Act Six: Massachusetts
During an election in which it feels like the very existence of our democracy hangs in the balance, producer Sean Cole and someone very close to him have been dealing with their own immediate existential questions.
Sean Cole
Sean contributed to the show on and off starting in 1999, and then came on staff in February 2014. He’s also worked as a producer at Radiolab, a regular contributor to Marketplace, and a freelance reporter for lots of other shows and podcasts including Studio 360 and 99% Invisible. His career started at WBUR in Boston where he was a news-writer, engineer, announcer, field-producer, reporter and, finally, a correspondent for the station’s award-winning documentary unit Inside Out.
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Act One: Putting the Ease in Disease
To cope with this pandemic, producer Sean Cole finds himself turning to a movie about a pandemic, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? But the virus in this movie isn’t like any you’ve ever heard of. (20 minutes)
Prologue
Benjamen Walker of the podcast Theory of Everything tells guest host Sean Cole about an Uber drivers strike he came across in Kenya. The guys who didn’t join the strike and kept driving for Uber made extra money since there were fewer cars on the road.
Act Two: Popular Vote
The discovery of new information casts a new light on a high school competition. Producer Sean Cole talks to some of the people involved, more than a decade later.
Act Three: Outbreak Breakout
Across the country this week, thousands of incarcerated people have been ordered released early from prisons and jails to try to protect them from the coronavirus. Producer Sean Cole talks to Terry Smith, who got out of the San Francisco County jail last week.
Act Two: Call Me Maybe
A mom checking in on her son. A son figuring out who he can talk to about his mom.
Prologue
Sean Cole guest hosts. He was attacked in the street and happens to have a recording of the moment right afterwards.
Act Two: Book Fishing In America
In Richard Brautigan's novel "The Abortion," he imagines a library where regular people can come and drop off their own unpublished books. Nothing is turned away.
Prologue
After hearing about the heist, Kirk Wallace Johnson gets sucked into the feather underground. He ends up discovering things that the people in charge of the theft investigation didn’t.
Act One: The Most Expected Delay in Northern Ohio
Linndale, Ohio, is a town known almost entirely for its speed trap. Producer Sean Cole explains.
Prologue
Guest host Sean Cole tells a story about how he found the very perfect person to call for things large and small, and how Sean might be his guru's perfect person, too.
Act Two: Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Ira discusses James Comey’s Senate testimony this week, testimony that called the president a liar. And producer Sean Cole talks with Theo Greenly about a lie that bothered him for a while, a lie involving his cousin, an artist named Kenny Scharf.
Act Three: Maybe Pay Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
Disinformation and propaganda works differently in Putin’s Russia than it did during the Soviet Union. Instead of tamping down the opposition, the Russian government works to control the opposition.
Prologue
Ira talks to producer Sean Cole about a video he found of the rap duo Run the Jewels—giving advice to teenage girls.