Hector wants to run the best wastewater treatment plant in the country. He seems to be inspiring the people he works with in that direction, too. Then, whether we should feel guilty about guilty pleasures.

This week, the first two episodes of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about today, from the perspective of tomorrow. But first, a frog in a bedroom leads to a bit of climate panic.

Two stories about people using art to remember the past and, ideally, change something in the present.

What it took to turn Anne Frank’s diary into a mainstage opera; a new album from Witness Protection; and mysterious music coming into the radio station

Philosopher Susan Neiman on why the left should be wary of wokeness, how Germany’s reckoning with its past has become more complicated, and why the differences between two European philosophers - Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault – matter for politics today.

Todd Burkhardt is a veteran, and he’s started asking other veterans to do needle felting with him. And drawing. And making masks. This week, what happens when vets do art.

Sam’s day job involves removing invasive plants and restoring native ones. Fire is one of the ways he does that. He’s a lifelong hunter, too - that’s what got him into landscape restoration. This week, a walk in the woods with Sam Shoaf.

It'll only take a minute.

We think of the foster care system as being about care. Micol Seigel says within the system people do care for each other. But it’s primarily about policing.

It’s a mixtape! Five songs (okay, stories), by five different producers. Three are about being behind the scenes. One’s about your dad retiring. And an investigation into love.