America’s Shadow Army in Iraq

in Politics | March 20th, 2007

Here is where the ide­ol­o­gy of pri­va­ti­za­tion log­i­cal­ly ends up. As part of its occu­pa­tion, the US gov­ern­ment has flood­ed Iraq with pri­vate con­trac­tors. And while some build bridges and oth­ers help pump oil, a good num­ber car­ry out mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in Amer­i­ca’s name, and they’ve posi­tioned them­selves to be sub­ject to nei­ther mil­i­tary nor civil­ian sys­tems of jus­tice. More­over, they have also stead­fast­ly refused to han­dover infor­ma­tion about their activ­i­ties to Con­gress. This inter­view on Fresh Air (iTunes Feed mp3) gives you good back­ground infor­ma­tion on Black­wa­ter USA, the Amer­i­can mer­ce­nary army oper­at­ing in Iraq appar­ent­ly with­out over­sight or account­abil­i­ty.

Podcast Tutorial

in Podcasts | March 19th, 2007

We talk about pod­casts a good deal around here. But giv­en that only 12% of inter­net users have ever down­loaded a pod­cast, and only 1% does so dai­ly (see this Pew Research Cen­ter study), we want­ed to pro­vide an overview of pod­casts and how to use them. In a few min­utes, we want to get you up and run­ning and explor­ing our rich col­lec­tions of edu­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al mate­ri­als.

What is a pod­cast?

Here’s the basic answer. Pod­casts are essen­tial­ly radio shows avail­able for down­load over the Inter­net, and you can lis­ten to them on your iPod, oth­er portable mp3 play­ers, and com­put­er. Instead of being broad­cast over the air­waves and even­tu­al­ly lost, as hap­pens with tra­di­tion­al radio shows, pod­casts can be stored and played at the user’s con­ve­nience. Think of it as a TIVO in audio.

How do I down­load and lis­ten to pod­casts? The iTunes Way

Giv­en the preva­lence of Apple’s iPod/iPhone, dis­cussing the Apple way of down­load­ing pod­casts is unavoid­able.

To access pod­casts through iTunes (down­load for free here), you have sev­er­al options:

Option 1:

• Open iTunes,
• Click on “iTunes store” on the left side of the screen,
• Next click on “Pod­casts” with­in the area called “iTunes Store,”
• Search and find the pod­cast you want,
• Then either click “Get Episode” to get an indi­vid­ual pod­cast that inter­ests you, or click “Sub­scribe” to auto­mat­i­cal­ly receive each new install­ment with­in the pod­cast series.

Option 2:

• Find a pod­cast that you’d like to explore. (You may encounter them while surf­ing the web),
• Locate the pod­cast’s rss feed, which sites usu­al­ly adver­tise on their home­page, and are often accom­pa­nied by this sym­bol,
• Click on the “Advanced” drop-down menu along the top of the screen,
• Next select “Sub­scribe to pod­cast,”
• And then paste the feed link (for exam­ple, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/mind.xml) into the box and click “Ok.”

NOTE: This option works well when you find a pod­cast that’s not already list­ed on iTunes.

Option 3:

• Some­times when you’re surf­ing the web, you’ll find a pod­cast that you like, and you’ll have the option to sub­scribe direct­ly to the pod­cast on iTunes from the web page. (On Open Cul­ture, we give you this option when­ev­er we see a link that says “iTunes.”)
• Click on the link and it will help you launch iTunes, and from there you’ll be giv­en the option either to sub­scribe to the ongo­ing pod­cast, or to down­load indi­vid­ual episodes.

Lis­ten­ing to the Pod­casts

Final­ly, when you sync your iPod, your pod­casts will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly down­loaded onto your iPod. And you can lis­ten to them by:

• Turn­ing on your iPod,
• Click­ing on “Music” at the main menu.
• Scrolling the wheel down to “Pod­casts,”
• And then select­ing the indi­vid­ual pod­casts that you want to play.

Are there alter­na­tives to iTunes?

Yes. And you have a cou­ple of options here.

If you own anoth­er kind of mp3 play­er (e.g. ones by Microsoft, San­Disk, or Cre­ative), it will come with soft­ware that per­forms essen­tial­ly the same func­tions as iTunes. And you’ll want to fol­low the same basic direc­tions that we out­lined in Step 2 above. That is, find the rss feed (which we always try to pro­vide) and use it to sub­scribe to the pod­cast. Then sync and lis­ten.

And then there is an inter­est­ing sec­ond option: Life­hack­er recent­ly rec­om­mend­ed a free soft­ware called “MyPod­der” (down­load here). It is a cross plat­form soft­ware for down­load­ing pod­casts direct­ly to your MP3 play­er, no mat­ter what kind you have.

Can I Make My Own Pod­casts?

Sure, check out our pre­vi­ous fea­ture that directs you to good resources.

