This American Life (Unofficial)

It's the largest mass resettlement that America has seen since the Civil War, as over 400,000 people—victims of Hurricane Katrina—try to find a new place to live. From the Houston Astrodome to an abandoned New Orleans street, stories of people looking for home...and finding something else.

Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage.

Stories about being sucked into something against your will. In one story, a 9/11 widow finds herself having to comfort another distraught woman on national TV. And in a story by Nick Hornby, a boy is forced to play soccer to save his nation.

Stories of people and institutions who are worried about what the world thinks of them, and who take action...decisive action.

Stories about the pitfalls of knowing just a little bit too little.

The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. It's one of the few cases that has gone to trial in the War on Terror, and one the Justice Department has pointed to as one of their big successes. In the end, they got Lakhani, red-handed, delivering a missile to a terrorist in New Jersey. The only problem was, nothing in the sting was what it appeared to be. Including the missile.

Stories about getting back together with your parent, your spouse, your ... Brahman bull. And how it never goes the way you think it's going to.

At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a "Biblical world view" in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere, This American Life spends an hour trying to remember why anyone liked the separation of church and state in the first place.

In honor of Father’s Day, stories of sons and daughters finding out the one thing they've always wanted to know about their father. The answers aren't always what they’d hoped for.

Stories about how easy it is for communication to go awry, and what the consequences can be after it does.

Stories about people who end up making choices they'd rather not make, when their options begin to run out. Sometimes this works out great; sometimes not so great.

Stories of people who try simple mind games on others, and then find themselves way in over their heads.

Stories about trying to understand who's on your side. The defense minister of Israel visits would-be suicide bombers in prison, only to find out that in at least one case, he feels sorry for the terrorist. A prosecutor tries to censor a punk rock star. He takes him to court, but never bothers to listen to his lyrics. During the trial, he begins to think twice about his mission. Plus other stories.

Stories about people teetering on the edge of this question: Should they stay or go? A software writer loses his job, but refuses to go away. He continues to show up at work, sneaking in the door each day and putting in long hours on a project the company canceled. A student from Pakistan finishes four years of college in Philadelphia and has to decide whether to move back home. And other stories.

Stories about people who are remembered very differently than they'd wished. The ghost of a kindly, distinguished philanthropist supposedly plays pranks on guests at a Ramada hotel in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. A dying mother makes a tape for her developmentally disabled daughter, hoping she'll watch it someday, knowing she might not.

After four lawyers fail to get an innocent man out of prison, his friend takes on the case himself. He becomes a do-it-yourself investigator. He learns to read court records, he tracks down hard-to-find witnesses, he gets the real murderer to come forward with his story. In the end, he's able to accomplish all sorts of things the police and the professionals can't.

Sometimes, getting your big break isn't all it's cracked up to be. A comedy duo lands the gig that can make them famous—the Ed Sullivan Show at the height of Sullivan's popularity—and they bomb. A third-grader gets his big chance to please his mother and push his drunken father out of the picture. And other stories.

What life is like for American soldiers in Iraq.

Stories about people who love their cars, for better or for worse.

Stories about amateur spies—regular people who spy on other regular people, and the consequences of their spying.

It's rare that a successful apology happens. One where you apologize to someone, not for selfish reasons, but because you're really sorry and you want them to know that, and when the person you're apologizing to really hears what you're saying. Three stories of people groping toward that moment.

A journey through the minds of undecided voters. For months—through the Swift Boat ads, the convention speeches, the debates—we tracked a few of these voters to find out why they just can't make up their minds. Plus, a story of someone courting undecided voters, and another about people trying to sabotage undecided voters (and everyone else).

Ten years ago, when he was still a reporter for NPR's All Things Considered, host Ira Glass did a year-long series on a Chicago public school where things were getting better. Test scores were rising. Students were motivated. Last year, changes at the school dismantled some of the programs that had made for the school's success, and one of the best teachers in the school is thinking about quitting. We devote the whole hour to this story, about the rise and fall of school reform.

Behind enemy lines, sometimes people get confused about whose side they're on and how to fight the enemy.

Stories about people deciding whether to give it their all. There's one story about a person who hasn't, one story about someone who has—in a situation where success seems very unlikely—and one story about people who just can't help themselves.

Stories of the Republican Party, America's new majority party. Yes, they're still just barely the majority in the Senate...and in the last Presidential race...and in state legislatures around the country, where they hold just one percent more seats than Democrats nationwide.

