WeView

⭐ 9/10 CBC got me again, advertising a limited series podcast during a holiday when there is no Frontburner. This one was so fascinating, about this cult led by a diminutive woman who calls herself the Queen of Canada. Their beliefs are far right, with anti-vax stances and classic Q-Anon "the libs are holding children prisoner" panic. Where this gets interesting is how this cult moved into an abandoned school in a tiny village of about 100 people. This town is in Saskatchewan, and while its not close to where my parents live I can see exactly what this looks like in my head, especially since there is a separate weird cult already living in my parents' community! This reminded me of Eddington, where this town becomes completely divided on the basis of the cult. Some feel its a scourge, and it is, using up limited community resources, being super creepy, and issuing death threats. Others are sympathetic, ultimately becoming aligned with the cult, and some people in the tow...

⭐ 9/10 A rare podcast review! This is a series that covers the satanic panic of the 80s and 90s, with some stories I was completely fascinated by. I have always been interested in this moral panic, and a couple of these stories I had read about before, but many were completely new and startling. In all cases these sensationalized stories that scared a generation of parents into overprotecting their kids and ostracizing people different from themselves were complete fabrications. The result of racism, homophobia, fear of D&D or heavy metal music. There are instances of past trauma, and in a bunch of instances awful murders or abuse did occur, but in every case they look at devil worship and "ritual sacrifice" were no where to be found. The ones where people do die are scariest, because in all these cases someone innocent was convicted and the actual culprit never found! There is coverage of a book called "Michelle Remembers" that I had never heard of, a Canadian...

⭐ 8/10 I have never reviewed a podcast since all the ones I listen to are ongoing. But this podcast ended this week after a 16 year run, and it was a staple for me for as long as I've been listening to podcasts. Marc is an old cranky comedian who interviews mostly other comedians, but also actors, directors, authors, all sorts of people. Each episode starts with him complaining about the state of the world for 10 minutes, or telling a crazy story from that week, before the interview. I think his interview style is really good, leaving lots of air and not making it about himself. The list of icons he has interviewed is really long, and really impressive - this is kind of one of the first podcasts. His final episode is with Barack Obama, which tells you something about his reach and impact. I will say I probably skipped every-other episode, only listening if I knew and had some level of interest in the guest. Lots of comedians I don't know at all, and I didn't care to hear t...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This podcast is about what the title suggests, but also, as the host (Mike Cosper, who was excellent) suggests, is "a story about the mystery of God working in broken places." But make no mistake. This is an 18-part shit-talk session essentially about one guy. And how can I resist that? 20+ hours of gossip about a guy I always really disliked? And I can justify it by saying it's a valuable lesson in exposing toxicity? Sign me up! This podcast does absolutely provide a ton of value. Just the history lesson on the American Church is worth the while, tracing the lineage of celebrity pastors and mega churches. It was truly fascinating. Obviously there is a lot to say about leadership and the way a massive church corporation works. I didn't actually find the drama at the end that interesting because it's not like they were uncovering some crazy scandal. It was literally just a revelation that Mark was the same person behind close...

⭐ 6.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) I always look forward to hearing more of Malcolm's voice, but this show has been letting me down for a while. I feel like he is picking more and more obscure topics as a bit. And if they are things he is interested in and he gets to do a deep dive on them, good for him, I have just found the episode topics to be a bit dull. This season features 3 episodes on The Little Mermaid. 3!! One of which is basically his own re-written version of the story with celebrities reading it. Boring. I did find the last episode to be very intriguing, mainly because it was talking about something relevant - Covid! Seriously, with all that has happened in the past year I was shocked that the whole season wasn't devoted to different aspects of Covid. I would have loved 3 episodes on the people who discovered the vaccines and how that process worked. Maybe he is saving it for season 7. I read a blog post Malcolm wrote about removing a Trump anecdote in fear of ex...

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Joseph) This is a podcast about video games, but also more of a podcast network because they have seperate ones for daily, weekly, reviews, Xbox, PlayStation, etc. It's run by a couple of young guys who used to work for IGN but broke off to do their own thing. This podcast really feels similar to No Dunks where it is just a group of friends who love talking about their favorite things. It's more focused on being funny and entertaining, and less focused on high level analysis. Video games have become my favorite form of media over the last few years, and I think it's encouraged a bit by listening to guys who love them so much. I follow a few of them on Twitter and they are all just so happy and funny all the time, and it totally makes me envious that they can enjoy their lives and play video games all day.

⭐ 9.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) I have really struggled to find a resource that challenges me for some time. Back when I was a young(er) adult, philosophy, theology and academia in general was all-consuming for me, and I've tried to find a resource to pull me back into it. I've had some success, most notably with the Liturgist pod, but this one really scratches an itch in a way I haven't experienced for a long time. It's a pod hosted by a British Christian philosopher who hosts two experts with opposing viewpoints to debate or discuss a given topic on a weekly basis, whether philosophical, theological or many times cultural. I'd never heard of this guy previously, but the way he is able to pull big names onto his show is incredible. We're talking William Lane Craig, NT Wright, Rob Bell, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Ken Hamm, Bart Ehrman, Sir Roger Penrose - and that's just from the recent ones I've seen. I know that's mostly a list of white g...

