The Colin McEnroe Show

"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.

Conservative politicians love to cut funding for the arts: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and now, Donald Trump. The arts can't do anything tangible, like build a wall, or cure cancer. Too often, they fail the conservative litmus test for decency. Yet the arts are essential to our humanity, our hopes, and often, our healing.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James "Logan" Howlett -- Wolverine -- is maybe the only X-Men character to appear in every adaptation of the franchise to date, including now nine feature films. Logan, though, is different from the eight movies that precede it in certain ways. It's R-rated. It contains many utterances of certain four-letter words. It's incredibly, and graphically, violent. It's maybe more of a neo-western set in the future than it's a comic book movie.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As our society moves further away from paper currency, we pause to look back at the once predominant form of payment. Its look, its feel and its smell all hold a place in the collective consciousness of our nation's history.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Acceptance for medical marijuana is growing among people who swear by marijuana's power to relieve their ills. Older people are choosing marijuana for their aches and pains, parents are moving to states where marijuana is legal for children with seizure disorders, even pet owners are using pot to ease their pup's pain.  It's currently legal in 28 states with several more on deck.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump's White House is paranoid, tense and increasingly defined by turf battles​ between top advisors vying to promote their competing agendas. It has gotten so bad that Donald Trump has charged a group of senior aides  with monitoring the loyalty of his Cabinet secretaries. The confusion shows and it's rattling America and our closest European and Asian allies.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David E. Kelley is the writer and producer behind "Picket Fences," "Ally McBeal," and "The Practice." Jean Marc-Vallée is the director of "The Young Victoria," "Dallas Buyers Club," and "Wild." Their new HBO show, "Big Little Lies," stars Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, and Laura Dern as feuding mothers in beautiful Monterey, California.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every year at this time, as you may have heard, there's a big-old basketball tournament that goes on. And every year at this time, people in offices and in firehouses and in Rotary Clubs and in Atlantic Cities and in Las Vegases enter bracket pools, where they try to win a big-old pile of ducats by predicting just exactly how said big-old basketball tournament will go.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mistrusting Russia is as American as apple pie. And as news breaks daily of Russia's ties to the Trump campaign, meddling in our recent election, and destabilization of democracies around the globe, that mistrust is growing even stronger.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amidst the increasing concern over a nuclear armed North Korea, it's easy to forget the nearly 25 million citizens who live there. Their stories, while not matters of national security,  do reveal valuable insights into the secretive nation they call home.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trump Administration said the January 29 raid in Yemen that left U.S. Navy SEAL Ryan Owens dead, along with ten Yemeni children and at least six women "was a very, very well thought out and executed effort."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here's a familiar formula: stand up comedian + television cameras = sitcom. And, ultimately, that's the math behind HBO's new series "Crashing" starring Pete Holmes and executive produced by Judd Apatow. This show is a little different, though, from things like "Louie" and "Seinfeld" (and a lot different from things like "Roseanne" and "Everybody Loves Raymond") in that it's actually about Holmes's (character's) fledgling stand up career.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Tragedy of the Commons follows the theory that people can't be trusted to take care of common property without degrading it or taking more than their fair share of resources. This idea was popularized by William Forster Lloyd, who published a pamphlet in 1833 using cow herders to prove that people couldn't be trusted to share our common resources wisely. He believed property should be owned privately.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Rorschach inkblots are ubiquitous throughout culture. They've inspired visual artists from Warhol to Alan Moore, from Gnarls Barkley to Jay Z, to the Watchmen comics. The inkblots have also become a perfect metaphor for today's polarized, relativist world. