The Colin McEnroe Show

Has the golden age of humanity passed? Can we, as a species, survive the next few centuries? As our climate warms, population grows, resources shrink, and means of self destruction become more deadly, these questions move from the realm of dystopian fiction to real world relevance. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Trump fired FBI director James Comey on Tuesday in the midst of the FBI investigation into whether Russia influenced the 2016 election. The story from the White House is that the firing has little to do with Russia, and more to do with Comey's handling of Hillary Clinton's emails. One must ask: why now?  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener f...

We've been feeling like maybe all the serious politics coverage we've been doing has crowded out some of the nonsense sports coverage we like to do. So this hour: sports nonsense and nothing else. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Most Beautiful Room in New York is a new play by  The   New Yorker  essayist Adam Gopnik. It's about home and food and family, and is influenced by Gopnik's five years as a Paris correspondent discovering the meaning of food in his own life. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Margaret Atwood started writing her classic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale in 1984. She set it in an imagined future America where the toxic environment has limited human fertility, a theocratic dictatorship has taken control, and women have been stripped of their rights. Atwood said the novel isn't a prediction , but the internet thinks Hulu's new TV version is . Support the show: http://www...

In the 1800s, Connecticut peddlers would travel south to peddle goods made in small factories around the state. The best way to increase their profit margin was to slip a few pieces of prized nutmeg -- and a few fake wooden ones to match -- in their bag. It didn't take long to expose the fraud, earning us the nickname of the Nutmeg State, known by all as clever, if ethically challenged, people.&nb...

Life after death, in one form or another,  has been examined by multiple disciplines for centuries: From theology, to physics, to philosophy, to medicine and more. But while the topic is taken seriously by some, it remains a focus of ridicule and skepticism by others. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On May 2, 2016, with a 2-2 draw between Tottenham and Chelsea, Leicester City clinched the league title for the first time in their 132-year history. The BBC called it "one of the greatest sporting stories of all time." Leicester were 5,000-to-1 underdogs before the Premier League season started. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This weekend's Peoples Climate March against the Trump Administration's rollback of Obama era environmental policies coincided with more alarming news about arctic melt, rising oceans, and the EPA's removal of climate science information . Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"13 Reasons Why" is the new Netflix series based on Jay Asher's book . In it, one of the main characters, a teenager, has killed herself before the narrative begins. As such, the show has been called, for one thing, " dangerous ." The Nose weighs in. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The "Fast and Furious" franchise includes eight feature films and two short films, and it looks like it's about to include a series of spinoff films . It's Universal Pictures's highest-grossing film franchise with a combined box office nearing $5 billion . Uhh, how did that happen? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Al Capone told everyone who asked him what he did for a living that he was a "property owner and taxpayer in Chicago." He was really a powerful multimillionaire in 1920s Chicago who made money from the illegal sale of alcohol during Prohibition and the vices that usually accompanied it: gambling and prostitution. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy...

In looking to our past, a curious trend appears. A vast amount of mankind's great accomplishments in art, music, science, technology and language seem to emerge from a relatively small number of cities:  Athens, Hangzhou, Florence, Rome, Calcutta, Vienna, and Silicon Valley-- just to name a few. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world is riveted by the presidential election in France , which seems to be at the epicenter of clashing ideological forces vying to shape the future of Western democracy. All we know for sure after Sunday's first round of voting is that the May 7 winner will not be a Socialist. For the first time in 59 years, France chose two candidates outside the mainstream parties to advance to the final r...

Bill O'Reilly is out at Fox News . Serena Williams is pregnant . Melania Trump: photographer . And "Girls" is over . It's been another weird week, and The Nose is on it. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If there's one thing we've never been good at, it's limiting ourselves. We eat too much junk food, watch too much TV, and engage in all manner of self-indulgence. So why then, do we continue to adhere to the limitations of monogamy? If love is so grand, why not celebrate a lifestyle which encourages loving multiple partners? Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener...

When this forum was originally scheduled , it was intended as a conversation about how our language is changing. Example, the idiom "woke" or "#woke" has a very keen set of meanings to one group and flies by another. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Its been over 100 years since the first cartoons were drawn by hand. Since then, the genre has delved into everything from sex and drugs to racial inequality and war crimes. Even the tamest, G-rated cartoons have often found ways of slipping in adult humor past the eyes of younger viewers. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Presidential press secretaries usually keep a low profile. They don't typically try to control the room or get defensive or mean with reporters.  They don't typically break news or become the butt of jokes on late-night TV. They don't typically perpetuate information proven to be untrue and then assume a threatening manner when asked to support the claim. In short, Sean Spicer is a press secr...

When Dr. David Dau "refused to volunteer" to give up his seat on United Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville earlier this week, aviation police forcibly "re-accommodated" him . And then we had what was maybe the first news cycle since the election that wasn't led by politics. The Nose finally gets to weigh in, and it's an all-star Nose at that: Rebecca Castellani, Kinky Friedman, and Mellini Kan...

The American Psychological Association says the 2016 presidential election was a major source of stress for a majority of Americans regardless of political affiliation.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the Department of Homeland Security collects plans for the US-Mexico border, the conversation is turning more towards how border walls don't work in keeping people out . This hour, we talk about what walls are effective in dividing: our psyches, our environments, and the populations around them. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the years, our government has been involved in some pretty shady affairs. After eugenics and internment camps but before Watergate and Iran-Contra, came mind control. And just like the other ethically dubious projects mentioned, your tax dollars paid for it. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Aspiring tyrants have long used disaster and terror to consolidate power and limit freedom. Hitler used the Reichstag fire to suspend the basic rights of all German citizens; more recently, Putin used the bombing of buildings in Russian cities to attack Russia's Muslim people in Chechnya. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was kind of an odd week this week (as they all are). Kendall Jenner tried to save the world with a Pepsi . And then Barry Manilow came out at age 73. And then Don Rickles died at age 90. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.