Ryan Knighton tells a story about trying to get his daughter to understand his blindness.

Perhaps the biggest proponent of smaller government in the United States is lobbyist and activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. He envisions a government reduced in size by half, and has compelled scores of conservative politicians take pledges to never raise taxes.

A man who believes he's turning into a cockroach reaches out to a world famous doctor for advice. Except the doctor will only respond in rhyme.

For a generation of baseball fans, when a pitcher suddenly stops being able to perform, it's known as "Steve Blass Disease" — after an all-star pitcher who inexplicably stopped being able to throw strikes. Ira Glass speaks with Steve Blass and others about this phenomenon.

Everything about political fundraising is changing right now, because of the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.

Kristen Finch was a speech therapist who sometimes worked with kids with Asperger Syndrome, symptoms of which include emotional distance, inflexibility and missing social cues. Kristin and her co-workers often joked that all their husbands had Asperger's, since the symptoms overlap with stereotypically male personality traits.

Ira talks with UC Davis Professor Kathy Stuart about a macabre trend that dates back to 17th and 18th century Europe. It seems that in order to avoid eternal damnation for the sin of committing suicide, a number of people began committing murder for the express purpose of turning themselves in, confessing their sins to a priest in order to be blessed and forgiven before being executed.

In July, Tig was diagnosed with cancer. A week later she went on stage on Los Angeles and did a now-legendary set about her string of misfortunes.

Ira Glass asks guest host Alex Blumberg whether we should really care about the current European debt crisis. The answer: yes, we should, and we should WANT to care too, because this story—and it's actually the story of the Euro itself—is very surprising and dramatic.

Producer Sarah Koenig reports on a company called Journatic, that is producing local journalism in a brand new way.

Chana and Alex explain that when people talk about Greece today, they're really talking about Italy...meaning, where will the crisis hit next? And is it going to hit the US? (10 1/2 minutes)

Ira takes a flight with travel writer Ken Hegan, to witness Ken deploying a travel gadget that keeps the seat in front of him from reclining.

There are so few farmers in the United States that in 1993, the census stopped counting the number of Americans who live on farms at the time. But in China, despite the vast migration to cities in recent years, more than half the country still lives in rural areas.

Reporter Habiba Nosheen tells the story of how investigators first heard of human remains at Dos Erres, and how they discovered what the Guatemalan military did there.

What should we make of what Mike Daisey saw in China? Our staff did weeks of fact checking to corroborate Daisey's findings. Ira talks with Ian Spaulding, founder and managing director of INFACT Global Partners, which goes into Chinese factories and helps them meet social responsibility standards set by Western companies (Apple's Supplier Responsibility page is here), and with Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times who has reported in Asian factories.

Chana and Alex tell what happened next, when technocrats in Germany andother solvent European countries tried to fix the crisis by actuallyenforcing the original rules for Euro Zone membership. It turned out thateven determining the real deficit in Greece was no easy task.

Reporter Josh Bearman tells Ira a story about two coded messages that Galileo sent to fellow scientist Johannes Kepler back in the 17th century. Galileo was trying to tell Kepler about some of the amazing discoveries he made with his new telescope.

In preparing for this show, we started reaching out to Americans living in China and asking for their stories. A shocking amount of the expats came back with stories about different times they were on Chinese television.

A group called NO/AIDS heads into bars to offer free HIV testing for high-risk people. Writer Nathaniel Rich tells the story of one man's test.

Mary Archbold's story continues. She talks to Ira about the tactics she uses to hide her disability, and why she goes through all the effort to do it.