October 2009
25 posts
5 tags
Reflections of a Fair-Weather Faster
Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer
Monday was Yom Kippur and this year I decided to fast. Most of my life I’ve been a fair-weather faster. My immediate family in New Jersey gathers each year for a meal to mark Rosh Hashanah, but Yom Kippur and the breaking of the fast that follows it hasn’t been part of our tradition.
When I moved to Minnesota, I was touched by how Jewish friends —...
September 2009
25 posts
4 tags
Watch (photo: Trent Gilliss)
Live Interview with Professor Adele Diamond Time: 2:00 pm CST Location: Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)
On the heels of Krista’s morning interview with Matthieu Ricard, we’re going to live stream video of her conversation with cognitive researcher Adele Diamond. The live video will only appear real-time and then we will substitute it with...
5 tags
Watch (photo: Trent Gilliss)
Live Video of Krista’s Interview with Matthieu Ricard Time: 10 am CST Location: Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)
Hello all. The ethernet connection in this hotel isn’t fast, but we’re going to try and bring you Krista’s interview with Matthieu Ricard, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who is in Canada for the Vancouver Peace Summit, along with the Dalai...
5 tags
Tools of the Mind
Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer
Krista is away at the Vancouver Peace Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia where, among others, she’ll be interviewing psychologist and neuroscientist Adele Diamond. In April 2009 Diamond was invited by the Dalai Lama to speak at a conference in Dharamsala, India, “Attention, Memory and Mind.”
Diamond is interested in how “Executive...
4 tags
"Curiousity Over Assumptions"
Andy Dayton, associate web producer
Last Wednesday was our “cuts ‘n copy” session for Krista’s interview with Malka Haya Fenyvesi and Aziza Hasan. Fenyvesi and Hasan are co-founders of NewGround, a project that reaches out to members of Jewish and Muslim communities and brings them together for dialogue and “doesn’t shy away from discussing the tough topics such as,...
6 tags
Eat, Listen, Ask: Learning from Students
Aaron Spiegel, guest blogger
“Next to being the children of God our greatest privilege is being the brothers of each other.” —Martin Buber
We in the religion world use the word interfaith much too often. And in my opinion, most of what passes for interfaith dialogue is not dialogue at all — it’s a lecture about why I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s not that...
3 tags
The Man Who Found Quarks and Made Sense of the... →
Trent Gilliss, online editor
In a few short hours, Krista will be on a plane for the Vancouver Peace Summit, and Mitch and I will meet her on Tuesday for a couple of interviews. One of the Nobel Laureates in attendance, Murray Gell-Mann — the physicist who is credited with discovering, and naming, quarks — declined our request for an interview.
Nevertheless, the introduction to his interview in...
3 tags
Vodou Doll Mythology
Colleen Scheck, Producer
The Religion Dispatches article “Rum and Gunpowder: How to Take Out a Vodou Doll” caught my eye this week. Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, a religious studies professor, writes about the journey of a Vodou doll that “wreaked havoc” among her colleagues at the University of Miami.
She touches on the irrational supersition evoked by the pop-culture...
3 tags
30 Rock of the 19th Century
As the glitz of the Emmys starts to fade, and the cast of 30 Rock laugh and smile all the way back to New York with their third consecutive Best Comedy Series award, I am reminded of our pal Oscar Wilde. The writers for 30 Rock and the late playwright are all masters of wise-cracking, snappy writing and to us impart their brand of wisdom (usually backhanded).
I watched a production of...
4 tags
The Details Are in the Tobacco: Preparing for Our...
by Nancy Rosenbaum, associate producer
I recently wrote about the research around an upcoming SOF program exploring the spiritual legacy of Sitting Bull. We’ve zeroed in on some possible voices for the show, including Ernie LaPointe (pictured at right), Sitting Bull’s great-grandson. Ernie lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Krista will be interviewing him at his home in...
2 tags
“Beauty is not a luxury. It ennobles our hearts so we can see infinity within...”
– —John O’Donohue, as tweeted by listener Lori Runkle (@ljtheraingirl) after listening to our program, “The Inner Landscape of Beauty,” with the late Irish poet and philosopher.
3 tags
5 tags
Energy Literacy: Understand, Track, and Reduce... →
As some of you may remember, back in July several producers from SOF got together with our colleagues from Marketplace, American RadioWorks, and American Public Media to discuss our coverage of climate change in the months leading up to the Copenhagen summit. This gathering came on the heels of an earlier sustainability conference.
I wasn’t able to attend this event in February, but Kate...
7 tags
WatchPortraits of Women from Kandahar Trent Gilliss, online editor
The Behind the Veil project from The Globe and Mail got its start with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s endorsement of “a law that, among other things, allowed some men to demand sex from their wives.” What’s come of it is a compelling six-part series of multimedia reports exploring Afghani women’s...
7 tags
6 tags
7 tags
4 tags
10 tags
La Convivencia and the West-Eastern Divan »...
4 tags
5 tags
Britain Apologizes to Alan Turing →
by Kate Moos, managing producer
The news that Great Britain formally apologized to the mathematician Alan Turing this week about bowled me over. Alan Turing cracked codes for the Allies during WWII, deciphering the Third Reich’s Enigma Code, and, according to some historians, shortening the war considerably. If that were not achievement enough for one life, his broader work in mathematics...
8 tags
2 tags
Critical Remarks from a Listener — an Opportunity
Trent Gilliss, online editor
Hi all. We receive a lot of glowing comments and rich stories about the impact of the show on people’s lives. We also get the occasional e-mail from a listener who calls us to task on a particular point (e.g., Why didn’t Krista push Brooks on…) or on covering more minority religions (Zoroastrianism for one) and so on and so forth.
But yesterday this...
7 tags
2 tags
Connecting in Real Time
Nancy Rosenbaum, Associate Producer
“If you’re ever having a bad day, go read some listener mail and it will make you feel better.” These are the paraphrased words of my colleague Colleen Scheck. And she’s right. Each week we receive inspiring, insightful messages from SOF fans. We do our best to write back. This is one of several ways we interact with you, through words...
