SOF Observed

"I was so influenced so greatly by a television show in igniting the passion that I had as being a..."

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:20:20 -0500

“I was so influenced so greatly by a television show in igniting the passion that I had as...

Opening Clip, from Battlestar Galactica Trent Gilliss, online...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:19:18 -0500

Opening Clip, from Battlestar Galactica
Trent Gilliss, online editor

As I wrote yesterday, Krista and crew went gung-ho on the audio clips from TV series for this week’s show. We included a good number of clips and I thought that would suffice. So, as I was editing Krista’s journal for this week’s newsletter, I find her enthusiasm hasn’t yet waned, as she has promised her devoted readers that they could listen to the Battlestar Galactica clip selected to open the top of the program.

Here I, with Nancy’s help, have isolated, encoded, and uploaded an mp3 for your ears. It’s quite compelling, and I’m glad Krista made the offer.

The Gospel According to Battlestar Galactica Mitch Hanley,...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:53:48 -0500

The Gospel According to Battlestar Galactica
Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer

Ever since Krista got me hooked on Battlestar Galactica a couple of years ago, I have noticed very few episodes that didn’t offer some not-so-subtle references to Judeo-Christian theological influences. There are countless examples throughout the program’s four seasons: a “chosen” or select group of survivors travelling great distances trying to find the prophesied “home”; the twelve tribes of mankind; transitioning from pantheism to monotheism, etc. But one of the more blatant is the refrain at the end of most speeches in BSG, “So say we all” — basically serving the same function when a congregation says “Amen” after a part of a church liturgy. And hearing the pantheistic human characters say “Gods damn it” still catches me off guard.

In this week’s program, “TV and Parables of our Time,” USC professor Diane Winston notes how the writers of BSG would also weave issues found in today’s real-life news into their story lines. She cites the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib as one example. Winston goes on to suggest that maybe we need good storytelling in order to process the events happening in our world, and that trying to understand the complexity of these events only through news media may not be enough.

As someone who finds the Bible in desperate need of an editor, I wonder if I would find the biblical stories more compelling if they had spaceships and cool sound effects and thrilling scores. Would I find the messages more relevant? I don’t know. It does makes me wonder if these modern narratives like Battlestar Galactica need to have familiar touch points, such as religious rituals and themes that we grew up with, in order to make a space-based story somehow more accessible to our terrestrial lives. Or do they just borrow from great stories, many of which can be found in religious texts? What do you think?

The Burden of Good Television

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:15:30 -0500

Trent Gilliss, online editor The production staff diligently spent hours selecting clips from their...

Hollywood in the Classroom

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:47:22 -0500

Nancy Rosenbaum, Associate Producer Students who enroll in Diane Winston’s “Religion,...

SoundSeen: Chris Farrell Puts Neuroeconomics and...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:41:32 -0500

SoundSeen: Chris Farrell Puts Neuroeconomics and “Cleansing” in Focus
Trent Gilliss, online editor

The production tour for this week’s program with Paul Zak was rather circuitous. After Krista’s interview in late March, schedules and time lines became hectic and we had resigned ourselves to the fact that it wasn’t going to make for an hour-long production. A couple months later, Kate, our managing producer, asked about the interview and thought it was worth reviewing with fresh ears. Fortunately, she did, and we now have a program.

With all the interesting information about trust and oxytocin influencing personal financial decisions, Paul Zak’s statement about “the cleansing effect of recessions” prompted more questions for me:

“Economists talk of the cleansing effect of recessions. So recessions are necessary because they kind of cull out the companies that are not providing the best customer service, that are not making a profit, that are not providing some product or service that people need. And when those businesses go out of business, then those resources are redeployed to more important uses. The machines are reused; the people get different jobs. And so this keeps the economy kind of efficient. We don’t want to kind of limp along and have high levels of inefficiency just because we love the name General Motors or love the name of some company if they can’t kind of keep up with the herd. So competition drives that and that’s an important part of maintaining efficiency.

But I think the same thing can happen in individual lives. I think as we get towards the end of every boom period, today or two years ago, the end of the 1990s and dot-com bubble, the end of the ’80s and this kind of “me,” “greed” generation, I think we do get out of whack because human beings are adaptable and we are watching what other humans are doing. We also become adaptable to this sort of yuppie, ‘more stuff for me’ lifestyle.

So I think, from a spiritual perspective, that recessions are also cleansing. So I think it’s very important that we don’t shy away from recessions and we don’t try to outlaw them. I think we should say, ‘Hey, there were excesses. This is how the excesses are corrected. And the excesses were both kind of on the macro level and even perhaps in my own life. Maybe I got a little over-excited about the extra bonuses I was getting and the bigger car. And now I want to sit down and reevaluate what’s really important to me.’ So I think there are great analogies between the micro and the macro, and we should embrace that.”

These are bold statements that have implications. So, after our final editorial session, I suggested that perhaps Krista might ask Chris Farrell, APM’s resident expert on economics and all things financial, for a broader perspective on the field of neuroeconomics and its place within the larger world of economics. And, more explicitly, Krista asked Chris about his view of Zak’s perspective on moments of economic and moral “cleansing.” Chris’s historical and critical analysis I found helpful, and surprising.

I’m not sure if there are absolute right or wrong answers to this final point, but there are consequences. How do you think about this?

My Oxytocin Moment

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:42:50 -0500

Colleen Scheck, Producer Our immersion into the world of neuroscience for this week’s program...

"Torture" vs. "Enhanced Interrogation"

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:34:00 -0500

"Torture" vs. "Enhanced Interrogation": Kate Moos, Managing Producer NPR has taken some sharp...

Liberty as Inner Work Trent Gilliss, online editor As I mentally...

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:31:24 -0500

Liberty as Inner Work
Trent Gilliss, online editor

As I mentally prepare for the annual Fourth of July parade in Mandan, North Dakota that will last hours, I remembered Krista’s enlightening interview with Jacob Needleman, a philosopher who spoke about the spiritual and moral ideals of the American founders — and how these ideals resonate in our culture today.

Democracy, Needleman says, is inner work, not just a set of outward structures. And, as we as a society reassess our priorities during these uncertain economic times, his conversation from several years ago seem particularly prescient, and wise:

“It’s become so trivialized, freedom. It’s wonderful to be able to go where I want and do what I want and buy what I want, buy and buy, and get and get, and talk and talk, and I have no constraints. We certainly need external liberty. God knows that’s one of the most precious things this country has to offer the masses of humanity who have come here. I don’t mean to put that down in any way. Without that, without that, the rest is just academic. But without the inner meaning of freedom and liberty, we have to ask, ‘Well, what is this freedom for?’ It’s not just a freedom to get a big house and a big car and a lot of goods. So inner freedom is an idea that has gone out of our conversation. Inner freedom means inwardly to be free from these egoistic, selfish cravings, which make our life turn around into chaos. It’s an interior freedom which maybe you can say is mystical or certainly spiritual, but without that dimension to the idea of freedom, the idea of freedom becomes purely external and eventually selfish.”

Matisyahu at First Ave Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer Last night,...

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:46:00 -0500

Matisyahu at First Ave
Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer

Last night, Nancy Rosenbaum, our new associate producer, and I went to see Matisyahu perform at First Avenue, Minneapolis’ storied nightclub that was the setting for Prince’s Purple Rain 25 years ago. Matisyahu is a Lubavitch Hasidic Jew who raps about traditional Judaism over fantastic, syncopated reggae beats. I’ve been following his Twitter feed (@matisyahu) and was able to score a pair of free tickets by the Twitter version of “being the 10th caller.”

Recently, I’ve been enjoying reading Emory University professor Gary Laderman’s new book, Sacred Matters, in which he suggests that the streams of popular culture are now and have been serving as sources of religious expression for many Americans. The ideas of pilgrimage, ritual, devotion, transcendence, gathering of community, the betterment of one’s self — all of these can be seen expressed at movie theaters, concerts, sporting events, etc.

With this fresh in my mind, I couldn’t help but notice last night’s show in that context. After the opening act, I turned to a couple on my right and asked them how many times they had seen Matisyahu perform. It was the first time for the guy, but his fiance had seen him three other times: Indianapolis (where she was living at the time), Atlanta, and Chicago. She freely admitted that she flew to Atlanta just to see his concert. “Haven’t you ever done that before?” she asked. (Actually yes, Luis Miguel and Julio Iglesias on two different nights in Miami, but this was for my wife, honest.)

I explained (shouting, the show had begun by now) Laderman’s premise and asked the woman if she had considered her attendances as “pilgrimages” or as expressions of devotion. She replied quite sincerely, “No, this is purely entertainment. I am a devoted Christian and my experience of enjoying this as entertainment is nothing like when I am worshipping Christ.” We both agreed that, for some in the crowd on the dance floor, this was serving as a religious expression, though that is probably not how they might describe it.

As I watched the rest of the concert, the arms raised and lowered with the beat, the lighters lifted up during the quieter passages, the refrains chanted when the singer’s mic was outstretched to the devoted. There was certainly a liturgy here, even if these are just things you do at a good concert.

Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards To IHOP Door

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:22:07 -0500

Modern-Day Martin Luther Nails 95 Comment Cards To IHOP Door: Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer Caught...

"No Greater Love"

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:54:00 -0500

"No Greater Love": Trent Gilliss, online editor I’m a little late to the game, but I’m...

Valuing the Mindful Intelligence of Work in All Its Forms Trent...

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:13:08 -0500

Valuing the Mindful Intelligence of Work in All Its Forms
Trent Gilliss, online editor

I loosely pitched Matthew Crawford, a political philospher who traded in his credentials to run a motorcycle repair shop, as a possible guest for SOF several weeks ago after reading “The Case for Working with Your Hands” in The New York Times:

…mechanical work has required me to cultivate different intellectual habits. Further, habits of mind have an ethical dimension that we don’t often think about. Good diagnosis requires attentiveness to the machine, almost a conversation with it, rather than assertiveness, as in the position papers produced on K Street. Cognitive psychologists speak of “metacognition,” which is the activity of stepping back and thinking about your own thinking. It is what you do when you stop for a moment in your pursuit of a solution, and wonder whether your understanding of the problem is adequate. The slap of worn-out pistons hitting their cylinders can sound a lot like loose valve tappets, so to be a good mechanic you have to be constantly open to the possibility that you may be mistaken. This is a virtue that is at once cognitive and moral. It seems to develop because the mechanic, if he is the sort who goes on to become good at it, internalizes the healthy functioning of the motorcycle as an object of passionate concern. How else can you explain the elation he gets when he identifies the root cause of some problem?

This active concern for the motorcycle is reinforced by the social aspects of the job. As is the case with many independent mechanics, my business is based entirely on word of mouth. I sometimes barter services with machinists and metal fabricators. This has a very different feel than transactions with money; it situates me in a community. The result is that I really don’t want to mess up anybody’s motorcycle or charge more than a fair price. You often hear people complain about mechanics and other tradespeople whom they take to be dishonest or incompetent. I am sure this is sometimes justified. But it is also true that the mechanic deals with a large element of chance.

(“Sumo Zamboni” by Jean-François Chénier/Flickr)

Admittedly, I have a great admiration for women and men who work with their hands and their feet — barbers and electricians, waitresses and bricklayers, potters and linemen. My uncles just knew how to fix farm machinery and build chicken coops and grain silos without a set of drawings. The skill of engine repair I’ve never quite acquired, but I discovered a love of building and remodeling homes — a latent penchant I never allowed myself to explore until 15 years ago. Thinking back to boyhood, the desire was always there, manifesting itself in constructing wood and log mud dams as the heavy Plains rains flowed down the rounded L-shaped gutters. I thought of it as frivolous play; now I recognize it as new sense of play, and purpose (although I suppose Stuart Brown might take issue with my definition).

(“Fixing the tractor” by Nirava Rasila/Flickr)

There’s a value and a spirit in learning from people who don’t sit in a cubicle all day, who don’t migrate from one meeting room to the next, and live only in words and ideas — much of what I do now and love. I’m not trying to romanticize these professions. Much hard, physically demanding work is involved. But, blue-collar jobs require different approaches to problem-solving, to collaborating, to communicating, to organizing, to tolerating; you do think differently. My many years waiting tables, repairing asphalt cracks with diamond blades and boiling tar, driving a Zamboni machine, cleaning campgrounds, etc. taught me this.

(“Lunch at Ella’s Diner” by Chuck Patch/Flickr)

I also know there’s a different persuasion of intelligence and honor involved in these pursuits. The character traits these many professionals know and practice are common truths that might help us understand ourselves and the values we hold dear with better insight. Shared ideas of loyalty and honesty, camaraderie and community may lead us to be better workers and spouses, friends and neighbors — for the many truths in this world teach and touch all of us, if we let them. We become a greater society as a result.

Hearing others like Matthew Crawford and Mike Rose (author of The Intelligence of Work) and Barbara Ehrenreich and the late Studs Terkel articulate these many perspectives is worth pursuing. And the first step is evaluating voices, which is where Stephen Colbert’s interview comes in. Admittedly, Colbert’s interviews are great fun, but sometimes his quick wit and comic interjections aren’t the most helpful in deciding if a voice for a long-form public radio show. What do you think? Are there other voices for this type of show you might recommend?

Doris Duke’s Shangri La Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer I...

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:51:00 -0500

Doris Duke’s Shangri La
Mitch Hanley, Senior Producer

I recently attended a retreat put on by the Social Science Research Council titled “Islam and Muslims in World Contexts.” Though the title may seem a little dry, Tom Asher at the SSRC pulled together a great group of about 20 professors, researchers, journalists, and grant-makers to discuss how coverage of Islam is changing in an ever-changing media landscape. The retreat spanned two days with much discussion. But I’ll bet you’re wondering what this has to do with Shangri La.

In 1925, twelve-year-old Doris Duke was the sole heiress to a sizable chunk of her father’s, James Buchanan Duke, estate. In 1935, Ms. Duke was married and while on honeymoon throughout the Islamic world acquired a large collection of Islamic art. Two years later she built her private retreat on the island of Oahu, just east of Diamond Head.

Doris Duke would continue to collect artifacts throughout her life before she died in 1993. Shangri La now houses the collection and is open to the public. So what a fantastic setting to hold our retreat!

The Arts Drive It Home for Me

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:55:00 -0500

Krista Tippett, host One hangover from living for a time in England is that I am a devotee of BBC...

Colleen Scheck, Producer Like many people, our coffee-cooler...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:03:53 -0500

Colleen Scheck, Producer

Like many people, our coffee-cooler conversation this morning is about Michael Jackson. I appreciated this perspective on both the passing of Jackson and Farrah Fawcett from Anthea Butler, historian of American and African-American religion and a past guest on SOF.

Suffering and Poetry Larissa Anderson, Poetry Producer In his...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:51:10 -0500

Suffering and Poetry
Larissa Anderson, Poetry Producer

In his essay, “Ecce Homo,” Xavier Le Pichon talks about his mother’s experience with Alzheimer’s. He explains that she was aware of her memory loss long before she was diagnosed. After her death, he says he came upon some of her diaries, which revealed how she tried to hide her memory loss.

Le Pichon relates this discovery to a poem his mother taught him, “Le Vase Brisé” (“The Broken Vase”), written by 19th-century French poet, Sully Prudhomme. In his essay, Le Pichon remembers the poem like this:

“The vase where the verbena is dying
Was cracked by the blow of a fan.
The blow barely grazed it
As no noise revealed it.
But the light bruise
Biting the metal each day
With an invisible but sure hand
Slowly progressed around it.”

The original French version of the poem, published in 1865, was slightly different. I asked poet Robert Archambeau to translate it. He recommended that his colleague at Lake Forest College, Jean-Luc Garneau, read both the French and English versions of the poem, and talked about Sully Prudhomme — his background, his style of writing, and what he may have been trying to say about suffering in his poem.

It’s interesting to connect Garneau’s comments about Sully Prudhomme to Krista’s interview with Xavier Le Pichon. As Garneau says, Prudhomme, along with a few other poets, started the Parnassian School of poetry, a style of writing that rejected sentimentality for scientific precision and detachment. Prudhomme’s poem centers around the idea of fragility — a vase that was cracked by the slightest breeze from a fan. It’s a crack that not only goes unnoticed, but also renders the vase unable to keep its flowers alive. Garneau points out Prudhomme’s scientific distance in the line “the vase is broken: do not touch,” which, he says, suggests suffering should not be interfered with.

When I hear Garneau discuss the poem, I think about Le Pichon describing how he felt he was so immersed in his scientific pursuits that he was not able to see the suffering of others, and that it is through “walking with the suffering person that has come into your life and that you have not rejected, then your heart progressively gets educated by them. You know, they teach you a new way of being.”

Later in his interview with Krista, Le Pichon recalls what it meant for him to see his mother experience Alzheimer’s: “My mother died of Alzheimer’s disease and I could see what the suffering was and that requires from us to invent a new way to deal with this person, with the suffering, to make their life possible, humane. And at each age you have new challenges and you have to face them. And this is how we build the humanity. The humanity is given to us at the possibility of old age, at each birth, and it has to be constructed. It has to be built. It is hard work.”

As Garneau describes what Prudhomme was communicating through the poem, it strikes me as contradictory to Le Pichon’s belief in facing suffering, engaging with it — his idea that fragility is “at the heart of humanity.” I’d be curious to hear more thoughts about how this poem connects with the show and why it surfaces in Le Pichon’s writing.

But, it’s not just “The Broken Vase” that captured Le Pichon’s attention. It is clear from “Ecce Homo” that Le Pichon sees suffering and poetry as intimately linked. He writes:

“As humans are confronted to suffering and death, as mirrors of their own suffering and death, they are confronted to their own fragility and vulnerability and this confrontation forces them to go beyond themselves by entering into a transcendent world that can be metaphysical, artistic and (or) poetic. This has probably been the origin of metaphysics, of art and poetry, which give us the capacity to project ourselves beyond the immediate reality of the difficulties of our life.”

A Question From Behind the Glass Nancy Rosenbaum, Associate...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:30:00 -0500

A Question From Behind the Glass
Nancy Rosenbaum, Associate Producer

Most of the time, Krista is not physically in the same room with the person she’s interviewing. This was the case during her recent conversation with geophysicist Xavier Le Pichon, who lives in southern France. She spoke with him from Studio P in Saint Paul while he was an ocean away in another studio in Aix-en-Provence.

A typical Krista Tippett interview lasts 90 minutes, give or take. Mitch, our senior producer, usually handles audio engineering while others take turns transcribing in real-time. In this photo you can get a sense of the set up. This image was taken by Trent on the day of the Le Pichon interview and here you see me transcribing while Colleen listens in the back. Mitch is taking notes and John Scherf, the technical director, makes sure that everything goes smoothly with the recording.

Krista (pictured at right) is situated in the studio while the rest of us listen in the control room. A soundproof glass panel separates us.

As Krista enters the last stretch of the conversation, she’ll usually pause to ask if there’s a question “from behind the glass.” This is our opportunity as production staff to contribute a question or two.

In her conversation with Le Pichon, I noticed that he became animated when Krista first referenced an emerging wave of research on the science of altruism. Le Pichon responded that in addition to altruism, scientists also need to study compassion and empathy “otherwise they will not understand anything. They need to go beyond that.” From there, the conversation took another turn to Dorothy Day and the San Francisco earthquake and then to 9/11. When the behind the glass moment came, I asked if Krista could revisit her earlier discussion about the science of altruism, compassion, and empathy.

You can hear their exchange in the audio clip above. Here Krista mentions that Le Pichon has written about a proposed research study with a colleague on vulnerability and fragility. I couldn’t remember where Krista found this reference so I went back to some of the materials Le Pichon originally forwarded. In one essay he sent, entitled “The Sign of Contradiction,” he references a colleague named Dominique Lambert who teaches at Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur, Belgium.

Le Pichon writes:

“…we have pleaded for a scientific research program that will try to consider the importance of the fragility and vulnerability of humans in the development of humanity. As I have implied in this short essay we believe that vulnerability and fragility played an essential role in the origin and development of humanity. We believe that the implicit and sometime explicit denial of this fragility and vulnerability in our modern societies put us in great danger of losing the meaning and value of human life.”

I haven’t been able to find much about Professor Lambert’s research on fragility and vulnerability beyond this link. If more surfaces, I’ll post it here. Or, if you’re familiar with his research, let us know!

Photos by Trent Gilliss using his hand-dandy Nokia N95!

Building a New Future for SOF Online

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:14:20 -0500

Over the past five years, we’ve built an online presence meant to complement the radio...

Cizik's Replacement Named

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:48:23 -0500

Cizik's Replacement Named: Trent Gilliss, online editor The National Association of Evangelicals has...