Tag Archives: letter from america

If Alistair Cooke reported the Obamacare standoff: “A real shutdown… not really!”

By Andy Boddington | Fri 4th October 2013 - 9:15 am

Alistair CookeThere are voices from history that cannot be forgotten. Among them is that of Alistair Cooke, a Brit who understood America like no other.

There are times when I really miss Alistair. He had a unique ability to explain to us the seemingly bizarre and sometimes incomprehensible machinations of American politics and government.

Of course, he spoke of much more than politics in his Letter from America broadcasts. His tale of Gershwin and Russian immigration still gives me goose bumps. His lament on the closure of Woolworths captured the aspirations of a generation. He even managed to make golf sound entertaining, even vaguely important.

Continue reading »
Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Stephen Tall

A personal guide to the 13 most essential political podcasts

By Stephen Tall | Mon 10th June 2013 - 8:45 am

podcastsCommuting is a major part of my daily life, so I find podcasts are an essential way to make use of time I’d otherwise spend staring vacantly out the window or idly refreshing and re-refreshing Twitter. Here, in order of where they appear in my iTunes directory, are the podcasts I listen to most frequently…

The Economist’s podcasts – a good mix of audio recordings of selected articles from the print edition together with brief discussions involving the Economist’s expert correspondents. Slightly irritatingly the sound can vary between recordings, so you …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and | 8 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Sandy Walkington
    Man is born free and everywhere s/he is in chains… Michal you are an outstanding mayor, proud to have you as my first citizen....
  • Jana
    “ There is no offence of using the wrong lavatory and there never has been” This is correct - an offence would only be committed if there were some malicio...
  • cim
    Agreed with a lot of the above, "compulsory voting" is just a way to mask the symptom that there's not much in our current democracy that gets people excited to...
  • Stephen Gosling
    I was against compulsory voting until a few decades back when I saw in my then ward the age & assumed income cohorts of those currently voting. If we want t...
  • SteveTrevethan
    Thanks to all for a most interesting and relevant article and set of comments! From the information and possibilities therein contained, is it the case that ...