The Colin McEnroe Show

On July 6, 1944, a circus tent in the North End of Hartford caught fire. The tent covered three blocks. It was gone in six minutes. Roughly 170 people died. You'll understand my imprecision as we go along. Five employees of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and served minimal prison sentences. One of them, James Haley, was so unscarred by this that he later served for 24 years in Congress.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philippe Petit made his walk between the towers of the World Trade Center 40 years ago. He stayed up on that wire for 45 minutes, made 8 passes between the towers, got down on his knees, and he even laid down on it! But it's more than that one feat - it was a placeholder for a much broader philosophy of risk and creativity, and evidence of who the man really is.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Maybe Holden Caulfield was onto something when he ranted about "phoniness." This June, Michael Sharpe  resigned as CEO of FUSE, a Hartford-based charter school management company, when it came to light that he was not, in fact, a doctor, as his biography might have you believe.That got us thinking about faking it: Why do people commit resume fraud? What is with our obsession with titles? What happens when someone adopts a whole new identity?Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm pretty sure that in the summer of 1992, somebody tried to tell me about Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't get it, and there weren't that many chances to  break in as a Python fan. Their actual television show didn't begin airing on public TV in America until October of 1974. Then, in the space of about two years, they changed the face of American comedy. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we lead off with a quick discussion of a term floated on Fox News this week. "Beyonce voters," according to one commentator, are single women who depend on the government because they don't have a husband. You know, just like Beyonce.Is he for real or a democratic plant? He does get one thing right. The New York Times reports that "the decline of marriage in this last generation has created an emerging bloc of unmarried women that  is profoundly reshaping the American electorate."Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we talk about movie trailers. Maybe you wonder what a movie critic thinks of them. Actually, critics don't see as many as you do because they often go to special screenings.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Let's take the most dire problem facing humankind: Climate change has so many negative implications it would take all day to list them. Meanwhile, there's the possibility of a sudden acceleration of a problem caused by the melting of Arctic ice, which exposes more ocean water to warming, which causes more melting, which causes more...well, you get the picture.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's that time of year when nine people who were never elected decide all manner of questions about how we live. Monday marked the last round of Supreme Court decisions. By now, you probably know that in a five-four decision, they sided with Hobby Lobby in affirming the rights of employers to invoke their religious principles to opt out of the requirement to provide certain contraceptives otherwise mandated by Obamacare. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Nose, our culture roundtable, we'll tackle "Columbusing," the act of believing that something never existed before you discovered it. Also, this week's biting episode in the World Cup makes us wonder if vampires are setting a bad example.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What's become of game shows in America? Since their television debut in 1938 we've seen everything from microwave ovens to million dollar payouts awarded to lucky contestants.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.