[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"]
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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.
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120122_RFR02_AEM_take2.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #2: Garments, Gadgets, and Third World Labor with Anne Elizabeth Moore"]
Download episode (1 hr 33 min, 67 MB, mp3) (version two)
Author Anne Elizabeth Moore joins Radio Free Ruin to talk about her work, third world garment labor, why the manufacturing of technology gets more attention than garment work, the state of women in the comics industry, cats, and much more.
During Breaking News, host Paul M. Davis delves into Mike Daiseys’ one-man show The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, the nuances of the tech industry’s suicide-inducing Chinese factories and why all tech makers are complicit, and a cigar-shaped UFO flap over the South.
[haiku url="http://radiofreeruin-episodes.s3.amazonaws.com/120115_RFR_01_COOPER_MCBEAN.mp3" title="Radio Free Ruin #1: We're an American Band (2012) with Cooper McBean"]
Download episode (2 hrs 23 min, 103.2 MB, mp3)
Since the rise of Napster and file-sharing, it seems like every single music fan, tech pundit, opinion columnist, and blogger has an opinion on what’s wrong with the music business, and how things should change. There’s been a lot less conversation about how the technology shifts have actually affected the many professional independent musicians who have not been the subject of “future of the music business” trend pieces.
Cooper McBean of The Devil Makes Three joins Paul at Casa de Gato for a conversation about how technology and the Internet have transformed the lives of professional independent musicians for better and worse, the shady corners of the music business the Internet hasn’t disrupted, connecting with fans online, those “future of the music industry” trend pieces, whether bands using Kickstarter are enterprising or lazy, and Cooper’s advice for aspiring musicians.
During Breaking News, Cosmologist Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein joins us to discuss the latest Cylon (military drone) news, the case of Bradley Manning, microagressions and Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls, why science is the 99%, and the enigmatic case of the Lesbian Bigfoot hunter.
