Podcasts about Oxford

Joined by former Muslim, Oxford PhD recipient, and university founder, Dr. Jacob Imam, today we passionately discuss why the contempt for working with your hands is not just modern, but pagan. We explore how the current education system leaves men in a world that cannot tell them who they are or what they are for. We also get into how the idea that Catholicism has “gone soft” is a false rhetoric and how Islam offers a false sense of strength.   From Andrew Tate, to converting from Islam, to what our young men need to be successful as a person in 2026, Jacob provides us with fuel and direction.   The College of St. Jospeh the Worker: https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/  Help the College reclaim the Masonic Temple: https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/reclaim  0:00 The Crisis of Modern Manhood 1:39 A Journey from Jerusalem to Oxford 3:43 Roots in the Holy Land 7:00 The Legacy of Clerical History 10:41 Finding the Face of Christ 16:05 The Allure of Modern Islam 31:55 Reclaiming the Dignity of Work 1:02:15 Building a New Future 

The Sphinx Without a Secret by Oscar Wilde — A Calming Bedtime Story for Sleep & Insomnia | Books at Bedtime A soothing bedtime story to help you drift off tonight: Oscar Wilde's quietly haunting tale The Sphinx Without a Secret, read slowly and gently for sleep, insomnia relief, and unhurried listening. This continues the Books at Bedtime strand — also known as Coffee Break for the Soul — from the Calming Anxiety podcast, a series of classic story readings designed as a calming audiobook for restless or anxious nights. For the full library, plus ambient night-light features for the small hours, download Anchored on iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anchored-panic-anxiety/id6785035669 Narrated softly by Martin Hewlett, clinical hypnotherapist and former paramedic, this reading follows Lord Murchison, who confides in an old Oxford friend over dinner in Paris about a mysterious widow he has fallen for in London, a woman wrapped in secrecy who insists her letters go to a lending library rather than her own home. A slow, unhurried mystery rather than anything unsettling — ideal as a sleep story or relaxation audiobook for falling asleep, insomnia, and quieting an anxious mind before bed. First published under the title "Lady Alroy" in 1887, and later renamed The Sphinx Without a Secret by Wilde himself when it was collected in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories in 1891, this Oscar Wilde tale is in the public domain worldwide (Wilde died in 1900); this reading is Calming Anxiety's own narration of the classic public-domain text. This episode continues the Books at Bedtime strand, alongside The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince (also by Oscar Wilde) and classic short fiction from Katherine Mansfield, Kate Chopin, and Arthur Conan Doyle — currently working through The Hound of the Baskervilles — with new instalments added regularly to the main Calming Anxiety feed.  

The most famous work of our newest Doctor of the Church is, of course, The Idea of a University—a collection that explores the essence of a Catholic university education. But fewer people know about St. John Henry Newman's extensive efforts in primary and secondary education: Newman's part was not just as an educational theorist, but a school founder, who played every nitty-gritty role from fundraising to parent relations, from essay grading to student mentoring, even processing repair orders and playing second violin to fill out the little school's orchestra. Dr. Paul Shrimpton has spent decades studying Newman's interest in education, from theory to practice. Today on HeightsCast, he invites us into Newman's vision for younger students, their teachers, and grammar schools as places of "grounding" and "a really liberal education." Chapters: 00:05:18 Co-patron of the Church's educational mission 00:07:50 Timeline of Newman as educator 00:20:25 Different models of student freedom 00:27:39 Methods of study for young people 00:34:11 Newman: a personal, hands-on educator 00:39:26 The role of a teacher 00:48:23 Partnership with parents 00:57:39 Forthcoming book on Newman: education and practice Links: "Drawing New Maps of Hope" apostolic letter by Pope Leo XIV The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman Historical Sketches, especially vol. 3, by John Henry Newman "Personal Influence: The Means of Propagating Truth" by John Henry Newman The Adeodatus Series on Catholic Education & Culture by The Catholic University of America Press (publisher for Dr. Shrimpton's forthcoming book, St. John Henry Newman and his Idea of a School, spring 2027) A Catholic Eton?: Newman's Oratory School by Paul Shrimpton The Making of Men: Idea and Reality of Newman's University in Oxford and Dublin by Paul Shrimpton The Most Dangerous Man in England: Newman and the Laity by Paul Shrimpton Also on the Forum: A Whole Education: Teaching Persons, Not Just Subjects featuring Michael Moynihan The Idea of a Catholic University featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick Featured Opportunities: Fall Open House at The Heights School (October 24, 2026) Convivium Conference for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 11-13, 2026)

This is Thinking in Public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.Dr. Nigel Biggar is the Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He received his Ph.D in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago and his baccalaureate degree in Modern History from Oxford University. Professor Biggar was also appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to Higher Education, in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours list. He's the author of more than 5 books and numerous articles which have appeared in publications such as The Financial Times, The Times of London, The Daily Telegraph, and The Spectator. It is his most recent book, The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win the Culture Wars, that is the topic of this new episode of Thinking in Public.You can purchase The New Dark Age here.Sign up to receive every new Thinking in Public release in your inbox.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the body that represents NHS paediatricians, has warned of a sharp rise in the number of children aged 6 to 17 turning up at A&E units in England in a state of mental health crisis. The RCPCH's Officer for Health Services, Dr Ronny Cheung, a consultant paediatrician based in London, joins Nuala McGovern to discuss the issue. He is joined by Kate Silverton, child therapist and parenting author.Siobhan Daniels joined Woman's Hour a couple of years ago as part of Listener Week to talk about her alternative lifestyle, getting rid of her possessions and living nomadically while travelling the country in a motorhome. Now she's back with a new book, Retire and Refire, which chronicles her 4,000-mile solo RV adventure from Canada to Alaska along the Alaska Highway.The number of babies born in Scotland last year was the lowest on record. Records began in 1855. Esther Roughsedge, Head of Demographic Statistics at National Records of Scotland, explains more.A menopause specialist has said that she is aware of women posing as men to buy testosterone from online pharmacies because of difficulties obtaining NHS prescriptions in Wales. Jenny Rees, BBC Wales Health Correspondent, joins Nuala to discuss the issue.This summer, Woman's Hour has been hearing from some of the academics who have been working with Radio 4 on their research. Professor Nandini Das, Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford, highlights the artist Levina Teerlinc from her new book, This Little World: A New History of Tudor and Stuart England.Divorced. Beheaded. Died. Divorced. Beheaded. Survived. Words familiar to most of us, and perhaps what you learned at school. But what do we really know, in depth, about Henry VIII's wives? There's a campaign to ensure that children learn more about the queens than those six words. Tracy Borman, Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces, explains more about their project.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Dianne McGregor

A man in Oxford was rescued after a trench collapsed at a construction site. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special episode of The Conversation series Grant Scott speaks with award winning photographer Marc Asnin. In an informal conversation they discuss photography in the first twenty-five years of the 21st century based on his project Act One: A Century in the Making. Act One: A Century in the Making Act One: A Century in the Making is a major new photography publication and exhibition examining the first twenty-five years of the 21st century that brings together the work of more than one hundred internationally recognized photographers alongside leading scholars, journalists, historians, writers, and public intellectuals to examine the defining political, cultural, emotional, and social realities of the first twenty-five years of the 21st century. Published by Other/Side Editions, the project positions photography not simply as documentation, but as a form of cultural memory, inquiry, and artistic testimony. Through themes including war and conflict, migration, race in America, political division, technology, identity, and environmental crisis, the publication reconstructs context around images at a moment when photography is increasingly experienced in fragmented and decontextualized ways. At a moment when images are increasingly consumed out of context and historical memory exists under constant pressure, Act One seeks to create a space for reflection, connection, and deeper public understanding. Contributors include photographers such as Andrea Bruce, David Maisel, Eugene Richards, Ken Light, Martin Schoeller, Peter van Agtmael, Platon, and Stephen Dupont, alongside essays by scholars including Joia Mukherjee, Lizabeth Cohen, Mark Danner, Nikhil Pal Singh, and Fred Turner. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/68b6bf3489b2866ff94dab74/t/68b748b17606c33219faf40a/1756842161214/Act+One+Project+Summary.pdf Marc Asnin Known for his long-term documentary work exploring memory, family, identity, and American life, Asnin is the author of Uncle Charlie and Final Words. Over the course of his career, he has received numerous honors, including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Grant in Humanistic Photography, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. www.marc-asnin.com Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby's, art directed foto8 magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018. ©Grant Scott 2026

Nick and Aaron recap the racing action at Oxford in the Pine Tree State 125

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell chapter 45 "Not All A Dream" narrated by Isaac BirchallSubscribe on YT or Join the Book Club on KO-FI and support me as an independent creator :D⁠https://ko-fi.com/theessentialreads⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfOFfvo05ElM96CmfsGsu3g/join⁠Summary:Mr Bell has some dreams of his past when he first visited Mr. Hale in Helstone, walking through the woods and over babbling brooks. His dream was very life-like and he finds himself struggling to believe where he is and that his friends are gone. Mr. Bell struggles to follow all of Mr Lennox's story, but it seems that more or less, all hope of saving Frederick are lost. When he sees how distraught Margaret is, he decides to stop, and just tells Margaret how much better Fred's life will be in Spain than in England. Margaret, in a minute or to recovers herself and thanks Mr. Lennox. Mr. Bell, after this, says that he is going to go, but suggests to Margaret that they go and visit Helstone together before he has to go back to Oxford. Margaret is overjoyed with this idea, though she knows it will be a challenging visit. He says that they would be back by Friday, and following the conversation, they go upstairs to ask Mrs. Shaw how she would feel about this trip. Mrs. Shaw is unsure at first, but eventually consents to Mr. Bell's proposal. SEO stuff I don't want to do. Elizabeth Gaskell's classic, "North and South" sees Margaret Hale's live uprooted as her family moves to the north of England. Initially disgusted by the ugliness of the industrial town of Milton, Margaret develops a strong sense of social justice after seeing the poverty and suffering of local mill workers.

