Steve Barth | Reflexions

Now, a Message from the Minister for Digital Engagement

This blog doesn't normally reprint press releases, but this was pretty engaging as is:

Cabinet Office names Director of Digital Engagement M2 Presswire May 13 2009

The Cabinet Office has appointed Andrew Stott to the new role of Director of Digital Engagement, a position created to take forward the Power of Information agenda. The Director of Digital Engagement will be based in Government Communications at the Cabinet Office and will work across Government departments to encourage, support and challenge them in moving from communicating to citizens on the web to conversing and collaborating with them through digital technology. The Director will:

Improving your Podcasts

I'm collecting tools, thoughts and resources on audio and video 'casting as a KM channel. Carson McComas at WorkHappy republished his "20 Ideas for an Excellent Podcast" because "the number of podcasts has gone up dramatically, unfortunately the quality has not."

Here is a condensation of his best tips (Carson's post discusses each):

• Podcasts should be short, but packed with value for your audience
• Chunk your material into marked segments
• Be organized and concise, but have fun and be real
• Maintain quality with best interviewing and production practices
• Post show notes on your blog
• Don't be scared to throw away an unsuccessful show

Sublime Storytelling

Sira (mermaid) is a sublime collaboration from Senegalese kora player Ablaye Cissoko and German trumpeter Volker Goetze. Besides their mutual appreciation for jazz and jeliya, the musicians cite influences as varied as Youssou N'Dour, Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis and Naná Vasconcelos. The ten fusion duets are evocative, not so much of either jali or jazz landscapes but of that green and peaceful place you're sometimes lucky enough to visit in your dreams. For me, the album triggered both reverie and reverence.

Over time, griots have filled a similar social niche in West Africa as the Celtic bard or Scandinavian skald; troubadours singing stories woven with knowledge and insights into ancient history and current events and even delivering news and advising leaders. According to a great Wikipedia article, they were indispensable aides to Malian warrior-kings. Village griots kept their community's tales alive by singing of deaths, battles, hunts, etc.

Captor & Captive

In a fascinating demonstration of perspective shifts, two stories caught my eye/ear over the past few days. John McCain has talked about how self, God and country crystallized during his captivity and interrogation at the Hanoi Hilton in the late 60s/early 70s. In Saturday's New York Times, reporter Seth Mydans talked to Tran Trong Duyet, who ran the guard unit that tortured McCain but now considers him a friend and roots for his victory in November.

"I used to meet with him in my office at the end of the day and debate with him," Mr. Duyet said. "We debated quite fiercely, but there was never any personal prejudice between us. The debate was between two men in a manly style. But after that we were quite friendly. We didn't take it personally." For his part, not surprisingly, McCain has said he will "hate them for as long as I live."

Contrast that with the experience and perspective of Joshua Casteel, who served as a US Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I heard this Tuesday night on WUNC's The Story. Casteel joined the Army at 17, after growing up in an evangelical community that equated patriotism, militarism and gospel. He prayed three times a day, while threatening the families of 130 Iraqi prisoners who had no knowledge of insurgent activities. But when he finally interrogated a young Saudi who freely confessed to joining the insurgency, Casteel was confronted with a surprising revelation.

Somewhere in the conversation he said, "You know you're a funny man. You say you're a Christian, but you don't do as the one you call Christ. You don't turn the other cheek. You don't pray for those who persecute you." After five months of harassing Taxi drivers, I was speechless. Here I am being taught the Sermon on the Mount by a self-declared jihadi. Casteel left the room, said he was too personally involved with the prisoner to interview him, and filed for status as a contentious objector.

Tuareg Blues

Last summer for my UN trip to Kenya, I went to Rhapsody and loaded up on music. I know saying "African music" is as wooly as saying "American music," but I found that most of what I like was from various West African cultures. (Kenyan friends said the same thing.) For instance Toumani Diabate, from Mali, who comes from a line of 71 generations of kora players; or Guinean guitarist Alpha Yaya Diallo, who builds on his Manding traditions.

Then there was the Tuareg blues of Tinariwen, in which you can hear echoes (or origins) of everything from the Greatful Dead to Ali Farka Toure, but a soul all their own. They've been playing since the 80s, and one writer has described their music as a 25-year long jam session.

Why aren’t there any nice conspiracy theories?

On the 60th anniversary of a UFO crashing (or not) in Roswell, pop culture writer Caitlin Moran wonders in the Times (of London) why she and so many others got sucked into the UFO question, in "Ah, those teenage years of angst and alien nations."

In many ways, this enthusiasm for the idea of alien observation of Earth is baffling. Why are we so excited – 78 per cent of Americans believe in aliens – about the idea of being alien prey? Nearly every way you slice it, human beings don’t come out of the idea of alien contact very well. We’re just parochial, Earth-bound schmucks, sitting here and letting our crops be crushed by intergalactic logos. We look like total losers

Dharma for Dummies

A few months ago I discovered Gil Fronsdal, a Buddhist scholar and teacher whose explorations of Vipassana and Zen led him to study in monasteries throughout Asia and also to Stanford University. Gil’s dharma talks are posted on the Web and are amazingly digestible and thought-provoking for a novice Westerner.

There are almost 500 of his talks posted for free download. His own selection of best 32 talks--in order--are at www.audiodharma.org/talks-rec.html. I'm about half way through; I took him backpacking with me a few months ago. There's also a site called Zencast that mixes talks by Gil and others with some music and also classic talks by people like Shunryu Suzuki.

David Barth’s “Hard Right” Reviewed in Variety

David Barth’s off-Broadway production of “Hard Right” is reviewed by Mark Blankenship in Tomorrow’s Daily Variety.

Here's proof that "Hard Right," a vicious political drama from David Barth, scrapes some kind of nerve: At the performance reviewed, patrons started yelling at each other across the aisles during the play. "How can you laugh at this? It's not funny!" said one man, reacting to the crowd's titters as a mysterious government agent terrorized a suburban family. But the laughs kept coming, especially when the agent offered absurd rationales for his behavior. "How can you laugh?" the man repeated, until someone retorted, "Don't tell me what to think!"

Blankenship compares the production to certain Pinter plays "in which terror springs from chatty rogues with unclear motives," he writes. "But though it traffics mainly in dread, the production's tone is expertly controlled."

"Hard Right" continues through the month at the Player's Theater.

War of the Worlds

In a Starbucks last week we were talking about the opening of the new Spielberg film, "War of the Worlds" and we remembered the long-forgotten rock opera version of War of the Worlds from the Moody Blues' Jeff Wayne and an audio cast led by Richard Burton.

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

Like the pinpoint flares of distant launches, barely perceptable memories gradually approached and grew until they covered my sky...

Milt Jackson at The Kosei Nenkin

I'm testing the "Blog Your Playlist" function in RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service. I guess if you have Rhapsody and click on the link you can hear what I'm listening to.

Link: Milt Jackson "At The Kosei Nenkin."

The Return of Arthur Dent!

Beginning today, the BBC Radio 4 is airing new weekly radio dramatizations of Douglas Adams famous 5-part trilogy, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The final three books, Life, The Universe And Everything; So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and Mostly Harmless are being adapted for two new series launching in September 2004 and May 2005.