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

There 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.

A personal guide to the 13 most essential political podcasts

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

Commuting 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 …