New Yorker staff writer Nick Paumgarten joins us to talk about the animals we acquired to comfort us and why leaving them at home alone is now going to be a big problem.
Read moreHow The U.S. Broke Central America
Aviva Chomsky, professor of history and the coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State University, joins us to talk about hundreds of years of colonization and displacement, and why stabilizing the region will take more than just economic aid.
Read moreThe Black Roots Of Beer Culture
James Bennett II joins us to talk about why beer is often conflated today with a rich, white world and why something as simple as the backyard BBQ is essential to understanding how America chooses to drink.
Read moreRights Shouldn’t Be A Zero-Sum Game
Columbia Law professor Jamal Greene joins us to talk about why courts have an outsized role in determining what Americans fight for and against, a method he says is out of line with what the framers of the Constitution envisioned.
Read moreThe Rich Skip The Line While The Rest Of Us Wait
New York Times business reporter Nelson Schwartz joins us to talk about how easy for some it is to buy convenience – and about how corporations have shifted strategies to cater to the wealthy in order to increase the bottom line.
Read moreHow Amazon Is Reshaping America’s Cities And Economy
Alec MacGillis, senior reporter for ProPublica, joins us to discuss how Amazon and other digital retailers are affecting the larger economy as they drive some cities to either boom or bust.
Read moreThe Tension Between Public Health and Individual Liberty
Ed Yong received a Pulitzer Prize for his Covid coverage in The Atlantic, and he joins us to talk about how the pandemic is forcing the CDC to rethink its mission as it struggles to protect the greater good in an era of unchecked individualism.
Read moreHow More Policing Leads To Greater Unrest
Elizabeth Hinton joins us to discuss why the word “riot” is a racist trope and masks a long arm of history of over policing and neighborhood crackdowns.
Read moreYes, Immigration Courts Are Political
Alison Peck, a law professor at the University of West Virginia, joins us to talk about how we might remove politics from the immigration court system so that they can better serve both Americans and people looking to live here.
Read moreImagine If Every Weekend Was A Three-Day Weekend
Joe Pinsker, staff writer for The Atlantic, joins us to discuss why productivity needn’t rely on a traditional five days of work — and how some companies have cut office hours and found a boost in output and morale.
Read moreHow Laws Protect Sexual Abusers
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, and she joins us to talk about how pride, narcissism and toxic masculinity are hallmarks of abusers, and how these men have created a world that largely shields them from responsibility.
Read moreIt’s Time To Rewrite Our Traffic Laws
Planning consultant Angie Schmitt joins us to discuss the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, why everything from bike lanes to rainbow crosswalks is codified inside it, and why many argue it needs an update.
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