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713: Made to Be Broken
Aug. 7, 2020

Prologue

Benjamen Walker of the podcast Theory of Everything tells guest host Sean Cole about an Uber drivers strike he came across in Kenya. The guys who didn’t join the strike and kept driving for Uber made extra money since there were fewer cars on the road.
728: Lights, Camera, Christmas!
Dec. 25, 2020

Act One: Christmas in 3-D

Maya Gurantz tells the story of Glenn and Laurie Mutchler, who go further than most parents to create a magical Christmas for their kids, Colin, Erica and Adam. Theirs included a family mythology of Santas that had its own logic, with many Santas and a family elf named Jeko, who were never jolly and often thrillingly scary.
709: The Reprieve
June 26, 2020

Act Four: Mr. Eastside

Some of the first Covid-19 patients to arrive at Henry Ford Hospital were police and others who’d attended a community breakfast in early March called "Police and Pancakes." Aaron K. Foley has this story of this breakfast and of one man — Marlowe Stoudamire — who ended up at Henry Ford.
716: Trail of Tears
Sept. 4, 2020

Act One

Sarah Vowell and her twin sister, Amy, retrace the Trail of Tears. They visit the town in Georgia that was the capital of the Cherokee Nation before the Cherokee were expelled. They enjoy a tourist trap hotel in Chattanooga. They go to Ross's Landing, the embarkment point for the water route of the Trail of Tears. (27 minutes)

Act Two

Sarah Vowell's story continues. She and Amy visit the home of President Andrew Jackson, the villain in the Trail of Tears drama. They drive west to Cherokee graves in Kentucky and a commemorative marker that's been placed, oddly, at an Arkansas high school. They head into Oklahoma, where the Cherokee settled and where they were born. Sarah talks with her oldest living relative about the Trail. And she and Amy end their trip at the place where they first heard about the Trail of Tears: an amphitheater where every summer, they saw a dramatic two hour recreation of the Trail. (23 minutes)