🎧 How Quickly We Forget | On the Media | WNYC Studios

Listened to How Quickly We Forget from On the Media | WNYC Studios

Presidential eulogizing, special counsel speculation, immigration coverage, and forgotten Hanukkah history. 

The death of George H.W. Bush brought us a week’s worth of ceremony, eulogy and wall-to-wall coverage. This week, a look at the choices journalists made when they set out to memorialize the president. And, immigration stories in our media focus on the U.S.–Mexico border — but what about immigration elsewhere in Latin America? Is there a journalistic solution to the scale of global immigration? Plus, a baseball metaphor and a bit of forgotten Hanukkah history.

1. Anne Helen Petersen [@annehelen], senior culture writer at Buzzfeed, and David Greenberg [@republicofspin], historian at Rutgers University, on the history — and pitfalls — of presidential eulogies. Listen.

2. Bob on the speculation surrounding Robert Mueller's investigation. Listen.

3. Diego Salazar [@disalch], journalist, on the immigration crisis within Latin America.  Listen.

4. Masha Gessen [@mashagessen], staff writer at The New Yorker, on her modest proposal for immigration coverage. Listen.

5. Rabbi James Ponet, Jewish chaplain emeritus at Yale University, on the historical origins of Hanukkah. Listen.

The ideas of rosier pictures of past presidents is an interesting one.

Masha Gessen’s story makes me wish we had many more Masha Gessens.

I particularly liked the story and history of Hanukkah given here. Definitely something to think about.

🎧 “The Daily”: A Dispatch From the Center of the Storm | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": A Dispatch From the Center of the Storm from New York Times

As Hurricane Florence descended on a 300-year-old coastal town, it became clear to residents that this storm would be unlike any other in memory.

🎧 “The Daily”: Who’s Allowed to Vote in Georgia? | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": Who’s Allowed to Vote in Georgia? from New York Times

Accusations of intentional voter suppression have animated the state’s crucial race for governor.

🎧 “The Daily”: Senator Claire McCaskill on Losing Missouri and the Politics of Purity | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": Senator Claire McCaskill on Losing Missouri and the Politics of Purity from New York Times

As the senator prepares to leave office, she sat down with us to talk about her defeat in the midterm elections and the path forward for the Democratic Party.

The final statements of Claire McCaskill in this podcast are some of the most uplifting things I’ve heard about politics in the past two years. I’ve only heard one or two other people talk about “political purity” in this way, and I suspect it’s one of the things that is truly killing our democracy and political norms in our country. We need more reporting on these types of pragmatism.

🎧 “The Daily”: The Ethics of Genetically Editing Babies | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": The Ethics of Genetically Editing Babies from New York Times

A scientist in China claimed to have created the world’s first gene-edited human beings. How should the U.S. respond?

🎧 “The Daily”: A Year in the Russia Investigation | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": A Year in the Russia Investigation from New York Times

We look at the major twists in the investigation over the past year and what to expect in 2019.

🎧 “The Daily”: Why Republicans Want a Criminal Justice Overhaul | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": Why Republicans Want a Criminal Justice Overhaul from New York Times

Many conservative lawmakers support a bill that would enact the most significant changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades.

🎧 “The Daily”: Waiting for Brexit | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": Waiting for Brexit from New York Times

It’s been nearly three years since Britain voted to leave the European Union, and there’s still no clear way forward.

🎧 “The Daily”: ‘The Most Significant Campaign Contributions’ in U.S. History| New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": ‘The Most Significant Campaign Contributions’ in U.S. History from New York Times

We spoke with Neal Katyal, a lawyer who wrote the special counsel regulations, about the case against Michael Cohen and what it means for President Trump.

🎧 “The Daily”: The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism, and How U.S. Law Enforcement Ignored It | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": The Rise of Right-Wing Extremism, and How U.S. Law Enforcement Ignored It from New York Times

In an atmosphere of seeming indifference on the part of U.S. law enforcement, a dangerous movement has grown and metastasized.

It’s tremendously painful that the optics of right wing extremism in the Obama administration was used as a means of allowing the alt-right, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis to rise unfettered in the United States. This is worse when one thinks of the death and destruction they have caused in relation to the obscene amounts of money that have been thrown at decreasing international terrorism within our borders.

🎧 “The Daily”: The Photo of the Yemeni Girl | New York Times

Listened to "The Daily": The Photo of the Yemeni Girl from New York Times

The story behind a portrait that brought a widely overlooked human catastrophe into devastating focus.

