My Favourite Podcasts

1. Fresh Air, Terry Gross is such a great interviewer and the mix of politics, movies, music, and ideas generally matches my own interests perfectly.
2. Slates' Political Gabfest, comes out each Friday and i alway look forward to hearing their take--especially Emily Bazelon.
3. BBC Start the Week with Andrew Marrand Forum with Bridget Kendall. Both shows are great fun because they put 3 or 4 guests from diverse intellectual backgrounds together and talk about each other's ideas.
   
4. New Yorker Audio's Transition. "A weekly discussion about the Presidential transition and developments in Washington"
   
5. There are also three science podcasts I like: Nature Science, and CBC's Quirks and Quarks.
6. New York Times has podcasts on opinion, books, and music that I have just started listening to.
   

Podcasts are a new addition (2008) to my routines. I guess if I had to analyze what draws me to them, I'd say that I'm a reasonably social person who spends a large share of his time alone. So I need points of contact, people to listen to or get to know. I think that's why I watch TV shows on DVD rather than movies--I like the character continuity (and the shorter units which afford more flexibility). The other thing about podcasts is they make feel I am becoming ever more knowledgeable. But since my brain is actually at capacity, its likely that they displace knowledge on at least a one-for-one basis.

The big growth in my podcast listening came when I started walking up Marine drive to work. This allowed me to get more regular sustained exercise (I try to walk as quickly as possible on the way up the hill) and gave me an hour each day (that I walked) to listen to podcasts.