Podcast of the Week: The Bugle

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Podcast of the Week is finally escaping the public radio/news vortex to reach another formidable realm of podcasting: comedy. This week's recommendation is The Bugle.

I was delighted to learn about The Bugle last spring because I was very sad that John Oliver was leaving The Daily Show for his own show on HBO and because I still have not managed to persuade anyone I know to hand over their cable login info so I can get HBO Go. But it turns out that you can get Oliver -- for free! -- on this long running podcast (they just posted their 277th episode). It's a conversation with British comedian Andy Saltzman, of whom I had not previously heard but who it turns out is pretty funny in his own right. They just banter about current events, politics in the U.K. and the U.S. and whatever the hell they feel like. And it's funny. Take for instance, the most recent episode, which discusses daredevils from Nick Wallenda to some guy in Australia who decided to surf on a dead whale surrounded by sharks.

This is especially recommended for Anglophiles who want to get more British humor, especially topical/political humor (why they don't play more of the funny stuff on BBC America is beyond me -- I love Star Trek: The Next Generation and all but there are so many treasures in the BBC library!). Do you like Veep/In the Loop/The Thick of it? Ever seen an issue of Private Eye? Are you a Steve Coogan fan, especially in his brilliant Alan Partridge persona? Do you prefer the original Manchester-set "Shameless" to the well-meaning but pale-by-comparison American version on Showtime? Do you know what "taking the piss out of" means? Then this show is for you.

On a side note, it turns out you can get extended excerpts from Oliver's new show, Last Week Tonight, on YouTube and I highly recommend it. He does honest-to-God journalism in an engagingly funny way. Especially recommended: the piece on the Miss America pageant, the piece on drones and the season finale with the salmon gun. OK, that last one doesn't count as journalism but it is hilarious.

If you haven't listened to podcasts, you can do so on your smartphone (podcasting app on iPhones, Switcher on Android, on your computer via iTunes or Soundcloud, or at individual podcasts' websites.

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Keys election post game

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I spent a good bit of time going over Keys election returns to prepare for my appearance on the Florida Roundup and I didn't get to use most of it -- because the show is about, you know, Florida and the Keys are a pretty small part of the state, electorally speaking.

John Spottswood and Bernie Papy, both legendary political figures from the Keys back in the days when everyone was a Democrat, shake hands. Photo from the Monroe County Public Library's Wright Langley Collection. No year specified -- I'm guessing ea…

John Spottswood and Bernie Papy, both legendary political figures from the Keys back in the days when everyone was a Democrat, shake hands. Photo from the Monroe County Public Library's Wright Langley Collection. No year specified -- I'm guessing early '60s.

But I think it's interesting so I'm going to share what I've gleaned in case you do, too. The overall numbers, if you're interested, are here and detailed precinct breakdowns are here --  special thanks to alert reader Dave D. for the link to that.

Turnout

The first thing I noticed was that Monroe County's voters voted in much higher numbers, percentage-wise, than our neighbors. Monroe was 56 percent overall. Miami-Dade was a pathetic 40 percent, Broward 44 percent. If you want to know who elected Rick Scott, you can thank the South Florida mainland no-shows. Statewide turnout was about 50 percent.

In Key West, Democrats are taking credit for extraordinary get out the vote efforts. After all, they say, U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia won in the Keys (despite losing the seat, which is partially in Miami-Dade), as did Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist. And Key West, the county's largest population center, went for Garcia (whose district residency is here) by overwhelming numbers: 67 to 33 percent.

BUT ... Key West actually lagged behind other areas of the county in turnout. Precincts on the island show a turnout of 53 percent, lower than the county average. Marathon precincts show a turnout of 58 percent and the Upper Keys -- from Islamorada to Ocean Reef -- 61 percent. And those areas? Not so liberal.

