137: The Book That Changed Your Life

206: Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been in the news thanks to an extra-long deployment that's taken a toll on its crew. What's life on an aircraft carrier at war really like? Back in 2002, we spent a few days on the USS John C. Stennis, which was sending bombing missions into Afghanistan. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners [https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes] to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Alex Blumberg talks with sailor Crevon Scott, who stocks vending machines on the Stennis. (00:04:52) Act One: Aboard the USS Stennis, Ira Glass and Wendy Dorr talk with sailors about life on board. Off duty, people play video games, work out, or practice in one of the ship's many garage bands. Ira and Wendy also talk with sailors about how rumors travel on the ship — conversations that get back to the top brass, who give the producers heat for chasing salacious stories. Ira interviews the captain, James McDonell, and learns the ship is facing a fresh water shortage. (00:32:30) Act Two: As pilots head to their planes for a mission, they explain how hard it is to land on an aircraft carrier. Wendy talks with sailors Cynthia and David, waiting for the 8PM movie to start, and she and Alex talk with sailors in the mess hall. Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/206/transcript] / This American Life privacy policy [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy]. / Learn more about sponsor message choices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices].

895: Label Maker!

Labels are powerful. They can distill you down to a single word. They can get stuck on you without your permission. And sometimes, when they get taken away, they can upend your entire life. On this episode: labels and the havoc they wreak. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners [https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes] to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Sara and Ethan have been dating for 10 months. They see each other at least once a week, text pretty much every day, and have been there for each other through hard times. But they refuse to have the “what are we?” conversation. So what gives? Guest host Tobin Low looks into it. (5 minutes) (00:05:14) Act One: Last week, when Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, was cut off for Haitian immigrants, some 300,000 people had their lives upended. Marie, a Certified Nursing Assistant in Boston, was one of them. Producer Chana Joffe-Walt spent time last week with Marie as she tried to figure out exactly when her very last day on the job would be. (21 minutes) (00:27:57) Act Two: Comedian Janet McNamara was walking off stage 15 years ago when the club owner asked, “Hey, have you ever been tested for autism?” No one had ever asked her this before, so Janet decided to look into it. (17 minutes) (00:44:01) Act Three: When you get down to it, labels are just our way of pointing out what we think is remarkable about other people. That’s Alfred Jung Lee’s argument. He’s been thinking a lot about how we describe each other, especially as he tries to describe his wife, who passed away from cancer. (10 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/895/transcript] / This American Life privacy policy [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy]. / Learn more about sponsor message choices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices].

894: I Couldn't Help but Notice

People dealing with new, glaring, massive changes happening right where they live. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners [https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes] to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Rick Cole, a city councilmember in Pasadena, CA, talks to Ira about how he responded to a surprise nighttime military exercise in his neighborhood this June – complete with helicopters, gunfire, and flash bangs. (5 minutes) (00:05:30) Act One: A doctor trained as a midwife tells the eye-popping story of how she and others came together to save a baby during a birth that suddenly went wrong, in a part of rural Maine where the local labor and delivery unit had closed less than a month before. (26 minutes) (00:34:56) Act Two: Producer Valerie Kipnis never felt inside the jokes and stories her family would tell about growing up in the Soviet Union, until she saw this year's Oscar-winning documentary, Mr. Nobody Against Putin. The film follows the changes unfolding in one school as Russia rolled out a nationwide propaganda push after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Valerie interviewed the young teacher at the center of the documentary and learned things that never made it into the film. (21 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/894/transcript] / This American Life privacy policy [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy]. / Learn more about sponsor message choices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices].

893: Testosterone

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered everyone over 30 in the military to have their testosterone tested. That inspired us to rerun this classic episode where everyone at This American Life tested their testosterone and compared results. It did not lead to workplace harmony. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners [https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes] to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg, who explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells Ira that the reasons go back to a girl in his 8th-grade homeroom. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment, and found his entire personality was altered. (10 minutes) (00:10:45) Act One: What’s it like to get injected with testosterone? When Griffin Hansbury transitioned, he got massive shots of it and was surprised at the effect it had on him. (17 minutes) (00:27:56) Act Two: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested to see who has the most and least, and whether personality traits actually match hormone levels. (13 minutes) (00:40:16) Act Three: What happens when a man suddenly loses all of his testosterone? We return to Alex Blumberg’s interview from the top of the show with a man who that happened to. He says life without testosterone is life without desire. By that he doesn’t mean sexual desire. He means any desire. (6 minutes) (00:46:47) Act Four: Novelist Miriam Toews interviews her 15-year-old son, someone at an age when boys experience a jolt of ten or twenty times the testosterone they had as children, about all the things she doesn’t understand about what he’s going through. (11 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/893/transcript] / This American Life privacy policy [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy]. / Learn more about sponsor message choices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices].

892: Trapped on a Bus

People on journeys they did not intend — or agree to. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners [https://thisamericanlife.supercast.com?utm_id=lifepartners&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=shownotes] to sign up for our premium subscription. (00:00:00) Prologue: A woman on a nighttime bus ride wakes up to discover the bus driver is taking the passengers somewhere none of them want to go. (8  minutes) (00:08:11) Act One: Ayman Oghanna was reporting in Syria when he got a surprising call from home: one of his neighbors had been arrested for spying. (13 minutes) (00:21:18) Act Two: Eileen Sosin Martínez describes life in Havana right now, where blackouts have become so constant that it’s nearly impossible to make ice and garbage trucks don’t collect the trash regularly. (11 minutes) (00:33:33) Act Three: A beloved tree in England, more than 100 years old, is mysteriously cut down overnight, leaving the country bereft and enraged and out for justice. (15 minutes) (00:49:31) Act Four: When she was 16, Leticia flew from Sao Paolo, where she lived, to Germany. She was seated next to an older woman who did something so surprising during the flight that Leticia still tells people about it today. (9 minutes) Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/892/transcript] / This American Life privacy policy [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/page/privacy-policy]. / Learn more about sponsor message choices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices].