The Colin McEnroe Show

As secular attitudes increase around the world and beliefs in the supernatural decline, how is it that the demand for exorcisms has never been higher?In America and across Europe, the Catholic Church is struggling to keep up. And as the Vatican is busy teaching courses to train new exorcists, the question remains: Why now?This hour we speak with a historian, a psychiatrist, and an officially sanctioned exorcist to unravel the mystery behind the twenty-first-century resurgence of this age-old Catholic practice.GUESTS:Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Compassionate release" of our sickest and oldest prisoners is a way to reduce the federal prison population. It's also meant to save on the high cost of health care for aging inmates, and show some -  well, compassion, to prisoners closing in on the end of their lives. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At President Trump's first full cabinet meeting in June 2017, we watched with some amusement while each member expressed over-the-top gratitude for the president's giving them the privilege to serve him and/or the American people. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A lot has happened in the recent days. The news is fast, complicated, disturbing and in some cases, hopeful.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No one likes a cloudy sky. A cloud on the horizon is seen as a harbinger of doom. We feel like clouds need to have silver linings.But here's our thesis: Clouds are unfairly maligned.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For most of time, microbes ruled the planet alone. Microbes have been around for billions of years - long before people ever began to inhabit the earth.  Am I giving you a good picture of how small humans are in this grander view of life? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here are some songs from your life, "Backstreet Girl" by the Rolling Stones, "Joey" by Bob Dylan, "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads, "Boy In The Bubble" by Paul Simon, "July Fourth, Asbury Park", better known as "Sandy" by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys. They all rely heavily on the accordion. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Thighmaster, the Chop-O-Matic, the George Foreman Grill and the Clapper: Products which are all part of American consumer culture and which were all introduced through infomercials. But as online shopping increases and traditional television watching decreases, are we beginning to see the end of these high-energy, late-night shows?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cambridge Analytica, a data company backed by Republican donor Robert Mercer and headed by Steve Bannon, harvested private information from almost 50 million Facebook users without their permission to develop and exploit psychological profiles in the 2016 U.S. election.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a lot of pressure on Ava Duvernay to bring Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 classic book, A Wrinkle In Time, to the screen. This is the first $100-million movie directed by an African-American woman with a diverse cast chosen to fill the roles written for whites in 1962.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.