Conch Republicans

A lot of people in Key West were expressing feelings of betrayal and dismay that the Keys, as a whole, favored Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi in spite of widespread support for gay marriage in these parts. We even made the plaintiffs in Monroe's landmark gay marriage case the grand marshals of Fantasy Fest this year! But once again, the perception of liberal Key West does not extend up the Keys. County wide, our voter registration is 36 percent Republican, 33 percent Democratic and 31 percent other. If you had a map of the Keys and a set of crayons you would start out coloring the islands deep blue in Key West, go purplish somewhere around Cudjoe and be well into the red by the time you reached Islamorada. The Ocean Reef Club, the exclusive, wealthy gated compound at the tip of North Key Largo, is overwhelmingly Republican and they vote, even if it's absentee -- 73 percent turnout in this election. That's a relatively small number for a statewide race -- 820 votes this time. But in a local race, voting as a bloc, they can really make a difference.

Getting High, Part I

If Amendment 2, which would have approved the use and sale of medical marijuana, had been decided in Monroe County it would have easily passed the 60 percent threshold it needed to become part of the state constitution. Statewide, it got 58 percent. In Monroe: 72 percent. Not surprisingly, Key West led the way with 79 percent for approval. But it was interesting to see that out of all 33 precincts in Monroe, every single one voted in favor and only two -- Key Colony Beach and Ocean Reef -- favored it by less than 60 percent.

It's for the Kids

I wasn't entirely surprised to see the half-cent sales tax approved for the Monroe County School District, even though this was the first time voters were having their say on that since the district's mega scandal which saw the superintendent convicted of three felonies. And those felonies were covering up for his then-wife, a district employee who eventually pled guilty and went to jail for stealing more than $400,000 from the district.

The School Board has been divided and acrimonious for the last several years, which I thought might not help, and I didn't see as public and united a campaign in favor of the tax as I have in years past. But I think their basic message -- that sales tax is easier on the locals than property tax, since tourists pay at least half the sales taxes in the Keys -- got through. Plus, you'd have to feel like a heel voting against education. This one had fairly uniform approval throughout the Keys. The highest percentage in favor -- 74 percent -- came from Ocean Reef. It would be awesome if they could buy their luxury cars and private jets in Monroe County.

Getting High, Part II

The biggest surprise, to me, in the election returns was the overwhelming support for the building height referendum in Key West. It passed with 81 percent of the vote. The measure allows homeowners to raise their homes up to four feet above flood level, to a maximum of 40 feet. I'm not surprised it passed -- the memories of flooding from Wilma are still traumatic for many and even those who didn't get damage are worried about flood insurance rate hikes. But I also expected more skepticism from Key Westers when it came to building height exemptions. This is a low-level town that is so wary of tall buildings that the city charter requires exceptions to be approved by referendum (like this one). Current height restrictions are 25 feet in residential areas, 30 feet everywhere else. The local paper and a few prominent preservationists recommended voting no. But there wasn't much of a campaign against it while city officials and insurance rate advocates like FIRM did a good job getting their message out.

Podcast of the week: On the Media

This week's recommendation has some strong similarities to last week's. Like Radiolab, On The Media is a radio show and it's produced at the same place: WNYC. I got hooked when they used to play it on WLRN and it was one of the first podcasts I laboriously downloaded or listened to on my computer when iPods and iTunes came along.

I've dipped in and out of it over the years, more out than in when I've been out of the media world and I've always wondered if it was too much inside baseball for people who aren't directly engaged in journalism.

But I also know that media consumers -- and who isn't that? -- are often also media critics and in the last month I've repeatedly found myself talking to friends with strong opinions about the media. My biggest difference with them, with all these kinds of discussions, comes from regarding "the media" as a monolith, especially in our wide-open yet specialized digital age. 

On the Media consists of feature stories and analysis of all kinds of media and its cultural consequences from two really smart people: Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone. They have just the right amount of snark and skepticism while keeping an appreciation for the hard work that reporting and other kinds of content production can be. (Maybe that's the part that drives me crazy about my friends who so knowingly size up "the media" -- they don't seem to get how working in journalism can be so boring or stressful or just relentlessly demanding and that doing it well over a sustained period takes extraordinary  persistence and optimism, especially since what you deal with is often inescapably negative. I'm ranting again. I think I'll just link to this book review from a Janet Malcolm book about a murder trial -- which I liked! -- if you're interested in reading MY media analysis/defense. 

I was especially struck by On The Media's most recent episode, Behind the Curtain, with a story about Citizens United that was news to me. On The Media also has a digital spinoff, TLDR (Internet-speak for Too Long Didn't Read), which you can also subscribe to. They do some really cool stories, including this great recent piece about the mystery of Childish Gambino.