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Joseph) My favorite basketball podcast went to an expensive subscription service so I was forced to look elsewhere. Enter No Dunks, who I'd followed for a few years before, and everything just felt right again. This is a pretty casual, daily basketball pod that mostly focuses on entertainment and humor value, and I love it. These guys are truly brilliant, creating great, funny content on a daily basis. It doesn't have the in-depth and high-level analysis I loved from my previous pod, but for easy listening this is the best of the best for basketball.

⭐ 6.5/10 (Originally written by Tim) As always, I was really looking forward to listening to this season. I thought it started off with a bang, probably because he uses a Hobbit reference in his thesis for the first 2 episodes, but after that there was a 4 part series on bombing in the war. I felt that these episodes came across more as a history podcast, and I had a hard time connecting the dots to his thesis on this one. Really just felt more like an interesting character he wanted to talk about for 4 episodes. It was fascinating, and the last part of these 4 was very moving, just felt a bit bloated. I did think that it got better after that, with more (shorter) looks at interesting people. I also found the finale pretty emotional, but once again I thought his conclusions were a bit flimsy, hinging on the basis that the 9/11 memorial and a graph plotting homeless people were conceptually the same thing. Overall I can't say I loved this season. Had some bright spots, but wasn'...

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Anita) Oh my goodness. So far each episode has just been parts of a talk from their 2018 gathering with a bit of commentary from Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu. I thought this would mean it was kind of lame because I'd heard all these talks already but I was *wrong*. Each one of these episodes is so relevant today and I want to share every single one on Facebook. I've teared up through all of them and just feel so uplifted listening to them. These people give me so much hope! Jeff has got to be the kindest human being in the world.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Anita) This podcast is only a few episodes in but I can already tell it's a new favourite. The host, Brandi Miller, discusses the ways we need to reclaim our theology from different tenets of white supremacy. It has been so eye-opening and life-giving to me so far and I can't wait to hear more. I love learning more about things I know a bit about already (how bad individualism can be in a faith context) but going more in depth and hearing other perspectives.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Anita) This is a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell discussing some alternate takes on random topics. He's a really good host because he gets so into it and his interest is infectious. I keep waiting for him to tackle covid related things but nothing yet.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Anita) I heard about this podcast on Malcolm Gladwell's podcast and am so glad I did! The host is a historian who is trying to answer the question "who killed truth" this season by going through 10 different events in history and discussing what bearing they had on how truth is perceived or achieved. Just a super interesting podcast for someone that loves history as much as I do. The actors reading things are occasionally cheesy but I can forgive a lot when the topic is as interesting as this one!

⭐ 9.0/10 (Originally written by Anita) This is a podcast about a missionary that goes to Africa for many years and is now being sued by two African mothers who claim she was indirectly responsible for their childrens' deaths. It was hard to listen to sometimes but was good for really taking another look at overseas missions. I appreciated how they didn't come to a nice, tidy conclusion and I thought they treated the story with dignity. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

⭐ 8.5/10 (Originally written by Anita) A Canadian politics podcast! Literally what could be better! Haha but seriously.. they started this podcast just before the election to cover it and I loved learning more from behind the scenes. But then they brought it back after to just talk about random news stories and I love it all. The hosts are a CBC reporter and a Buzzfeed News curater. My favourite episode was probably the one called "Who feels served and protected" on racism in the police force in Canada. Elamin Abdelmahmoud is one of my favourite humans and his takes are wonderful. My only dislike is that the CBC reporter (Rosemary Barton) very obviously has a huge crush on Trudeau so she's cringey sometimes. But I think she's getting better.

⭐ 6.0/10 (Originally written by Tim) I loved HQ, and Joe will never let it down that I claimed I would play it every day for the rest of my life (although I will always argue that I would if I was still on the west coast, since the timing of the games is so much better). Anyways, this podcast is an 8 part series around the rise and fall of the gameshow startup. I was pretty defensive during the whole thing, because the podcast host seems to really scoff at the whole thing. She claims to have loved the game, but talks about the company as if it was a complete failure. I will get back to that later. The stories around the rise of the company are truly fascinating. Some really cool stories I didn't know about around how it was founded and who was in charge. But these people in charge sounded terrible, and as the game lost popularity they kind of drove it in to the ground, another thing I had no idea about. One of the co-founders dies in a drug overdose, which kind of sparks the ...

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Magdalene) In this podcast, two science fiction/fantasy nerds spend about half of the podcast talking about news in the SF/F world like awards, adaptations, big articles, etc., then give book recommendations based on a theme. I love it, and it has made my TBR list EXPLODE. I've liked almost all of their recommendations that I've read. Amanda and Sharifah are the hosts, and they have good chemistry together and have diverse tastes. I really like that they emphasize books by diverse authors, and always give trigger warnings.

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Benjamin) Rhett and Link share their stories of deconstruction. I could relate to alot if what they say. Just very interesting for me because i listened to these guys years ago in their beginnings. I don't feel i can rank this any lower because it's their personal story... right?

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Beans) Another religious podcast, but this one focuses more on faith, life, science and art. Really great stories that explore a lot of hot topics in the Christian sphere and world at large. This one is sometimes a bit far out there but so enriching and valuable. This one does push up against evangelicalism quite a bit so beware lol. There are even some episodes with swears!

⭐ 10.0/10 (Originally written by Beans) A podcast that attempts to bring the stories of the bible to everyday people. I listen to this podcast religiously. They explore many different avenues of the bible that are both intriguing and challenging. They’ve really helped me gain a healthy relationship with the bible and spur me on to challenge my view and ask big questions.