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Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode What Is Beauty?

About Bill Strickland's TEDTalk

Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music and unlikely partnerships.

About Bill Strickland

As a Pittsburgh youth besieged by racism in the crumbling remains of the steel economy, Bill Strickland should have been one of the Rust Belt's casualties. Instead, he discovered the potter's wheel and the transforming power of fountains, irrepressible dreams and the slideshow. While moonlighting as an airline pilot, Strickland founded Manchester Bidwell, a world-class institute in his native Pittsburgh devoted to vocational instruction in partnership with big business — and, almost incidentally, home to a Grammy-winning record label and a world-class jazz performance series.

This week's podcast highlights the familiar choice facing Americans in the wake of the NSA news: privacy vs. security. The case of Edward Snowden offers up another choice: hero or traitor? For Massachusetts voters, it's Ed Markey vs. Gabriel Gomez. In New Jersey, it's Cory Booker vs. the rest of the field. The real choice facing our nation: Ken Rudin vs. Ron Elving.

With two weeks until the Massachusetts special Senate election, the obvious question is: Can Republicans pull off another stunning upset like they did three years ago?

Back then, in the very blue Bay State, Republican Scott Brown won the seat left vacant by Ted Kennedy's death by riding a Tea Party and anti-Obamacare wave amplified by voter distress over a sour economy.

An improved economy has changed some of the dynamics since Brown's 2010 win. But it's understandable if Democrats might be having flashbacks right about now regarding the seat left vacant when John Kerry became U.S. secretary of state. Recent polling suggests the lead held by 18-term Democratic Rep. Ed Markey over Republican political newcomer Gabriel Gomez has dropped into the single digits from what was once a substantial double-digit advantage.

Wednesday, President Obama visited Massachusetts to campaign for Markey against Gomez, a onetime Navy SEAL who later worked for a private equity firm.

Obama's comments at a Markey campaign event held in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood were aimed at countering Gomez's constantly repeated allegations that Markey is a nearly four-decade-long Washington fixture who's had a hand in everything that's gone wrong over that period. Obama said:

"Ed has a track record, and that's why you know what he's going to do when he's a senator from the commonwealth of Massachusetts. He's not somebody who comes out of nowhere and says he's for something, and then maybe he's for something else.

"He's been steady, and he's been constant, working on your behalf. He's been strong, and he's been principled. And that's the kind of leader we need right now. That's what we need in the United States Senate. Yes, we can."

"Oh, I checked every place in town, and they were outrageous," Shannon Kelly said. "It would be anywhere from four to five hundred, and I just don't have that right now."

Kelly had just walked into Rent N Roll, a rent-to-own tire store in Ocala, Florida. She was looking to rent a set of tires for her truck. Tire rental stores like this one have been around for a while, but until recently, most of their customers rented fancy rims. These days, it's becoming more common for the stores to rent simple tires to people who don't have the cash to buy tires outright.

Customers like Kelly can walk out of the store with a new set of tires for about $30 — and a promise to make lots more payments in the future. In the long run, some renters wind up paying twice as much for their tires as they would have paid if they'd bought them outright.

Lots of factors have driven more people to rent tires. Tighter credit means fewer people using credit cards to buy tires. Stagnant wages and high unemployment make hard for many people to come up with enough cash to buy new tires. The price of rubber went up a while ago.

And, in 2009, the U.S. imposed a tariff on Chinese tires as part of a trade fight. That drove up the price not only of imported Chinese tires, but also of other tires, which no longer had to compete with the cheap Chinese imports. By the time the tariff was removed last October, the price of imported tires had risen roughly 40 percent. And that rippled all through the tire market.

Even if tire prices start to come back down, the tire rental business isn't going anywhere.

"I understand that I'll probably end up paying a lot," says Lyn Warren, a manager at McDonald's, who just signed up to rent brand new tires for his 2000 Honda. "But right now, I need the tires."