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371: Scenes From a Mall 12.26.08
This American Life spends several days in a mall in suburban Tennessee, to document life in the mall during the run-up to Christmas. Also, a rift in a national association of professional Santas—the...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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370: Ruining It for the Rest of Us 12.19.08
Stories of people who ruin things for everyone else...or who are accused of that. Like the San Diego parents who didn't vaccinate their child for measles.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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369: Poultry Slam 2008 11.28.08
A man in Pakistan wants to break his friend out of prison. He buys him an amulet that supposedly has the power to protect anyone from harm. But just to be on the safe side, he decides to test the...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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368: Who Do You Think You Are? 11.7.08
This week we bring you stories of privilege and the lengths some will go to to maintain it. In one story, a woman fights—on tape!—with her city's parking enforcer about playing favorites.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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367: Ground Game 10.24.08
This American Life goes to Pennsylvania, a battleground within a battleground, to figure out why, and how, John McCain and Barack Obama both think they can win there. And we get to know the ordinary...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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366: A Better Mousetrap 2008 10.10.08
Stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own. Alex Blumberg returns (in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast) with...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy 10.3.08
Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson—the two guys who reported our Giant Pool of Money episode—are back, in collaboration with the Planet Money podcast.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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364: Going Big 9.26.08
Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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363: Enforcers 9.12.08
Stories about people who take the law into their own hands, even when the line between enforcing the rules and breaking them gets kind of hazy.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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362: Got You Pegged 8.22.08
Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, and suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter—and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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361: Fear of Sleep 8.8.08
Mike Birbiglia got used to strange things happening to him when he slept—until something happened that almost killed him. Mike's story is included in his new book Sleepwalk With Me. This and other...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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360: Switched At Birth 7.25.08
On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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359: Life After Death 7.18.08
Stories of people haunted by guilt over their role in others' deaths, even when everyone agrees they're blameless.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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358: Social Engineering 6.27.08
Governments are always looking for ways to change behavior—stopping people from driving drunk, or encouraging them to recycle. This week, we have stories of social engineering on a smaller scale.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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357: The Truth Will Out 6.13.08
Does the truth always come out? Of course not! Though sometimes it comes out in the most uncomfortable ways imaginable. Stories of concealed truths bubbling to the surface, including a brand-new,...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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356: The Prosecutor 5.30.08
A lawyer in the Justice Department gets the professional opportunity of a lifetime: To be the lead prosecutor in one of the first high-profile terrorist cases since 9/11. But things go badly for him.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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355: The Giant Pool of Money 5.9.08
A special program about the housing crisis produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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354: Mistakes Were Made 4.18.08
It's the late 1960s, and in the new technology of cryonics, a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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353: The Audacity of Government 3.28.08
Stories of the Bush Administration, its unique style of asserting presidential authority, and its quest to redefine the limits of presidential power.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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352: The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar 3.14.08
In 1912 a four year-old boy named Bobby Dunbar went missing in a swamp in Louisiana. Eight months later, he was found in the hands of a wandering handyman in Mississippi. (The picture at left was...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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351: Return to Childhood 2008 3.7.08
Seventh-grader Kayla Hernandez likes to reminisce about when she was a child, back in fifth grade. She visits her school, where her fifth grade class met, and looks at her old books, thinks about...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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350: Human Resources 2.29.08
The true story of little-known rooms in the New York City Board of Education building. Teachers are told to report there instead of their classrooms. No reason is usually given.- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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349: Valentine's Day 2008 2.15.08
Veronica Chater's mother wants to go to a resort in Mexico with a friend. Her father, a former cop with an extravagant sense of security, prepares as if she's headed for a war zone. This, and other...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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348: Tough Room 2.8.08
This week we bring you backstage with comedy writers at The Onion. They start with over 600 potential headlines for their fake-news newspaper each week, and over the course of two days, in the very...- You must be logged in to access these features. Login / Register
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347: Matchmakers 1.18.08
Sabir, a young man in Afghanistan, thought he'd found true love but he couldn't afford a wedding. So two foreign aid workers, friends of his, decide to come to his rescue. They soon find out making a...
