The Colin McEnroe Show
Episodes
The Psychology Behind Branding and the Changing Soda Industry
04 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When was the last time you enjoyed a sugary soft drink? If it's been a while, it may be because health movements have begun to turn consumers away fro...
The Nose Misses Howard K. Smith
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Which side are you on?In the mammoth PEN Awards kerfuffle, that is. Table captains have walked out over the award being given to the survivors fr...
Which Writers Get Museums?
30 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Twain has many literary sites; yet Henry James has none. You can visit Edith Wharton's house but not Shirley Jackson's. You can walk where Wallac...
Are We Predisposed to Believe in Religion More Than Science?
29 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
University of Kentucky Biology professor James Krupa is frustrated with the resistance of his non-biology students to accept the theory of evolution a...
Life, Death, Church, and ALS: a Conversation With Nancy Butler
28 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time Nancy Butler lived in the Beltway and used her MBA to secure a high paying job with a defense contractor. But Butler had consid...
A Tale of Two Leakers: Punishment Discrepancies in the Military
27 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Former general and CIA director David Petraeus will not go to jail for leaking classified information to his biographer and mistress. Last week, he wa...
The Nose: Ben Affleck Owned My Grandma
24 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One of the unwritten rulers of a weekly culture show like The Nose is that, if you're willing to "go low," as they say, you could probably alternate b...
How Do We Even Know What Time It Is?
23 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There was a time when almost everyone wore a watch. There was a time when almost everyone had a mechanical clock in their home. There was a time when ...
The Science of Snake Oil
22 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We like to think of health care as an exact science: established guidelines, uniform practices, rigorously tested treatments vetted through extensive ...
A Conversation With Elizabeth Alexander
21 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ficre Ghebreyesus and Elizabeth Alexander were born two months apart in 1962, he in Eritrea, she in Harlem. They didn’t meet until 1996. He was an a...
The Scramble: America's Marathon Is Back in Boston
20 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Patriots' Day is a time for celebration in Boston and across the nation. The biggest event held on this day every year is the Boston Marathon, which h...
The Nose: Me and You and a Van Named Scooby
17 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We don't usually talk politics on The Nose, but that's OK, because Hillary Clinton isn't really talking politics (much) yet either. Instead...
Remembering the Black Panthers in New Haven
16 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Forty-five years ago, the attention of the nation and much of the world swung toward New Haven, where the murder trial of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggi...
Live From Watkinson: A Conversation With David Edelstein
15 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody's a film critic, right? I mean, who walks out of a theater with no opinion about it? Also, nobody's a film critic. By that, I mean that most...
The Death of President Lincoln
14 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
To mark the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, we look back the event and how it changed America with two local histori...
Urban Violence: The People Behind the Statistics
13 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Governor Dannel Malloy last month announced he'll bring together a panel of community leaders and experts for the first time today to take a loo...
The Nose: Does This Fat Make Us Look Dressed?
10 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Let me just come right out and say it: I am fat.”We're not even sure when it started, but Candice Bergen, who was always perfect and who is still...
The Untold History Between the U.S. and Puerto Rico
09 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The United States has a long and complex relationship with Puerto Rico that changes dramatically depending on who is telling the tale. Support th...
Unraveling the Web of Deception
08 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We fool people all the time. Whether with bad intent or not, deception has become a common practice in today's society. While modern tools such as tex...
Anything to Get Ahead: How Cheating is Becoming a Standard Practice
07 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cheating can be found everywhere these days. Whether in school, sports, business, politics or taxes, cheating it seems, is as much a part of our cultu...
The Scramble Hates Duke (But Isn't Sure Why)
06 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The stage is set for the national championship in men's Division I college basketball. Sure, your team might not be there, but you know who to root ag...
The Nose: Can You Be POTUS and Not Like Dogs? Can You Host TDS After a History of Rough Tweets?
03 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The only people who might have had a wilder roller coaster ride than Trevor Noah this week were the owners of Memories Pizza in Walkerton, India...
The Case Against Owning Exotic Pets
01 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It's official: owning a dog or a cat is just not as cool as it used to be. Nowadays, anybody who's anybody owns a monkey, or a leopard, or a slow lori...
Smiling Will Get You Everywhere
31 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On the series "NewsRadio," the character played by Phil Hartman once said, "Experience once taught me that behind every toothy grin lies a second row...
Waking Up To The Morning Zoo
30 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
You're probably no stranger to the Morning Zoo if you were in your teens or twenties in the 1980's. Developed after the death of disco left Top ...
