Episode 19: Father Pfleger, Larry David, and the History of Autism

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2016

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Father Michael Pfleger, a white priest on Chicago’s South Side, holds a funeral for a young man who threatened his life; Larry David applies his passive-aggression to Missed Connections listings; and the authors of a new book on autism discuss “patient zero,” an elderly man in Mississippi who was the first person ever to receive the diagnosis.

Transcript

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0:00.0	438.
0:04.0	I'm excited to be having a conversation with someone when they have that revelation.
0:11.3	It's like finally.
0:12.0	It's pretty huge.
0:15.0	You mean you're good if you have a source for it?
0:17.0	Yeah, the telegraph.
0:19.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:29.6	I'm David Remnick, and this is The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:32.7	We have a lot coming up today, including, I'm very excited about this, a performance by Larry David in fine
0:38.3	form as an impossible crank venting on the Internet. So stick around for that. We're going to start
0:45.0	off, though, in Chicago on the south side. Chicago, like much of the country, is a safer place than it was
0:50.8	25 years ago. The murder rate is, roughly speaking, half of what it used to be.
0:56.3	But violence on the south side remains stubbornly, tragically high, and many neighborhoods
1:01.4	there have been dangerous for generations.
1:04.3	Among the people trying to change the south side is a priest named Michael Fleger.
1:09.2	Father Fleger is such a well-known figure
1:10.9	that Spike Lee based a character on him
1:12.8	in his recent film, Shirek.
1:16.1	Evan Osnos has been spending a lot of time
1:17.8	with Father Fleger lately,
1:19.3	and he attended a funeral recently
1:21.2	that Fleger led for a young gang member.
	...

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