Stories about adults struggling to figure out what is in the best interest of some child. And in situations where, what is best is not so clear.

How, one might wonder, could a simple hunk of cheese drive a wedge between an aging aunt and her devoted niece? Sure, every family has its share of grudges, secrets and bad behavior. What's harder to understand is how those things end up changing family relationships in ways no one could have predicted. Three stories about family legends that have either been kicking around for years or been completely suppressed.

Letting someone else take care of you can change everything. Three stories of couples in which one partner is trying to take care of the other, sometimes with more resistance, sometimes with less.

Three stories about people who decide to try out a new life—the kind of life their parents never wanted for them.

Perhaps there was a time when the rules of polite society were clear. No longer. This week, we bring you stories of people forced to try to figure out how to maintain their dignity—and decency—in some very unsettling situations.

Today's show is devoted to just one story. Contributing editor Nancy Updike went to Iraq to try to figure out what it's like to be a private citizen working in the middle of a war zone. Private contractors are a part of this war in unprecedented numbers, but we don't know that much about the people doing these jobs — why they chose to come to Iraq, and what they're seeing that we can't.

Stories of people trying to drag science where it doesn't belong.

We love it when we get it, but is it ever really fair? A defense of special treatment, by people who receive it and people who give it.

Stories of people stuck in unfixable situations who try desperate measures. Sometimes these are inventive, sometimes they're ingenious, sometimes they even work.

People looking for miracle cures, some from above, others from abroad. A son tries to help his mom in a faraway place defy the laws of medical science. A daughter tries to help her dad by going to a faraway place to defy the laws of the United States of America.

Stories trying to understand what actually happens in marriages during this time when the definition of marriage is up in the air. Music throughout the hour by a real wedding band, a good one: The Doug Lawrence Orchestra.

There's what happened, and there's the story that gets told about what happened. Sometimes the two things don't match up very well. This week, two case examples—ripped, as they say, from today's headlines—of the story that's told becoming the truth, even though the facts don't back it up.

For millennia, people have tried to reach a spiritual promised land by fasting. Jesus did it. Buddha did it. Monks and saints and new age gurus have done it. And, for for this episode, the late David Rakoff tried it. He did a 20-day fast, to find out if it would bring him any form of enlightenment. Also, contributor Starlee Kine tells a story about getting as close to one promised land as you possibly can, without actually going in.

People leaving the situation they're used to and striking off for something less familiar.

People return to the scene of the crime where they should have spoken clearly, plainly, forcefully...to review what the hell went wrong, and in a few cases, to fix it. Jonathan Goldstein tries to stop time. Charles Monroe tries to figure out how to teach a lesson to the President of the United States.

Stories of people living without. Nubar Alexanian explains what fish can do for him that his own ears cannot. Sarah Vowell explains the cheerful journalism of deprivation. And other stories.

The vexing difficulty of finding the perfect gift.

In early 2003, we brought you a special show about a California teenager, Hyder Akbar, who traveled to Afghanistan, his family's homeland, for the first time. His father had moved back to work for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Hyder brought along a tape recorder, and his audio diary, produced by Susan Burton, won the Silver Award for Best Documentary at the 2003 Third Coast International Audio Festival.

Stories from faraway, hard-to-get-to places, where all rules are off, nefarious things happen because no one's looking, and there's no one to appeal to.

During the highest turkey consumption period of the year, we bring you a This American Life tradition: stories of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, fowl of all kinds—real and imagined—and their mysterious hold over us.

Biblical fables ripped from today's headlines. In his ongoing effort to write his own version of the Bible, Jonathan Goldstein retells the story of Cain and Abel. Finally we hear Cain's side of the story. Plus: neighbors in a small town in Illinois wonder if they could have stepped in—as their neighbors' keepers—to prevent a brutal triple murder. And the story of a man who lives his life among his political enemies, feeling responsible for the problems he believes they're creating for everyone.

Why is it always harder than you think it'll be? We explore several case examples of the annoying gap between theory and practice.

We make what's usually invisible, visible: the world of trash. We follow the trash from the sanitation men on the street, to the mob guys who controlled the hauling business, to the people who actually live in dumps.

Some stories we make happen, others happen to us. Extremes from the latter category, where people let things happen to them and don't act, even when maybe they should. David Rakoff guest hosts.