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.
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Can Hospitals Survive Covid?
Vivian Ho is James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics and director of the Center for Health and Biosciences at Rice University, and she joins us to talk about the knock-on effects of the pandemic, from possible health-care bankruptcies to staffing issues, that hospitals are bracing for after the storm.
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Widening Inequality, One Home Sale At A Time
Max Besbris, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joins us to talk about his research into how “hot” neighborhoods are formed, the agents who market them, and how the system pushes up prices for all homebuyers, creating housing inequities along the way.
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Why Is It Taking So Long To Get Your Covid Shot?
Kaiser Health News correspondent Rachana Pradhan joins us to explain the very complicated process of producing these vaccines – a process money or even executive orders can only do so much to speed up.
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The Scammers On The Other End Of The Line
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee is a contributing writer at National Geographic, and he joins us to talk about his journey into the world of telemarketers and their phone mills selling dubious products.
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Unfriendly Skies: The Lives Of Flight Attendants
Journalist Darryl Campbell joins us to talk about the modern airline industry and how angry passengers and harsh working conditions are undermining efforts to protect the health and safety of both customers and staff.
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Extra! Extra! Read All About It! (On Nextdoor)
Will Oremus joins us to talk about how as local newspapers die out, the social media site Nextdoor is filling that need.
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A Post-Mortem On Texas’s Colossal Energy Failure
University of Houston energy fellow Ed Hirs and Texas Water Resources Institute associate director Wendy Jepson join us to explain why one of the toughest weeks in Texas history was likely preventable – and what the state needs to do to make sure an energy disaster doesn’t strike again.
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Rethinking Russia’s Place On The International Stage
Kathryn E. Stoner is the deputy director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and she joins us to explain how Vladimir Putin has used his iron grip on domestic power to rachet up his country’s influence on international affairs.
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Economic Growth Isn’t The Answer To Inequality
Stephen J. Macekura of Indiana University joins us to make the case that an ever-increasing GDP isn’t the answer to inequality and other social issues.
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How Ancient Cities Created The Modern World
Author Ben Wilson joins us to talk about the innovations of ancient cities, which connect the Sumerian city of Uruk to the world’s urban mega-centers of today.
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Evictions Follow You, Even If You Move
Megan Kimble, executive editor of The Texas Observer, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about tenant background checks that operate without oversight and the lives upended by a confusing system focused on serving landlords.
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