Wednesday 22 August 2012

Economist Podcasts on A Possible EURO breakup

Economist Podcasts on A Possible EURO breakup


Economist Podcasts on A Possible EURO breakup

Posted: 22 Aug 2012 07:30 AM PDT

The Economist imagines what a possible EURO breakup might look like considering doing nothing, a Greek Exit, and a larger exit of Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Greece and Cyprus.
Posted: 09 Aug 2012 11:32 AM PDT
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Posted: 09 Aug 2012 11:32 AM PDT
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Friday 10 August 2012

BBC Podcast on Immortality and Evil

BBC Podcast on Immortality and Evil


BBC Podcast on Immortality and Evil

Posted: 09 Aug 2012 11:38 PM PDT

What looks to be an interesting podcast on immortality and evil from the BBC.

Sunday 5 August 2012

Guardian article on financial crisis

Guardian article on financial crisis


Guardian article on financial crisis

Posted: 05 Aug 2012 07:58 AM PDT

Guardian article giving an overview of the financial crisis and the systemic problems that keep it going. These myths being the anglo/ Saxon myth that big finance is good, the German myth that austerity will fix everything and the third myth that nothing is really wrong with the system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics-blog/2012/aug/05/economic-crisis-myths-sustain

Saturday 4 August 2012

Simon Schama's: Power of Art (8 artists)


Simon Schama's: Power of Art (8 artists)


Posted: 04 Aug 2012 02:57 PM PDT
Here is an episode list of Simon Schama's: Power of Art

Season 1 Episode 1
Caravaggio The historian recounts the stories of high drama behind the making of eight masterpieces, beginning with Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath. He returns to Rome in 1603, where the Italian Baroque painter broke with artistic convention by creating earthy, realistic images using models taken from streets, taverns, markets and brothels

Season 1 Episode 2
Bernini The broadcaster and historian recounts how Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th-century sculpture The Ecstasy of St Theresa restored the artist's failing fortunes and breathed new life into the art of sculpture. Battling for supremacy with his rival Francesco Borromini, Bernini carved the marble model for the Cornaro family chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, where it still mesmerises flocks of devotees

Season 1 Episode 3
Rembrandt The historian turns his attention to Rembrandt's painting of The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis. The masterpiece, intended as a decoration for the halls of Amsterdam Town Hall, was the bankrupt artist's opportunity for a comeback, but was not what the commissioners wanted him to create - meaning the painter was left to die in poverty

Season 1 Episode 4
David Jacques-Louis David's painting of The Death of Marat. The artist had made his name working for the French king and was popular among aristocrats, but turned his talents to help the newly installed revolutionary government, painting the outspoken journalist who was stabbed to death in his bath as a martyr and `friend of the people'

Season 1 Episode 5
Turner Turner's painting The Slave Ship, which courted controversy in its portrayal of slave traders throwing their dying cargo into the sea to claim the insurance money. The work demonstrates the artist's move from traditional styles to a determination to test the limits of both technique and acceptable subject matter

Season 1 Episode 6
Van Gogh The historian recounts the inspiration behind Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field With Crows - a work created in the summer of 1890 that saw him hailed as a visionary genius only weeks before he killed himself. Schama charts van Gogh's early life as an art dealer, teacher and preacher, and Andy Serkis plays the troubled artist in a dramatisation of events

Season 1 Episode 7
Picasso The historian recounts artist Pablo Picasso's attempts to create a `modern history' painting, based on the bombing of the ancient town of Guernica by the Luftwaffe. Instead of making a literal social commentary, he wanted to depict accurately where he felt the horrors of the world came from - the human psyche

Season 1 Episode 8
Rothko The historian recounts the story behind the creation of Mark Rothko's suite of paintings, commissioned in 1958 for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's Seagram Building. The artist declared he wanted to ruin diners' appetites by creating work that demanded their attention - an attempt he saw as the ultimate test of art's power in the modern world
Posted: 04 Aug 2012 02:41 PM PDT
In what i think is a review of a book Time has released the top 10 books of all time. See what you think:



  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  • The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
  • The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
  • Middlemarch by George Eliot