identity

Thirty million red blood cells circulate twelve thousand miles in a never ceasing loop through our bodies every day. Our blood has to keep moving in order to perfuse every organ and vessel necessary to keep us alive. Nothing in our body works without the constant presence and movement of our blood. Yet, few of us think about our blood until we see a few drops trickle from a cut. Then, we're horrified by it.

Former Trump official Steve Bannon was disinvited from the 19th annual "New Yorker Festival" Monday, after David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, first invited him for a "serious" and "combative" conversation in which Remnick promised to pose "difficult" questions to Bannon. 

Many of us hoped the white nationalist movement that instigated last year's "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, would suffer a fatal blow. The majority of Americans condemned both the blatant bigotry displayed by the protesters and the president's failure to single out the nationalists as the perpetrators of the "hatred, bigotry and violence." He instead, said he saw that violence "on many sides."

That's not what happened.

In 2013, Jason Collins became the first active NBA player to come out as gay. We caught up with the seven foot, retired athlete during his visit to Connecticut for LGBT pride month.

This hour, we air our interview with Collins. We talk basketball, coming out in the world of sports, and more.

Coming out as gay can be difficult — even traumatizing — for young people. But what is coming out like for older men and women, some who were once married to heterosexual spouses and who have children?

This hour, we revisit our conversation with Dr. Loren Olson, author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight. 

Coming out as gay can be difficult — even traumatizing — for young people. But what is coming out like for older men and women, some who were once married to heterosexual spouses and who have children?

This hour, we learn more from Dr. Loren Olson, author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight. 

African Americans are a diverse group of people who live in our cities and our suburbs.

This hour, what does it mean to be black in Connecticut?

African Americans are a diverse group of people who live in our cities and our suburbs.

This hour, what does it mean to be black in Connecticut?

In September, the 11th U.S . Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it's OK for employers to tell their employees they can't wear dreadlocks. The case was brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against a company that rescinded a job offer to an African American woman who refused to cut off her dreads.

This hour, we feature stories and sounds from the West African country of Nigeria. 

First, WSHU reporter Ebong Udoma checks in from Abuja, Nigeria, where he's helped launch a brand new multimedia project called Gotel Africa. When completed, Gotel Africa will become the continent's first-ever pan-African news service. We learn more about it. 

This hour, we feature stories and sounds from the West African country of Nigeria. 

First, WSHU reporter Ebong Udoma checks in from Abuja, Nigeria, where he's helped launch a brand new multimedia project called Gotel Africa. When completed, Gotel Africa will become the continent's first-ever pan-African news service. We learn more about it. 

We've been talking a lot over this last year about problems like misogyny and violence in football, rape on college campuses, mass shootings, and increasing rates of suicide and addiction. What we don't say is that men are the victims of these behaviors as much as women, albeit in different ways. 

We often look for explanations in mental health, failed policy, or lax laws. But men overwhelmingly engage in these behaviors. Why are we reluctant to discuss what society expects from men, and whether those expectations are realistic? 

Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and his team are using some polarizing rhetoric as they try to hold on to Hartford city hall. Segarra is casting this as a race between "us" and "them," while others are calling it a fight for Latino pride.

Extraordinary numbers of people are about to join the ranks of the unemployed—by choice. They're about to retire. (Of course some are forced to give up work because of illness, injury, or a major change in circumstances.)

No matter how it occurs, who are you after you can no longer continue in work that in many ways has given you your sense of identity, what you say you are when you meet someone… a detective, judge, reporter, florist, teacher, bus driver.

Mario Pavone and Jimmy Greene are both veterans of Connecticut's jazz scene -- having grown up here, decades apart -- and both deciding to make the state their home.

Imagine two people. One of them is named Betsy Kaplan, the other, Betsy F.P.R. Academic studies suggest people, on average, would infer a higher intellectual capacity for Betsy F.P.R. Kaplan and be more likely to admire her and think she made more money than plain old Betsy Kaplan. A middle initial, says the scholarly literature, is basically a free ticket to higher status. 

Which makes it odd that each successive generation is less likely, overall, to use them. 

Maybe Holden Caulfield was onto something when he ranted about "phoniness." This June, Michael Sharpe  resigned as CEO of FUSE, a Hartford-based charter school management company, when it came to light that he was not, in fact, a doctor, as his biography might have you believe.

That got us thinking about faking it: Why do people commit resume fraud? What is with our obsession with titles? What happens when someone adopts a whole new identity?