Mike’s iPod

I recently bought an iPod Nano with video.

Wow. Without a doubt, the best $200 I ever spent.

I can’t believe I lived without this thing until now. I have discovered time in the little interstices of life to listen to discussions and news and music and watch video I would never have been exposed to before.

I’m rediscovering music I’ve always loved with new appreciation and discovering genres and artists I never even knew about. Most of all, I am discovering a great new means of appreciating audio books, podcasts, lectures, panel discussions and whole worlds of information. Best of all, I get this gnosis without an umbilical tying me to my computer.

Of course, all this makes me want to share what I’m discovering and, hey, I happen to have a blog! So, I thought I might periodically share a few of the gems I come across.

Some of the these gems will be free, some you may have to purchase. Some I can provide as a direct download from this site, some you will have to use iTunes or the Apple website to access. I have become an iTunes affiliate, so be assured, anything you spend will support this site. I have always been a Mac evangelist, but my iPod is making me a total whore for Apple.

This won’t be a regular feature. As I have enough material that I want to share, I’ll do a post called ‘Mike’s iPod’ such as this one. You can listen to the programs described below immediately just by clicking on the hyperlink. The buttons at the bottom for subscribing to the podcast’s feed on iTunes. Without further prefatory blather, here’s what I’m excited about right now:

Professor David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown and an expert on national security law and policy, gives a fantastic lecture for the University of Chicago’s School of International and Area Studies. His thesis is that the Bush Administration’s legal strategy in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ has made us Less Safe, Less Free (MP3). You can subscribe to Chiasmos, the School’s podcast, on iTunes:

Science Friday with Ira Flatow spent an entire hour on Pursuing Comprehensive Health Care (MP3), speaking with a number of physicians and health care policy experts. The result lays out very clearly what a comprehensive system would like, what the political barriers are, and where the various candidates for President stand. It is an outstanding piece of radio that will clarify the issue enormously or you. You can subscribe to Science Friday with Ira Flatow on iTunes:

Bill Moyers spent an hour with one of my favorite philosophers of democracy, Benjamin Barber. They spoke at length about the Crisis in Capitalism (MP3) and how it is making us into consumers of democracy rather than participating citizens, and what that implies for the future of American government. The discussion centers around the themes of Barber’s latest book, which I recently read, "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole." You can subscribe to Bill Moyers’ Journal on iTunes:

A segment of Now with David Brancaccio focused on one of the few bright spots in the Bush legacy: an innovative approach to chronic homelessness that simply gives the homeless homes (MP3). That’s right. The program simply rents the homeless person an apartment and furnishes it. The surprise is that this is much cheaper than the aggregate social costs of homelessness and provides much better outcomes for people struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues. The challenge now is to expand the program to the single mothers and families in crisis who become temporarily homeless. You can subscribe to Science Friday with Ira Flatow on iTunes: