What's on Kushibo's iPod (July 11, 2011 edition)

Every now and then I like to share what I'm listening to on my iPod Shuffle during my daily run. All of today's are from PBS's Newshour, what I consider to be the single best program for getting a thought-provoking, informative, and (most importantly) objective perspective on a wide breadth of political and social issues of the day.

• North Koreans Risk Lives to Escape Via Underground Railroad

• Bachmann Enters GOP Field With Jolt of Tea Party Energy

• PBS NewsHour: Huntsman Joins GOP 2012 Field, Touting Varied Resume, Hobbies

• After N.Y. Passes Same-Sex Marriage Law, What's Next for Proponents, Foes?

• Ghana Looks to Give Citizens a Voice in Their Economic Future

• 'Just One More Thing': Remembering Peter Falk, TV's 'Columbo'

• Obama on Afghan War Drawdown: 'The Tide of War Is Receding'

• Al Gore's Critique Sparks Debate Over Obama's Record on Global Warming

• Cigarette Warnings Get Graphic, but Will Smokers Be Deterred?

• Amid Push for Talks With Taliban, Where Do Rights of Afghan Women Fit In?

• Boeing Battle: Was Dreamliner Move to S.C. Legal or Strike Retaliation?'

• Sesame Street' Tells You How to Get to Sunnier Days Financially

• Apple Unveils New iCloud Music Service, but Privacy Issues May Lurk

• Why Does Yale Cost $55,000 a Year?

• 'Up in Smoke' Film Examines Perils of Slash and Burn Agriculture

• Self-Controlled Kids Prosper as Adults: 'Fatalistically Depressing'?

• Twitter Is Everywhere Now, but Can It Make Money?

• Puerto Rico Gov. Fortuño on Obama Visit, Ongoing Statehood Debate

• Broadway Holds Its Breath as 'Spider-Man' Musical Officially Debuts

• 'Fracking' for Natural Gas Continues to Raise Health Concerns

Public Health Reader: What's on Kushibo's iPod

I'll be making my "What's on Kushibo's iPod" posts a regular feature, but one of the things I'd like to do is split up into categories the noteworthy podcasts I think are worth a listen (mostly from PBS's Newshour, the single best program for getting a thought-provoking, informative, and objective perspective on a wide breadth of political, social, and health-related issues of the day).

So I will sometimes combine these posts with the occasional Public Health Reader (a subject near and dear to my heart), as in this post. Some of these are about stuff important to me or my views, such as the first one, which I believe underscores my own opinion — widely derided as xenophobic or "anti-teacher" by many in the K-blogosphere — that all people in South Korea (i.e., foreign nationals of all visa types as well as all ROK nationals) should be tested for HIV, with the former group being tested before they enter the country.

• Study: Early Treatment 'Extremely Impressive' in Preventing HIV Spread

• New FDA Guidelines Help Consumers Spot Sunscreen Effectiveness

• A Media Post Mortem on "Death Panels"

• Web Sickness (cyber-induced hypochondria)

• Catholic Church Looks to Lead Conversation on Combating HIV/AIDS

• Are Nurse Practitioners the Solution to Shortage of Primary-Care Doctors?

• Study: 'Good' Cholesterol-Boosting Drug Fails to Reduce Heart Attacks, Strokes

• New Promise Shown in Treatments for Melanoma, Breast Cancer

• AIDS at 30: Who's at Greatest Risk of Infection Now?

• Certain Antibiotics Spur Widening Reports of Severe Side Effects

• Chefs Cook Up Ideas for Healthy School Lunches

• Neurosurgeon: 'Your Cell Phone Is Not Necessarily a Safe Device'

• Denver Hospital Sets the Bar for Patient Safety

• Colorado Clinic Helps Diabetics Avoid Problems With 1-Stop Coordinated Care

• Is Technology Wiring Teens to Have Better Brains?

• Whooping Cough Returns to California After Decades of Decline

• Ukraine Struggles to Curb HIV Epidemic Amid Drug Shortages, Political Hurdles

• Minds, Machines Merge to Offer New Hope for Overcoming Impairments

• Study: Food Allergies in Children Becoming More Common, Severe

• Autism's Causes: How Close Are We to Solving the Puzzle?

• Autism Now: How Should We Address Deepening 'National Health Emergency'?

The last two are from an excellent series on autism put together by one of their main reporters, whose grandson has autism.

What's on Kushibo's iPod (July 10, 2011 edition)

Every now and then I like to share what I'm listening to on my iPod Shuffle during my daily run. Most of it is from PBS's Newshour, what I consider to be the single best program for getting a thought-provoking, informative, and (most importantly) objective perspective on a wide breadth of political and social issues of the day. Others are from other public broadcasting shows, lately I've been listening a lot to On the Media, which has a unique perspective as well.

• FCC Report says Local Reporting in Crisis

• The Echo Chamber Revisited Transcript

• Oceans Face Mass Extinctions, New Report Warns

• Condolence Letter Policy Shift Opens Conversation on Military Suicides

• Computing “That’s What She Said”

• Schoolhouse Shock: Report Finds Widespread Cheating by Atlanta Educators

• N.Y. Teacher Takes Students on a Virtual Trip to Learn Realities of Refugee Life

• Raze the Roof: Cleveland Levels Vacant Homes to Revive Neighborhoods

• Vietnam's 'Haunting' of Post-War Presidents Explored in New Book

• 'My Perestroika' Reveals Personal History of Last Soviet Generation

• Cambodia Teaches New Generation About Khmer Rouge Atrocities

• How an English Investor Dabbled in Cleveland Real Estate...and Got Burned

• The Dramatic Re-Enactment (this one mentions Korea)

• Protecting Its Fannie: How Mortgage Giant Primed the Bubble, Covered Its Assets

The Big List: PBS Newshour segments worth listening to (March 2, 2011 edition)

In my daily runs I listen mostly to PBS NewsHour, and I make a note of individual stories I'd like to blog about. They either carry some key information, delve into an important issue in a smart way, or give a very comprehensive overview of some issue.

Unfortunately, my blogging time has been limited lately, so I decided to just clear these on out. Take a listen to these if you have time. Download them to your iPod or whatever.

• Discovery's Launch Marks Beginning of End for NASA Shuttle Program (Feb. 24, 2011)
• With family members having worked extensively on the Space Shuttle, it holds a special place in my heart. 

• Govs. Daniels, Schweitzer on Looming Federal Government Shutdown (Feb. 25, 2011)

• Shields, Brooks on Collective Bargaining's Future, Shutdown Chances, Libya (Feb. 25, 2011)

• For Somali Pirates, Killing 4 U.S. Hostages an Abnormal Action (Feb. 22, 2011)
• This provides a good overview of who the hostages are and why it's hard to track them down.

• For Egypt's Women, Harassment Remains Part of Daily Life (Feb. 21, 2011)
• I should blog on this later: It's a story that, in light of the sexual assault on CBS's Lara Logan, it highlights the routine sexual harassment that Egyptian women must endure.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I've Got a Lot of Problems With the President's Budget' (Feb. 16, 2011)
• This gives a good overview of what liberal Democrats think is wrong with President Obama's budget (though Sanders is actually an independent). 

• A: This Computer Could Defeat You at 'Jeopardy!' Q: What is Watson? (Feb. 14, 2011)

• Social Media and Satellite TV: A One-Two Punch Against Mubarak (Feb. 14, 2011)
• Though the Jasmine Revolution has finished washing over Egypt, this gives insight into the technological factors that made the movement possible.

• How-To Economics: Irrational Assurance Tips for Valentine's Day

• Chicagoland Students See Success Hitting the Gym, Then Hitting the Books (Feb. 11, 2011)

Light posting until the end of the semester

Kushibo is a grad student with real world responsibilities, though you wouldn't know that on my eight-posts-in-24-hours kinda days.

Now that the Yŏnpyŏng-do shelling has died down, the FTA renegotiation has succeeded, and everyone is busy shopping for Christmas, and especially since I've gone nearly forty-eight hours without a single post, I thought I should put up a post announcing I won't be posting much over the next week to ten days.

In the meantime, if you're jonesing for some posts, take a look (or second look) at some of the recent ones I thought were interesting:

• Glorious Dear Leader and Brilliant Comrade Thought Bubble Contest #1 and Contest #2

• Kim Jŏng-ŭn is The Kim Who Wasn't There

• Don't buy into North Korea's bogus claims to South Korean waters south of the NLL

• The sun goes down on the Sunshine Policy

• Ban Kimoon doesn't care if people get HIV or need AIDS treatment wants to end the mandatory HIV testing for English teachers. And ATEK is happy sex workers aren't required to be tested anymore, too.

• With the new FTA, is South Korea ready for the Hillbilly Hummer Ford F150?

• The outcry over Blackout Korea

• Would racial profiling have caught Mr Headley?

• Will teaching visas be "semi-portable"? 

• NSFW pictures in a discussion of the TSA full-body scanners

• Impeach Obama? The Teasters say yes!

• Gift of the Megi

Yŏnpyŏng-do attack: The Big List #2

Things are still tense, but it appears time is running out to implement The Kushibo Plan unless there is another attack by North Korea in the next few days or weeks. Showing solidarity with South Korea over North Korea's attack on Yŏnpyŏng-do [Yeonpyeong], the US will bring the USS Washington into the Yellow Sea for military exercises, but I wonder if this is not the geopolitical equivalent of having a police car conduct a drive-by after you've called and complained that your stalker ex-S.O. has just killed your cat and kidnapped the kid you're babysitting.

I'm taking advantage of this lull to get some real-world work done, but I have been entertaining myself with my Kim Family thought bubble contest (see here and here). As usual, One Free Korea and The Marmot's Hole have some excellent links, as does ROK Drop.

From The Marmot's Hole:

• Why the Minister of Defense was sacked

• Lists of links, links, and more links

• The North Koreans used some pretty nasty weapons in their attack

• Folks are unhappy with the government's response to the attack

From One Free Korea:

• North Korea says sorry for shelling South Korea's "human shields"

• Before we do anything, let's take stock of what we don't know

• The mayor of Inch'ŏn is a tool (TMH has that here)

• List of links and some thoughts on the shelling

From Korea Beat: 

• South Korea civic groups are demanding a stronger response to the attacks 

• A history of provocations around Yŏnpyŏng-do

And the most recent Monster Island posts on Yŏnpyŏng-do here in a convenient list:

• North Korea warns of second and third attacks

• The KCNA reports North Korea will no longer tolerate the Northern Limit Line... At what point do we consider ourselves at war?

• North Korea's official statement on the Yŏnpyŏng-do attack
• China's response to their client state attacking one of their biggest trading partners: "Stay calm!" Again.

• The Los Angeles Times and former Ambassador Gregg get it wrong about North Korea's alleged claim on Yŏnpyŏng-do and the surrounding waters

• My thoughts on Andrei Lankov's thoughts on North Korea's "blackmail diplomacy"

• Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin momentarily (?) gets confused between North Korea and South Korea

The big list of things I haven't had time to blog but want to(April 19, 2010 edition)

I may start doing this from time to time. This is a list of things I found interesting — most of them not exactly Korea-related — that may be of interest to some readers. The list is dozens of items long, and in no particular order, so I'm just going to include it after the jump. So CLICK HERE if you want to see it.