This post was originally published on coreyscottnaas.wordpress.com on 6 May 2019.
Hey guys, I want to try something new.
I consider myself to be pretty informed about current events, and I do that by spending a lot of time listening to the news on my daily commute, listening to podcasts while I work, and watching (probably too much) YouTube in the evenings. But I’ve realized that I’m devolving into a bit of a (Aaron) Burr. I’m spending a lot of time and effort consuming information, but not doing a lot with it. I don’t spend time arguing with people on Facebook or Reddit, and I don’t socialized a whole lot in person, nor do I sit down and write thousand-word posts on a blog as often as I’d like. So the new thing I want to try is writing a weekly blog post sharing the most interesting podcast episodes and YouTube videos I watched that week, along with a quick summary of what’s in them or what I feel I learned from them. This way I’m at least spending a little time reviewing what I learned that week instead of just consuming and forgetting, which is kind of a waste of time. In a previous post a few months back, I lamented about the uselessness of knowledge unused, so this is my attempt at using at least some of it by sharing it with the world.
So here goes!
MY WEEK IN MEDIA: APRIL 28 TO MAY 5
Daily News:
- New York Times Daily Briefing, emailed
- NPR Up First podcast
Podcasts:
- NPR Code Switch: Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Israel?
- NPR Rough Translation: DIY Mosul
- “Fed up with government inaction, young people start rebuilding Mosul on their own. But in post-ISIS Iraq, volunteering can quickly become an act of rebellion.”
- NPR TED Radio Hour: Failure is an Option (Dang I listen to a lot of NPR)
- “Failure can be devastating, but it can also make us stronger and smarter. This week, TED speakers explore how failure clears the way for success, in our everyday work, and our innermost lives.”
- RadioLab Presents More Perfect: The Most Perfect Album
- Stuff You Should Know: What Happens When The Government Thinks You’re Dead
Youtube
- Knowing Better: The Straight White Man’s Guide to Feminism and Social Justice
- Knowing Better’s videos are all just great. “Straight white men often have a negative view of Feminism and Social Justice. Surely they’re making up things like White Privilege and Toxic Masculinity in order to silence people and gain power. Let’s take a look at these issues from that perspective.”
- ForeverJameses: Reading the Right: The Bell Curve
- The Bell Curve was a book published in 1994 that argued that intelligence is inherited and mostly unchangeable, and thus the idea that black people are inherently less intelligent than white people is scientifically backed. ForeverJameses takes an hour and thoroughly disproves this.
- Timbah.On.Toast: Dave Rubin’s Battle of Ideas: I, II, and III
- Dave Rubin either knows what he’s doing or he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Either way, he’s a bad interviewer and a huge enabler for alt-right propaganda and “skepticism”. “A look at the topics covered by the Rubin Report and Dave Rubin’s unique approach to interviewing.”
- José: Pseudo-Journalism with Lauren Southern
- “A video about how someone might pretend to be a journalist while advancing a right wing narrative by misrepresenting and omitting facts. This video isn’t strictly about Lauren Southern, but she serves as an excellent model of what how a pseudo-reporter with an agenda operates.”
- Wendover Productions: The Economics That Made Boeing Build the 737 Max
- An airline wanting a new old small plane means more fuel efficiency. More fuel efficiency mean bigger engines, which means different flight dynamics. “[this video] is meant to provide an overview of what led to Boeing creating the 737 MAX rather than giving a comprehensive overview of the factors leading to the two crashes and the issues with MCAS so the explanation on that is quick.”
- Ron Pratt: Car VS Semi Crash!!! Code 3 Response
- A really cool video documenting getting a semi truck out of the median with a huge tow truck. Lots of hydraulics and industrial controls involved.
- Three Arrows: Were the Crusades Defensive? – A Response to Steven Crowder
- “Steven Crowder doesn’t give a dam about the historical record about a medieval event. The crusades are mostly a vehicle for hi[s islamophobia and zenophobia]”