Podcasts from Top American Law Schools

in Law | March 19th, 2007

• Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty — Wash­ing­ton Col­lege of Law iTunes Feed Web Site
  • An eclec­tic col­lec­tion of legal pod­casts.

• Duke Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Lec­tures, pan­els, con­fer­ences, etc.

• George­town Uni­ver­si­ty — George­town Law iTunes Feed Web Site
  • One of the rich­er col­lec­tions.

• George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty
  • The Law and Eco­nom­ics Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Pro­duced by the Jour­nal of Law, Eco­nom­ics, and Pol­i­cy.
• Har­vard Law School
  • Medi­a­Berk­man by The Berk­man Cen­ter for Inter­net & Soci­ety iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Medi­a­Berk­man “fea­tures con­ver­sa­tions with and talks by lead­ing cyber-schol­ars, entre­pre­neurs, activists, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers as they explore top­ics such as the fac­tors that influ­ence knowl­edge cre­ation and dis­sem­i­na­tion in the dig­i­tal age; the char­ac­ter of pow­er as the worlds of gov­er­nance, busi­ness, cit­i­zen­ship and the media meet the inter­net; and the oppor­tu­ni­ties, role and lim­i­ta­tions of new tech­nolo­gies in learn­ing.”

• Lewis & Clarke Law School Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pod­casts of speak­ers and events.

• Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Law School
  • Cen­ter for Inter­net and Soci­ety iTunes Web Site
    • These tech­nol­o­gy-focused lec­tures are giv­en by a diverse group of fac­ul­ty, many from uni­ver­si­ties oth­er than Stan­ford.
  • Pro­gram in Law, Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy iTunes Web Site
    • This pro­gram focus­es on the role that sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy play in the nation­al and glob­al are­nas. The issues dis­cussed in these pod­casts will inter­est stu­dents, legal pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness­peo­ple, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, and the pub­lic at large.
  • The Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion Soci­ety for Law and Pol­i­cy iTunes Feed Web Site
    • The Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion Soci­ety for Law and Pol­i­cy is a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion com­prised of lawyers, law stu­dents, schol­ars, judges, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and oth­er con­cerned indi­vid­u­als work­ing to ensure that fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of human dig­ni­ty, indi­vid­ual rights and lib­er­ties, gen­uine equal­i­ty, and access to jus­tice enjoy their right­ful, cen­tral place in Amer­i­can law.
• Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Law School Fac­ul­ty iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A lit­tle bit of legal brain can­dy pre­sent­ed by the U Chica­go law fac­ul­ty.

• Yale Law School Feed Web Site
  • Pod­casts from one of Amer­i­ca’s finest law schools. Often fea­tures speech­es by vis­it­ing speak­ers.

Stay tuned — this page will be under con­tin­u­al and active devel­op­ment. It will grow as more law schools devel­op new pod­casts.

Bono, Richard Dawkins and Al Gore Speaking at TED

in Uncategorized | March 9th, 2007

Every year, a thou­sand “thought-lead­ers, movers and shak­ers” get togeth­er at a four-day con­fer­ence

called TED (which is short for Tech­nol­o­gy, Enter­tain­ment and Design). In past years, the list of speak­ers has ranged from Sergey Brin and Lar­ry Page to Bill Gates, to Her­bie Han­cock and Peter Gabriel, to Frank Gehry and Bil­ly Gra­ham. This year Bill Clin­ton, Paul Simon, and Lar­ry Lessig are set to speak. It almost goes with­out say­ing that not just any­one can attend such an event. You’ll need an invi­ta­tion for starters, plus $4400 to cov­er admis­sion fees. If you can look past the coun­try club­bish­ness of the event, then you may find it worth spend­ing time with the audio (iTunes — Feed) and video (iTunes — Feed) pod­casts of talks from recent con­fer­ences. Some “vod­casts” you’ll want to check out include: Bono, Peter Gabriel, Richard Dawkins, Mal­colm Glad­well, and Al Gore. (We’re not sure what to say about Tony Rob­bins.)

The Top 25 Educational Podcasts on iTunes

in Uncategorized | March 8th, 2007

“Is America Too Damn Religious?” (A Debate)

in Religion | March 7th, 2007

Intel­li­gence Squared (iTunes  Feed  Web Site), a new series of NPR broad­casts, has a rather unique
for­mat. It brings Oxford-style debates to Amer­i­ca, and it fea­tures lead­ing thinkers tak­ing dif­fer­ent posi­tions on hot-but­ton issues of our day. (You can get more pre­cise infor­ma­tion on the for­mat here.) There will be eight debates in total, all record­ed live, and each one revolves around three pan­elists argu­ing for, and three against, a “motion,” such as “We must tol­er­ate a nuclear Iran,” “Free­dom of expres­sion must include the license to offend,” and “A demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed Hamas is still a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion.” And then there is the provoca­tive top­ic of the most recent debate, “Is Amer­i­ca Too Damn Reli­gious?” This debate (see bios of par­tic­i­pants) was held at the Asia Soci­ety in New York City in Feb­ru­ary, and you can catch the full debate here (Real Play­er) or a con­densed ver­sion here (mp3).

