5 October 2015 – We realized something this week. While we must maintain a tight 58 minute schedule for the version of our show which airs on Netroots Radio (at 8AM Eastern on Mondays) we have no such limitation for the version which posts here. Joe Firestone, who joined us to talk about his new book, “Who Needs Balanced Trade? Who Needs a Balanced Budget?” was so fascinating that we simply had lots more to ask…so we did. The version of the show here on the site adds an additional 25 minutes of the interview with Joe and you must listen because Joe really had time to dive down and give us some detailed answers to our questions. While we could have called the extended version either, “Extended” or “Directors Cut” we took the path less travelled and went with, “Extra Mad!” because why not have a little fun with it, right?
The show starts off with a few minutes on the crazy things happening in Indiana Congressional District 6 / Indiana House District 68. Basically, Jud McMillan needs to keep his pants on and stay off his cell phone. In the A Block Will goes into the background of the modern Catalan independence movement, something which will be more present in the news in the relatively near future. I get my paws dirty digging into the scandals at the Vatican Bank and the impressive work Pope Frances has done to get that long-corrupt institution forcibly dragged out from the shadows and into the light. Then we get to the exciting part, the interview with Joe Firestone.
I make a real effort to read everything Joe Firestone writes and that takes some doing because he is such a prodigious writer and touches upon so many topics. Still, Joe doesn’t fool around. If he has taken the time to write on it, it’s important. Joe, like me, is generally focused on the applications of modern monetary theory to the real world and recently he has been doing truly deep and detailed dives on pending trade treaties which are currently in negotiation. His newest book, published on 28 September, is his latest on the subject and is absolutely excellent. Even Will, who unlike me doesn’t usually spend all his spare moments reading about economics, could not get his nose out of Joe’s book once he started reading. He kept saying to me, “Wow! This is really good!” And so was our interview with Joe. We think you will love it too which is why you are getting “Hopping Mad” with a side of “Extra Mad!” this week. Carrots! – Arliss
Some purely technical suggestions. Please get yourselves on Stitcher Radio ASAP; streaming via Stitcher is much more convenient for many people than downloading the podcast(s) in iTunes or other podcatchers. It’s how I listen to Daily Kos Radio and I’d love to add Hopping Mad to my “Stitcher Favorites”.
So far my main podcatcher (Downcast) is unable to locate your show; do you have an RSS feed I should be subscribing to directly yet? I use Downcast for those shows I like that aren’t listed with Stitcher for whatever reason. Downcast is simpler and more functional for my purposes than the iTunes podcast mobile app, which I seldom use except for video podcasts of time-delayed German news broadcasts.
Secondly, as an interim fix, could you adjust your audio content posting(s) to allow users to “Save link as” (mp3) or otherwise provide a download link to enable for listening offline in Windows Media Player, etc? This is my workaround when there’s a Stitcher or iTunes/Downcast hiccup (rare but does happen) with Daily Kos Radio or other shows. I don’t like having to rely exclusively on your website to listen in. I heard the first show when it was included in the Netroots Radio Aftershow feed, but I would imagine you all want to establish your own presence online independent from The Aftershow, beyond just this website.
Content-wise, big thumbs up and keep up the great work.
John,
Thank you for listening and for taking the time to write. Both Stitcher and iTunes require an application and take time to process. We have submitted ours and hope to receive the go-ahead soon. In addition to posting all the new shows to the site, Stitcher (which is also my app of choice) and iTunes, we will be editing our After Show podcasts and annotating them so that I can do things like refer people back to a specific podcast on, for example, seigniorage. Until then we keep hopping ahead one hop at a time.
Again, thank you for your kind support.
Carrots to you and yours!
Arliss