The Scramble Goes Clear
30 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This weekend, HBO premiered a documentary about the Church of Scientology that has been generating headlines and controversy for months. What new info...
The Nose: "Footloose" in China; Sexy in South Windsor; Obsequious in Oklahoma
27 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Our topics today involve censorship, transgression, and reconciliation. Earlier in the week, The Nose panelists started talking about China's "da...
What's In a Name?
26 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Author Michael Erard is interested in how and why we name things - especially non-human objects and animals - and how naming affects our perceptions a...
Combating Corrosion: America's War on Rust
25 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rust is all around us. It's in our cars, our homes, our infrastructure. It's also the subject of Jonathan Waldman's first book, Rust, which introduces...
The Scramble: Lewinsky Shames the Shamers; Art Gets Painted; and Lamar's On-Top of the Music World
23 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Before cyber-bullying was even a term, one person was experiencing it from the internet world mercilessly: Monica Lewinsky. Nearly 20 years after her ...
When Does a Medical Condition Become a Disease?
23 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors have been treating the symptoms of their patients, often before they know the cause, for centuries. But as medicine has gained sophistication ...
The Nose Talks Race While Sipping Starbucks
20 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Starbucks is trying to start conversation about race relations in America, led by baristas across the nation. The effort has had mixed reviews. &...
Countering Extremism: Dismantling an Ideology Through the Power of Ideas
19 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Here in America we're taught to celebrate ideas, to think outside the box and to fan the flames of innovation whenever possible. But what do we do whe...
The Madness of the NCAA
17 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It's that time of year again when productivity slides, sleep is lost and frustration runs high. No, there's not another financial crisis - just March ...
Connecticut Grown Tobacco
17 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Shade tobacco came to Connecticut in 1900 from the island of Sumatra, which was beginning to dominate the world of cigar wrappers. The leaf had a ligh...
What's It Like to Be a Pediatrician in the Internet Age?
16 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sixty years ago, patients rarely questioned the authority of their doctors. Like the doctors portrayed on television, these older, wiser, and usually ...
A New Haven Nose: College Kids Behaving Badly
13 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Oppenheimer hosts an All-Star New-Haven Nose Panel from New Haven.For as long as fraternities have acted poorly, adults have quietly tolera...
Bring Back the Beaver
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we take a deeper look at the beaver.Beavers are sophisticated eco-engineers, one of few animals capable of broadening biodiversity and currentl...
The Plight of the Composeress
10 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, female composers have often found themselves overshadowed by their male counterparts. Take Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Anna Magdalena Bac...
Achieving Immortality: How Science Seeks to End Aging
09 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The dream to live forever has captivated mankind since the beginning. We see this in religion, literature, art, and present day pop-culture in a ...
The Scramble: Reopening "The Jinx"; Women on $20 Bills; Reaction From Selma
09 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A new HBO series raises new questions about murder suspect Robert Durst. He was found not guilty of one murder but remains on law enforcement's radar ...
The Nose Has Been Reading So Many Books
06 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In a couple of weeks the nation will be transfixed by a competition in which basketball teams advance through a tournament laid out as a series of bra...
The Romance of the North
05 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It's cold, snowy winters like this that make us question why we choose to live in a place where snow, sleet, and wind define one-third of the year. &n...
What Will We Name It: The (Gulp) Hartford River Hogs?
04 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On Wednesday we find out the finalists for Hartford's new minor league baseball team. Will it be the Hartford Blue Frogs? How about the Hartford Honey...
Open Wide! The Story of Our Teeth
03 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This hour, we sink our teeth into, well, teeth! We find out why oral hygiene is so important to our health, and why Americans are so obsessed with str...
The Scramble: Our Past, Police, and Progressives
02 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Arthur Chu argues that Andrew Jackson is the worst president we've ever had, and his face should be removed from the $20 bill. For starters, Andr...
The Nose Tackles #llamas, the Robin Thicke Trial and the Dress That Broke the Internet
27 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What did we talk about before there was the dress? The dress was made for the Nose and vice versa. The Nose is our Friday session when we get sm...
Understanding the Human Microbiome
26 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We’re finally going to do a show about you! And when I say this, I’m not talking to the people listening, but to the microbes living in their armp...
Isn't It Time to (Really) Talk About Iraq?
25 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a newspaper column about the Brian Williams debacle, except it really wasn't about that. It's about the way a rela...
Who Killed the King?
24 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One of the things you will learn this hour is how close New Haven came to being a possession of Spain. Even if you think you know the story of the New...
The Scramble: Oscars, Baseball and Coventry Market
23 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
I totally get the case against the Oscars and I look forward to hearing our friend Steve Almond make it on the show today. The case is that the creati...
