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Past Shows
Extraterrestrial Encounters
Stand by for news from outer space: news the government never said it was collecting or considered important, perhaps because people who take UFOs too seriously risk ridicule sooner or later. That taboo is lifting. ...
Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach
This show first aired on May 21, 2020. The force of art to rescue a world breaking down; the power of music in particular to heal people one by one, perhaps all together: this was ...
Lab Leak
There’s a swerve in the road, signs that say “Sharp Curves Ahead,” in the origin story of the COVID pandemic. Where did that virus come from? And how did it leap to the human species, ...
The Sackler Empire
The opioid epidemic, still rampant, still deadly, turns out to be a family story at its root. Empire of Pain is Patrick Radden Keefe’s account of the drug company that touched off an American plague ...
Pandemic Premonitions
A year and a half into the COVID story, notice the many unknowns, and one big known. Even now, nobody can tell you absolutely whether the infectious virus might have leaked, or been leaked, from ...
COVID in India
The humbling of India, the torment of India, is full of messages for the rest of us. Beware the second wave of the pandemic: that’s the one that has turned India’s boastful first round into ...
Armenia in History and the Heart
Where is Armenia, the place, the idea? Where then? Where now? And how come the delight on top of the darkness in saying “I am Armenian”? Armenians were a tiny, ancient Indo-European people, between East ...
The Free World
Recovery and renewal arrived on a flood tide that lifted all kinds of production—culture above all. This was the era that gave the world a new look: tail fins on new cars, Jackson Pollock’s drip ...Etcetera
September 15, 2019
Thank you, Michael Haynes!
If Open Source had ever had a chaplain, it would have been Reverend Michael Haynes, who went to glory on Thursday this week at the age of 92. Chris Lydon is forever quoting the preacher ...
November 1, 2018
Whitey, We Hardly Knew Ye
A conversation with Howie Carr, David Boeri, and Richard Marinick. Jimmy Bulger, known as Whitey, was a nasty curse on the old Irish urban village of South Boston. At the same time, he was the ...
May 10, 2018
Trump Goes Rogue In Iran
Dropping out of the Iran nuclear deal has the feel of dropping into the John Bolton phase of the Trump era. Trump in Full. Trump Extra. The theme is No More Mr. Nice Guy, or ...
March 29, 2018
Van Morrison’s Cosmic Accident
In the annals of rock music albums, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is one of a kind. In an earthy medium, it’s a masterpiece of abstraction. Indecipherable. Irresistible. Influential. Accidental, it seemed, from the first licks ...
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