Ira invites Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon to perform a song from his Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog DVD extra commentary, which is a musical satire that pokes fun at the idea of DVD commentary.

There are some situations where making judgments about people based on limited amounts of information is not only accepted, but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. TAL producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim going through the first stage of open adoption: Reading dozens of letters from prospect parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing.

Host Ira Glass talks with This American Life producer Julie Snyder about a personal regime change that happened when she was a kid, after her parents got divorced and her stepdad came on the scene. She says that by the time her parents separated, literature on what to tell the children was everywhere, and the kids took it relatively well.

Ira with Michael Lewis, author of Losers: The Road to Everyplace but the White House and many other books, who says that in the '96 Presidential Election all the candidates with new ideas, all the candidates capable of talking the way real people act in their real lives, were shunned by the media as "wacky." (10 minutes)

Host Ira Glass goes to the Federal Express hub at Memphis to watch 1.2 million pieces of overnight mail get sorted in one night and to talk to the adrenaline junkies in the FedEx Command Center.

Producer Zoe Chace talks with host Ira Glass about following Senator Jeff Flake, and how when he announced his retirement she thought her reporting had ended.

Ira Glass talks to Brian Reed about encountering an intriguing plaque in Alabama.

Host Ira Glass talks with Ben Calhoun about how Democrats are furiously trying to retake New York’s 19th congressional district. The sitting Republican is considered very vulnerable, and has been the subject of weekly protests that even have a house band.

What one professor saw in voter registrations that others didn’t.

Producer Emanuele Berry plays Ira Glass some weird inside his head tape of presidential hopeful Cory Booker trying to walk two blocks.

After his mother passes, a man unearths her book collection… and is surprised. (6 1/2 minutes)

Nadia’s family has been isolating and disinfecting everything for weeks, and yet a cold still managed to creep in. How?

The Amsterdam Fire Department has a very surprising sensitivity training video called “The Incident with the Helmet." (5 minutes)

David Kestenbaum talks to one teacher there who’s already gone through a month of in-person learning to see what the  future might hold for other schools.

Host Ira Glass talks with Georgia Democrats who went out to “cure” ballots in a state with some of the closest results in the country.

Dr.

So yes, climate change is real and most Americans believe that’s what we’re seeing around us right now. But there are people out there who look at the same evidence the rest of us do and take it to heart in a way most of us don’t.

Ira and Ben consider how officers could be flagged for bad policing in a more systematic way, rather than the freak occurrence of a couple walking into an officer’s home and finding a KKK application up on his wall.

Miami writer Mario Alejandro Ariza on how his city is trying to beat back the impacts of climate change.

Ira talks with Cassidy, a 10-year-old who has to take a very long route when he encounters an unfamiliar word in a book.

Chaunte Vaughn’s mother recently died of Parkinsons. Even though Chaunte doesn't believe in ghosts, she is visited by her mom's ghost multiple times.

Nine months ago, these people wanted abortions. But then, the laws changed. They had to wait to get an appointment, figure out how to get out of state or order abortion pills.  In that waiting, other things happened. (5 minutes)Today’s show was inspired by the excellent reporting of Caroline Kitchener.

Ira talks with Shalom Auslander, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew and who made a pivotal break with his faith at a Rangers game.