If you haven't done the podcast thing the easiest way is to do it on your phone -- iPhones have a podcast app, apparently Android phones use Stitcher. You can also subscribe via iTunes on your computer or just listen on a computer from an individual podcast's website.

And this week we're starting a new feature: Podcast press! Driven largely by all the excitement over Serial, there have been a lot of articles in ... dare I say it ... THE MEDIA recently about podcasts. So I'm just going to start throwing them up here. Not sure how long this will keep going but might as well have the links handy.

 

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Podcast of the week: Radiolab

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This week's podcast recommendation is not as old-school as the BBC from a couple weeks back. But it is a little bit old school in that Radiolab is a show that was created for the radio, ie. to be played over the air. But podcasting provides you the opportunity to listen to it whenever you like, with some extras thrown in. If you are a person who still likes to get their radio from the radio and you're in the WLRN listening area, btw, the show airs at noon on Saturdays.

Radiolab is the creation of two brilliant but very different minds. Robert Krulwich is a science reporter who was in on the beginnings at NPR. He visited for a day at my Transom Story Workshop last spring and played for us some hilarious tape of him and Susan Stamberg doing economic news as a vaudeville routine, along with a lot of other cool stuff from his career. Jad Abumrad is a composer-turned-radio producer who is so brilliant he received a MacArthur genius grant in 2011.

Krulwich and Abumrad, along with their team of producers, investigate stories usually about science although their portfolio has recently been expanding. The combination of their strengths -- Krulwich's in reporting, Abumrad's in sound design -- as well as their intellects leads them to some fascinating inquiries presented ways that are most definitely not old school. One episode from last spring that everyone in the Keys should listen to is called Kill 'Em All. It's about mosquitoes, including genetically modified mosquitoes like the ones that could be released in the Keys as soon as next spring. And it includes a visit to the Brazil lab of Oxitec, the company that would handle the Keys release. It also includes an interview with science writer David Quammen, who expresses some reservations about this idea. Quammen, by the way, is one of the best science writers working today. If you are curious about ebola and how it spreads, read his most recent book, Spillover. If you are curious about life on this planet, read his masterwork, The Song of the Dodo.

But before you do that, give Radiolab a listen, on the air or on your phone. The easiest way to get podcasts is through the podcast app on your smartphone. You can also subscribe on your computer, via iTunes or Soundcloud. If you don't want to do any of those things, you can listen to a podcast via its website, on your phone or computer.

 

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Podcast of the week: 99% Invisible

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After last week's old school recommendation -- a compilation of BBC World Service reporting -- this week we're going to turn to one of the hottest new podcasts on the interwebs. 99% Invisible is a model for the new mode of podcast production. It isn't distributed as a radio show, though stations are more than welcome to buy episodes and air them. It has been supported and expanded by several Kickstarter campaigns. And it uses nontraditional editing and sound design to tell its stories, while keeping them immensely appealing and comprehensible.

The show describes itself as being "about design, architecture and the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world." In practice, this has hugely broad interpretations. So it's not a show about people who draw, say, buildings or chairs (though those certainly qualify) -- it's a show about how humans interact with and shape our environments. History comes into it a lot -- host Roman Mars has a special affinity for plaques, which I love. The most recent episode, Good Bread, tells the story of Wonder Bread and white bread in general ... revealing a lot about American social history in the 20th century. Some other episodes I particularly enjoyed: Castle on the Park, about a former cancer hospital in a grand building right on Central Park, and Monumental Dilemma, where I learned the story of Hannah Duston, a Haverhill woman who was captured by Native Americans and escaped ... after killing her captors.

99% Invisible is the flagship show for a PRX initiative called Radiotopia -- which is currently conducting a Kickstarter campaign that has already exceeded its goal ... but is worth supporting anyway, even with a tiny contribution, just to show the breadth of support for the radio revolution.

If you don't already listen to podcasts, the easiest way to do so is via a podcast app on your smartphone. If you don't have a smartphone or don't want to do that, you can subscribe via iTunes or Soundcloud -- or just go to an individual podcast's website and listen there.

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