Parenting is never easy, but from prison it's especially challenging. In this episode, incarcerated fathers share their stories of striving to be present in their children's lives. One inmate reconnects with his son after 20 years. Another stays very involved through letters and visits. And a third gets the opportunity to give his teenaged son a haircut.

Thanks to the fathers who shared their stories: Derrick, John and Maverick, and to Derrick Jr. for talking with us.

Thick Glass was scored and sound designed by David Jassy and Antwan Williams, with contributions from Lee Jaspar (aka Matthew Lee Jasper), Eric “Maserati E” Abercrombie and Charlie Spencer. You can download Thick Glass here. 

Find out more about the show at earhustlesq.com, including how to send us a question (by postcard) that might get answered in a future episode. Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX.

p.s. Speaking of parenting, have you ordered your children (or parents) an Ear Hustle t-shirt yet?

A computer hacker tries to make his way home through two countries, a dense jungle and a seemingly endless string of technical challenges.

Season 10 Episode 4

In this episode, we talk about billioniare Mark Cuban's book and how he acquired his wealth. 

Click here to get full access to our show notes.

*This show was originally broadcast February 3, 2018. *It’s been ten years since former NASDAQ chairman Bernie Madoff was arrested for committing one of the largest financial crimes in U.S. history. For decades he ran a Ponzi scheme from a secret office in New York, duping thousands of investors out of billions of dollars. Many of them lost everything when the house of cards fell.

How did Madoff pull it off? And what steps have regulators taken in the past decade to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? For this week’s episode, we teamed up with Steve Fishman, a reporter based in New York City who’s followed the story for years. He produced and hosted a seven-part podcast for Audible called “Ponzi Supernova.”

Through interviews with financial experts, federal agents, Madoff’s cellmates and Madoff himself, Fishman explains how the $60 billion con worked, and why Madoff was able to elude regulators for decades. Fishman says that while Madoff was the mastermind of the scheme, it was banks and other financial institutions who “weaponized” him, turning him from a “local swindler” into an unstoppable force.

Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison, but no one from these institutions faced similar consequences. And even though some precautions have been put in place since Madoff’s arrest, financial experts warn that for the most part, investors are still on their own.

Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

When people are dying and you can only save some, how do you choose? Maybe you save the youngest. Or the sickest. Maybe you even just put all the names in a hat and pick at random. Would your answer change if a sick person was standing right in front of you?

In this episode, we follow New York Times reporter Sheri Fink as she searches for the answer. In a warzone, a hurricane, a church basement, and an earthquake, the question remains the same. What happens, what should happen, when humans are forced to play god?

Produced by Simon Adler and Annie McEwen. Reported by Sheri Fink. 

In the book that inspired this episode you can find more about what transpired at Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina, Sheri Fink’s exhaustively reported Five Days at Memorial

You can find more about the work going on in Maryland at: www.nytimes.com/triage

Very special thanks to Lilly Sullivan. 

Special thanks also to: Pat Walters and Jim McCutcheon and Todd Menesses from WWL in New Orleans, the researchers for the allocation of scarce resources project in Maryland - Dr. Lee Daugherty Biddison from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Howie Gwon from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Emergency Management, Alan Regenberg of the Berman Institute of Bioethics and Dr. Eric Toner of the UPMC Center for Health Security.

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