Podcasts permit a shift of listening time from a set appointment to virtually any convenient occasion. I do it while taking my daily (more or less) 3 mile walk, while I’m “plodding along”.
While there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of great podcasts from other sources, the ones sponsored via public radio have been vetted through the worthy objectives of the medium. Here’s what I’ve been listening to recently. I hope you might find these suggestions — in roughly 90 minute bites -- helpful in enhancing your own enjoyment of radio, our favorite medium. __ __ “How Should We Help the Global Poor?” THE MORAL MAZE - BBC Radio 4 “Dawn... and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine, now, in the 20th century...” Those words, spoken by Michael Buerk 40 years ago, pricked the world’s conscience, triggered an unprecedented humanitarian effort, led to Live Aid and spawned institutions like Comic Relief. Since then, more than a billion people around the world have climbed out of extreme poverty, although around 700 million people still live on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank. Times have changed. Not only is the media landscape vastly different, making competing demands on our attention, but also our attitudes to helping the poor around the world are different. The question is not simply whether we have a moral duty to help people in other countries, but HOW we should help them. In a post-pandemic world, there are those who advance ever stronger arguments for ending poverty through debt cancellation, robust institutions and international co-operation. Critics of development aid, however, see it as wasteful, ineffective and enabling corruption: ‘poor people in rich countries subsidising rich people in poor countries’. Others view the sector as a legacy of European colonialism, citing Band Aid’s portrayal of Africa as emblematic of the ‘White saviourism’ ingrained in the system. Others, meanwhile, believe the best way to help people is to bypass institutions altogether, and give cash directly to individuals to make their own decisions about how to spend it. 40 years on from Michael Buerk’s landmark report from Ethiopia, how should we help the global poor? (57”) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00244mg “Summer Reading with Celeste Ng” THE BOOK SHOW - ABC Radio National From Sydney Writers' Festival, American author Celeste Ng shares how her latest novel 'Our Missing Hearts' explores one of her deepest fears. Celeste Ng is known for her dark realist novels, 'Everything I Never Told You', and 'Little Fires Everywhere' (which was adapted to the screen in 2020). 'Our Missing Hearts' is set in a dystopian, near-future America, where anti-Asian sentiment has peaked, books are disappearing from the shelves, and children are being taken away from their families. It's a chilling world but as Claire Nichols discovers at this Sydney Writers' Festival event, there is also hope in art, poetry, and family. (54”) https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/the-book-show/summer-reading-with-celeste-ng/104462194 — — A compendium of these suggestions, plus on occasion additional pertinent material, is published every other month in the CIDX Messenger, the monthly e-newsletter of the Canadian International DX Club (CIDX). For further information and membership information, go to www.cidxclub.ca John Figliozzi Editor, "The Worldwide Listening Guide” 11th EDITION now available from universal-radio.com, amazon.com. amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.com.au _______________________________________________ Internetradio mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/internetradio To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe, or visit the URL shown above.
