Gay marriage is now legal in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City. It’s a time that makes it easy to be proud about being married. (Or to get legally married, if you haven’t already been able to do so yet.) To all of you couples now eligible for tax breaks and a bureaucratically-recognized thing for one [...]
A few years ago, I did a semester-long stint as a substitute teacher. I’d never had any kind of pedagogical training and had no clue what to do when a particularly loud-mouthed seventh-grader wouldn’t sit and keep his mouth shut during the “quiet homework time” that the teacher’s notes told me that the kids were [...]
You probably already know this, but Jonathan Goldstein, of “This American Life” fame, has his own radio show, “WireTap,” that runs on the CBC Radio One in Canada, and, via Public Radio International, several American public radio stations. It’s more or less like his stuff on “This American Life,” with his sense of humor shifting [...]
I need to apologize to Brooke Gladstone for just one moment. It’s a little more than a week late, but if you’ll excuse me: Brooke, I’m sorry about that gushy voicemail I sent. Sort of. The sentiment behind it was sincere, if strong enough to be a little embarassing. Anyway, Kerry and I are both [...]
Ahem. Hello. Matt and Kerry are off in New York, or Boston, or some place where it hasn’t gotten hot enough to fry people’s commonsense yet. My name is Zachary Whitten. I run a seedy little corner of the Internet called the Brain Release Valve. I try to keep up with the zeitgeist and the [...]
It’s – finally – time for our honeymoon, though we’ve been married a month, as of today. We’re off to New York and Boston for a couple days each. Our main NYC plans are up in the air – sort of. There’s a nice surprise in there somewhere. Though we’d love to, we don’t have [...]
It’s nice when people you like work well together. You get the best parts of each world. Like when “This American Life” works with “Planet Money” to get in-depth coverage of the current financial crisis that truly reaches for the emotional core of the story. As much as I like the work that happens when [...]
Here’s to fresh starts, false starts, and utter failures. More importantly, here’s to giving back to those who give to us. Happy New Year’s. Let’s fix what’s broken, and make the most of it. 2009 will be what we make of it.
I have been obsessed for years with the musical phenomenon known as song-poems. Song-poems were a semi-scam that ran for a while from the late 50′s to the late 70′s. People would write lyrics to songs and pay services to put them to music and record the song. The budding lyricists were then sent the [...]
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Why Public Radio Works For Me
One of the things I’ve always loved about the public radio approach is the exploratory attitude the hosts/correspondents/commentators/reporters take when dealing with an unfamiliar topic. This effect is most pronounced when the person talking needs to explain the relevance of the subject. One of the greatest strengths of “Planet Money” is that the show’s staff [...]