The Colin McEnroe Show

The stereotypes around homeschooling have existed for decades. Since the modern homeschooling movement began in the late 20th century, those who favored this educational approach have largely been perceived as white, anti-establishment, radically Christian, and ultra-conservative.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seven people were killed and more than forty were injured in the third attack in London in a few months time. If you're like writer Yascha Mounk, you may have reacted not with the shock and disorientation you would expect to feel in response to a barbaric and random act of violence, but the calm clarity of someone who has seen this before and is resigned to see it again.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello. Hello? Anybody home? Think, McFly, think!Oh, wait. Not that Biff. This BIFF: The Berkshire International Film Festival.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a set of steps and a big stone fireplace sitting in the middle of the woods where I used to walk my dog. I can envision the family living in the house that was part of the neighborhood that got washed away when the Farmington River overflowed its banks in 1955.  My exploration led me to the origin of those steps. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The eugenics movement of the early 20th century is a dark chapter in our nation's history. And while we may think of it as a practice we've long since abandoned, the truth is a bit more complicated.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, it turns out the world didn't end last week. Or the week before that. Or the week before that.And while it might seem like the events of the last year or so are the disease, maybe they're really just the symptoms; maybe they're really just signs of the dystopia around us.But, then: Which dystopia?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The current production at Hartford Stage is a "grand, crisp and well-tailored yet ultimately unsettling" version of George Bernard Shaw's caustic comedy/drama, "Heartbreak House." The Nose went to see it and weighs in this hour.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been an interesting five or six months, don't you think?So, this hour, we're doing something we don't normally do: We aren't booking any guests.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Of the many strange behaviors we humans have engaged in, few seem more abhorrent than cannibalism. But the act of feasting on another human's flesh cannot be so easily dismissed as simply disgusting or deviant. Freud, in fact,  believed cannibalism played a role in the birth of religion itself.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We spend over three trillion dollars on health care every year and we have worse outcomes than any other developed country - all of which spend on average about half of what America spends per person. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the weekend, President Trump spoke to leaders from Muslim countries in Riyadh. Today and tomorrow, he visits Israel and the West Bank. And Wednesday, it's on to Rome and The Vatican. The Scramble looks at the religious side of Trump's first presidential trip abroad.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"I Love Dick" is Jill Soloway's second TV series for Amazon, after "Transparent." It's based on Chris Kraus's seminal feminist novel from the 1990s and stars Kevin Bacon as the titular character. Rolling Stone has called the show "the high-lit cowboy-lust TV show you need." The Nose weighs in.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They're in the books we read, the shows we watch, and the art we hang on our walls. They conjure notions of might, magic, romance, and more. Castles, perhaps as much as any other architectural structure in history, define the landscape of our fantasy and imagination.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a quote by journalist Ned Resnikoff in Brooke Gladstone's latest book, The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time. It's one of many quotes she cites that guide her through a meditation on whether the election of Donald Trump signals the worst existential crisis we've known.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There has been a surge of interest in the writings of Ayn Rand in the last decade, including from Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, President Donald Trump and several members of his cabinet.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump Administration is quietly limiting access to public information, especially as it relates to ethics and enforcement. We can no longer view disclosures about workplace violations, energy efficiency, or animal welfare abuses. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Look. I don't like Guardians of the Galaxy, okay? I get it. I'm the only nerd on the face of the planet who isn't charmed by these movies. I know I have a cold stone where my heart should be. I understand that I'm totally devoid of a soul. It's fine. I've come to terms with it. You still get to love these movies. The Nose still gets to love these movies. And The Nose does love these movies.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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 run-off in May. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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 secretary like few we've seen before. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Kantayya make up the panel.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee 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/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Herbert Hoover realized early in the 20th century that food was as important as bullets to win a war. After witnessing Belgians starve under the harsh treatment of Germany before World War I, he determined to never let that happen in America. So, when the men marched off to war in both World War I and again in World War II, the women marched out to the fields. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There's a theory that ours isn't the only universe. That there are, actually, infinitely many universes.That there are, then, infinitely many yous.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was 50 years ago today that The Beatles were in the studio working on the follow-up to their 1966 album, Revolver, and on June 1, 1967, they released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.Sgt. Pepper's has been called the beginning of the album era. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it #1 on their "500 Greatest Albums of All Time." It is the best-selling album of the 1960s.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The bad news is that the Trump Administration may be in for another rough week. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

S-Town is the new, wimpily titled, seven-hour, non-fiction, southern gothic novel of a podcast that the folks behind Serial and This American Life released all at once this Tuesday, and The Nose has listened to the whole thing.Some of us even listened to it all at once this Tuesday.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tensions in America run deep. They exist between the right and the left, between the religious and the secular, and between the rich and the poor. And in recent years, tensions between the citizens at large and their elected officials -- which seem less responsive to the will of the people -- gave rise to a wave of populism like we've rarely seen before.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The movie "Split," by director M. Night Shyamalan, is the latest in a long line of movies that portray people with "split personalities" as either violent psychopaths or comic foils who exhibit dramatic changes in identity that don't reflect the subtle transitions that usually take between six and twelve years to properly diagnose. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This month, the nation turns its eyes to basketball, to college basketball, to its annual March Madness tournament.But... not quite all of the nation.Some of the nation is, well, nerdier than that.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.