For the 100th episode of This American Life, a radio show about the pleasures of radio. About what makes radio so great, and what makes it so terrible.
The Invisible Leading The Blind
Jack Hitt talks about a radio station he chanced upon while on a long drive. The station seems to ignore the last six decades of broadcasting history and convention. Jack is the author of Off the Road: A Modern-Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route into Spain. (10 minutes)
The Radio Most People Listen To
How the science of radio enabled V103 to become tied for number one in the Chicago market. And how it cost DJ Ida Hackele her job. (18 minutes)
Noble Calling
Now in exile, Jose Ramos Horta spent two decades as the leading international spokesman against the invasion of his country by Indonesia. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. And one day when peace finally comes to his country, East Timor, he will move on to his next dream: to be a radio talk host, just like Howard Stern. (10 minutes)
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Act Three: Who Watches The Watchmen?
Judges give their opinions of the drug sentencing laws.
Act Four: Paradise Lost
Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an impostor and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it.
Act Two: A Sense Of Place
Filmmaker Tony Hill took his friend Sally Goode, who was born blind, to a place she'd never been before, then taped her trying to figure out where she was.
Staff Recommendations
Mistakes Were Made
Freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds.
Sissies
A family where the father was one kind of sissy and the son was another kind, and how the family was destroyed despite the fact that no one wanted it to be.