The Nose: 2015 Oscar Edition!
20 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Academy Awards are almost upon us! It's hard to focus on the best movies of 2014 when you're already looking forward to the next SpongeBob movie, ...
Unlocking the Mysteries of Alzheimer's Disease
18 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
My mother was an Alzheimer's patient. I think it's fair to say the disease killed her although like a lot of people in their 80's with serious illness...
Has Our View of Corruption Been Corrupted?
18 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There's a new anti-corruption task force in Connecticut replete with billboards asking the public to report the corrupt. This hour, we explore the his...
Innovation in the Arts: The Search Continues
17 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It's hard to imagine: the idea that the arts, the grand bastion of our creative genius, may soon be bankrupt. But are new ideas really an unlimited co...
The Nose Weeps at the Loss of Jon Stewart
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Washington is rigged for the big guys - and no person has more consistently called them out for it than Jon Stewart. Good luck, Jon!On the next Nose, ...
Exploring What It Means To Be Jewish
12 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jews make up 2.2% of the population although it fluctuates depending on who gets counted. The U.S. Jewish population is roughly the same size, north o...
Gastromusicology: Exploring the Flavor of Sound
11 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In his book Classical Cooks, Hartt professor Ira Braus explores the link between musical and culinary taste. This hour, he joins us to explain the rel...
Visceral Voting: The Psychology Behind Picking a Politician
10 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we vote the way we do? The easy answer, of course, is that we pick the politician whose values, beliefs and opinions most closely resemble our ...
The Scramble's Memory Betrays It
09 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There is a lot of news about the fallibility of memory. Brian Williams is currently out of the NBC Nightly News anchor chair because of problems with ...
The Nose Remembers Broadcasting From the Alamo
06 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Our plan, from the beginning, for today’s episode of The Nose had been to ask the panelists to see “American Sniper” and then discuss this...
Eggstrordinary Eggs!
05 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Just about all of us eat eggs and when we say that, we mean chicken eggs. But, there are all kinds of other eggs you can eat. I cook occasionally with...
Beyond Mark Twain: A Conversation With Hal Holbrook
04 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
I get to talk to a lot of remarkable people and still I tell you that you're about to hear a conversation with one of the most remarkable people I've ...
Is the Television Sitcom Dead, Hurting, or Thriving?
03 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
People have been predicting the death of the sitcom since at least 1999, but the current TV season has been so toxic towards them that some observers ...
The M.B. Show: Mike Birbiglia and Mark Bittman
01 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
I know what you're asking yourself. You're thinking, I know the Colin McEnroe staff is amazing, but how do they manage to book two big celeb...
The Nose Only Watches the Super Bowl for the Commercials
30 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On the Nose this hour: pre-watching Super Bowl ads.Super Bowl advertisers have forced us (conned us?) to live in their world, not just for Sunday, but...
Giving Wings to Flight
29 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This hour: the story of Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert's incredible journey to make "impossible flight" possible. Support the show: htt...
Overconfidence Is Overrated
28 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Here's my favorite one. Eighty-four percent of Frenchmen rate themselves as above average lovers. Ninety-three percent of young drivers in another sur...
Puzzles: The Joy of Being Perplexed
27 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
People have been puzzled since the beginning. And while that might sound like a problem, it may in fact be our preferred state of being. Since the fir...
This Is How You Survive the Storm
26 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We decided to bow to reality, and make this hour all about getting ready for the storm. You’ve heard about the storm, right? We begin today with NBC...
Dancin' in the Moonlight: Connecticut Dance Halls
23 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
This hour, we talk about two Connecticut dance halls, each springing from the vision of two very different men who took their respective dance halls d...
An Ode to Opera
22 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 2012, the New York City Opera -- what Mayor LaGuardia called "the People's Opera" -- declared bankruptcy. This is/was the opera that intr...
Live From Watkinson School: Can a Song Change the World?
21 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
If you want to reach people, sing to them, and make them sing. Experience tells us that singing changes people's relationships to reality, maybe even ...
The Scramble: Word of the Year, Football, and "The Nightly Show" Premieres
20 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2014 is vape. I can get behind that. It's a word that describes something a lot of people are doing and it ...
The Nose is Still Waiting for its Oscar Nomination
16 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Academy Awards are not intrinsically important; therefore, Academy Award nominations are not intrinsically important, but these things are great momen...
The History and Influence of Soap Operas
15 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier today, Julianne Moore got an Oscar nomination for "Still Alice." She is by far the betting favorite to win the best actress award. But you may...
