The Pod Piper

THE LIST 1. Slow Burn  - "Cred" Paula Jones is a name I've heard many times in relation to Bill Clinton. But I'll be honest, I never really knew how they were connected. This episode tells the story from a couple perspectives, and highlights anti-Clinton players who had complex and evolving ties to the former president. 2. Futility Closet  - "Grover Cleveland's Secret Surgery" Presidents do things in secret. Like have surgery. On a boat. This sort of secret goings-on maybe happens all the time, but the tale of the coverup and the tarnished reputations of those involved were what made this bit of history compelling. 3. Criminal  - "Palace of Justice" The immense scale of World War II has the potential to congeal into one large bygone conflict in the minds of today's youth (including my own flirtations with the past). The Nuremberg Trials, like Paula Jones, were a thing I'd heard a lot about - and for the record I knew...

THE LIST 1. On The Media  -  "Twitch and Shout" When media outlets step outside their wheelhouse to cover content that is beloved and obsessed over by a community, even uninitiated spectators tend to collectively sigh and indulge in knowing, eye-rolling judgment about the failed attempt to decipher a hidden world. It's like the Facebook trial all over again, where learned professionals make fools of themselves as they betray their utter lack of knowledge of a given subject. While comparing On the Media to some provincial CBS affiliate's nightly news team would teeter on the brink of blasphemy, I certainly did not expect Bob and Brooke to cover the world of e-Sports. It's possible that my admittedly outsidery perspective is missing some glaring oversight here (and Bob does unfortunately utilize the label 'newbies' during the episode, squandering maybe the best opportunity WNYC has ever had to use 'n00bs' in a journalistic context). But gen...

THE LIST 1. Slow Burn  -  "Deal or No Deal" The critically acclaimed Slate podcast is back with it’s second season! This time around Leon Neyfakh will be taking us down the rabbit hole of the Bill Clinton impeachment hearings, and this first episode about Linda Tripp setting up Monica Lewinsky and the fallout thereafter was completely mesmerizing.  2. Radiolab  -  "Sex Ed" Kids say the darndest things, and Mississippi educators model condom application using a sock! The concluding (live) chapter in the Gonads miniseries from Molly Webster is equal parts mind boggling, hilarious and insightful. In other words, Radiolab at it’s best. 3. Criminal  -  "On the Run" White collar crime stories don’t inherently have the same dramatic appeal as crimes of passion populated with lurid details and unspeakable acts. But what if a white collar dude is actually a seriously subversive international criminal mastermind? You’ve got a plot for a criti...

THE LIST 1. This American Life  -  "ICE Capades" This episodes casts a broad and surprising picture of the infamous agency that continues to dominate headlines. There is definitely an emotional hook, natural for a story ostensibly about separating families, but the amount of nuance sets “ICE Capades” apart from the well-meaning cries to abolish the agency. Politics, human interest, and a longform journey into a multi-year scam preying on people backed into a corner..  2. The Anthropocene Reviewed  -  "Googling Strangers and Kentucky Bluegrass" Perhaps the most impactful chapter of the John Green-hosted podcast, this matchup of disparate forces in the human driven world lays bare an incredibly personal story from the author’s past. Each episode seamlessly imparts tidbits of universal human connection, but these two subjects are especially rife with commentary on what it means to be alive in our modern world. 3. Planet Money  -  "The Po...