjvq

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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 Guide”
Current 184 page 9th EDITION available from Universal Radio [universal-radio.com], Amazon [amazon.com], Ham Radio Outlet [hamradio.com]
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