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Act One: Weeds of Discontent

A recording of a very unusual conversation that came about in an unusual way. Filmmaker named Eugene Jarecki made a documentary about the drug war, prisons and the criminal justice system called The House I Live In.He’s been taking it around the country and showing it in prisons, and producer Brian Reed went to one of these screenings where an inmate and a corrections staff member ended up talking face-to-face.

Act Three: Mister Baby Monitor

Ira Glass speaks with a woman named Angie, who never understood why her dad got so excited about thermoses and phone books... until she happened to see this one movie.  Then Jonathan Goldstein tells a story about his friend Josh Karpati, who has two-year-old twins, and who never leaves the house. Jonathan hosts Wiretap on CBC Radio.

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Ira Glass plays clips from a documentary film called Please Vote for Me, by Weijun Chen. It follows a third grade class in central China in the very first election they've ever had or witnessed.

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Marti Noxon used to work for a company that did "product placement" for the movie industry. When auditors came to check that clients were being correctly billed, the company's bosses took unusual steps.

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Fans of movie musicals might know about something called the "I Wish" number. In many movies and Broadway shows, it's the main character's first song, in which they express the hope that will set the story in motion.

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David Rakoff tells a story from when he was a kid, about the day he realized the he would inevitably be viewed a certain way by his classmates, no matter what he did or said.