Best of ROS

Newcomers to the site often ask where to start listening, so it’s high time we compiled a Best of ROS series. Send us your top ten lists; we’ll add ours too and archive the popular consensus as a series later in the week.

To start you off, here’s OliverCranglesParrot‘s list:

Top Ten ROS Shows (which goes to eleven, ‘cus it’s like spinal tap)

1. Convergences.

Breathtaking. Illuminating. Radio’s manifest destiny, IMO. Absolutely the best radio I’ve heard in a long time, outside of Joe Frank. Wonderful Guests. Mr. Weschler, Joel Meyerowitz, and Richard Taylor.

2. Convergences.

This was actually multiple shows in one composite show. I especially enjoyed the John Berger Bonus Interview.

3. Economic Hit Men.

Great topic. Great guest in John Perkins. The right amount of skepticism and thinking-on-the-spot from Chris and ROS. The blog was hopping.

4. Lawrence Wilkerson.

This was quite a show. Metaphorical bombs were dropped by an ex-high level state department official. One for which as an Iraq war dissenter I needed to hear, chiefly: There was no way this administration could or would accept anything short of boots-on-the-ground as a viable measure of Iraq’s WMD capacity.

5. Ground Hog Day (GHD I: February 1st, 2006; GHD II: January 30th, 2007).

Perhaps this is my generation’s Woodstock.

6. Plamegate: The Libby Trial.

Chris and team ROS were superb. Just made it past the Ellington show for me.

7. Ellington, Newport and the American Century.

It’s the Duke. Need I say more? Stanley Crouch was wonderful, as were all the guests.

8. The History of Utopia.

Riveting from the moment it was posted on the website. ROS as Utopia, or media oasis.

9. The Democrat’s New Reading List.

The new day has dawned…which will look like many previous days. Wonderful round-table discussion. With a bonus.

10. Moby-Dick, Cheney, et al.

11. Samba School.

My cats went nuts with confused cosmic paralysis…they couldn’t move away from the radio during all the samba stuff. It’s the only time they’ve listened to ROS. The only time I’ve seen them this mesmerized was watching a hockey game.

Honorable Mentions, but definitely not also-rans:

Requiem for Darfur, The Death of Anna Politkovskaya, The Ecstasy of Influence, Thucydides: Ur-Historian of the Ur-War, Samuel Beckett: Nothing Funnier Than Unhappiness, A Museum Tour with John Updike, Harold Bloom: Jesus and Yahweh, Is God in Our Genes?, Chowhounds, Spring Cleaning.

OliverCranglesParrot, in an email to Open Source, February 14, 2007.