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Two excellent TED talks. Malcolm Gladwell says more choice is making us happier:

Barry Schwartz says more choice is making us miserable:

Last week I ruffled a few feathers with a post about the sorry state of Labour and the internet. One of my main points was that Labour seemed to be drawn into a battle of the blogs and was neglecting investment in a responsive email campaign. Thomas Gensemer, founder of Blue State Digital, the firm which helped run Barack Obama’s online campaign for the US Presidency, gave a talk a couple of days later at City University. He made the same point. Hopefully City will publish a video of the talk before too long. I watched it live on the web stream and it was compelling. Click on the image below to watch the talk.

Gensemer really understands this stuff. If only someone in the Labour Party did too.

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. Four of his predecessors have been killed while in office and there have been near-miss assasination attempts on six others. There have been abortive or ham-fisted attempts on their lives of a further five Presidents. President Obama has, by my reckoning, at least a one in four chance of facing the same. (more…)

In a post earlier this week, I referred to my ‘weekly diet’ of podcasts and I thought it was only fair to open up the larder. I have been podcasting the radio show I present since May 2005. Initially I didn’t know what podcasting was or how to do it. A kind listener explained and helped me set it up. For a long time I harboured suspicions that it was just something for the early adopters out there and was never going to go mainstream. That was until BBC Radio 4 issued an edict that presenters had to say the word ‘podcast’ every thirty seconds. In the past 6 months I’ve become a true convert, particularly on a three week solo cycle-camping trip in France, where spoken-word podcasts were regular evening listening. I’d add that not owning a television set also helps free up time for radio and podcast listening.

Just like blogs, there are a thousand awful and pointless podcasts out there for every one worth listening to. There’s also this thing called podfade, in which a podcast starts off really well then becomes less regular, less interesting before it runs silently into the sands of the presenter’s own guilt and self-loathing. In other words, not every podcast stays the course or lives up to its early promise. Then again, there are podcasts that get better with time, usually amateur productions in which the presenter(s) get more comfortable in the role and find their niche. In short, a lot of filtering, and scratching and sniffing is required. Beside the iTunes Music Store podcast area, a recommendation from a friend is probably the best way of finding out about what’s good.

It’s clear that not all of these are strictly speaking podcasts, rather radio broadcasts which are subsequently made available as podcasts. I don’t see that as a disqualification. So here goes, you can read the list after the jump. (more…)

Credit crunch, sub-prime mortgage, collateralised debt obligations… Obscure terms that now feature in everyday pub chatter, even more so after this week’s spectacular events involving the collapse of investment banks, unprecedented interventions by governments and a looming global economic downturn. But can you, hand on heart, say that you understand what the credit crunch really is, and where it came from and who’s to blame?

Fear not, for the brilliant radio series This American Life aired a superb hour-long documentary that tells the story of the US sub-prime mortgage bubble and bust as I’ve never heard it told before. From the people who were there, from the Wall Street bankers at the very top to the no income no asset borrowers at the very bottom. And all the middle-men in between. It’s a very human story of hope, greed, hubris and self-delusion.

The Giant Pool of Money show is highly recommended, not just as an explanation of the core cause of the seismic events of this week, but as an example of public service documentary radio at its very best. And it’s not just me that thinks so, according to the programme-makers it’s been listened to online by more than half a million people. It’s still available to listen again online. If you need any convincing, check out the first five mintes, on the link below:

[audio:http://jackthurston.com/audio/giant_pool.mp3]

Update 1: The success of The Giant Pool of Money has apparently led to National Public Radio launching a new podcast and blog about the global economy, called Planet Money. It’s presented by Adam Davidson from NPR (who worked with TAL’s Alex Blumberg on The Giant Pool of Money). Both men rank up there with Evan Davis of the BBC in terms of talent at explaining what the hell is going on out there in the miasma of global financial markets and relating it to real day-to-day economics. In just its first week the show has already featured some excellent guests and if they keep up this level of quality, Planet Money will find a regular spot on my weekly diet of podcasts.

Update 2: This American Life aired a second excellent collaboration with NPR the other week, this time dealing with the banking bail out. Listen over here.

The confirmation of Barack Obama as the presumptive Democratic Party candidate for the 2008 presidential election is a historic moment in the history of black America. Previously I’ve posted audio recordings of Bobby Kennedy’s campaign in 1968 and Spiro Agnew’s vice-presidency. Now seems like a good time to turn to the record collection to remember the first black man to have run a major US city or to have been seriously considered for a presidential ticket: Carl B. Stokes. (more…)

Is this what he’s thinking?

Reminds me of a song I know…

[audio:get_out.mp3]

Last year I posted a recording of an interview with Senator Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy, conducted by David Frost, just a short while before Kennedy was assassinated. There is every chance that had he not been slain, he would have secured the Democratic Party nomination for the 1968 presidential election and beaten Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, just as Kennedy’s older brother did back in 1960. (more…)

Is America ready for an oven-ready President? It’s all good!

With Barack Obama neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, it’s worth recalling a virtuoso performance by comedian Chris Rock back in 1996 when Colin Powell was rumoured to be considering a presidential bid. Have things changed much since then? Could Rock’s cynicism about white people saying they’ll vote for a black candidate explain the inaccuracy of opinion polling in the New Hampshire primary?

Enjoy a master at work (caution: strong language).

[audio:chris_rock_black_president.mp3]