For 20% off your carVertical report, and 50% off a bundle, use code DOBBS and you can click the link here: https://www.carvertical.com/gb/landin... __________________ You can check out all of our Libertatia gear including The Lost Biker Stories, here (thank you so much for your support): www.thelibertatia.com/ Please do leave a comment and share your thoughts. If you've got a story, insight or pictures to share, you can also email hi@tuesdayatdobbs.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/@tuesday_at_dobbs My other YouTube channel: @FreddieDobbs __________________ Time Stamps: 00:00: Intro 01:10: Three motorbikes that may soon be very hot property (Triumph Bonneville, Ducati Monster S4, Harley Davidson XR1200) carVertical 15:15: Could 20:55: worthless motorbikes (Honda ST1100, Honda Pan European, Yamaha XJ900, Yamaha Diversion, Aprilia Caponord, Honda Deauville) 24:24: Triumph Speed Triple 15:15: Oxford bags (Triumph Thunderbird Sport) 27:12: A bike for two up fun (Triumph Thunderbird) 28:30: Bike of the week (Honda Monkey Bike)

What happens an artist realizes that they can never be the only one with questions?From that reckoning, artist Eric Gottesman spent the next twenty-five years rethinking what an artist with a camera, or a big idea is actually for. In this conversation with Bill Cleveland, Gottesman traces his path from documentary photographer to collaborative image-maker in Addis Ababa's AIDS-affected communities, and eventually to co-founding For Freedoms, the artist-led initiative that has turned billboards, town halls, and even a Super PAC into tools for civic discourse.This is a conversation about authorship, collectivity, and the culture of inquiry at the heart of both artmaking and a thriving democracy.In this episode we explore:How asking the right question often matters more than delivering the right answer.Why Eric Gottesman says he has never made art alone. And why he thinks that's true for everyone.A “composite nation:” Drawing on Frederick Douglass, Gottesman is now developing projects that imagine an American identity built from multiplicity and complexity rather than a single official story.Notable MentionsPeopleEric Gottesman — Artist, educator, writer, and organizer whose collaborative work addresses nationalism, migration, structural violence, history, and civic life. He is a co-founder of For Freedoms.Wendy Ewald — Photographer and one of Gottesman's mentors. Her decades of co-authored photography projects challenge conventional divisions between photographer, subject, observer, and author.Hank Willis Thomas — Conceptual artist and For Freedoms co-founder whose work examines identity, history, media, popular culture, and representation.Claudia L. Peña — Executive director of For Freedoms, UCLA law lecturer, and practitioner of transformative and restorative justice. She appears with Gottesman and Thomas in the episode's Skoll World Forum excerpt.Baalu Girma — Influential Ethiopian journalist and novelist who disappeared after publishing Oromay, his critique of the Derg regime and its military campaign in Eritrea.Emily Shur — Photographer who worked with Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, and Wyatt Gallery to create contemporary photographic versions of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms.Wyatt Gallery — Photographer, For Freedoms co-founder, and producer of the contemporary Four Freedoms project.Marc Bamuthi Joseph — Spoken-word artist, writer, librettist, and cultural strategist who developed the six questions at the heart of America, the Beautiful.aja monet — Poet, recording artist, storyteller, and organizer appearing in the October 3, 2026, America(!) the Beautiful(?) performance, which is part of For Freedom's America, the Beautiful project.Derek Goldman — Director, playwright, educator, and co-founder of Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. Gottesman and Cleveland cite his emphasis on care in cultural work.Ariel Fristoe — Founder and artistic director of Out of Hand Theater, whose work brings theater, social justice, and civic engagement together.Organizations, Institutions, and PlacesFor Freedoms — Artist-led civic organization founded in 2016. It uses public art, billboards, exhibitions, town halls, and artist commissions to encourage listening, inquiry, belonging, and civic participation.Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University — The center at Duke University where Gottesman began his work in Ethiopia in partnership with Save the Children.Save the Children — International humanitarian organization that sent Gottesman to photograph the effects of drought in Ethiopia shortly after his graduation from Duke.The Charles F. Kettering Foundation — The Charles F. Kettering Foundation, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, operating foundation with a mission to advance inclusive democracies worldwide by fostering citizen engagement, promoting government accountability, and countering authoritarianism.Democracy and the Arts — The Kettering Foundation's focus area for integrating the power of the arts into democratic life locally, nationally, and globally.Corcoran School of the Arts & Design — George Washington University school where Gottesman serves as the W.W. Corcoran Visiting Professor in Community Engagement and where For Freedoms has been in residence.Future Currents — Organization that helps movement leaders prepare for uncertain conditions and collaboratively imagine more inclusive, just, and democratic futures.U.S. Agency for International Development — Federal agency to which evidence of the Ethiopian drought was submitted to help prompt an international aid response. The episode conversation takes note of the agency's dismantling and changed status.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — The city in which Gottesman began collaborating with people living with HIV and with children whose parents had died of AIDS.Somali Region, Ethiopia — The drought-affected eastern region where Gottesman first confronted the power imbalances and ethical contradictions of humanitarian photography.Sheshatshiu, Labrador, Canada — Innu community where Gottesman later collaborated with Wendy Ewald and young residents on a cross-generational photographic and community-curated project.Projects, Artworks, and EventsFor Freedoms at the 2024 Skoll World Forum — The episode includes an excerpt from this presentation by Eric Gottesman, Hank Willis Thomas, and Claudia Peña about art, interdependence, democracy, and social change. The forum took place in Oxford (not London as stated in the podcast).Contemporary Four Freedoms — For Freedoms' expansive reimagining of Rockwell's four paintings. More than 100 participants created 82 images representing a broader range of American identities; its Freedom of Worship appeared on the cover of TIME.Question Bridge: Black Males — Collaborative project...

How do you create an epic for the modern world?This is the start of our Songs of Solidarity mini-series; Josephine Burton and Maria Aberg take us behind the scenes as they discuss the journey of the last 18 months—from researching ancient epic traditions with academics to interviewing those with lived experiences of migration. Join us for a conversation about the art of "future-making," resisting traditional singular narratives, and the exciting, messy process of creating something new.Songs of Solidarity, is a PROJEKT UTOPIA and Dash Arts co-production. We're currently in the research and development stage co-produced with the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, in partnership with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, School of Advanced Studies, Roundhouse London, Asylum Welcome and Unbound Philanthropy. We are particularly grateful to Fiona Macintosh for her support and encouragement throughout.Our gratitude goes to all the wonderful international artists, academics and participants who enriched our project.In this episode we hear from:Josephine Burton - Artistic Director of Dash ArtsMaria Aberg - Artistic Director of PROJEKT UTOPIAAnd voices from our R&D in Oxford in December 2025: Leo Boix, Sabrina Mahfouz, Saili Katebe and Anna Sulan Masing. Our gratitude goes to all the wonderful international artists, academics and participants who enriched our project.Find out more at:www.projektutopia.orgwww.dasharts.org.ukWe have run several phases of R&D over 2024-2026, co-produced with the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, in partnership with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland, School of Advanced Studies, Roundhouse London, Asylum Welcome and Unbound Philanthropy. We are particularly grateful to Fiona Macintosh for her support and encouragement throughout.Our gratitude goes to all the wonderful international artists, academics and participants who enriched our project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While Mikey, Briley, and Scooter would love to get back to the Carton Family Brunch, they instead are confronted by mild-mannered Diner employee Giles Waiterman, who has some surprising revelations to share. You mean to tell me this Oxford-educated British man who waits tables in a diner outside Columbus, Ohio and has a particular interest in our heroes may be more than he appears?!? Now I've heard everything! Except for this podcast! *Presses Play*Follow us on bluesky for goodness sake, it's fun! And it's probably the best way to contact us, all things considered.Special Thanks as always to Sydney and Benjamin Paul and Tyler Button, and our Big Freak Spacejamfan!This episode features additional sound design by Michaël Ghelfi. Michaël creates brilliantly crafted soundscapes and ambient tracks for all sort of productions and they make perfect accompaniment to your ttrpg home games. Find his work on YouTube, and support that good stuff on Patreon.Subscribe and Rate Rude Tales of Magic on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review!Advertise on Rude Tales of Magic via Gumball.fm.Support the show: https://www.rudetalesofmagic.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To the philosopher, the weeping of Krishna's lovers looks like ordinary suffering. To the mystics it's the culmination of the highest knowledge. Evelyn Underhill — first woman to lecture in theology at Oxford — said the mystic speaks the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, something only really understood by another who has felt it. Raghunath and Kaustubha explore what it means to move from thinking to tasting — and why the passion of the gopīs is where all philosophy ends. Srimad Bhagavatam 10.39.8-26 ******************************************************************** LOVE THE PODCAST? WE ARE COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AND WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN! Go to https://www.wisdomofthesages.com WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@WisdomoftheSages LISTEN ON ITUNES: https://podcasts/apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-of-the-sages/id1493055485 CONNECT ON FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/wisdomofthesages108 *********************************************************************

