The news has been awash in reports of the rising death tolls for the Las Vegas shooting and the ongoing devastation in Puerto Rico. This week, why the media’s emphasis on the numbers distorts our understanding of tragedies. Also, a case for using the word “terrorism” more cautiously; what we get wrong when we make assumptions about country music; and a look what it means to be human in the context of Blade Runner.

1. Bob ruminates on the media’s knee-jerk attempts to quantify a crisis. And Omaya Sosa Pascual, a journalist with the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico, discusses the scale of devastation on the island.

2. New Yorker columnist Masha Gessen explains why the media should apply the term “terrorism” with care.

3. Buzzfeed News’s world correspondent J. Lester Feder on how country music went conservative. 

4. Historian Nadine Hubbs examines generic assumptions about country music, and how they betray an underlying discomfort with the working class in America.

5. Historian Alison Landsberg speaks with Brooke about Blade Runner and human memory.