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UFOs have been reported in America since the 1600s. And in all that time our government has largely dismissed the objects as being of Earthly origin. But this culture of dismissal in the U.S. is not indicative of how sightings are handled around the world. Some foreign governments readily discuss the possibility of extraterrestrials having visited Earth, and others go so far as to openly support the possibility. As reports of UFO sightings in America have skyrocketed since the 1940's, we ask why the phenomenon isn't given a more serious look. We'll examine some of the most compelling cases of all time and ask what it is about these unidentified objects that captivates the imaginations of so many. This hour we speak with believers and skeptics about UFO's. GUESTS: Peter Davenport - UFO lecturer, broadcaster and Director of The National UFO Reporting Center Leslie Kean - Investigative journalist and author of The New York Times bestselling UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record and SurvivingDeath: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife George Noory - Weekday host of the late-night radio talk show Coast to Coast AM and creator of Paranormal Date, a dating site for paranormal enthusiasts Benjamin Radford - Deputy Editor of Skeptical Inquirer Magazine and author of Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment. You can join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Donald Trump claimed former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign in a series of tweets Saturday morning. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The number-one movie in America this week is a horror-comedy with a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This might be the first week that that's ever been true in the history of Rotten Tomatoes, horrors, comedies, and America. Jordan Peele's Get Out has been called "the satirical horror movie we've been waiting for, a mash-up of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and The Stepford Wives that's more fun than either and more illuminating, too." The Nose weighs in.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Faust myth comes from a German folktale that's centuries old. But does a day of your life go by where you don't hear someone invoking the "I'd sell my soul for x" cliche?Just look at coffee Twitter every morning.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Of all the crimes defined by law, only one is mentioned in the U.S. Constitution: Treason! This distinction, however, was not meant to deter dissent, but rather to protect it. Knowing well how England had levied the charge against those whose voices they found subversive, our founders sought to ensure the citizens of their newly formed nation would always be free to disagree with the government.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sam Waterston says he's been been lucky to have good fortune in his career and personal life. He's been nominated multiple times for Emmy, Academy, and Tony Awards and he won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards for performances playing men whose moral compass points north.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Culture icon Frank Rich joins Colin to talk about the subtle, or not-so-subtle war for our culture, from Trump's promise to avoid the White House Correspondents' Dinner to last night's Academy Awards. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join us on the Trinity College campus in Hartford Friday at 1:00 pm as The Nose picks apart this year's Oscar contest live at Cinestudio.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melania Trump is in many ways a first: The first First Lady to have arrived as an immigrant, the first to have been born in a communist country, and the first to be the 3rd wife of a president. She is not the first, however, to show signs of reluctance towards embracing the role of FLOTUS.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I once took guitar lessons with a small group of people who met two nights a week in the basement of a local elementary school. We spent most of each lesson practicing in little nooks and crannies we each carved out in the old room. I enjoyed picking out tunes in my own little corner at my own pace. It was all going so smoothly until... the instructor mentioned the final "concert."I lost sleep by night, fretted by day, and practiced a lot before forcing myself to show up on the scheduled night. But a funny thing happened: no one else showed up beside me and the instructor. I'm not sure what made me happier - that I showed up, that I got off the hook, or that I had an otherwise pleasant experience that was calm and not rushed.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Republicans in Congress said little when Donald Trump's ban on immigrants led to chaos, they ignored widespread protest against his cabinet picks, and they still fail to call out statements that are untrue. Save for a scattered voice of dissent in Republican ranks, the GOP seems unruffled by Donald Trump's behavior as president - except when it comes to Russia. John McCain is turning into Trump's fiercest critic where most others fear to tread. Is this his moment to be a hero?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many Americans were surprised by the results of the presidential election last month. During the early morning hours of November 9, half of America celebrated the ascension of the man (and not the first woman) that championed the needs of Americans who felt betrayed by those in power. The other half feared the election of a man with no experience in government and a stated desire to dismantle much of President Obama’s legacy.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York magazine's Will Leitch has called ESPN's documentary O. J.: Made in America a masterpiece, and now it's nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary -- Feature category. The Nose watched all seven hours and 45 minutes of it, and it's all we're going to be talking about this week.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.