This American Life

553: Stuck in the Middle


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People caught in limbo, using ingenuity and guile to try to get themselves out.

  • Prologue: Rachel has two kids. Elias, age seven, is a vegetarian. Theo, age five, is not. But Elias wants Theo, and everyone else in the house, to be vegetarian too. So Rachel and her husband are in the middle of negotiating the desires of two very strong willed kids. (12 minutes)
  • Act One: Sara Corbett's father-in-law Dick is 81. And he's become obsessed with a limbo most of us hate – the music he hears whenever he's on hold. (14 minutes)
  • Act Two: Mark Oppenheimer reports on agunah in the Orthodox Jewish community. An agunah is a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce – in Hebrew it means "chained wife." If you're an Orthodox Jew, strictly following Jewish law, the only real way to get divorced is if your husband agrees to hand you a piece of paper called a get. Without the get, women who want out of their marriages can stay chained to their husbands for years. In New York, a couple of rabbis were recently accused of using violence to force men to give their wives a get. (17 minutes)
  • Act Three: Brett Martin documents a previously unnoticed human phenomenon, one that involves airplanes, crying, and Reese Witherspoon. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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