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.
__ __
“Democratic Challengers: Abdul El-Sayed and Nithya Raman”
THE NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR - NPR and WNYC New York Public Media
• Michigan’s Senate seat is a must-win for Democrats hoping to take control
of the Senate in 2026. The midterms are reflecting a surge of energy behind
left-leaning Democratic candidates—sometimes known as the Mamdani
effect—challenging their party’s establishment and its tarnished image. Abdul
El-Sayed, a former health official, firmly supports Medicare for All and the
abolition of ICE. He’s ahead of his moderate Democratic rival, Haley Stevens,
in most polls. But that has some Democrats worried that El-Sayed is too radical
to win the general election in a state that narrowly voted for Trump in 2024.
El-Sayed talks with David Remnick about being “radicalized in medical school,”
the trap of expressing righteous anger as an Arab candidate, how Robert F.
Kennedy’s anti-science views have taken such a hold on the public, and why
AIPAC and other lobbying groups have spent sixty million dollars opposing him
in this election.
• An incumbent mayor of Los Angeles normally faces smooth sailing for
reëlection, but for the Democrat Karen Bass her term has been marked by
criticism of her handling of last year’s devastating wildfires and the city’s
ongoing homelessness crisis. The city-council member Nithya Raman was a former
ally of Bass who now faces her in a November runoff election. Raman is aligned
with the Democratic Socialists of America, and she talks with David Remnick
about her frustration with Democratic leadership, which she says is lacking
“urgency around the issues that I felt mattered most, and, in some ways, a
moving away from the direction that I felt L.A. needed to be moving.” (50”)
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/democratic-challengers-abdul-elsayed-and-nithya-raman
“One Refugee’s Journey Through ICE Dentention”
THE NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR - NPR and WNYC New York Public Media
• In 2025, as ICE was struggling to meet an impossible goal of three
thousand immigration arrests per day, the agency took an unprecedented step:
picking people up when they arrived at immigration court. These were immigrants
seeking legal status through appropriate channels. The staff writer Jonathan
Blitzer, who has been reporting on immigration for over a decade, tells the
story of one man detained this way, a Guinean refugee who was seeking asylum
after a severe beating and death threats by his government. His first name is
Alsainy, and his story exemplifies the ways that the Trump Administration is
sabotaging the system of legal immigration.
• Though President Donald Trump came back to the White House with broad
support for his border policies, his Administration’s immigration crackdown has
been broadly unpopular. The staff writer Jonathan Blitzer spoke with two
representatives in Congress about the blowback: Jason Crow, of Colorado, and
María Salazar, of Florida. Crow is one of the Democratic Party’s recruitment
co-chairs for the midterm elections, a role that entails helping candidates
figure out what to say about issues that have proved controversial for their
party. Salazar, whose district includes much of Miami, is a diehard Trump
supporter, but many of her Republican constituents are outraged at how ICE has
been operating, and she remains hopeful that the Administration might make a
sharp turn. “Mr. President, you’ve got to change the way when it comes to
immigration,” she’d like to tell him. “Otherwise, we’re not going to have a
Republican Party.” (61”)
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/one-refugees-journey-through-ice-detention
— —
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
Member, North America Shortwave Association Executive Council
Co-Coordinator, NASWA Annual SWL Fest
Editor, The NASWA Journal “Shortwave Center” column
Author, "The Worldwide Listening Guide”
Opinion Writer, “The Daily Gazette - Sunday”, Schenectady, NY
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