The Colin McEnroe Show

This past week, a Minnesota dentist and father of two shocked us out of our complacency. Desensitized by the weekly shootings this summer of African Americans by white policemen , moviegoers in theaters and African American churchgoers by a young white racist,  his  ambush of Cecil the lion was a visceral blow to our collective gut.  Yes, we're still horrified by the way human being...

No one can argue the charisma of former Bridgeport mayor Joe Ganim. He served five terms as a beloved leader in a city long plagued by  crime, poverty, and corruption, much of the corruption under the Ganim administration. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two funny men. Two funny books.  I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend follows the life of Martin Short, a funny man who spent his childhood staging elaborate one-man variety shows  in his attic bedroom before bringing us enduring and endearing characters like Ed Grimley, Irving Cohen and Jimmy Glick.   Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener...

Across the United States, partners still hold the institution of marriage dear. Yet as time moves on, there are significant changes in the way Americans approach marriage. Many years ago, the idea of marrying for love was ludicrous. Now, the love match is the heart of a modern marriage. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The CDC recently announced that kissing or cuddling your chickens is a health hazard. Because… Well, because people kiss or cuddle their chickens , apparently. Some people probably kiss and cuddle their chickens. But you shouldn’t kiss or cuddle your chickens. Because your chickens are basically just waddling featherballs of salmonella, it turns out. So, ya know. Don’t kiss or cuddle your chickens...

This hour, the Nose will definitely NOT talk  about Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! But they will cover Gawker's horrible week. After lots of backlash, the online site  retracted a story in which they outed a married executive who solicited a male prostitute. They've now made the pledge to be "20%  nicer." Or maybe just 10%. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnyst...

This hour, a panel of experts and historians gives us an in-depth look at the life and legacy of Beatrice Fox Auerbach, owner and CEO of Connecticut's most beloved department store, G. Fox and Co.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flags have been in the news a lot lately.  South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its Statehouse this month and one Missouri county threatened to lower the flags at their courthouse for one full year to mourn the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What makes advice good or bad? When and why do we listen to what others have to say? It is human nature to turn to others for advice when the going gets tough; we seek the wisdom of loved ones, lawyers, doctors, therapists, and advice columnists. But even when presented with good advice, we don't always take it. This hour, we get down to business about advice. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org...

In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in Norway, most of them teenagers. He's serving a 21-year prison term, which can be extended. But in the meantime, he'll study political science at Oslo University from his prison cell.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we'll talk about Ben Rothenberg's Serena-driven body image piece , and the stir it caused.  Mark Leibovitch's peice on Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, author Ben Yagoda joins us as we explore the rise, the fall, and the rebirth of the Great American Songbook.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The history of gold is a history of beauty, bloodshed and obsession. Gold has been fought for, worn ornamentally, traded as tender and at times even worshiped. This hour, we continue to mine it, covet it, and find uses for it even King Midas himself would never have imagined. But why has the allure of this precious metal endured for so long? Investors will say its rarity ensures its worth. Numisma...

Joseph Stalin's only daughter grew up the beloved pet of a man responsible for a decades-long campaign to arrest, torture, execute or forcibly imprison millions of Soviet citizens, including children and members of his own family. That's what we know now. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, the long-awaited sequel to Harper Lee's  To Kill a Mockingbird  hits bookshelves. Since it was announced, questions were raised about Lee's involvement in the release of this book. But now the conversation has changed to the content of the book. A New York Times review reveals the much beloved character of Atticus Finch was a racist during the Brown v. Board of Education era o...

Univision and NBC cut ties to Donald Trump and he won't be returning to The Apprentice, his long-running television show, because of the inflammatory comments he made about Mexican immigrants last week. But, he doesn't seem to care. Despite the comments, or maybe because of them, his appeal seems to rise with his belligerence. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listene...

When I was a child in the 1960's, it was not uncommon to have friends with 5 or 6 siblings. I was one of 4. But, times have changed. For all sorts of reasons - economic, work, personal preference, religion - the majority of parents are having fewer children today than was common in the previous generation. And, as family size has decreased, societal attitudes about larger families have become incr...

Podcasts weren't born last year with the arrival of  Serial , the wildly successful story of an unsolved 1999 murder that you could hear solely on podcast. Serial likely provided the first encounter with podcasts for a lot of listeners, but podcasts first entered the consciousness and our iPods ten years ago last weekend,  when early adopters saw in them the next great media revolution.&...

Mark Twain has many literary sites; yet Henry James has none. You can visit Edith Wharton's house but not Shirley Jackson's. You can walk where Wallace Stevens walked but you can't buy a ticket to go through his front door. And can you believe there's no single museum devoted to all American writers-- yet? New England is about to get two great new writers’ museums: The Dr. Seuss museum in Springfi...

So, you think it's easy to write a Broadway song? I say not so fast.  The four aspiring writing teams that attended Goodspeed's Festival of New Musicals this past January say it's plenty hard. They spend a lot of time kicking around ideas, most of which never see the light of day. But, really, they have no choice. "If you can do anything else, you do do anything else," says Marcy Heisler, one...

It's hard to imagine: the idea that the arts, the grand bastion of our creative genius, may soon be bankrupt. But are new ideas really an unlimited commodity, or wont we one day exhaust them all? Some say we already have; that the bulk of what's being churned out by today's filmmakers, musicians and writers, are simply re-imaginings of the ideas of their predecessors. Support the show: http://www....

Once upon a time Nancy Butler lived in the Beltway and used her MBA to secure a high paying job with a defense contractor.  But Butler had considered herself a devout Christian since the age of 9, and something about a job with a company that made torpedoes started to bother her. So she left and embarked on a journey that included mission work in Asia and enrollment at Yale Divinity School. S...

In some ways, the 'bro' is not new. He's there, for example, in Philip Roth's " Goodbye Columbus " as Ron Patimkin, the big athletic empty-headed brother of Brenda.  What's different is that in the 1960s, it seemed fundamentally untenable to be Ron for an extended period of time. Ron only really made sense as a college athlete, and now he's stuck with a bunch of mannerisms and interests that...

At 28, Jessica Fechtor suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm that knocked out some of her senses. Now she has written Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals that Brought Me Home . She'll be our guest today as we talk about life, death, food, and healing. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed the right of gays and lesbian to marry , as a matter of equal protection. In New York City, the cops were closing of Christopher Street, so people could party. Similar pop-up public parties are happening all over the nation, including here in Connecticut. But some hearts are heavy. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...