🎧 Before the Flood:The Mesopotamian Enuma Elish and Atrahasis | The Literature and History Podcast

Listened to Before the Flood:The Mesopotamian Enuma Elish and Atrahasis by Doug Metzger, Ph.D. from The Literature and History Podcast

BCE 1700-1500
The Enuma Elish and the Atrahasis, in circulation 3,800 years ago, were Mesopotamia's creation and flood epics, making them 1,000 years older than Genesis.

There are a few sections of these ancient texts which indicate that thousands (or more) were wiped out due to illness and disease that sound like a flu, a virus, or some other local pandemic. Gives pause to think about what the state of public health was at the time.

Enuma Elish and Atrahasis are indeed not well known, but I’ve actually seen quite a bit about them as the result of reading within the area of Big History.

I’ll have to do some digging but I’m curious if any researcher(s) have done synoptic analyses of these books and the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament. I’m sure there aren’t as many as there are of the synoptic gospels from the New Testament, but it might be interesting to take a look at them.

The obvious quote of the day:

The gods became distraught at the destruction they had unleashed. The midwife goddess, Mami, who helped raise the first generations of mankind, was particularly saddened, and “The gods joined her in weeping for the vanished country / She was overcome with heartache, but could find no beer”. Yes, it really says that.

As a side note, fermented beverages like beer were more popular throughout history than they are in modern America, because unlike now, prior generations of humans didn’t have the public health ideals or levels of clean drinking water that we do today. Thus beer and other alcoholic drinks were more par for the course because they were less likely to make you sick or kill you to drink them. Naturally the Mesopotamian gods must have been healthier for drinking them as a result too!

🎧 The Tower of Babel: Cuneiform | The Literature and History Podcast

Listened to The Tower of Babel: Cuneiform by Doug Metzger, Ph.D. from The Literature and History Podcast

Unknown BCE 250000-539
For thousands of years, cuneiform was the means of transmitting information through space and time in the Ancient Near East. Then, something happened.

This podcast is every bit as good as Richard MacManus has led me to believe it would be.

🎧 IndieWebCamp Berlin 2018 Session Summaries | Marty McGuire

Listened to IndieWebCamp Berlin 2018 Session Summaries by Marty McGuireMarty McGuire from martymcgui.re

Listen to a summary of all the sessions at IndieWebCamp Berlin 2018!

Session notes: https://indieweb.org/2018/Berlin/Sessions

Narration by Marty McGuire
Edited by Aaron Parecki

This is a repost of https://aaronparecki.com/2018/11/18/7/indiewebcamp-berlin.

Interesting to see this served from Aaron’s domain when it looks and sounds just like another of Marty’s podcast. I’m guessing they collaborated at camp to put it together. I love the idea of not only having this as a quick audio summary of all the sessions, which I’ll now have to go back and watch a few, but of having this as a simple section at the end of day one at IndieWebCamps.

The sessions on Microformats, Displaying Responses, Data Ethics, Making your website work offline, and Location sound like interesting things to take deeper looks into. I particularly like the idea of separating the legal and the ethical portions completely away from each other and doing the ethical portion first and then secondly filtering that through any legal loopholes. Ideally the legal filter won’t actually be filtering anything out if the ethical is done properly, and if it does, then perhaps the legal has some issues.

🎧 Episode 082 The Complexity & Chaos of Creativity | Human Current

Listened to Episode 082 The Complexity & Chaos of Creativity from HumanCurrent

How does chaos influence creativity? How can “flow states” help teams manage feedback and achieve creativity?In this episode, Haley interviews designer, educator and author, Jon Kolko. Kolko shares details from his new book Creative Clarity: A Practical Guide for Bringing Creative Thinking into Your Company, which he wrote to help leaders and creative thinkers manage the complexity and chaos of the creative process. During his interview, he explains how elements of complex systems science, including emergence, constraints, feedback and framing, influence the creative process. He also provides many helpful tips for how to foster a culture of creativity within an organization.

Cover art for The Complexity & Chaos Of Creativity featuring Jon Kolko

Quotes from this episode:

“A constraint emerges from the creative exploration itself….these constraints become a freeing way for creative people to start to explore without having rules mandated at them.” - Jon Kolko

“Framing is the way in which the problem is structured and presented and the way that those constraints start to manifest as an opportunity statement.” - Jon Kolko

“The rules around trust need to be articulated.” - Jon Kolko

“Chaos is the backdrop for hidden wonderment and success.” - Jon Kolko

Some interesting thoughts on creativity and management. Definitely worth a second listen.

I’ve seen the sentiment of “thought spaces” several times from bloggers, but this is one of the first times I’ve heard a book author use the idea:

Often when I write, it’s to help me make sense of the world around me.

—Jon Kolko