Fire: Sparking Imagination Since Two Million B.C.
14 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Things burn: Our environments, resources, and all forms of monument to self. And since the beginning, so too has our imagination. The inspiration huma...
The Spice of Life
13 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The word spice has a kind of urgency. You don't need spice but historically, it's something people wanted enough to travel long, unfamiliar routes to ...
The Scramble: Cartoonist's Psyche, D'Angelo, and "Transparent"
12 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Today on the Scramble, we talk to two cartoonists about the road ahead from the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I'm still wrestling with some of my own questi...
The Nose Wraps its Head Around Satire
09 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Later in the show, we discuss this essay in praise of the conventional office life, but first, Colin writes: Support the show: http://www.wnpr.or...
The Mystique of "Jeopardy!"
08 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What is it we salute when we salute the flag of Jeopardy? I really don't know the answer nor do I know how to put it in the form of a question. There ...
I'm So Tired -- At Least, That's What My Head Is Telling Me
07 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 1954, Roger Bannister did the previously unthinkable. He ran a mile in under four minutes. Six weeks later, his chief rival John Landy, did the sam...
Historical Deletion and Censorship
06 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There's a mostly forgotten story by the mostly forgotten sci-fi writer, R.A. Lafferty. It's called, "What's The Name of That Town." We meet a team of ...
The Scramble: NYPD vs. deBlasio and Remembering Icons and Institutions
05 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The year is off to a tumultuous and sad start. Some New York Police Department officers continued their protest of Mayor Bill de Blasio at a funeral f...
The Agony and Utility of Ecstasy
02 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
"Molly" is the nickname for MDMA, or Ecstasy, and it's short for "Molecule", meaning you're getting the "real thing", chemically speaking. Except you ...
Round Out the New Year with "Big Al" Anderson and Jim Chapdelaine
31 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
If you've ever watched "Nashville," you've heard the songwriting of "Big Al" Anderson. If you've ever listened to the band NRBQ (The New Rhythm and Bl...
Best Jazz of 2014
30 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s so hard to keep up on jazz, especially for the person with only a casual interest. That’s why, every year, critic Gene Seymour and some music...
America's Greatest Living Film Critic Scrambles 2014
29 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
One nice thing about the holidays is that David Edelstein, America's Greatest Living Film Critic, comes back to his hometown and joins us for a conver...
Instant Replay! The Nose Is All Serial All the Time
26 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Which are you? The kind of person who can't wait to talk about Serial? Or the kind of person who doesn't do it, doesn't get it, and dreads having othe...
Holiday Songs to Perk You Up and Settle You Down
24 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It's just unthinkable to me that "Why Can't It Be Christmas Time All Year" is not a classic, and a staple of holiday music. But it's not. In fact, you...
Unraveling the Web of Deception
23 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
We fool people all the time. Whether with bad intent or not, deception has become a common practice in today's society. While modern tools such as tex...
Michael Price Says Goodbye to Goodspeed
22 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It doesn't really even make any sense what has happened at the Goodspeed Opera House every since Michael Price took over the late...
The Nose Is All Serial All the Time
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Which are you? The kind of person who can't wait to talk about Serial? Or the kind of person who doesn't do it, doesn't get it, and dreads having othe...
Cracking the Code of Alan Turing
18 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Let me set the stage a little: A movie called "The Imitation Game" will be released nationwide Christmas day, the latest of several attempts to tell t...
Hartford Convention: 200 Years Since We Started the Fight Over States' Rights
17 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Legend holds that years after the the Hartford Convention, a visitor from the South was touring the Old State House and asked to be shown the room whe...
Thomas Moore on "A Religion of One's Own"
16 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Moore was, for 13 years, a Servite monk. In 1992, he burst onto the national scene with "Care of the Soul", which combined the psychotherapeuti...
The Scramble: Hacks, Lawsuits, and "Sacred Journeys"
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Hollywood sometimes has an image problem and recently leaked emails from Sony executives are not helping that image. Responses from some of those exec...
The Nose: The Pope's Pups, Sports in the Court, and The Lawyer Who Paid Too Much
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Pope Francis changed our plans for The Nose today when it was revealed informally that the souls of animals may go to heaven. In fairness, the Pope wa...
Botox Isn't Just for Faces Anymore
11 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Botox was first approved for medical use 25 years ago. It's famous as a quickie cosmetic fix but new uses pop up all the time.Today, Botox application...
A Little Jealousy is Good for Us All
10 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Jealousy, Peter Toohey explores the less talked about side of the green-eyed monster. That is, he takes a look at some...