The Life and Times of Donald Triplett

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Catherine Nixi is standing in for our obituaries editor Anne Roel this week. Donald Triplett used to love saying that one. And Dahlia too. At first there were words. There were so many words. Chrysanthemum was a favorite of his. He would shake his head constantly from side to side. If his toys weren't arranged exactly as he wanted them to be, then he would scream and scream and scream until the muscles stood out on his neck. His mother Mary often seemed almost even unaware that she was there.

We sit down with Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s youngest-ever spymaster. He is intense, resolute—and oddly charismatic. A world of electrified transport is going to need lots of nickel for batteries. We argue that, environmentally speaking, gathering it from the seafloor clearly beats mining it on land (11:12). And remembering Donald Triplett, the first person ever to be diagnosed with autism (19:25).

Additional audio courtesy of “In A Different Key”, inadifferentkeythemovie.com

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