Citizen Reporter

Driving outside of Tbilisi on the way to the ancient city Mtskheta, my hosts and I talk about Georgian language and how it has been effected by decades of Soviet Occupation and migration patterns. We also delve into Russian-Georgian relations today and how war is still very much part of the language and memory of the nation.

You can follow one of the guests on this episode via his twitter account. The other guest will remain anonymous.

I suddenly find myself in the republic of Georgia and the first thing one needs when arriving in a new country such as Georgia is a guide. Mark Mullen knows Georgia, he has been here since the late 90’s and pays close attention to what is going on in the present. Who better to sit down with on my first night in Tbilisi, to talk about this country.

Mark’s Podcast about Georgia

As I travel around the Northeast of the United States, I am also struggling to keep up with events unfolding in Spain. Disturbing events as protesters throughout the country suffer the wrath of a police force out of control. While millions throughout the country assemble in city squares demanding political and social reform, their story goes mostly unreported and downplayed by many international media outlets.  What is going on in Spain? On today’s podcast I talk about the situation, while also giving an update to several themes from recent podcasts.

As a designer, at some point David Kousemaker became interested in finding where our old phones and electronics in general end up once we in the western world throw them away.  His interest took him to parts of Indonesia, China, Brazil and Thailand, among other places. There he observed not only how things like mobile phones are broken down, recycled, rebuilt etc, he also saw how entire industries and ecosystems form around these practices.

Through his photos and blog entries you can follow his travels and see some of the highlights.  David Kousemaker met up with me here in Amsterdam to talk about how he got into this subject and what he learned from the journey about just how big an impact our love of gadgets is having on this world.

All over the world our transportation systems, food production systems, and overal infrastructure are being pushed more than ever before. With the onset of financial crisis and the reality of having less resources dedicated to repairing and renewing these systems, the reality of a multi-level failure, a crisis beyond what is now called a crisis, may very well be in our immediate future.

Eleanor Saitta is a researcher, hacker, artist, designer, and writer who has been looking into and speaking extensively about these issues around the world.  In this podcast we will talk about the facts that have her concerned and that what perhaps can still be done… as well as what we are too late to do.