I welcomed one of my hero authors, Michael Morpurgo, and his wife Clare, to Highclere Castle to talk about storytelling, history, the magic of reading, and the extraordinary charity they founded together — Farms for City Children.Michael shared how War Horse came to life and why understanding the First World War matters more than ever today. We recalled the unforgettable day Joey, the National Theatre's War Horse puppet, came to Highclere in 2014 — walking through the very library where Almina, my predecessor, had nursed soldiers back from the trenches a century before.Michael told the wonderful story behind Farms for City Children — how Clare, a childhood afternoon let loose near a Devon farm, courtesy of her father Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, sparked a lifetime's passion for the countryside, and how that passion became a charity that has given over 120,000 inner-city children a week of real farm life.We explored the importance of books and reading, handwriting, the friendship with Ted Hughes, the honest editorial partnership between Michael and Clare, and my own plans for a Highclere Literary Festival this October.We ended with Michael's dream summer evening guest: the radiant Audrey Hepburn.00:00 Welcome & Introduction02:10 War Horse & Joey Comes to Highclere06:30 History, World War I & Why It Still Matters13:15 The Origins of Farms for City Children21:45 A Real Farm — Not a Pretend Farm28:00 Highclere: Farm, History & the Fifth Earl33:20 The Power of Reading & the Literary Festival38:10 Writing by Hand, Ted Hughes & the iPad44:00 Editing, Marriage & Telling the Truth49:30 Dream Party Guest: Audrey HepburnTopics CoveredWar Horse & HighclereThe origins of War Horse and why Michael believes we must understand history to navigate the presentLady Carnarvon recalls the day Joey, the War Horse puppet from the National Theatre, came to Highclere in 2014 to mark the centenary of World War IHighclere Castle served as a real military hospital during World War I — Lady Carnarvon's predecessor, Almina, nursed soldiers back from the trenchesThe contrast with the fictional Downton Abbey and the very real human stories preserved in letters at HighclereHistory, War & ResponsibilityMichael reflects on why the First World War is so important — and how it directly caused the SecondThe role of individuals and political movements in triggering conflict, from Sarajevo to the rise of HitlerWhy Michael feels it is "timely" to revisit these lessons today, given the state of the worldSeeing War Horse in the theatre the night before recording — and what it still means to himFarms for City ChildrenClare's childhood inspiration: sent outside to explore as a young girl near a Devon farm, she fell in love with the countryside, animals, and the rhythm of rural lifeHer father, Allen Lane, founder of Penguin Books, instilled a love of the natural worldWhy Clare and Michael left teaching after realising they weren't reaching the children who needed them mostHow the charity started with one Victorian farmhouse in Devon and has since grown to multiple working farmsOver 120,000 children have now spent a week on a real farm — milking cows, feeding lambs, grooming horses, doing genuine workMeeting former "farm children" now aged 45 with families of their own, who say the experience never left themHighclere Today — A Living EstateFarming records at Highclere dating back to the 16th century; earliest written records from 749 ADLady Carnarvon's rare breed Cornish pigs, Belted Galloway cattle, 1,400 ewes, and 2,500 lambsThe Iron Age Fort and Bronze Age Tumuli on the estateWilliam of Wykeham (1324–1404) — bishop and founder of Winchester College and New College, Oxford — lived at Highclere; it was his palaceThe fifth Earl of Carnarvon, who discovered the Tomb of Tutankhamun, was a voracious reader; his will, written at 21, listed his books as among his most prized possessionsThe Power of Reading & WritingWhy books matter: they let children ask questions, explore mortality, understand the world, and feel less aloneMichael's beach anecdote — watching his granddaughter's husband read to their one-year-old, with the baby turning the pages back — as a perfect image of how the love of books is passed onThe importance of parents reading aloud, good libraries, and physical booksLady Carnarvon's Highclere Literary Festival — launching this October, with:A children's trail through the gardens (including a wardrobe inspired by Narnia and an entrance to fairyland)The Curious Tent and Speaker's CornerWriting and reading competitions with cash prizesFree entry for under-16s who have read a book or written somethingLady Carnarvon's campaign for handwriting — the link between brain, hand, and penTed Hughes, Writing by Hand & TechnologyMichael's lifelong habit of writing by hand — and how arthritis in his finger has forced a reluctant move to an iPadNeighbour and friend Ted Hughes on why handwriting matters: it keeps the mind and the process in syncMichael's delight at discovering he can dictate to his iPad ("It prints it out magically")Editing, Marriage & HonestyClare as Michael's first editor — "quite unfairly truthful" — and why he always takes her notes even when he doesn't want toThe ongoing verdict: nothing he's written in the 65 books since War Horse has matched itLady Carnarvon's husband editing her first book and his well-meaning but devastating comment: "Don't worry if nobody reads it — you've still tried very hard"A Summer Evening QuestionIf you could take anyone to Lady Carnarvon's summer jazz evening, who would it be?Clare: Gregory PeckMichael: Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday)A discussion of Audrey Hepburn's extraordinary grace — and how grace itself is something both Michael and Lady Carnarvon seek in their work and livesMentioned in This EpisodeWar Horse — Michael Morpurgo (novel, stage production, Steven Spielberg film)Waiting for Anya — Michael MorpurgoThe History Boys — Alan BennettFarms for City Children — farmsforcitvchildren.orgHighclere Literary Festival — October 2025, Highclere CastleAllen Lane — founder of Penguin BooksAlmina, Countess of Carnarvon — WWI hospital at HighclereWilliam of Wykeham — founder of Winchester College and New College, OxfordThe fifth Earl of Carnarvon — discoverer of Tutankhamun's tombTed Hughes — poet, neighbour of the MorpurgosRoman Holiday (1953) — dir. William Wyler, starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory PeckAbout Lady Carnarvon's PodcastLady Carnarvon records her podcast from Highclere Castle, home of the real family whose story inspired Downton Abbey. Episodes explore history, heritage, literature, and the people and ideas that have shaped Highclere and the wider world.You can hear more episodes of Lady Carnarvon's Official Podcasts at https://www.ladycarnarvon.com/podcast/New episodes are published on the first day of every month. 

Bob attended the 72 hours of Oxford, Brad toured New England with a stop at Stafford for the return of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, and Charlie is back at the museum. Support the show

In this episode of Spybrary, host Matthew Hurst talks with author Jinwoo Park about his debut novel, The Oxford Soju Club. The book centres on North Korean spies and their Korean American adversaries, who are regulars at an Oxford restaurant run by an oblivious South Korean. It's as much about the psychology of their ethnic identities as shoot outs and chases. Jinwoo discusses how the book developed from a simple action thriller to drawing out parallels of how deep cover spies and immigrants share a need to to mould themselves to their surroundings. The conversation explores Jinwoo's influences, from the Bourne films and Robert Ludlum to John le Carré and The Sympathizer, to conversations with his uncle — a former deputy director in South Korea's National Intelligence Service. It also explains why spies should never be rude to taxi drivers. Support Spybrary on Patreon, every little helps us produce content for you.

Golden woodlands, quiet villages and cosy pubs. Autumn in the UK has a magic you do not get in high summer. In part one of our two part autumn special, three local experts share what really changes across September, October and November in the Lake District, the Cotswolds and Devon.Lake District autumn colour hotspots including Tarn Hows and WastwaterHow September, October and November differ for weather, light and atmosphereWalk ideas for non hikers and why low-level routes often win in autumnMountain Goat tours running through autumn, including the September-only Mountain Passes tourThe Cotswolds in the quieter months and why market towns suit autumn travelBest timing for Cotswolds autumn colour, plus Hidcote and Batsford ArboretumHarvest farm shops, local produce and Bonfire Night fireworksGo Cotswolds autumn favourites, Oxford departures and the Bath Christmas market datesDevon's tree tunnels, woodland colour and wildlife on Dartmoor and ExmoorCider, apple orchards, top farm shops and the rise of English vineyardsWhat stays open through autumn and when visitor hours start to shortenLISTENER DISCOUNTSMountain Goat Tours, Lake District: 10% off with code UKTRAV10 https://www.mountain-goat.comGo Cotswolds: 5% off with code UKTRAVPLAN https://www.gocotswolds.co.ukUnique Devon Tours: https://www.uniquedevon.toursShow notes - Episode 216Part two lands next week with the far north of Scotland and London. If autumn is in your plans, send us a message via SpeakPipe and tell us where you are heading, and do share this with anyone planning a UK trip. Reviews help other travellers find the podcast. We also write a free weekly newsletter, The Great British Trip, every Saturday morning: https://thegreatbritishtrip.substack.com/Still planning your UK or Ireland trip?Rabbie's small-group tours are a brilliant way to see more without the hassle of driving or planning everything yourself. With departures from cities such as Edinburgh, London and Dublin, it's easy to add a multi-day adventure to your itinerary. Have a look at their tours and any current offers on their website - Rabbies.comSupport the show

It's the end of summer, so Kate and Laura are looking back over their holiday reading, the books they loved, the ones that disappointed them, and the unexpected discoveries that made their reading lists longer rather than shorter.We talk about Alex E. Harrow's huge fantasy novel The Everlasting, and why it turned out to be a surprisingly divisive read. Kate reports back on her pick from the Booker longlist, The Palm House by Gwendolyn Riley. She's also recently completed The Power Broker, Robert Caro's iconic book on New York master-builder Robert Moses, but was it worth the read? She's also discussing The Silver Book, Olivia Laing's most recent work of fiction. In Pankaj Mishra's The Romantics, Laura found an interesting book club choice, while Kate's flagging up Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, and while on the campus novel theme she also read Joanna Miller's The Eights, set in 1920s Oxford. Laura wraps things up with the wonderfully atmospheric The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo.But there's more as pod-regular Phil Chaffee joins us with two of his favourite summer reads, Sue Prideaux's Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin and Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards.As summer comes to an end, we're also looking ahead to Booker season, with the shortlist just around the corner and plenty more reading on the horizon.PatreonCome and find the pod on Patreon at patreon.com/thebookclubreviewKeep up with the pod between shows on Instagram @bookclubreviewpodcastFor all other information and our episode archive find The Book Club Review online at thebookclubreview.co.ukComplete booklistThe Power Broker by Robert CaroGideon the Ninth by Tamsyn MuirThe Everlasting by Alex E. HarrowThe Calculation of Volume by Solvej BalleStarling House by Alex E. HarrowJonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna ClarkeThe Palm House by Gwendolyn RileyFamesick by Lena DunhamMy Phantoms by Gwendolyn RileyThe Silver Book by Olivia LaingThe Garden Against Time by Olivia LaingCrudo by Olivia LaingThe Romantics by Pankaj MishraThe Golden Mean by Annabel LyonFathers & Sons by Ivan TurgenevThe Heart of the Nhaga by Lee Young-do (Anton Hur)Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt DinnermanLand by Maggie O'FarrellThe Chair (Netflix)Monsters by Claire DedererVladimir by Julia May JonasThe Eights by Joanna MillerThe Night Tiger and The Fox Wife by Yangsze ChooThe Digital Critic: Literary Culture Online (Houman Barekat, Robert Barry and David Winters, eds.)When We Talk About Love by Carl WilsonTimecodes for the time-poor00:00 — Welcome & summer reading02:00 — What did we actually read this summer?Holiday reading plans, library books and the perennial problem of taking too many books away with you.04:00 — The Everlasting by Alex E. HarrowTime loops, quests and a very divided reaction.15:30 — The End of the Power Broker by Robert CaroKate tackles another Booker longlist book and asks: why is this on the longlist?20:00 — The Booker longlist pickA frank discussion of Gwendolyn Riley's The Palm House and the pleasures (and pains) of reading for the Booker.22:20 — The Silver Book by Olivia LaingA surprise for Kate after her mixed reaction to Laing's Crudo.27:30 — An accidental book-club adventureLaura's brilliant idea: abandon the overheated book-club meeting and send everyone into Foyles to choose books.28:40 — The Romantics by Pankaj MishraA chance discovery — and a Hilary Mantel endorsement that seals the deal.35:50 — Vladimir by Julia May JonasSex, power, academia and the deliciously murky moral territory of a campus novel.40:00 — The Eights by Joanna MillerWomen in academia, 1920s Oxford and coming-of-age just after World War I42:40 — The Night Tiger by Yangsze ChooMystery, folklore, tigers and colonial Malaysia, Laura's perfect summer read50:45 — Phil's summer readingWild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux and The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis54:20 — Booker season beginsThe shortlist is coming, and summer reading gives way to required reading.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To the philosopher, the weeping of Krishna's lovers looks like ordinary suffering. To the mystics it's the culmination of the highest knowledge. Evelyn Underhill — first woman to lecture in theology at Oxford — said the mystic speaks the disconcerting language of first-hand experience, something only really understood by another who has felt it. Raghunath and Kaustubha explore what it means to move from thinking to tasting — and why the passion of the gopīs is where all philosophy ends. Srimad Bhagavatam 10.39.8-26 ******************************************************************** LOVE THE PODCAST? WE ARE COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AND WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN! Go to https://www.wisdomofthesages.com WATCH ON YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@WisdomoftheSages LISTEN ON ITUNES: https://podcasts/apple.com/us/podcast/wisdom-of-the-sages/id1493055485 CONNECT ON FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/wisdomofthesages108 *********************************************************************

This week, we have a full house to discuss first time winners named Ryan, more punts than an NFL game, and if the Oxford 250 has finished yet.Find us:Instagram- @makinglapspodcastFacebook.com/makinglapspodcastmakinglapspodcast@gmail.com

Get all sides of every story and be better informed at https://ground.news/AlexOC - subscribe for 40% off unlimited access.Come to my North American tour this November: https://www.alexoconnor.com/p/tour.Jan Westerhoff is a German philosopher and orientalist with specific interests in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. He is currently Professor of Buddhist Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religion of the University of Oxford.Get Jan Westerhoff's books here.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Nāgārjuna, The “Second Buddha”6:03 The Middle Way9:16 Ontological Nihilism20:00 Are Madhyamaka Buddhists Nihilists?38:56 How Emptiness Escapes Causal Arguments for God45:40 Preempting Immanuel Kant?50:37 Emptiness1:10:07 How to Escape Suffering1:16:54 Visualising Emptiness1:20:30 Is Consciousness Empty?1:34:28 Reality Without SubstanceCONNECT:My Website: https://www.alexoconnor.comTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/cosmicskepticFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/cosmicskepticInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/cosmicskepticTikTok: @CosmicSkepticThe Within Reason Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/16wUbvDT95dxzpG2KEhakK?si=3196e07690bb489dCONTACT:Business email: contact@alexoconnor.comBrand enquiries: David@modernstoa.co

Brian Ruby is the founder of Medifoodz, a company focused on making therapeutic ketogenic nutrition more practical, accessible, and sustainable. Through Medifoodz's Glyvance program, Ruby is combining chef-prepared ketogenic meals with continuous glucose monitoring, digital support, and clinician oversight to help patients translate metabolic health science into everyday life. His work centers on one of the biggest challenges in nutrition-based care: not simply knowing what to eat, but making it easier to consistently eat that way. Dr. Adrian Soto-Mota, MD, PhD, FACP is an internist, metabolic researcher, and professor whose work focuses on human metabolism, ketone biology, and evidence-based approaches to metabolic disease. He earned his PhD in Physiology and Metabolism from the University of Oxford and has conducted research on exogenous ketones, glucose metabolism, and cardiovascular health. In this episode, Dr. Brian, Dr. Tro, Dr. Adrian, and Brian Ruby talk about… (00:00) Intro (02:20) Why Brian Ruby founded Medifoodz (09:49) Dr. Soto Mota's recent study pitting the ADA's recommended diet and a ketogenic diet (22:28) The hardest barrier to entry most people struggle to overcome when starting a keto diet (26:15) Why CGMs are so incredibly valuable sustainability (32:16) Babies, dogs, and real food (39:24) Big Food and subsidies (45:58) Real food and dietary motivation (51:38) The AHA recommended diet diabetes reversal (59:15) Accepting and embracing criticism (01:05:51) Dr. Soto Mota's recent Zetia Study (link below) (01:18:24) Outro   For more information, please see the links below. Thank you for listening!   Links:   Please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.lowcarbmd.com/   Brian Ruby: Glyvance: https://medifoodz.com/ X: https://x.com/Medifoodz   Dr. Adrian Soto Mota: X: https://x.com/AdrianSotoMota Zetia Study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12944-026-03034-w   Dr. Brian Lenzkes:  Website: https://arizonametabolichealth.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianLenzkes?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author   Dr. Tro Kalayjian:  Website: https://toward.health Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoctorTro IG: https://www.instagram.com/doctortro/   Toward Health App Join a growing community of individuals who are improving their metabolic health; together.  Get started at your own pace with a self-guided curriculum developed by Dr. Tro and his care team, community chat, weekly meetings, courses, challenges, message boards and more.    Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/doctor-tro/id1588693888  Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.disciplemedia.doctortro&hl=en_US&gl=US Learn more: https://toward.health/community/

The crisis almost never arrives all at once. It builds — quietly, gradually — and then one day, people break.Dr. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey has stood in two of the most extreme places a human can be. As an emergency psychiatrist in New York City, she sits with people at the absolute edge of crisis. Off the clock, she looks for her own edge on the sides of mountains —. A physician-scientist trained at Oxford and Columbia with a PhD in HIV immunology, an award-winning author, and a national mental health policy voice, she joins Jon and Will to talk about what actually brings people into the ER, why economic stress is now hitting the middle class and young adults, and the single lesson the mountains taught her that changes everything: ask for help early.IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN:What gets in the way when we need to ask for help?   The most common crises that bring people to the psychiatric ER — and how the demographics are shiftingWhy economic stress is now breaking middle-class professionals and young adults who can't find workCrises build gradually, then people break — and why to call 988 and ask for help earlyWhat mountaineering taught her about asking for help: inexperience delays it, and delay costs the whole teamPut your own mask on first, ask the right person, and keep the ask time-limitedMore about Dr. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey:1.  Instagram & Youtube: doctoradjoa2.  Children's book: Anjali the Brave (All About Vaccines) — on Amazon3.  New York Mental Health Foundation — launching soon 4.  New York County Psychiatric Society (branch of the American Psychiatric Association) — Dr. Smalls-Mantey is immediate past president5.  If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) Check out our Awareness-to-action Self Mastery COURSE & COMMUNITY:12 modules on attention, presence & performance. Work at your own pace plus a community built for Inspiration and connection.1.  www.focusnowtraining.com/a2a-CourseJOIN US IN PERSON — Future Events and Retreats.1.  Live in-person event: Warrior Defined. We will be in Charlotte, NC, September 25, 2026 more info HERE: Or mentalkingmindfulness.comGET MORE FROM MTM:Text MTM to 33777 — free weekly newsletter1.  Subscribe: mentalkingmindfulness.com2.  FNT: focusnowtraining.comBRING FNT TO YOUR TEAM:1.  focusnowtraining.com/contactProduced by Robert Lopez | https://www.cratesaudio.com/

**The Clay Edwards Show – Episode 1285**   with Creston Berch and Andrew Gasser Clay, Creston, and Andrew cover a packed weekend and the stories that actually matter. Jason Aldean packed Brandon with a sold-out, no-drama night that included “Try That in a Small Town.” College football's Week 0 delivered the usual early-season weirdness: Dan Mullen's UNLV squad lost at home to Memphis and the coach blamed the crowd for being too loud on offense; USC's big stadium looked half-empty against San Jose State, sparking talk about whether some programs should take non-conference games to smaller venues that actually look full on TV. NASCAR delivered a strong Daytona race. Combat sports went full circus—BKFC in Fenway Park plus a chaotic Orlando card that featured Mike Perry's shoulder injury on short notice, internet personalities, and one of the strangest post-main events you'll ever see. The biggest story of the hour: a Nigerian national was extradited to Mississippi and arraigned in Oxford on charges tied to the 2022 online sextortion of 16-year-old Starkville Academy football player Walker Montgomery, who died by suicide. The suspect had been in Nigerian custody since a 2023 FBI-led operation (Artemis) that netted more than 20 suspects linked to a wave of financially motivated schemes against American teenage boys. Charges include sexual exploitation of a minor resulting in death. The Montgomery family has spent years pushing internet-safety legislation through Walker's Promise. Clay and Creston give law enforcement and the feds their roses for finally getting the case into a U.S. courtroom after three years of extradition fights. Hour two turns to companies voting with their feet. Buc-ee's CEO said life is too short to build in places that don't want you and that conservative, business-friendly states with a real workforce make the difference—prompting Democrat boycott noise and a quick “welcome” from Ron DeSantis. That conversation rolls into SpaceX's massive Louisiana plans, Starship cadence, Starlink evolution, talk of orbital data centers, Neuralink, Optimus, and whether medical advances like stem-cell therapies and brain-computer interfaces can stay on the right side of “playing God.” They close with an observation that's been eating at Clay: AI has made everyone a graphic designer overnight, but the internet now looks the same. Flyers, thumbnails, and scripts are starting to feel interchangeable. The theory on the table is that audiences will start craving the opposite—plain, human, imperfect, and obviously not generated. Real talk, real topics, no filter.

Then entire Sprague Hood to Coast Experience...was there anything we could take away from Week 0 of the CFB season...we can't get enough of the Daejon Love story...Ole Miss is #5 in the Dirty Poll, we get a preview from Oxford...NFL cut down day, which names grabbed our attention...and are we focused on the right things for the Ducks season opener against Boise St.?

This month's episode of the Harvard Data Science Review Podcast turns the microphone on two people who regularly bring data science, machine learning, and AI to podcast audiences: Katie Malone, host of Linear Digressions, and Jon Krohn, host of SuperDataScience and co-founder and CEO of AI software company Y Carrot. They join us to explore how AI is transforming not only what podcasters talk about, but how podcasts are researched, produced, and shared. From using AI as a research partner and production “sidecar” to generating episode summaries, newsletters, and animated video, Malone and Krohn share where AI adds real value and where they deliberately keep humans in control. The conversation tackles questions of authenticity, transparency, authorship, and trust, as well as the potential of AI-generated podcasts as personalized tools for learning. Looking ahead, they consider how AI may reshape podcasting itself: making production easier and more powerful while raising new questions about creativity, human connection, and what audiences will value when anyone can generate professional-quality content on demand. Our guests: Katie Malone is the host of Linear Digressions, a podcast about data science, machine learning, and AI. She's a physicist by background and has worked as a data scientist in startups, high-growth tech and enterprises, as well as teaching, speaking, and writing about AI. Jon Krohn is co-founder and CEO of the AI-software company Y Carrot, author of Deep Learning Illustrated and host of SuperDataScience, the data science industry's most listened-to podcast. He holds a PhD in machine learning from Oxford and an adjunct faculty role at Tulane University.

