[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120224_RFR07_ESCAPE.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #7: Escape"]Download Radio Free Ruin #7: Escape (31 min, 22.6 MB, mp3)
A flash podcast while Paul is on vacation. Werner Herzog’s war on chickens, Slavoj Žižek’s war on tulips, news updates from the tech desk, and @horse_ebooks unmasked? Also, in honor of President’s Day: Ronald Reagan’s Greatest Laughs, a roundup of some of our Presidents’ most beloved zingers, and Teddy Roosevelt, the First Cryptozoologist?
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120219_RFR06_LCHEUK.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #6: So a Novelist Walks Into a Comedy Club… with Leland Cheuk"]Listen to Radio Free Ruin #6: So a Novelist Walks Into a Comedy Club… with Leland Cheuk (1 hr 39 min, 71.9 MB, mp3)
Novelist Leland Cheuk has taken the brave step from the solitary writer’s den to the comedy stage. He discusses dealing with New York City comedy audiences who’ve seen it all and how the two creative pursuits differ, before getting sidetracked by Downton Abbey talk.
During Breaking News, Paul discusses Occupy the SEC, The Pentagon’s $51 Billion ‘Black’ Budget, the taxpayer-funded fringe science funhouse that is DARPA, and an Unidentified Flying “Egyptian eye” hovering over pastures in Georgia. He also remembers Santa Cruz songwriter Cassidy Meijer, who passed away this past weekend.
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120211_RFR05_POLLY_CARL.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #5: A Theater of the Commons with Polly Carl"]
Download episode (1 hr 54 min, 83.1 MB, mp3)
Photo of the Rude Mechanicals
Polly Carl of the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage is revitalizing American theater by taking inspiration from the commons. She’s heading to Emerson College in July to start up the Center for Theatre Commons. On this episode, she chats about the state of non-profit and storefront theater, issues of access both in the theater and in the technology sphere, and disruptive versus dysfunctional narratives.
During Breaking News, Amanda Hess discusses the week’s assaults on abortion rights, and and Aaron Cynic provides an update on Occupy Chicago. Also, Paul discusses the drumbeat for war with Iran, attacks on LGBTQ rights in Russia, and a wooly mammoth allegedly caught on camera in Siberia.
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120204_RFR04_RAMESH_SRINIVASAN.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #4: Revolution Offline and On with Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan"]
Download episode (1 hr 14 min, 51.4 MB, mp3)
Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan studies how new media can both upend and consolidate power structures around the world. Most recently, he has investigated the ways offline and online social networks ignited revolutionary movements such as the Arab Spring, the London Riots, and the Occupy movement. Unlike many of the pundits who opine on social media’s effects from afar, Ramesh has done extensive field research, and spent two months in Egypt last summer interviewing a diverse array of Egyptians about Mubarak’s ouster. On this episode of Radio Free Ruin, he shares some of his conclusions from his research, and explores the nuances and complexities in the relationships between new media, class, power structures, and social movements.
During Breaking News, Paul does a roundup of the week’s Occupy news, including the brutal crackdown on Occupy Oakland and the ensuing solidarity marches, Occupy Foreclosures, the NYPD’s treatment of transgender detainees, and courts that are theatening Twitter and WordPress with jail time for Occupy-related activities on their networks. We also look at the arrest of documentary filmmaker Josh Fox at a congressional hearing about fracking, the semiotics of Rick Santorum’s sweater vest, Snoop Dogg’s support of Ron Paul, and Newt’s moon colony.
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120131_RFR3_MALCOLM_HARRIS.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #3: Adderall and Occupy with Malcolm Harris"]
Download episode (1 hr 15 min, 72.5 MB, mp3)
Malcolm Harris joins Radio Free Ruin to discuss the unexpected link between Adderall and the Occupy movement, precarity, a chemically-engineered generation dependent on pharmaceutical companies, the unpredictable life of the freelance writer, and why there’s no going back.
During Breaking News, we survey the week’s bad reporting on Apple and Foxconn, the precedent for such labor practices that was set in the Caribbean and South America post-NAFTA, Iraq’s ever-uncertain future, the precarious lives of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and haunted iPhones.
