The Colin McEnroe Show

humor = tragedy + timeOkay, but then the logical next question is: How much time?If it's okay, at this point, to joke about, say, The Spanish Inquisition... what about, for instance, the Holocaust? Or AIDS? September 11th? The #MeToo movement?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The history of sugar is a complicated one. Once available to only the rich and powerful, sugar now shows up in everything from cereals and soups, to cigarettes and body scrubs. It is known to both have medicinal qualities and to contribute to a variety of health problems.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We tend not to think much about that pat of butter we put on our morning toast, including how the store-bought sweet cream butter we're eating likely pales in comparison to the rich, nutty flavor of  the cultured butter not found in many stores.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August 16 -- yesterday -- is kind of an oddly busy day in the history of popular culture. In 1954, the first issue of Sports Illustrated was published. In 1962, Pete Best was fired from The Beatles. In 1948, Babe Ruth died. In 1958, Madonna was born (and so she turned 60 yesterday). In 1977, Elvis Presley died. And yesterday, a new August 16th-shaped dot was added to the timeline of pop culture: the death of Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul was 76 years old.And: The new Spike Lee joint, BlacKkKlansman, is set in 1970s Colorado Springs, Colo., and it tells a story that's about race relations in all of America right now, today. It's "a slapstick comedy, a blaxploitation throwback, and an incendiary Molotov cocktail thrown into the foray of the modern multiplex," and it's being called Lee's "hardest-hitting work in decades."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do recent events such as #MeToo, the election of Donald Trump, and an onslaught of mass shootings perpetrated by white men all have in common? They’ve all provoked important cultural conversations about manhood in America.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hannah Arendt's 576-page magnum opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is a densely-written book about the rise of anti-Semitism up to the outbreak of World War I. The book sold out on Amazon within one month of the 2016 election in which America elected Donald Trump as their next president. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Primary Day in Connecticut! We know a lot of people can't vote in today's primaries because they're either not registered with one of our two major political parties, they're one of the millions of Americans on vacation during one of our final weeks of summer, or they just don't know about it. Maybe, it's all of the above.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many of us hoped the white nationalist movement that instigated last year's "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, would suffer a fatal blow. The majority of Americans condemned both the blatant bigotry displayed by the protesters and the president's failure to single out the nationalists as the perpetrators of the "hatred, bigotry and violence." He instead, said he saw that violence "on many sides."That's not what happened.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week announced changes to the annual Oscar awards, including a new category recognizing "outstanding achievement in popular film." Eligibility requirements and other details haven't been announced, but that hasn't stopped the film world from having strong opinions.And: Bo Burnham is a comedian, musician, and actor who was a teen YouTube star. He’s directed a few comedy specials -- including Chris Rock's Tamborine -- and as of this week, his feature film directorial debut, Eighth Grade, is in wide release. Its "queasy verisimilitude" has earned it a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sand is the most abundant material on Earth. And, other than water and air, sand is the natural resource we consume more than any other -- more, even, than oil.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.