Radio: Jihadi Cool

There was a good story called Jihadi Cool: Terrorist Recruiters' Latest Weapon on NPR's Morning Edition today. It talks about a new generation of "lazy Muslims" who are drawn to extremism not because of religious fervor, but because of the allure of guns, women, and "coolness".

Listen to Jihadi Cool

Radio: Hidden World of Girls

The Kitchen Sisters just launched a new series on NPR called Hidden World of Girls. If you know The Kitchen Sisters' work, you know how spare, moving, and real it is. This one sounds like it will be no different.

If you know where to look, there's a hidden world of girls — and the women they become. Their stories are everywhere, but they don't always get to tell them. There are stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities — of women who crossed a line, blazed a trail or changed the tide.

Listen to a preview of Hidden World of Girls.

what i love about radio

David Greene's piece on Morning Edition today, Kentucky Houseboat Maker Struggles To Stay Afloat, does all the things good radio should do. It tells an important story that touches on painful issues, where peoples' lives and livelihoods are in danger, but manages to infuse humor and a general multi-dimensional realness to show how everyday life tramps on, even during the most difficult times.

Recently, I watched a presentation that Ira Glass gave the GEL Conference where he talks about exactly this idea.

I have a hard time focusing on things that are either too purely serious or too purely funny, too purely abstract or too purely real. Stuff that holds my attention needs to strike a balance. Like Greeen's story.

Maybe, probably, it's a personal defect. Short attention span and all that.

jolene

On All Things Considered today, they explored the perpetual appeal and charm of Dolly Parton's Jolene.

The whole five minute piece is worth a listen, but the piece's diamond moment comes at the tail end, when Parton describes herself as a "little short, sawed-off honky."