Greg Kelly examines the withdrawal from Afghanistan through the perspective of General Austin Scott Miller, questioning the military and executive leadership during that period. The broadcast transitions into current geopolitical events, including a potential oil deal with Venezuela and debates regarding American data centers. A significant portion of the segment highlights an archival exchange between Charlie Kirk and an Oxford student regarding faith, evolution, and Donald Trump.

Sarah Harper is Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and one of the world's leading experts on demographic change. She challenges the widespread belief that ageing populations are primarily a social and economic burden, arguing instead that longer lives represent one of humanity's greatest achievements and an opportunity to rethink how society is organised.In the last episode, Sarah explained why many of the pressures associated with ageing societies stem from institutions that were designed for a very different era. She argued that our welfare systems, labour markets and expectations around retirement no longer reflect the realities of modern life, where people are living longer, healthier lives than previous generations.In this week's Q&A, Sarah joins James Marriott to answer your questions about the future of retirement, pensions and work in an ageing society. She explores generational resentment and how we can bridge the gap between old and young, whether inequality is more important than age, and whether politicians disproportionately focus on older voters.- WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480  - Email: radical@bbc.co.ukEpisodes of Radical are released every Thursday and Monday.Series Producer: Rufus Gray Producers: Nathan Gower and Ivana Davidovic Digital Producer: Gabriel Purcell-Davis Technical Producer: Dafydd Evans Senior News Editor: Sam Bonham

Dr. Shawna Pandya is a Canadian physician, commercial astronaut, aquanaut, researcher, and international speaker working at the intersection of space medicine, human performance, technology, and extreme environments. She is the first named female Canadian commercial astronaut and is scheduled to fly aboard Virgin Galactic's Delta-class spacecraft with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS).Dr. Pandya serves as Director of the IIAS Space Medicine Group, Chief Instructor for Operational Space Medicine, Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Alberta, and Chief of Space Medicine at the Advanced SpaceLife Research Institute. She is also VP of Immersive Medicine at Luxsonic Technologies and a Fellow of the Explorers' Club.Her field experience spans 12 parabolic-flight campaigns and more than 180 microgravity/reduced-gravity parabolas, two aquanaut missions totaling over 235 hours underwater, suborbital research, centrifuge training, spacecraft emergency egress, sea survival, wilderness medicine, and a command role at the Mars Desert Research Station. Her research has contributed to experiments associated with the International Space Station, Polaris Dawn, and Blue Origin.She previously trained or interned at the European Astronaut Centre and NASA Johnson Space Center and has published work covering commercial spaceflight medicine, human resilience, space technology, and long-duration space exploration.An internationally recognized speaker, Dr. Pandya has presented for organizations and institutions including the Canadian Space Agency, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, World Extreme Medicine, and the Explorers' Club, as well as major aerospace and medical conferences worldwide.Her recognitions include being named among the Women's Executive Network Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, the Explorers' Club 50 Explorers Changing the World, a Canadian Space Agency Space Ambassador, a Karman Pioneer, and a recipient of recognition from the Women's Space Awards.Dr. Pandya holds degrees in Neuroscience, Space Studies, and Medicine. Beyond medicine and spaceflight, she is an advanced and rescue diver, solo skydiver, pilot-in-training, and black belt in Taekwondo, reflecting a career built around exploration, resilience, science, and pushing the boundaries of human potential.

On this episode of Thelema Now!, host Harper Feist speaks with occultist and sorcerer Sef Salem about his decades of magical practice, his approach to group work, and the development of his Star Club Framework. Sef has more than twenty years of experience in personal and group magical practice. After beginning his journey as a Gnostic Mystic, he joined Ordo Templi Orientis in 2010 and soon founded Gentlemen 4 Jupiter. He also helped organize the Occult Conference in Glastonbury and has continued to develop innovative approaches to practical magic through Star Club, a magical training framework that brings practitioners together for study, experimentation, and ritual. Sef and Harper explore the relationship between individual practice and magical community, the challenges and rewards of developing group ritual, and Sef's broader vision for creating spaces where people can learn, experiment, and grow through direct engagement with magic. Sef is also a director of The Visible College, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to learning, development, esoteric practice, and the arts. The Visible College is helping facilitate the 40th Anniversary of the International Thelemic Symposium, taking place September 12, 2026, at the Old Fire Station in Oxford. The day features lectures, workshops, ritual, and performance, bringing together practitioners and scholars from across the Thelemic community. Tickets are still available, so if this conversation sparks your interest in Thelema and contemporary magical practice, there's still time to join Sef and the wider community in Oxford.

Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford. She is the recipient of the 2021 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy.Our guest is the author of Prophecy, now longlisted for the Financial Times business book of the year (2026), as well as the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. Her previous book, Privacy is Power, was chosen by The Economist as one of the best books of the year in 2020.Carissa advises companies and policymakers around the world on privacy and the ethics of AI, and is a member of UNESCO's Women 4 Ethical AI.References:* Breakfast Workshop - Santa Monica, CA - September 2, 2026 (free for MoP subscribers)* Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI (Amazon)* Carissa Véliz on Substack (The Antidote)* Gary Marcus: Even more good news for the future of neurosymbolic AI (Substack, April 2026)* Refresher (January 28th special, Masters of Privacy): Data Protection vs. Privacy and Data Privacy (with Carissa Véliz, Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna, Brendan Quinn, Tim Turner, and Markus Wünschelbaum)* Carissa Véliz: privacy is power (Masters of Privacy ES, Oct 2021 - Spanish)* Install the TODO.LAW suite on your own device (Dealroom, DPO Central, AI Sentinel).Send us your questions, feedback, or report requests (InScope, AuditScan) to: info[@]northend.law. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mastersofprivacy.com/subscribe

Weirdos! For August's BONUS EPISODE we are focusing on an entity that has MANY faces and wears MANY hats: The bogeyman! For as long as people have been telling stories, these supernatural beings have been lurking in the woods, or in the dark alleys, or under the bed. They might look different depending on the culture they come from, or be called by another name, but their function in society is consistent: to invoke fear! References Briggs, Katharine. 1978. Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures. New York, NY: Pantheon. Carbonell, Ana Maria. 1999. "From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros." MELUS 53-74. Delsol, Christine. 2012. "Mexico's legend of La Llorona continues to terrify." SF Gate, October 9. Jones, Abigail. 2014. "The girls who tried to kill for Slender Man." Newsweek, August 22. Leddy, Betty. 1988. "La Llorona in Southern Arizona." Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 9-16. Newsroom. 2019. "Who was ‘Spring-heeled Jack' who scared the women of Scotland?" The Scotsman, April 29. Peck, Andrew. 2015. "Tall, Dark, and Loathsome: The Emergence of a Legend Cycle in the Digital Age." Journal of American Folklore 333-348. Polidoro, Massimo. 2002. "Return of Spring-Heeled Jack." Skeptical Inquirer 22-24. Simpson, Jacqueline, and Steve Roud. 2000. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP. Strebel, Erika. 2015. "Judge says keeping Slender Man case in adult court will prevent repeat of crime." Wisconsin Law Journal, August 10. The Times. 1838. "Spring Heeled Jack - Outrage on a young lady." The Times, February 25: 7. Times, The. 1838. "The late outrage at Old Ford." The Times, March 2: 7. Vickery, Roy. 1983. "Lemna Minor and Jenny Greenteeth." Folklore 247-250. Warner, Marina. 1999. No Go, the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock. London, UK: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Young, Simon. 2019. Folklore Pamphlet: The Sources for Jenny Greenteeth and Other English Freshwater Faries. Pamphlet, Simon Young. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A.M. Edition for Aug. 28. A federal judge finds the Trump administration violated Anthropic's first amendment rights by deeming it a supply-chain risk. Plus, prosecutors scale up their crackdown on insider trading on prediction markets. And as more young people opt out of even searching for entry-level roles, WSJ reporter Natasha Dangoor details the rising interest in apprenticeships on both sides of the Atlantic. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Chris Carter is a physics teacher who was educated at Oxford, England. He is author of four books that make him one of the most significant authors today exploring the question of life after death. They include Science and the Near-Death Experience, Science and Psychic Phenomena, and Science and the Afterlife Experience. His most recent book is The Case for the Afterlife: Evidence of Life After Death. Chris argues that science does not speak with a single voice on the afterlife and examines why many prominent scientists have remained open to questions of consciousness beyond death. He explores five major lines of evidence including near-death experiences, deathbed visions, children's memories of previous lives, apparitions, and mediumship while discussing how standards of scientific evidence should be applied to extraordinary claims. Carter contends that a rigorous examination of the evidence invites a broader philosophical understanding of reality and survival beyond bodily death. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:02 Scientists and belief 00:08:03 Creator and afterlife 00:12:02 Five lines of evidence 00:17:32 Skepticism and proof 00:22:12 Quantum perspectives 00:27:06 Reincarnation research 00:32:06 Strongest mediumship cases 00:38:16 Deathbed vision evidence 00:47:18 Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on Friday, July 17, 2026) For a complete, updated list with links to all of our videos, see https://newthinkingallowed.com/Listings.htm. Check out the New Thinking Allowed Foundation website at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as opportunities to shop and to support our video productions – plus, this is where people can subscribe to our FREE, weekly Newsletter and can download a FREE .pdf copy of our quarterly magazine. To order high-quality, printed copies of our quarterly magazine: NTA-Magazine.MagCloud.com Check out New Thinking Allowed's AI chatbot. You can create a free account at awakin.ai/open/jeffreymishlove. When you enter the space, you will see that our chatbot is one of several you can interact with. While it is still a work in progress, it has been trained on 1,600 NTA transcripts. It can provide intelligent answers about the contents of our interviews. It's almost like having a conversation with Jeffrey Mishlove. If you would like to join our team of volunteers, helping to promote the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel on social media, editing and translating videos, creating short video trailers based on our interviews, helping to upgrade our website, or contributing in other ways (we may not even have thought of), please send an email to friends@newthinkingallowed.com. To download and listen to audio versions of the New Thinking Allowed videos, please visit our new podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/new-thinking-allowed-audio-podcast/id1435178031. Download and read Jeffrey Mishlove's Grand Prize essay in the Bigelow Institute competition, Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death, go to https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/docs/1st.pdf. You can help support our video productions while enjoying a good book. To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Is There Life After Death? click on https://amzn.to/3LzLA7Y (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) To order the second book in the New Thinking Allowed Dialogues series, Russell Targ: Ninety Years of ESP, Remote Viewing, and Timeless Awareness, go to https://amzn.to/4aw2iyr To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: UFOs and UAP – Are We Really Alone?, go to https://amzn.to/3Y0VOVh To order a copy of Charles T. Tart: Seventy Years of Exploring Consciousness and Parapsychology, go to https://amzn.to/4oOUJLn To order Science and the Near-Death Experience by Chris Carter, go to https://amzn.to/46VKcHL To order Science and Psychic Phenomena by Chris Carter, go to https://amzn.to/3JEkaio To order Science and the Afterlife Experience by Chris Carter, go to https://amzn.to/3HjdR3k To order The Case for the Afterlife: Evidence of Life After Death by Chris Carter, go to https://amzn.to/47xGYKE