See Open Cul­ture’s Pod­cast Col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Sci­ence — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

This American Life Goes Hollywood (or Something Like That)

in Media | March 5th, 2007

See Open Cul­ture’s Pod­cast Col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Sci­ence — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School)

Seymour Hersh’s Powerful Charge: US Backing Al-Qaeda Sympathizers to Counter Iran

in Current Affairs | March 1st, 2007

In the after­math of 9/11, the US began its assault on al-Qae­da and oth­er Sun­ni ter­ror­ist groups. Fast
for­ward to 2003: the US invades Iraq, in part because Hus­sein sup­pos­ed­ly has ties to al-Qae­da, and a new Shi­ite-led gov­ern­ment is even­tu­al­ly cre­at­ed. Now fast for­ward anoth­er cou­ple of years: we find that the Shi­ite gov­ern­ment is sud­den­ly get­ting too cozy with Iran, the major leader of the Shi­ite Mid­dle East. The Saud­is, the major Sun­ni pow­er in the region, get ner­vous. And so, too, are the hawks in Wash­ing­ton who fear a poten­tial­ly nuclear Iran. The result: the Bush admin­is­tra­tion is now look­ing to con­tain Shi­ite pow­er at all costs.

This “re-direc­tion” has involved devel­op­ing con­tin­gency plans for a mil­i­tary (most like­ly aer­i­al) assault on Iran. And, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion, in con­junc­tion with the Saud­is, is even now back­ing (i.e. fun­nel­ing finan­cial aid to) rad­i­cal Sun­ni groups who oppose Shi­ite author­i­ty, even though they also amaz­ing­ly have ties with al-Qae­da. Bizarrely, we’re now indi­rect­ly help­ing the very ene­my that we ini­tial­ly set out to destroy. Or so that’s the claim of the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning jour­nal­ist Sey­mour Hersh, who famous­ly broke the sto­ries on My Lai and Abu Ghraib.

Her­sh’s claims are spelled out in a new arti­cle appear­ing in the lat­est edi­tion of The New York­er, which is well worth a read. (His oth­er New York­er pieces on the Iran attack plan appear here, here, and here.) You’ll also want to give a lis­ten to his ener­getic inter­view on NPR’s Fresh Air (iTunes — Feed — Mp3), where he cov­ers much of the same ground.

On a relat­ed note, we’d also refer you to a recent pro­gram aired by Open Source. It, too, deals with like­li­hood of a US inva­sion of Iran, and tries to fig­ure out whether the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s hard­en­ing rhetoric is sim­ply a risky nego­ti­a­tion strat­e­gy, a way to force the Ira­ni­ans to the table, or whether it’s a pre­lude to an almost cer­tain war. You can lis­ten here (Itunes — Mp3) or check out the relat­ed piece on the Open Source blog.

101 Early Wallace Stevens Poems on Free Audio

in Literature | February 28th, 2007

Here’s a quick lit­tle find for the poet­ry lover: A slew of ear­ly poems by Wal­lace Stevens, the great Amer­i­can poet, can now be down­loaded as pod­casts (iTunes). They include many clas­sics — Anec­dote of the Jar, The Emper­or of Ice Cream, Peter Quince at the Clavier, Sun­day Morn­ing, Thir­teen Ways of Look­ing at a Black­bird, and many oth­ers. Record­ed for Lib­riVox by Alan Drake, all poems are in the pub­lic domain.

Speak­ing of Wal­lace Stevens, you may want to give a lis­ten to a pod­cast that we high­light­ed here once before. It fea­tures the great lit­er­ary crit­ic Harold Bloom (see bio) teach­ing a sem­i­nar at Yale on “The Art of Read­ing a Poem” (iTunes — mp3). Here, Bloom takes his stu­dents through a poem by Wal­lace Stevens, Parts of a World,and moves between inter­pre­ta­tion and intrigu­ing per­son­al anec­dotes. If you want to hear a mas­ter at work, give a good lis­ten.

If you like what we’re doing here, please help spread the word and let oth­ers know what they can find on Open Cul­ture.

The Podcast Library

in Uncategorized | February 28th, 2007

100s of cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts. Email a friend about Open
Cul­ture.

• Arts & Cul­ture Pod­casts
• Audio Book Pod­casts
• For­eign Lan­guage Les­son Pod­casts
• News/Information Pod­casts
• Sci­ence Pod­casts
• Tech­nol­o­gy Pod­casts
• Uni­ver­si­ty Pod­casts — All
• Uni­ver­si­ty Pod­casts — Busi­ness School