Ira spends hours talking to James Hackett, known to his friends, and by the end of the story, to Ira, as Gig. He's a doctor in Cincinnati and a lifelong Republican.

They are ordinary people who go undercover in coffee shops and chain stores, spying for The Man. This American Life producer Lisa Pollak reports.

Patrick Howell, a gay Republican from Orlando, goes on what might seem like an ill-fated hearts-and-minds mission at the Republican Convention.

Julia Whitty's father's cancer medication cost $47,000 a year if she bought it in the United States. It cost $1,200 a year if she bought it in a foreign country.

Host Ira Glass talks with two Vietnam veterans about what it was like to leave the army and come back to civilian life. Both of them, to their surprise, missed the excitement of combat.

Host Ira Glass talks about the surprising way apologies tend to play out in couples when one person has cheated on the other, based on stories his mother, Dr. Shirley Glass, told in her book Not Just Friends. And contributing editor Sarah Vowell tells us about the time she couldn't stop apologizing.

Mike is a Democrat, the yellow dog kind. The guys he works with—rich guys, like him—are mostly Republican.

This American Life producer Lisa Pollak goes canvassing with her friend Andy in Ohio. He's a first time door-knocker for MoveOn.

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. Shalom Auslander is the author of a book of short stories, called Beware of God.

It seems apples for the teacher is a bygone tradition. Host Ira Glass talks to Mindy, a first-grade teacher, about the rather racy gifts her students give these days at Christmas.

Lisa Carver's nine-year-old son, Wolfgang, was born with a rare illness that, among other things, makes it impossible for him to eat anything by mouth. He's fed through a g-tube, straight into his stomach.

Susan Drury reports on a group of Glenmary Sisters who chose to leave the Catholic Church in the 1960s but still stay nuns, more or less. Several of the former sisters, Monica Appleby, Helen M.

Some family legends are most notable for their absence. They're too disturbing or scandalous to tell.

Gregory Warner reports on a program that solves a problem that's been plaguing prisons for years. But there's just one catch...prison guards hate it, because it gives inmates special treatment.

When Darren's car was stolen in Washington, D.C., he did what everyone does: He called the police and figured he'd never see the car again. But within a week, as he was driving his rental he spotted his stolen Toyota, and chased it, with some help from the nice lady at 9-1-1.

Tapes from The Apology Line, a phone line connected to an answering machine where people leave anonymous apologies—but not to the people they actually hurt. Also, an interview with "Mrs. Apology," a.k.a.

Out with a man on a moonlit walk on Lake Geneva, an American woman does the proper thing. He does not.

We hear the eerily calm answering machine message that Brita Bonechi leaves for her husband, Rob, after she's had an accident and is trapped upside down in her car.

When Ira heard that Cathy La Luz, the best public school teacher he'd met during all his years of education reporting, was considering leaving her job, he went to see her in her classroom.

Colin Dunn had an A average as an eighth grader, and he was in a program for gifted kids. But he hated school.

For millennia, people have tried to reach a spiritual promised land by fasting. Jesus did it.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a report condemning the Bush Administration for what it called "distorting and censoring scientific findings that contradict" Administration policies. One of the cases cited in the report involves something called the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning.

We continue with the story of Eddie Schmidt and his parents, Josie and Bob, who tell the greatest Aunt Mary story of all time: the one about the provolone, the glance, and an aggrieved woman's attempt at revenge.