This American Life (Unofficial)

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...

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 compl...

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.