The Colin McEnroe Show

Americans like to believe we live in a meritocracy but the odds are stacked in favor of the already lucky and fortunate. We congratulate the "winners" and humiliate the "losers," who are told to better themselves or carry the burden of their failure.  The 2016 election of Donald Trump was decades in the making.  Like other populist leaders around the world, Trump gave voice to the resentment directed toward “elites” who devalue the hard work and dignity of workers without college degrees. Ronald Reagan was the first president to tell every American they could "go just as far as their dreams and hard work will take them." Yet, his administration's economic policies made it hard for those without college degrees to get ahead, no matter how hard they worked. Little has changed.   GUEST:  Michael Sandel teaches philosophy at Harvard University. His most recent book is The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? His BBC Radio 4 series, The Public Philosopher, explores the philosophical ideas behind the headlines. You can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired October 8, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The jury will begin deliberations later today on whether George Floyd's death was caused by his inability to breathe under the weight of Derek Chauvin. Breathing is so automatic that we don't think about it until lung disease, dirty air, poor breathing habits and, now, COVID-19 and police brutality make it hard to do. We take breathing for granted; we don't breathe deep enough, we breathe too much, and we often breathe through our mouths instead of our noses.  We can't take all the blame. The tradeoff of humans evolving to have bigger brains is that our larger brains squeezed our noses, sinuses, tongues, and jaws into smaller spaces. That's why humans are the only species of 5,400 mammals to have misaligned jaws, overbites, underbites, and crooked teeth.  This hour, the science, art, and politics of breathing. GUESTS: James Nestor - A journalist and author; his most recent book is Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art Dahlia Lithwick - A senior editor for Slate and the host of Amicus Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired June 18, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Taylor Swift has announced plans to re-record six of her previous albums in order to own master recordings of her older catalogue. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which came out last Friday, is the first of these six re-recordings to be released. Fittingly, this would appear to be the sixth Nose that is substantively about Taylor Swift. And: If you're socially anxious (and who isn't, really?), you're gonna miss Zoom when it's gone. Oh, and speaking of social anxiety, meet Prancer, the Chihuahua who hates almost everyone. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Frank Jacobs, Mad Magazine Writer With a Lyrical Touch, Dies at 91He deftly mocked pop culture, politics and more for 57 years. He also wrote new lyrics for familiar songs, which led to a lawsuit from Irving Berlin and others. Phoebe Bridgers' smashed 'Saturday Night Live' guitar is up for auctionOrganised by the 2021 GLAAD Media Awards, which had nominated Bridgers as Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist LeVar Burton steps up his Jeopardy! campaign: "It just makes sense" Catherine Zeta-Jones Is Enjoying Herself Hollywood loves making excuses for bullies. Here are some of the most damaging George Clooney did some of his best work in Steven Soderbergh's reviled Solaris Adam McKay on How To Be Political and Entertaining and Not Destroy the World 'Dune' Director Denis Villeneuve Blasts HBO Max Deal ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres to Close Why Are Women on TikTok Asking to Get Peed On?On PissTok, memes about golden showers and accidental-on-purpose jellyfish stings abound You Can Be a Different Person After the PandemicOur personalities are not set in stone. They are more like sand dunes. Pure perfection: North Texas pitcher Hope Trautwein strikes out all 21 batters in perfect game In the minors, a major change as the Atlantic League plans to move the mound back a foot The Long Tail of Aphex Twin's 'Avril 14th'A song released 20 years ago continues to inspire curiosity and covers by classical, experimental and pop artists. 'NCIS' Renewed for Season 19 With Mark Harmon to Return Colorful coffins lighten mood at New Zealand funerals GUESTS: Gorman Bechard - Novelist and filmmaker Rebecca Castellani - Co-founder of Quiet Corner Communications and a freelance writer Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column proclaiming that "America Is Not Made for People Who Pee." It hit a nerve. People responded with stories that all seemed to agree with him. So, why don't we complain about locked doors, long lines (for women), or the lack of a public toilet where one should be? Lezlie Lowe might say that we don't like to talk about bodily functions that are perceived as kind of, well, gross. This hour, we talk about public toilets, including one that people like. GUESTS: Lezlie Lowe - Teaches journalism at the University of King's College and is the author of No Place To Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs Evan Madden - Sales manager for The Portland Loo Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Popeye. The World According to Garp. Good Morning, Vietnam. Dead Poets Society. Awakenings. The Fisher King. Aladdin. Mrs. Doubtfire. Jumanji. The Birdcage. Good Will Hunting. What Dreams May Come. One Hour Photo. Death to Smoochy. Insomnia. Night at the Museum. And that's just a super-abbreviated version of Robin Williams's filmography. And it completely ignores his career as one of the all-time great standup comedians. And it ignores Mork & Mindy. And Comic Relief. And so much more. This hour: A look at Robin Williams, who would've turned 70 this year. GUESTS: Dave Itzkoff - A culture reporter for The New York Times and the author of Robin Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer, and she is the founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Betsy Kaplan, Cat Pastor, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired in a different form June 21, 2018.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During his remarkable career with the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams earned many nicknames: The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame... but the only nickname that he ever wanted was "the greatest hitter who ever lived." And maybe he really was? He's baseball's all-time leader in on-base percentage, and he's second behind only Babe Ruth in both slugging and on-base plus slugging percentages. He's the last guy to hit .400, and that was 80 years ago. And on top of all that, he lost close to five full seasons (and three of them in the prime of his career) to serve in two different wars. This hour, a look at the man, the hitter, and the pitchman (you see what I did there) that was Ted Williams. GUESTS: Jim Baumer - A Maine-based writer and the author of Moxie: Maine in a Bottle Nick Davis - Produced and directed Ted Williams: "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived" Sam Miller - National baseball writer at ESPN Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Catie Talarski contributed to this show, which originally aired July 19, 2018.