[This is one of the finalists in the 2026 book review contest, written by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done. I'll be posting about one of these a week for several months. When you've read them all, I'll ask you to vote for a favorite, so remember which ones you liked] A couple of decades ago in Kabul, a fellow aid worker on his third beer came up with a vivid simile for what American money was doing to the Afghan organizations implementing USAID projects. "It's like gluing a rabbit mouth-first to a fire hose. You blast its guts right out of its ass…but as long as the water keeps running, it looks like you've taught the rabbit to dance." Oxford politics professor Masooda Bano uses less lurid language, but Breakdown in Pakistan addresses the same basic phenomenon: how Western aid donors and INGOs unintentionally eviscerate so many of the local institutions they try to "capacity-build." The problem goes beyond the obvious mismatch of huge funds with small-scale organizations. Even low-to-moderate external funding can leave an organization hollowed out, bereft of local participants and the power it once had to motivate change on the ground. Anyone who cares about the global effectiveness of rich-country altruism needs to grasp the dynamic Bano analyzes. From the Western perspective, many of us want to put charitable money into a mechanism that delivers certain measurable outcomes (lives saved, morbidity reduced, income increased above poverty levels, etc.) as efficiently and reliably as possible. So we do our well-intentioned best to shape local institutions into a delivery vehicle for our projects. Readers of James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State will recall how mid-eighteenth-century German "scientific foresters" treated forests similarly, as a mechanism to reliably yield the highest volume of lumber. They planted spruce in vast uniform grids, ordered for easy counting and harvesting, while stripping out other non-timber species. The resulting monoculture plantations seemed ideal for both commercial exploitation and experimentation; it's much easier to control variables when you've removed as much natural variability as possible. Within a few decades, the downsides became evident. The first generation of trees grew strong, sucking up the accumulated benefits of the previous forest's soil ecology; later generations were stunted, as the lack of biodiversity left the soils nutrient-poor. Plantations packed with trees of the same species and same height were far more vulnerable to pathogens, pests, and extreme weather. Large-scale forest die-offs, Waldsterben, eventually forced foresters to drastically modify their approach. That metaphor fits Bano's story even better than my friend's gutted rabbit. Over the last four decades, we've been systematically replacing diverse old-growth institutions with more legible NGO plantations worldwide. While we've been enjoying our increased ability to control outcomes and test hypotheses, the rot has been spreading, the impoverished ecology stunting more and more of the forest. And now the wind through those uniform, hollowed-out aisles has built into a storm. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/breakdown-in-pakistan

This week, we welcome @RivsHughey and discuss all things Baylor, our picks for the college football playoffs, a Mississippi State fan who doesn't care about logos or uniform combos, Ole Miss fans who are ready to welcome LSU to Oxford, an LSU fan who thinks Lane Kiffin and Will Wade are heroes, and our Genius of the Week! Follow us on Twitter:MBG - @BoardGeniusesCasey - @FromSluggoCourtney - @CourtAnne1225Hoos - @HoosFootballPodcast - @TheMBGPodcast Voice Intro:Virginia Hamilton, https://virginiahamilton.net/ Theme Song:Midnight Blues by lemonmusicstudio, https://pixabay.com/music/modern-blues-midnight-blues-21179/ Find more Message Board Geniuses content at https://messageboardgeniuses.com

He built a world-class pro group in Baltimore. Then he left it for a college roster of 30. Five years after his first appearance on the show, Cory Leslie returns as Ole Miss's new associate head cross country and assistant track & field coach, fresh off nearly five years building Under Armour's Mission Run Baltimore into a group that produced Olympians and World XC medalists from a city nobody expected it from.He walks Dominic through how fast it all happened: a casual conversation with Connie Price-Smith at USATFs in New York, a formal interview an hour before his Uber to the airport for the Commonwealth Games, and an offer thirty minutes later. Then a scramble to Oxford weeks before the season opener.The conversation gets into why he's moving toward college athletics while other coaches are heading for the exit—the impact he thinks he can have on thirty athletes instead of a handful, and his conviction that plenty of American talent will fall through the cracks under roster limits. He's blunt about what that means in recruiting: if you don't have Olympic dreams, the SEC probably isn't for you.Also covered: what he's telling a team that's had three coaches in one summer; why he's sending them to Memphis on tired legs; the SEC as the best non-Diamond-League track in America; soft-surface trails a half mile from the locker room; what he's leaving behind in Baltimore; and—because it's late August—Ohio State loyalties, Julian Sayin's Heisman case, and a Buckeyes-Rebels title game prediction.Tap into the Cory Leslie Special. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider following us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and giving us a five-star review! I would also appreciate it if you share it with your friend who you think will benefit from it.S H O W  N O T E S   -The Run Down By The Running Effect (our new newsletter!): https://tinyurl.com/mr36s9rs-Our Website: https://therunningeffect.run-THE PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClLcLIDAqmJBTHeyWJx_wFQ-My Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/therunningeffect/?hl=en⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠-Take our podcast survey: https://tinyurl.com/3ua62ffzBehind the scenes of The Running Effect: https://youtube.com/@dominicschlueter?si=PM9FjPc92eFUFEZLuminaryThreads: luminarythreads.shop$20 off your next Attuned scan: https://attuned.health/discount/TRE20?ref=TRE20Instagram: @cory_leslie X (Twitter): @cory_leslie

We're talking about the Bible's Influence on America's Legal Tradition. Happy 250th Anniversary of 'Murica. You're in for a treat . This is part 4 of 4 (but it's Part 8 of the discussion of this book begun Fall 2025) on the Second Chapter "The English and American Public Culture." This is episode 8 of the series on the book. This episode broaches the debate among the Founders on the use of the Bible in schools, for example in the election of 1800 of Thomas Jefferson, discussing pp. 42 through to the end of the chapter on p. 48. "The American Founders read the Bible," Oxford University Rhodes Scholar Daniel Dreisbach says in his first sentence of his Oxford University Press book. "They knew the Bible from cover to cover." "Its ideas shaped their habits of mind." "The Bible left its mark on the political culture of the era." Dreisbach's first sentence in his chapter 2 is: Ready ? "Anglo-Americans are people of the Book, and that Book is the Bible." WOW ! We had the author, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil. (Oxford), JD (University of Virginia Law School) on the podcast for Thanksgiving, Fall 2022. We're going to make a fair use, do a transformative reading of the book. We'd like to thank Dr. Dreisbach for writing this, and thank Oxford University Press for making it available. Support publishers when they make something worth reading. Support the publisher and throw some bidness their way. Support your brick and mortar book dealer. The Republican Professor is a pro-correctly-and-adequately-articulating-the-Bible's-appropriate-influence-on-American-politics podcast. Therefore, welcome again, through his writing, Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach, D.Phil., J.D. The Republican Professor is produced and hosted by Dr. Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. Warmly, Lucas J. Mather, Ph.D. The Republican Professor Podcast The Republican Professor Newsletter on Substack https://therepublicanprofessor.substack.com/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/podcast/ https://www.therepublicanprofessor.com/articles/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRepublicanProfessor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanProfessor Twitter: @RepublicanProf Instagram: @the_republican_professor

