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It used to be that the movies were where you found profound meditations on subjects that mattered, while TV was the place for frivolous, escapist fare, but it sure seems like those roles have flipped in recent years. Joe asked Mark whether TV and streaming platforms are now ground zero for capturing the cultural zeitgeist.  Join Mark and Joe as they consider the state of screens large and small and the possibility that you might find multiple zeitgeists within our atomized society. (Recorded October 7, 2022.)

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When it comes to charter schools, people working on education policy tend to sort themselves into two camps: the lovers and the haters.  Charters are either dramatically improving the way we teach and learn, or they’re a right-wing plot to siphon money from public education and undermine teachers’ unions.  So, which is it?  Class is in session as Joe and Mark look at the history of charters, the fierce debate over their utility, and whether they’re part of the problem, the solution, or (spoiler alert) both. (Recorded September 23, 2022.)

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It’s a simple question, really:  Why can’t we control guns in America?  The answer is also deceptively simple: It's because we’re afraid.  Mark and Joe explore the deep divisions around gun control, the even deeper-seated fear of victimization informing the uniquely American behavior of stockpiling firearms, and how dry recitations of facts and statistics about gun violence are no match for our primordial fear of real or potential dangers. (Recorded September 2, 2022.)

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In college, one of Mark’s professors warned him not to interpret a memorable line about love in Homer’s Iliad to mean romantic love, which was, she said, a notion that first arose in Europe during the Middle Ages.  Ever since, Mark’s been wondering whether that's true, so he asked Joe about it.  Join Joe and Mark as they ponder a question immortalized by Cole Porter: What is this thing called love? (Recorded August 12, 2022.)

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A controversial 2001 academic paper suggested that there’s a connection between Roe v. Wade’s legalization of  abortion in 1973 and the reduction in crime that followed a generation later in the 1990s. With crime again rising  in a post-Roe America, Mark and Joe discuss the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis, the many alternative explanations  offered since its publication, and whether it’s even possible to know the truth of the matter. (Recorded July 22, 2022.)

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It’s strange to think that laughter –  involving the involuntary and sometimes loud expulsion of air, and which sometimes renders us helpless, struggling to breathe and with tears streaming down our faces – is a helpful evolutionary adaptation, but it is.  Joe humors Mark with an explanation of how this came to be. (Recorded July 8, 2022.)

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The COVID-19 pandemic killed millions of people around the globe and devastated cities that experienced the seismic shock of a severe economic downturn that emptied downtowns and shuttered many businesses. Many cities have still not returned to the pre-pandemic normal.  Mark and Joe contemplate what our biggest cities may look like in a work-from-home world. (Recorded June 17, 2022.)

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On a recent tour of college campuses with his daughter, Joe noticed how many more women were on campus than men, so he asked Mark whether this was true, and if so, why.  Join Mark and Joe as they discuss the very real phenomenon of declining college enrollment, why it disproportionately affects men, and what that portends for college education, for gender roles, and for the economic and cultural health of the nation. (Recorded May 13, 2022.)

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Sports are not only big business, they’re emotionally meaningful to millions of people throughout the world. But why? Aren’t there so many better and more important things to do with our lives? Mark asked baseball-loving Joe what it is we get from watching sports, individually and collectively. Joe and Mark cover all the bases before sliding home with the news that, done in moderation, watching can yield great gifts. (Recorded April 29, 2022.)