A Critical Ear

Yesterday’s edition of the show included an extended discussion of  the Petraeus testimony, an update on the Colombian trade agreement, a brief discussion of events in Ecuador, and of former President Carter’s visit to Palestine. Available for download from WRFU or on Pacifica’s Audioport. Starting, of course, with the Interworld Radio news bulletin.

And some advance notice: next week we’ll be interviewing author Allison Hantschel about her book “Special Plans” and neo-con Douglas Feith, whose memoir is due out shortly. Send us an email with any questions you want to ask her.

You can listen to yesterday’s edition on the WRFU site. It’s also available, of course, on Audioport.This week we talked about Iran and Iraq (and interplay between the two), Afghanistan and the IMF, and trade deals in South America. A good show all around, if I say so myself. 

Today we started with the Interworld Radio headlines, as usual, and then played some actuality from yesterday’s vigil at the veterans’ memorial in Urbana, marking 5 years of war in Iraq. Following some short discussion of the vigil, and an aborted start to an excerpt from the Winter Soldier event, we cut to an interview being conducted with Bob, live on WRFU, by broadcasters from Radio Adelaide’s Back Story. We closed out the show with the compilation from Winter Soldier (compiled by Pacifica) and a discussion of the role of such events and of independent media in providing coverage.

A Critical Ear has been broadcasting steadily, and I’ve been putting copies up on Audioport (from where WETX-LP picks them up) but I’ve been having difficulty connecting to Radio4All, where I’d been hosting publicly-accessible copies, and so fallen behind in posting here about show editions. This coming week we have a special edition of the show, where regular co-host Bob Naiman will be temporarily replaced by my good friends Paul Riismandel and John Anderson, both of them astute observers of our media environment. We’ll talk about the FCC’s current consultation on LPFM radio among many other things. Should be a fun show. Meanwhile, those listening to the show locally may have noticed that WRFU has gained some new public affairs content in the late afternoon and early evening. We’re building out a public affairs strip on automation, which will run during those hours when we have no scheduled shows (or when scheduled shows don’t broadcast). It should give listeners a chance to listen again to popular local shows such as Media Geek (Paul’s show) and Media Matters, as well as bringing new shows, such as War News Radio, to the community. Let us know what you think. 

This week’s show is now online at Radio4All.net and on Audioport. We devote much of the show to a speech given by Stephen Kinzer in Champaign last Sunday, as part of Just Foreign Policy’s national speaking tour The Folly of Attacking Iran. I’ve posted the audio of that talk separately for those who might want to use it in their own show. Lots of stuff we weren’t able to get to today, but I’m sure we’ll cover much of it next week.

Thursday’s show went up on Audioport yesterday, and I’m in the (rather slow) process of adding it to Radio4All - updates as I have them.

This week we talked about the spying in Bolivia, FISA and telecoms immunity, the digital television switchover, the Smithfield SLAPP suit against Jobs with Justice, and much more.

Update:  the show is now up on Radio4All.