“There's no exit in capitalism.” — Jeremy Adelman Is that ongoing quarrel of modern politics, the battle over capitalism, just a storm in a teacup? Economic historian Jeremy Adelman thinks it might be. In The Capitalist Era, Adelman argues that all camps — left and right, Keynesian and Hayekian, socialist and libertarian — accept the unavoidability of global capitalism. There is no alternative, as Mrs Thatcher used to annoyingly say. Although Adelman, certainly no Thatcherite, isn't celebrating the apparent inevitability of our capitalist epoch. What interests Adelman is the making and unmaking of what he calls the “global mind.” The revolutionary quality of capitalism, he says, is that we now think of strangers as somehow part of our community. So when Adam Smith, the moral philosopher father of economics, drank his Chinese tea while reading of a deadly earthquake in China, he recognized that capitalism inevitably entangled our moral thoughts with our self-interest. It wasn't just economists who began to think differently of strangers. Artists as varied as Picasso, Joseph Conrad, and the photography-obsessed Émile Zola all made this moral inquiry of strangers the heart of their work. Yes, Adelman is probably right to say there's no capitalist off-ramp in our post-global economy. But capitalism's octopus-like “global mind” and its (mis)treatment of strangers should turn all economists into moral philosophers and all artists into observers of economics. Five Takeaways •       The Mind, Not the Material. Against Sven Beckert's material history (which Adelman admired and reviewed in Foreign Affairs), The Capitalist Era studies how we think about capitalism — because the thinking sets the policies, creates the attachments, fuels the wars, and builds the institutions. Capitalism, on his dating, is an eighteenth-century invention that dawns with Adam Smith's “commercial society”: the first economic system to tie strangers across the whole planet into one interdependent web — global from the very start. Its founding text is a thought experiment: Smith's gentleman of humanity, drinking Chinese tea while reading of a Chinese earthquake, asked whether he minds the deaths of thousands as much as the pain in his little finger. The marketplace entangles our moralities — and the question of whether sympathy can keep pace with self-interest has governed the global mind ever since.•       No Exit in Capitalism. For or against? A fair question with a layered answer: we are all heirs to the Marxist tradition — inequality and exploitation are inherent to interdependence, and “the propensity to be predatory coexists with the propensity to be empathetic.” But the trap is real: “there's no exit in capitalism” — leaving is so punitive that every socialist revolution has paid catastrophically, a logic Adelman calls part of “the awful cunning” of the Trump administration's economic statecraft. Keynes versus Hayek? When Andrew suggested it amounted to a family squabble — a storm in a teacup — Adelman largely agreed: both camps accept that we live inside capitalism, arguing only over how to live interdependently. No exit, though, doesn't mean no alternatives: the argument worth recovering — lost since the globalization of the 1980s was “dumped on us” — is which form of interdependence we actually want. Gramsci's interregnum, the time for monsters, is exactly when that argument matters.•       The Veil Between Strangers. The book's gallery: not only philosophers but artists — Picasso, the poets, Borges (“I have a hard time writing any book without” him) — and above all photographers, because how we think about strangers is mediated through media. Smith's verb was to see: the stranger's invisibility was the whole problem, and photography — cheap to reproduce, claiming realism — promised to remove the veil. Zola was obsessed with it; street photography made New York and London legible as cities of vice and poverty; and the Opium War photographs that reached London in the 1860s forced a scandal, because this suffering was inflicted by our own troops. But seeing bred a new problem Smith never foresaw: indifference — too many images numbing the sympathies they were meant to awaken. In today's supersaturation of digital and artificially generated strangers, the early doubters' warning compounds: market interdependence plus growing indifference between the interdependent is “a recipe for calamity.”•       Earth Hunger. The charge that capitalism is eating the planet is as old as capitalism: the era of Hobson's Imperialism named the West's insatiable appetite to conquer and carve — “earth hunger” — after the Boer War. Joseph Conrad and Roger Casement traveled the Congo River together: Conrad turned it into Heart of Darkness; Casement wrote the first great humanitarian reports — rubber for Europe's bicycles and tires, extermination for the Congolese and then Amazonians — before renouncing the crown, joining the Irish rebellion, and hanging for treason. Slavery runs through the same river: on Smith's mind from the start, the plantation bonanza's awkward foundation, with dehumanization as extraction's precondition — a through line to the 1930s. To James Crawford's vanishing earth (last week's episode), Adelman offers a friendly dissent: the earth isn't vanishing, but the accelerating metabolism of resources — extracted inhumanely for those who live there — is stressing the system. Alternatives exist; exit does not.•       Hoard the Returns, Externalize the Burdens. Adelman refuses the apocalypse chorus: end-time arguments breed cynicism — grab what you can while you can — which is precisely what turned the 1930s murderous; and the great debate the 2008 crisis should have sparked was stifled by crisis management that worked too well. “Neoliberalism” he finds overblown — the world is a mixed, messy hybrid, China neither socialist nor neoliberal — and the Thucydides Trap is a “silly metaphor”: Sparta and Athens were never as interdependent as China and the United States. Hence the closing duel: Carney versus Trump as two arguments inside the global mind about how to need strangers. Trump, the Toronto-born historian argues, is no isolationist — his is a global vision that wants to “hoard the returns and externalize the burdens,” punishing the asymmetrically dependent (Canada above all) through a predator's bilateralism whose 1930s pedigree Adelman names with discomfort. And China? Sitting on the sidelines, courting Canada, playing “an old game” of constructing and dividing markets — as old as the global mind itself. About the Guest Jeremy Adelman is the Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and professor of history and director of the Global History Lab at the University of Cambridge. Born in Toronto and educated at Toronto, the LSE, and Oxford, he has lived and worked in seven countries. His many books include Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman and Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic. The Capitalist Era: The Making—and Unmaking—of ...

In a time marked by rapid technological change, social fragmentation, political polarization, and declining trust in institutions, what does it mean to flourish as human beings together? Oxford theologian Luke Bretherton helps us explore why this ancient question feels especially urgent today. Drawing on theology, history, philosophy, and his own experience studying churches and civic life around the world, Bretherton argues that we become fully human not in isolation but through relationships—and that the institutions we build play a crucial role in shaping those relationships. The conversation explores the Christian understanding of the image of God as fundamentally relational, why modern life has created a crisis of agency and belonging, and how institutions such as churches, schools, hospitals, businesses, and governments can either cultivate or diminish our humanity. Rather than viewing institutions as obstacles to authentic living, Bretherton invites us to recover an “institutional imagination” that prioritizes purpose, character, and human connection over efficiency alone. Along the way, Bretherton and Stump discuss the role of science in conversations about human nature, why moral questions can't be settled by scientific analysis alone, and what practical habits can help organizations foster deeper relationships and genuine human flourishing. This episode offers a hopeful vision for recovering our humanity—not by retreating from modern life, but by reimagining the communities and institutions through which we live it. Theme song and credits music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Other music in this episode by Titan Sound, courtesy of Shutterstock, Inc.

This week, James Marriott talks to Sarah Harper, Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and one of the world's leading experts on demographic change. She challenges the increasingly common narrative that ageing populations represent an inevitable economic and social burden, arguing instead that longer lives should be seen as an achievement that requires us to rethink the way society is organised. As birth rates fall and life expectancy increases, governments across the world face growing concerns about pensions, healthcare and shrinking workforces. Yet Harper believes many of these pressures stem from institutions that were designed for a very different era. She argues that our welfare systems, labour markets and assumptions about retirement are still based on outdated ideas about ageing and no longer reflect the realities of modern life. She wants us to be more radical, and makes the case for a fundamental rethink of the state pension, proposing that eligibility should be linked to years of contribution rather than chronological age. More broadly, she argues that we need to move beyond rigid age-based milestones and develop new ways of understanding work, contribution and later life in an ageing society. Can ageing populations drive prosperity rather than decline? Should age continue to determine when we stop working and start receiving support from the state? And what would it take to build a society that not only adapts to longer lives, but thrives because of them?- WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480  - Email: radical@bbc.co.ukEpisodes of Radical are released every Thursday and Monday.Series Producer: Rufus Gray Producers: Nathan Gower and Ivana Davidovic Digital Producer: Gabriel Purcell-Davis Technical Producer: Dafydd Evans Senior News Editor: Sam Bonham

“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”  Antonio Guterres, UN General SecretaryWe know that the current system is not fit for purpose. We know that we're hurtling to the edge of the 6th mass extinction, blowing apart all of the predictions about the speed and scale of ecosystem breakdown.  And still we listen to politicians argue about whether GDP has gone up by 0.1% and if so, who is to claim the credit?  They plan for war without understanding that there are no armies, no nations, no people - or any complex life - on a dead planet. What good are science and rational persuasion if no one is paying attention? The climate crisis deepens with terrifying predictability. Meanwhile, the courageous young campaigners who seek to wake us up to the truth of this, through peaceful direct action, are silenced and stuck in prison.Daniel Knorr is one of those young people.  He was 22 years old at the time the book was published, and had previously studied biochemistry at Oxford with a view to engineering plants to be more resilient to extreme weather conditions.  As you'll hear, he realised this was no longer where he needed to be, and joined Just Stop Oil, whose ethos and grounding question is: what does it make to be a good person in this time of collapse - or perhaps transition?  I'll let him tell you his story, but—like the stories of the other 25 young people in the book—it's humbling and inspiring in equal measure. Jonathon Porritt is well known to anyone in the Green or eco-campaigning community in the UK.  He was formerly Co-Chair of the Green Party (1980-83) and Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90). He was a Board Member of The Southwest Regional Development Agency between 1999 and 2008. He stood down as Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in 2009, after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers, and served a ten-year term as Chancellor of Keele University (2012-2022). He was awarded a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection.Together, we discuss Love, Anger and Betrayal, which brings Jonathan's experience as a long time campaigner into juxtaposition with the experiences of young people one third his age who are doing their best to make the world a better place. Theirs is a generation systematically betrayed by politicians. And by all of us who allow this to continue, on our watch, year after year.  What comes across in this book, though, is that while Jonathan feels the kind of white hot rage that consumes many of us, Daniel and those around him are focusing on embodying love for each other and the planet. ‘We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.'-António GuterresLet's explore what we can do, shall we? LinksLove, Anger and Betrayal websiteJonathan's website Jonathan's short film about the bookBetter Coalition—About Accidental Gods—We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are hereManda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

Democrats trail Republicans in cash by nine figures. The DNC reported $16 million on hand against $17.9 million in debt. The RNC reported $130 million. Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers follow the money filling the gap, and most of it comes from senior citizens. A Stanford researcher spent eight months preparing an investigation for The New York Times. Fact checkers cleared it. Lawyers cleared it. Then the Elias Law Group sent cease and desist letters on behalf of Democratic committees, and the paper walked away. What the research found: a spam text pipeline built to squeeze a captive pool of elderly donors. An 85 year old man in Oxford, Ohio gave 7,800 times, nearly $650,000, more than double the value of his house. A 90 year old woman in an Indiana senior living facility gave more than 25,000 times, $250,000 in total. Fewer than 1% of Democrat donors account for almost half of the $1.4 billion these PACs have raised since 2017. One network alone pulled in $390 million. Most of the money never reaches a candidate. It recycles back into the fundraising operation. Hakeem Jeffries shows the shift in one chart. In 2018, his average donor was 54 and 21% were 65 or older. This cycle, his average donor is 73 and 86% are senior citizens. Then the midterm ledger. Ripple and Coinbase sit at the top of $230 million in special interest spending, ahead of Big Tech and Wall Street. FanDuel and DraftKings make the top six. George Soros has given more than $102 million this year. AIPAC drew headlines for $30 million behind Haley Stevens in Michigan, while the money moving against her opponent's opponent stays far harder to trace: a $200,000 super PAC check from Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law, an Islamic Society of North America figure; $25,000 from an Egyptian American activist sentenced to life in absentia; $115,000 tied to people affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Saudi Arabia spent $92 million on Washington lobbying last year with roughly 148 registered foreign agents. Peter and Eric close on Sharia law, Jesse Watters' interview with El-Sayed, and whether the red-green alliance holds long enough to make Michigan competitive. (00:00) Cold open (00:31) Votes from the poor, money from the rich (02:33) The DNC has $16 million and $17.9 million in debt (04:43) Granny's Social Security check funds the campaign (06:34) The New York Times kills the story after legal threats (07:33) One donor, 7,800 gifts, $650,000 (09:30) Hakeem Jeffries' donor base ages 20 years in eight (12:27) Crypto, gambling and AIPAC lead the midterm spending (15:25) The influence money nobody tracks (20:14) CAIR cash, Jesse Watters, and the Sharia law question

