Episode summary: Errol Morris’s documentaries are visually unmistakable, whether they’re about pet cemeteries or the morally bankrupt “great men” of American history. Thanks to his optical invention, the “Interrotron,” Morris’s subjects’ are looking straight at those of us in the movie theater and,...

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Episode summary: Comfort turns to horror when the night becomes weaponized - used to terrorize and control. This is the most ominous embodiment of the night. Its most salient symbols are those of burning crosses, and the nightriders delivering their messages of terror.

Episode summary: A new show from Pushkin Industries: Cautionary Tales. We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “Messy” and...

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Episode summary: A coal mining disaster in Utah places the mine’s owner in the media spotlight. Prelude: The Sago Mine disaster leads to renewed scrutiny on mine safety. Support the show by becoming a ValuedListener™ at Patreon.com/Swindled. Or donate directly at SwindledPodcast.com/Support. Or buy...

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Episode summary: Two statistics about reducing your risk of an early death made headlines around the world recently. The first seems to be a great reason to add a four-legged friend to your life. It suggests that owning a dog is tied to lowering your chance of dying early by nearly a quarter. The se...

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Episode summary: Get the bonus materials for this episode: http://joyoflanguages.com/how-to-say-i-agree-in-italian/ Practise your Italian in our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/5.minute.italian Todays Italian words Sono d’accordo = I agree Sono = I am Di = of Accordo = accord Non sono d’ac...

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Episode summary: A listener finds a UFO floating in the sky over a leather store, and Alex sets out to find the man who put it there. John R.E.’s Google reviews The UFO above Sav-Mor Leather Behind the Scenes of On the Inside (http://replyall.limo/ontheinside)

Episode summary: 50 years after it was first recorded, Ralph McTell and others discuss a song that was written for a heroin addict, became an anthem against homelessness, and transcended the folk genre to become an enduring classic. Ralph McTell says he’s thought constantly about the “blip in my gra...

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Episode summary: In November 1995, Ira Glass quietly launched the first episode of This American Life. The rest, as they say, is history. Today his show is a colossal success and Ira Glass is a household name. But in the intervening two decades, Ira has left an indelible mark on the industry by help...

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Episode summary: There are symbols all around us that we take for granted, like the lightning strike icon, which indicates that something is high voltage. Or a little campfire to indicate that something is flammable. Those icons are pretty obvious, but there are others that aren’t so straightforward...

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