You might have noticed a slowdown in postings lately (although I’ve kept up with the daily pics), and that’s probably in part due to an unfortunate new addiction: political news. I’ve never really been a political news hound, but for some reason, I’ve become quite the junkie of the US Democratic race (even though I’m Canadian). I subscribe to TIME (the Asian edition), and the articles (and essays) I tend to go to first are the ones covering the primaries. Add to that CNN and BBC World coverage. Add to that the book I’m enjoying at the moment: Al Franken’s brilliantly hilarious LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM: A FAIR AND BALANCED LOOK AT THE RIGHT (I’m listening to the audiobook on my iPod during my daily commute, and I highly recommend it as Franken himself does the reading, and he’s great at it). Also, although I’ve been totally out of touch with Canadian politics since moving to Japan, I found out this week that the CBC keeps a contant stream of its nightly TV news mainstay, THE NATIONAL, and I’ve started watching that while I do my surfing. Nice to see Peter Mansbridge again.
Oh, and as a pleasant to surprise to me, I’ve been keeping up with the Japanese studies (to attain my goal of passing the second level test at the end of the year). Need more time in the day.
Category: General
“I’ve been totally out of touch with Canadian politics since moving to Japan”
take franken seriously and you’ll be out of touch with american politics as well, not to mention reality in general.
I’m not taking everything he says at face value, but I do find him highly entertaining (I often find myself laughing while on the train and listening to him talk).
Hey Jean,
you might want to keep an eye out for the Radio as well.
One show I came to enjoy is The Current which pretty much can keep you “on the pulse” of what is going on.
If I ever move back to Europe I admit I will miss the CBC.
I don’t know why, but I’ve never been big on radio. I like to see images, which is why I’m happy that I can see THE NATIONAL. They also stream hourly news updates from Newsworld, but I wish it would be a complete stream of the channel.
Considering that Newsworld really has very interresting things I would agree.
But the radio is a pretty good offset and I am actually surprised just how much interresting stuff is on the CBC.
Until around 2 years ago I was mainly listening to The Edge until the morning Shock Jock truly pissed me off with showing that he was just a moron, then I realized that most stuff on the dial is full of crap, same songs over and over (not that I didn’t know before but I didn’t care). Now listening to the CBC Radio is almost an enlightenment. Especially to find rare Gems in the Toronto scene that isn’t even covered in Now.
Okay granted, you’re not from Toronto so that is probably less of an interrest to you, but they stream local stations as well, so you might find something closer to “home” and keep in touch with events there.
Oh, as for the national, they have a special edition tonight where people can ask questions to Paul Martin, thought that might interrest you, I’ll try to catch it.