The Terror Threat

Part 1: New World Notes #608, 28:20  (October 29)
Broadcast quality MP3 (38 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 2: New World Notes #609. 29:06 (November 5)
Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 3: New World Notes #610, 28:59 (November 12)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

An important and highly listenable exploration of the meaning of "terrorism" and the many aspects of life affected by terrorist behavior. The program reveals remarkable similarities in the acts and goals of Al Qaeda, The US government, the Fortune 500, and others.

The backbone of the program is a brilliant talk professor John McMurtry gave just after 9/11 (2001)--as the U.S. war in Afghanistan was just getting underway. Interspersed with this are excerpts from talks by several other speakers that complement or illustrate McMurtry's points.

Robin Upton, current producer of the radio program Unwelcome Guests, assembled this collage from material broadcast over that show's 19-year history. The result is impressive, insightful, .. and also great listening.

Introductions and an afterword (in Part 2) by KD.

John McMurtry was Professor of Philosophy (now Emeritus) at the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada).

Searching for the Authentic on a Motorcycle

New World Notes #607, 29:47 (October 22)
Broadcast quality MP3 (41 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (14 MB)

This week's show is mostly monologue.  It's an extended "personal essay" by me, more or less in the tradition of Blue Highways and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  With I guess a few echos of "News From Lake Wobegon."

It's about authenticity and its opposites.  It's also about motorcycle design, and simplicity versus clutter, and the rebirth of the "Indian" brand, and the quiet, subtle virtues of a Harley-Davidson. It's about how New England place-names sort of begin to make sense after you've lived here 20 or 30 years.

It's about corporate franchises and their phony food and their phony architecture--including fake gables, fake windows and even fake "widow's walks."  And it's about taking a motorcycle to search for "the authentic"--and sometimes even finding it when you get far enough out of town.  Uncasville, maybe.

Previously broadcast. Audio files downloaded from the links, above, are identified as NWN # 357.

The photos (Click to enlarge)

Top: Mel's Diner, Uncasville, Connecticut, January 2, 2015, by Kenneth Dowst. (Copyright. Creative Commons license: Attribution--Non-Commercial.)  The diner is discussed in this installment.

Above: K.D. and H-D Road King. Photo by Barry Pinkowitz.

Dahr Jamail 3

New World Notes #606, 28:25 (October 15)
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Dahn Jamail (in Iraq, early 2000s)

Journalist Dahr Jamail returns to discusses more aspects of the climate crisis--and how individuals can respond to it. He speaks of melting glaciers, methane feedback loops, geoengineering, industrial capitalism, and indigenous vs. capitalist-consumer approaches to the world.

We have much to learn from indigenous peoples, Jamail stresses--and we had better learn it fast.

Dahr Jamail's new book is The End of Ice (2019).

This is the Q&A session following Jamail's April 11 talk in Syracuse, edited by KD. The original live recording was by Wilton Vought, producer of the series Essential Dissent (available on iTunes, YouTube, radio4all.net, and elsewhere). Many thanks.

Snowden, NSA Spying, and the Hypocrisy of the Press

New World Notes #605, 29:20 (October 8)
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Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden has just published a memoir, Permanent Record. So this seems a good time to revisit the Snowden affair--the massive, illegal surveillance Snowdon exposed--and the bias of the media.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed the story of Snowden and the US government's secret spying on every American. Here Greenwald talks about Snowden and also about the government's surveillance of everybody, assault on civil liberties, and hypocrisy about leaks.

And he talks about the disgraceful behavior of the US "mainstream" news media-- determined to serve those in power rather than to hold them accountable.

With an updated introduction by KD.

Glenn Greenwald (2013)

Greenwald's words are taken from a video interview (by Vice magazine) conducted in Rio de Janeiro in November 2013. Most of this installment was previously broadcast on NWN (as #316), under a slightly different title, in March 2014. The current installment (#605) has a new introduction.