Poultry Slam 2008

Greg Warner was living in Pakistan, on the border of Afghanistan, when he met a man—a tough guy, former smuggler—who wanted to break his friend out of prison. He'd bought an expensive amulet, to keep his friend safe during the breakout. But he wanted to test out the amulet first. On a chicken. So Greg and the man and Greg's translator go up into the hills, put the amulet on the chicken, and start shooting. Greg is a reporter based in Afghanistan. (13 minutes)

Working in a poultry processing plant is one of the most unpleasant jobs you can get in this country. It's low-paid, dangerous and difficult. Barely any poultry plants are represented by a union, especially in the South, where most of the plants are located. So worker rights advocates rely in large part on the church to help them organize workers. And in the past few years, they've been trying something new: They've been using the church to intervene with company management in a very, very personal way. This American Life producer Sarah Koenig tells the story of how one organizer tried this method with a manager at a company called Case Farms, and a plant they have in Morganton, North Carolina. You can learn more in the film Mississippi Chicken, a documentary about poultry factory workers in Canton, Mississippi. (15 minutes)

A short story about an orthodox Jewish man who dies on the operating table and goes to heaven. Where he meets God. Who has way more feathers than he expected. The story is from Shalom Auslander's book, Beware of God. Shalom is also the author of a memoir, Foreskin's Lament. (10 minutes)