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516
January 17, 2014

Stuck In The Middle (2014)

Jan Brady is not the only one who hated being in the middle. This week we have stories about how it sucks to be in limbo or be the mediator, but we also hear from a man who absolutely loves being in that uncertain and boring middle most of us dread — on hold, listening to hold music.

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Steve Koukoulas

Prologue

Rachel has two kids. Elias, age seven, is a vegetarian. Theo, age five, is not. But Elias wants Theo, and everyone else in the house, to be vegetarian too. So Rachel and her husband are in the middle of negotiating the desires of two very strong willed kids.
Act One

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Sara Corbett's father-in-law Dick is 81. And he's become obsessed with a limbo most of us hate – the music he hears whenever he's on hold. Sara is co-author of the book A House in the Sky.

Here is the hold music, Opus No. 1.

By

Sara Corbett

Song:

“Nowhere to Go” by The Four Freshman
Act Two

Sunrise, Sun-Get

Mark Oppenheimer reports on agunah in the Orthodox Jewish community. An agunah is a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce – in Hebrew it means "chained wife." If you're an Orthodox Jew, strictly following Jewish law, the only real way to get divorced is if your husband agrees to hand you a piece of paper called a get. Without the get, women who want out of their marriages can stay chained to their husbands for years. In New York, a couple of rabbis were recently accused of using violence to force men to give their wives a get. Mark writes the Beliefs column for The New York Times.

By

Mark Oppenheimer

Song:

“Blue, Pt. II” by Waxahatchee
Story Update

"Stuck in the Middle" Update: Gital Got Her Get

Act Three

They Love a Man in a Uniform

Sarah Carr is a reporter and blogger in Cairo, Egypt. Her blog inanities.org is regularly cited as one of Egypt's best blogs and English language news sources coming out of Egypt. She tells us what things are like in Egypt during their middle period – the transitional phase that started three years ago when people took to the streets, eventually resulting in the army ousting Hosni Mubarak after 30 years of authoritarian rule.

By

Sarah Carr

Song:

“Stuck” by Middle Class Fashion & “Repeat” by The Wimps

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