This American Life

This American Life
This American Life
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Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

  1. The Ten Commandments

    5 DAYS AGO

    The Ten Commandments

    For Easter weekend — and the end of Passover! — stories of people struggling to follow the Ten Commandments. Host Ira Glass reads from the Ten Commandments. Not the original Ten Commandments, but some of the newer, lesser-known ones. There's the Miner's Ten Commandments of 1853, the Ten Commandments of Umpiring, and the Ten Commandments for Math Teachers — just to name a few. (4 minutes) Commandments One, Two and Three: As a boy in religious school, Shalom Auslander is informed that his name, Shalom, is one of the names of God, and so he must be very careful not to take his own name in vain. (9 minutes) Commandment Four: Six houses of worship in six different cities, each with its own way of honoring the Sabbath. (3 minutes) Commandment Five: When Jack Hitt was 11, he did the worst thing his father could have imagined. Neither Jack nor his four siblings will ever forget the punishment. (6 minutes) Commandment Six: Alex Blumberg talks to Lt. Col. Lyn Brown, an Army Reserve chaplain who served two tours in Iraq. Brown talks about what "thou shalt not kill" means to soldiers on the battlefield. (6 minutes) Commandment Seven: In the book of Matthew, Jesus says that looking lustfully at a woman is like committing adultery in your heart. Contributor David Dickerson was raised as an evangelical Christian, and for many years tried not to have a single lustful thought. (9 minutes) Commandment Eight: Ira talks to a waiter named Hassan at Liebman's Deli in the Bronx about some audacious thefts he's witnessed in his years in the restaurant business. (3 minutes) Commandment Nine: Chaya Lipschutz wanted to donate one of her kidneys to a stranger. But to save a stranger's life, she had to break the commandment against lying. And the person she had to lie to was her mother. Chaya talked to Sarah Koenig. (8 minutes) Commandment Ten: Ira talks to seventh-graders about the things they covet most. (4 minutes)

    1 hr

    Hosts & Guests

    4.6
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    4,078 Ratings

    About

    Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

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