Audio/Video

Douglas Adams really wasn’t a good writer of books. Even the first entry in Hitchhiker’s Guide depends entirely on his ideas, not on his writing. He wrote for TV and radio, and for radio best. Fans will want, then, to listen to the BBC adaptation of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (with Harry Enfield in the lead). First episode should stay online until Tuesday night.

Last week, I met Todd Gitlin in the studio at Inside Higher Ed’s world headquarters on K Street to record an interview about his new book, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent. (The “studio” is actually the publisher’s office, since it has the best acoustics. Podcasting has become a routine if not a regular thing for us; here’s the backlist. I’m still getting used to the format itself and trying to think about its potential as a way to supplement my column, since merely duplicating content of a written piece in audio (or vice versa) isn’t very interesting or appealing.

At TPM Cafe, Gitlin expresses what seems like surprised appreciation to his interviewer “for actually having read the book.” Given journalistic norms, that probably means I’ll never get a steady gig again, and certainly not in radio or TV.

But in consequence of this peculiar tendency, I have notes indicating that Henry’s netroots essay is quoted on page 184 and then again on page 185.

Radioshift from Rogue Amoeba. Because I am addicted to listening to BBC Radio 4 and Radio 7 on my iPod before I go to sleep, I already use their Audio Hijack Pro application to do effectively what this does, except more cumbersomely. This way you can subscribe to live radio broadcasts and treat them as if they were podcasts. Fantastic. Harry Brighouse take note.

I doubt you have to be a Sex and The City fan to appreciate this clip from The Daily Show called “Is American Ready for a Woman President?”, but if you are a SATC fan you are absolutely guaranteed to LOL.

Good stuff. Someone should hire this guy. (Via Unfogged.)

Late, I know. But I thought I’d wish it, and provide a link to my recent radio appearance (with Daniel Schor, no less) on Here on Earth (July 4th show here). They asked me to talk about patriotism, in the light of the recent (and very surprising — I was shocked anyway) revelations that the CIA has sometimes engaged in nefarious activities in pursuit of the national interest. The question was “how can one be patriotic if one’s country has done such terrible things?” I have written abut the impropriety of promoting patriotism and national sentiment generally, so it was curious to be talking about the conditions on a morally clean patriotism, and in fact I drew extensively on Eamonn Callan’s recent paper “Love, Idolatory, and Patriotism” (PDF) (obviously in the vernacular). I was caught off guard by the presenter starting me off by asking me to respond to a caller who had said something especially irritating, and I was excessively harsh in response, but hope that I pulled back enough to seem more reasonable.

Chris Uggen posted this video a few days ago:

I added a link to it on my daily links list where Liz Losh saw it and then included it in a blog post “Just Say Know” discussing all sorts of parody videos and sites related to drug use including the artist-created fictional drug Web site Havidol, and this video:

These are some great parodies. Work in the field of health communication looks at the effects of health campaigns, but tends to focus on serious ones. I wonder what type of work may be going on in the domain of parody viral videos online for similar purposes.

Via Unfogged: Was Dubya’s watch stolen off his wrist while he worked the crowd in Albania? Seems too funny to be true. Looking at it from around 50 seconds into the clip, you can see the watch as he reaches to shake hands with people, then there’s no watch. It’s possible that it was grabbed and fell off, as Bush seems to look down at the ground just around key moment. But it’s hard to tell. The Zapruder film of this Administration.

“Here”:http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/2007/6/12/120607_bush_horloge.html is a higher-resolution video, via “Alan Bostick”:http://www.spicejar.org/asiplease/archives/000605.html, and some “comments”:http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/06/bushs_watch_sto.html from Bruce Schneier on the various official construals of the event. Bush’s hand goes back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to the left.

Interesting to see that he was so popular over there. Albanians are also crazy about “Norman Wisdom,”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1251406.stm as it happens.

I know I speak as a Mac user and thus by definition in thrall to the Steve Jobs RDF — though I am not in the market for a phone right now — but looking at these new commercials, it does seem as though the iPhone is going to be a license for Apple to print money. When was the last time you saw a cellphone ad that just went through some of the things the phone could do? And what phone on the market does these things in remotely as integrated and elegant a fashion? It seems like the main unknown is the physical stuff: will it scratch, will the screen get greasy, and all that.

Kevin Drum has often complained about the terrible state of data protection laws and the related burden of dealing with identity theft. Over the weekend, I was listening to “That Mitchell and Webb Sound”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Mitchell_and_Webb_Sound on Radio 4 and heard this sketch and thought it summed up the issues pretty well.

What’s that? You say there is a YouTube channel devoted to discussing the implications of the Euston Manifesto?

Hot damn! I’ll make popcorn.

Three days late, this one’s for Daniel (youtube). Who else but S of H would use a song lamenting a lost England to celebrate our immigrants? Me, I’m a rootless cosmpolitan, if an ultra-English one (CB’s adjective, not mine). More enthusiasm about Show of Hands here.

I’ve never shared a platform with my dad, but we have, a couple of times in recent years, been keynote speakers at the same conferences. He preceded me both times, and because he’s about the best public speaker I’ve seen it is impossible to upstage him. The more recent conference was in October in Chicago, and both of us were a bit nervous that he wouldn’t do as well as usual with an audience that is more academic than his normal audience, and almost entirely American. No need to worry — as the audience was rivetted after about 5 minutes — at several tables there were intense sub-conversations as people absorbed the message. But his performance damaged mine. Someone who had never seen him before, but knows me well, said afterward his talk: “it was just like watching you”, by which she did not mean that I’m as good a speaker (I’m not) but that we share many mannerisms. So in my talk, the next day, I was deeply inhibited, stopping myself whenever I found myself mimicking him (about once every 2 or 3 minutes).

Anyway, that’s all just an introduction to an invitation to watch him on Teachers TV in conversation with Estelle Morris reflecting on his 45 year long career, the education reforms of the past 20 years, and today’s challenges. They’re both very good, and especially at the end they are both quite good about how difficult it is for central government to handle the schools well. Americans, especially, if you have 30 minutes to spare, you can see a smart and thoughtful person talking about the evolution of a set of reforms rather like those you are now embarked upon. Me, I think he’s the ideal reflective practitioner. But I may be biased.
(Explanation of my title, if needed, here, here, and here).

Update: Thanks to Tom Hurka for pointing me to this lovely piece by Peter Wilby in the Guardian. My colleagues and students, note: “I am eyeing the cheerful chaos of his Oxford home, where even the rooms seem laid out haphazardly, so that the kitchen is where the garage ought to be”. The nicest compliment of the lot: ‘whose appearance is so dishevelled that his arrival on school premises has sometimes led caretakers to report “a dodgy character”‘