Radio Pick: This Party Sucks

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's radio pick provides a preview of sorts to next week's election, but far more so into the sociology of political parties. Leave it to the documentary team from This American Life to look at both political parties and raise questions about how either is organized enough to mount a successful campaign in a 59-minute broadcast.

Listen to streaming media of This American Life "This Party Sucks"

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I don't normally pay much attention to interviews of actors, but two of them deserve honorable mention status this week.

Melissa Block's interview with Noomi Rapace, the Swedish actor who plays Lisbeth Salander in the movie versions of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, is worth listening to at a minimum for her description of putting the character to sleep and physically purging her. The featured aired on Friday's All Things Considered.

Listen to streaming media of All Things Considered "Noomi Rapace"

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Similarly, Scott Simon's interview with Sir Michael Caine was remarkable, if nothing else, for the story of how he met his wife. This feature aired this morning on Weekend Edition Saturday.

Listen to streaming media of Weekend Edition Saturday "Michael Caine"

Radio Pick: Social Contract

KENNEWICK, WASHINGTON - This week's radio pick focuses closer to "home" as I travel. Living within listening distance of Buffalo radio stations, I hear a fair amount about New York state politics--and am sometimes shocked that only the largest scandals make the national media. The best story-telling I've heard about New York politics in the recent Spitzer-Paterson era came this week on that show of story-telling, This American Life. In addition, the 59-minute show featured another informative Planet Money segment.

Listen to streaming media of This American Life "Social Contract"

Radio Pick: Other People's Money

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's radio pick continues a series of picks on health care. Sometimes good story-telling and analogies can really help to gain insight on a complicated issue. One of the best story-telling shows on the radio today is This American Life from Chicago Public Radio, which this week teamed up with NPR News for a Planet Money report on the health care system in the United States. Analogies with "food care" (think "universal food coverage") and with the growing pet insurance industry really drove home some points about health insurance reform in the United States in this 59-minute program.

Listen to streaming MP3 of This American Life "Other People's Money"

Margin Notes: Informant, U2, Avocado, Innocence

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The Toronto Film Festival has wrapped up for the year, and one of the films that had been looking for a bump from the festival was The Informant!. What didn't occur to me until it was pointed out on the radio show was that the source material for the film was the same book that also spawned a memorable episode of This American Life that aired in 2000. That episode aired once again this weekend and is worth checking out.

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A sky banner advertised the U2 concert in Toronto, Ontario on 16-September-2009

Besides the film festival, another major event in Toronto this week that I did not participate in was a U2 concert at the Rogers Centre. That brought out a number of BlackBerry ads related to the concert, including a relative rarity here, a sky banner that circled above the city for most of the day on Wednesday.

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A line of Peter Pan buses lined up on Bremner Drive near the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario on the day of the U2 concert, 16-September-2009

Besides the unusual sight in the sky, there was an unusual sight on the ground near the Rogers Centre. A line of Peter Pan buses from Massachusetts apparently brought in a large group from western Massachusetts for a visit including the U2 concert. For someone accustomed to Peter Pan buses from my time around Boston, it took a moment to realize that they didn't belong in Canada.

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A few steps away from the Rogers Centre, there was another of the free giveaways at Union Station that I have mentioned in the past. This time, it was avocados. That's right, free avocados in Canada. The giveaway was especially clever since it used avocados that were not ripe. Thus, I've been looking at the bag with advertising for the avocado industry for several days now, waiting for the fruit (yes, technically it is a fruit) to ripen.

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I didn't get any free stuff at the Roncesvalles Polish Festival today (more on that event in a future post). While watching a musical act there, I did notice one of the street vendors walk away from his table, leaving his cash box in plain view and unattended, for at least a minute to greet a friend. Perhaps someone was watching that I didn't notice, but it sure seemed like the kind of super-safety and innocence for which Toronto had once been known.

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A lost stuffed lamb sign was noted along Jane Street in Toronto, Ontario on 14-September-2009

Toronto is well-known as a safe city, but the level of innocence in my Bloor West Village neighbourhood is so extreme that not only do we have "lost pet" signs, but even "lost stuffed animals" signs. The above sign looking for a lost stuffed lamb was noted still remaining on Jane Street, a week after the loss.

Radio Pick: Bad Bank on TAL

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's radio pick comes from Chicago Public Radio's This American Life.

The economic crisis gripping the United States has been described as "so complicated
that anyone that claims to know how to fix it is lying." That doesn't mean that people shouldn't try to understand the complexity, and there have been remarkably few tools available to assist such attempts. NPR's Planet Money team continues to provide remarkable insights into
the realities of the situation, presenting them on a variety of public radio programming but in full form in this week's 59-minute episode of This American Life. Why isn't anyone else doing this kind of understandable reporting?

Listen to streaming MP3 of This American Life "Bad Bank"

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This week, I have an honorable mention to offer. CBC's Terry O'Reilly and the Age of Persuasion continues to offer considerable insight into the history of advertising and marketing, and this week offered an excellent 27-minute show on how advertisers have commandeered holidays--a fitting reminder as St. Patrick's Day and Easter approach. Follow the links on the CBC page to listen.

Radio Pick: Privilege on This American Life

TORONTO, ONTARIO - This week's radio pick comes from perhaps the only show that could
put this week in perspective, Chicago Public Radio's This American Life.

The charter of the show is to capture American culture, so where else could one turn in such a significant week to capture the moment? Ira Glass and company did not fail, putting out a show that includes perspective on race in America, the late Studs Terkel on the Depression, and other tales around the theme of challenging privilege in this 59-minute broadcast.

Listen to streaming MP3 of This American Life "Who Do You Think You Are?"

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A couple other items deserve honorable mention this week. For those who wish to look back on the campaign, NPR's Weekend All Things Considered put together a nice montage last Sunday demonstrating how the campaign interfaced with popular culture. Everything from Paris Hilton to Tina Fey was included in the piece which can be heard at this link.

Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, has been cited here before for offering relevant information on Barack Obama's background in Illinois. His Simon Says commentary this week again gave an interesting perspective on Obama as a cunning Chicago politician. Listen to the commentary from this link.

Radio Pick: TAL Frightening Economy

TORONTO, ONTARIO - One of the obvious questions asked during the ongoing financial crisis has been "What choice do we have; is there an alternative to the proposed $700 billion bail-out?" Few have asked the question, and even fewer have presented a coherent answer. It turns out there is an option that many economists favor, called a "stock injection"--and the best explanation I've heard not only of the crisis in general but of this alternative has been on the latest episode of This American Life entitled "Another Frightening Show About the Economy". Producer Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson (who also collaborate with the Planet Money podcast) demonstrate how to break down complicated concepts on the radio--and deliver the good news that "stock injections" WERE authorized as an option in the revised bill that passed on Friday in this 59-minute program, my clear radio pick of the week.

Listen to This American Life "Another Frightening Show About the Economy"