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fox News broadcast the first episode of Greg Gutfeld's new late-night show, Gutfeld!, earlier this month. They're betting that Gutfeld can turn his talk show format into a successful late-night comedy show for conservatives. The problem is that conservatives don't do political satire any better than liberals do opinion talk radio. Dannagal Young believes that opinion talk is political satire for the right and political satire is opinion programming for the left. They serve the same purpose; both formats are responses to a lack of trust in mainstream media. Which one appeals to each of us depends less on how "smart" we are and more on how we process information. GUEST: Dannagal Young - Professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware and the author of Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Fear, Outrage and Comedy in the United States Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At Connecticut Public, there's a smallish corner conference room thing that we think of as The Crying Room. I, personally, haven't ever seen anyone cry in there, but I've had my suspicions. In any case, where people go to cry is part of the essential geography of the modern office. On the other hand, do we even have offices anymore? And: Hemingway is a three-part PBS documentary directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. It premiered this week, and all 5½ hours are streamable now. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Gary Bimonte, owner of Pepe's Pizza in New Haven has died R.I.P. SNL writer and Square Pegs creator Anne Beatts Prince Philip, Husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Is Dead at 99The Duke of Edinburgh, who married the future queen in 1947, brought the monarchy into the 20th century, but his occasional frank comments hurt his image. What Will Happen to Friendships When We Crawl Out of Our Pandemic Hidey Holes?A year of isolation has left our lives strewn with carcasses of friendships once held sacred -- but can reopening revive them? In Computero: Hear How AI Software Wrote a 'New' Nirvana SongComputer-generated artificial tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and Jim Morrison highlight a new project that helps bring attention to mental illness Yahoo Answers Is Ending, So Here Are 31 Of The Funniest Posts To Ever Exist ThereYahoo Answers, you will be missed. 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' has ruined Marvel movies forever -- and that's a good thing Low-rise jeans are back. Don't panic.Millennials are terrified of the return of low-rise jeans and Y2K fashion. But what if they looked different this time around? Long-Awaited Muon Measurement Boosts Evidence for New PhysicsInitial data from the Muon g-2 experiment have excited particle physicists searching for undiscovered subatomic particles and forces An Interview With the Man Who Keeps Uploading My Feet to WikiFeet Taylor Swift Drops 'Mr. Perfectly Fine'From the Vault: Why Fans Think It's About Joe Jonas or Jake Gyllenhaal With "Mr. Perfectly Fine," Taylor Swift Got Ahead Of Her Least Original CriticsThere doesn't have to be drama. There can just be bops. Pino Palladino, pop's greatest bassist: 'I felt like a performing monkey!'One of the world's most celebrated bass players has worked with everyone from Adele to Elton John, the Who and D'Angelo. But the Welsh musician has hidden from the spotlight -- until now Why Are Furio's Shirts So Good on The Sopranos?An appreciation of the most intoxicating silk tops to hit prestige TV. An Interview With the Guy Who Yells "Mortal Kombat" in the Theme for Mortal KombatNearly three decades later, he's still got it. I Work in a Bookstore. Why Am I Still Shelving "Mein Kampf"?There are historical and scholarly reasons to preserve Hitler's manifesto -- but that doesn't mean anyone needs to own it Aaron Rodgers Could Actually Be the Next Host of Jeopardy!He has no right to be as good at this as he is. "Everyone Just Knows He's an Absolute Monster": Scott Rudin's Ex-Staffers Speak Out on Abusive BehaviorEven as other Hollywood bullies are being sidelined, the uber-producer behind 'The Social Network' and Broadway’s 'To  Kill a Mockingbird' has been given a pass for his volcanic temper. Now, former employees open up about a boss who left many traumatized: "It was a new level of unhinged." This man is looking for the friends who shipped him overseas in a crateThe book The Crate Escape details how Brian Robson's scheme almost killed him America is facing a ketchup packet shortage GUESTS: Taneisha Duggan - Artistic producer at TheaterWorks Irene Papoulis - Teaches writing at Trinity College Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joni Mitchell's album Blue turns 50 this year. It may not have the artistic sophistication of her later albums, but Mitchell's vulnerability endeared her to fans, if not early critics unused to such intimate storytelling. That was okay with Mitchell. She said her "music is not designed to grab instantly. It's designed to wear for a lifetime, to hold up like a fine cloth." She was right. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Blue the third-greatest album on its 2020 list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time," a move up from No. 33 in 2017. We talk with musicians and critics about the album Blue and more. GUESTS: Peter Kaminsky - Professor of music theory and associate department head of undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut Steve Metcalf - A journalist, music critic, pianist, and composer, and director emeritus of Presidents' College at the University of Hartford Carolann Solebello - A singer-songwriter, a founding member of the Americana trio Red Molly, and a member of the Jack Hardy Songwriters Exchange; she tours with the folk quartet No Fuss and Feathers Join us on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elvis left two legacies. Musically, he pulled several American musical traditions out of the shadows, braided them together, and made them mainstream. Personally, he created a far darker template for the way a musical celebrity could be devoured by the very fame he avidly sought. Recorded live in front of an audience -- long before the pandemic hit -- as part of Colin's Freshly Squeezed series at Watkinson School, an hour about the artist who defined the birth of rock and roll and was the genre's first superstar. GUESTS: Jim Chapdelaine - Guitar and vocals Latanya Farrell - Vocals Steve Metcalf - Piano and vocals Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. This show originally aired February 20, 2019.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.