Pew Research Center published the first clean count of how much of the internet is now written with AI. Roughly one page in ten shows significant signs of it. Filter to pages published since ChatGPT launched and it climbs past a third. Chris Boyer and Reed Smith spend the first half of the episode on what that measurement actually captures. Pew names four markers that have climbed since 2023: em dashes, Oxford commas, a vocabulary that includes delve, testament, tapestry and enhance, and the construction where a sentence tells you a thing is not just one thing but another. Chris walks through the tells Pew did not count, which turn out to be the more useful ones for anybody responsible for a website. The paragraph that ends by restating itself. Every paragraph running the same length. Content so generic it could belong to any health system in the country, because the model has no lived experience to draw on and never will. Reed pushes back in the direction the argument needs. Patients have been navigating vague human-written hospital pages for fifteen years. The model did not invent that problem. It removed the barrier holding the volume down, the way digital cameras ended the discipline of thirty-six exposures. Chris names where that leads: everything converging toward the middle, because averaging is how the models were built. The second half is for people who own content. Google Search Central says generative AI is useful for research and for adding structure to original content, and that using it to generate many pages without adding value may violate the scaled content abuse policy. Google publishes no threshold. No word count, no acceptable percentage, no safe number of pages. Chris and Reed get specific about where AI earns its place in content production and where it costs more than it saves, then land on the trap waiting at the end of it, which is teams running detection scores and editing toward a machine instead of toward a patient. Lacey Reichwald of AHA Media Group closes the episode with the finding that reframes the conversation. Content creation is the most popular use of AI in marketing departments and it is not where the efficiency lives. She has surveyed health system marketing teams for years, and her argument is that organizations keep backing a process into a tool rather than choosing a tool for a process. She also makes the case for putting the AI skeptics on the working group on purpose. If your content team is measured on pages published, you have already told them which of these two halves matters. Healthcare's Long Walk Toward the Patient, the free eBook marking 500 episodes: https://www.touchpointpodcastbook.com Pew Research Center, How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI?, August 20 2026. Roughly 490,000 English-language pages from Common Crawl going back to 2021, scored with Open Pangram: https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2026/08/20/how-much-of-the-internet-is-written-with-ai/ Google Search Central, Guidance on generative AI content, including the scaled content abuse spam policy introduced in the March 2024 spam update: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/using-gen-ai-content Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search, scaled content abuse definition: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies Open Pangram, the open-weight detection model Pew used, from Pangram Labs: https://www.pangram.com/ LinkedIn "Seems like AI slop" reporting button, launched end of July 2026. Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan reported more than one million uses in the first weeks and roughly 40 percent fewer views on flagged posts: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/30/linkedin-adds-a-button-to-report-ai-generated-slop/ Social Media Today, LinkedIn says 1M people have reported AI slop, August 20 2026: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/linkedin-says-1m-people-have-reported-ai-slop/828465/ Harvard Business Review, AI-Generated "Workslop" Is Destroying Productivity, September 2025. BetterUp Labs with the Stanford Social Media Lab, 1,150 full-time US desk workers. BetterUp is a commercial platform and the figures are self-reported: https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity Harvard Business Review, June 2026 follow-on from Matthias Holweg and Thomas Davenport extending the argument into organizational knowledge decay AHA Media Group: https://ahamediagroup.com/ Lacey Reichwald on LinkedIn, where she publishes her tool tip newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laceyreichwald/ TP500, "Healthcare's Long Walk Toward the Patient," where the hosts describe AI drafts of the book getting smoother and less true at the same time Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/ Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/ Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/ Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social Recommendations from this episode: Chris: Effin' Birds, the daily comic by Aaron Reynolds pairing Audubon-style bird illustrations with profane captions, plus the merchandise and playing card decks. Not family friendly: https://effinbirds.com/ Reed: Reacher, season four, on Prime Video. Eight episodes, premiered August 12 2026 with the first three, new episodes weekly on Wednesdays through September 16 MENTIONS FROM THE SHOW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a widespread sense throughout the developed world that progress towards a better society has stalled. Many countries, including the UK, have experienced persistent economic stagnation accompanied by declining trust in institutions. Governments are struggling to respond not only to traditional economic problems but also to newer challenges posed by climate change, migration and technological change. Challenging Inequalities: How We Got Stuck and Where We Go Next (Princeton University Press, 2026), written by Paul Johnson and coauthors, drawing on the findings of the six-year IFS Deaton Review, connects these conditions to inequality—inequality not just of income and wealth but of health, political participation and opportunity. It not only offers a detailed analysis of the different forms of inequalities but also an in-depth consideration of why inequalities matter, how they have changed and what can, or should, be done about them. The book explains the enduring effects of early life experiences and education and examines the trends in employment and earnings over recent decades. It argues that economic stagnation since the financial crises of 2008–2009 has exposed inequalities originating in the 1980s. Not only have incomes stagnated, but so has progress towards reducing health inequalities and dealing with inequalities across gender, ethnicity, geography, age and educational level. The combination of earnings inequality and economic stagnation has led to the growing importance of wealth, the increasing concentration of economic power in an older generation and a decline in social mobility. Economic inequalities have also resulted directly in dangerous differences between regions and in political power across groups. The need to address inequality has never been more urgent. Challenging Inequalities offers a road map for how we have arrived at such a perilous spot—and how we can change course to achieve better outcomes for all. Paul Johnson is provost of the Queen's College, University of Oxford, and former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Follow the Money. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

There is a widespread sense throughout the developed world that progress towards a better society has stalled. Many countries, including the UK, have experienced persistent economic stagnation accompanied by declining trust in institutions. Governments are struggling to respond not only to traditional economic problems but also to newer challenges posed by climate change, migration and technological change. Challenging Inequalities: How We Got Stuck and Where We Go Next (Princeton University Press, 2026), written by Paul Johnson and coauthors, drawing on the findings of the six-year IFS Deaton Review, connects these conditions to inequality—inequality not just of income and wealth but of health, political participation and opportunity. It not only offers a detailed analysis of the different forms of inequalities but also an in-depth consideration of why inequalities matter, how they have changed and what can, or should, be done about them. The book explains the enduring effects of early life experiences and education and examines the trends in employment and earnings over recent decades. It argues that economic stagnation since the financial crises of 2008–2009 has exposed inequalities originating in the 1980s. Not only have incomes stagnated, but so has progress towards reducing health inequalities and dealing with inequalities across gender, ethnicity, geography, age and educational level. The combination of earnings inequality and economic stagnation has led to the growing importance of wealth, the increasing concentration of economic power in an older generation and a decline in social mobility. Economic inequalities have also resulted directly in dangerous differences between regions and in political power across groups. The need to address inequality has never been more urgent. Challenging Inequalities offers a road map for how we have arrived at such a perilous spot—and how we can change course to achieve better outcomes for all. Paul Johnson is provost of the Queen's College, University of Oxford, and former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Follow the Money. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Dr. Masud Husain is a Professor of Neurology & Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a leading expert on the science of motivation, apathy, and neurological diseases. We discuss how dopamine and specific brain circuits shape motivation, including how the brain weighs the trade-off between effort vs reward when deciding what goals to pursue. Dr. Husain also explains practical tools to increase motivation, reduce distractions, and make it easier to start and maintain goal pursuit. We also discuss dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, including new insights into cognitive resilience and factors that help protect against age-related cognitive decline. Show notes: https://go.hubermanlab.com/masud-husain-295 Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Masud Husain (00:02:24) Apathy, Motivation (00:08:07) Rewards, Apathy & Motivation; Dopamine (00:13:20) Sponsors: David & BetterHelp (00:15:44) Types of Apathy; Goal Prioritization: Effort vs Rewards (00:23:26) Motivation, Apathy, Tool: Activation Energy & Overthinking (00:29:24) Tools to Increase Motivation: Incentives, Subdivide Tasks, Planning (00:35:13) Subjective Effort, Mental Framing; Learning & Motivation (00:42:24) Sponsors: AG1 & Eight Sleep (00:44:54) Perseverance, Failure; Finding Your Passion, Depression vs Apathy (00:50:58) Self-Concept, Ambition; Life Satisfaction (00:58:25) Psychedelics, Anhedonia & Changing Self (01:03:09) Personal & Social Identity, Tools: Curiosity, Purpose & Dementia Risk (01:11:58) Addiction, Dopamine; Social Media & Dopamine "Hits"? (01:18:36) Sponsor: Function (01:20:13) Dopamine, Parkinson's Disease; Other Roles of Dopamine (01:26:59) Life Purpose, Culture; Reflection, Weighing Decisions (01:34:21) Internal & External Attention (01:39:59) Internal Chatter, Distraction; Working Memory, Stimulants, Nicotine (01:48:54) ADHD, Diagnosis; Attention & Motivation (01:54:34) Goal Planning & Perseverance (01:59:44) Alzheimer's Disease, Dementia, Apathy, Tools: Dementia Risk Factors (02:06:55) Neurodegenerative Disease & Emerging Treatments (02:10:59) Can You Train Attention?, Tool: Reduce Distraction (02:15:14) Enrichment, Art (02:17:45) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world's great museums are full of art and artifacts that were plundered during an era when plunder was the norm. Now there's a push to return these works to their rightful owners. Sounds simple, right? It's not. (Part 2 of an updated series originally published in 2023.)   SOURCES: Matthew Bogdanos, assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit. Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum. Victor Ehikhamenor, Nigerian writer and artist. David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic. Dan Hicks, professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford and curator of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Bénédicte Savoy, professor of art history at the Technical University in Berlin.   RESOURCES: "These Looted Treasures Are Home. What Now?," by Alex Marshall (New York Times, 2025). "France's Long-Awaited Restitution Policy Is Finally Here," by Vincent Noce (The Art Newspaper, 2023). Africa's Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, by Bénédicte Savoy (2022). "Who Benefits When Western Museums Return Looted Art?" by David Frum (The Atlantic, 2022). "Museums in England and Wales to Gain Powers to Dispose of Objects on Moral Grounds," by Dalya Alberge (The Guardian, 2022). The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution, by Dan Hicks (2020). "The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics," by Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr (2018).   EXTRAS: "Can a Museum Be the Conscience of a Nation?," by Freakonomics Radio (2025). "The Hidden Side of the Art Market," by Freakonomics Radio (2021). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.