481: This Week

Ira Glass

Tuesday, Tucson, Arizona.

Ira Glass

Rediet Seifu moved to the United States from Ethiopia four months ago. She's learning English. And once a week, one of her teachers from the City High School in Tuscon, Sarah Bromer, takes her to Ike's coffee shop to practice a simple English conversation.

It goes like this-- Rediet orders tea. That's it, actually. That's the whole thing. Usually, they walk past the door four or five times before she even gets the courage to go inside to do this. And they rehearse beforehand.

Ira Glass

Today, for the very first time, Ms. Bromer is making Rediet order without her help.

Ira Glass

Ms. Bromer's actually teasing Rediet by saying, "What?" She knows that this is Rediet's biggest fear, that people will not understand her, that they're going to say, what? What? What was that?

Ira Glass

OK, they practice a few more times. And then, finally, Rediet approaches the counter.

Ira Glass

OK, I just have to stop the tape right there. Did you hear? It happened. Exactly what she feared. The lady didn't understand her.

And listen how she handles this. She's so good. Let's take that from the top again.

Ira Glass

She doesn't giggle. She doesn't panic. She's perfect.

Ira Glass

It's her first time buying something by herself in the US.

Ira Glass

Welcome to America, Rediet. You bought something. You're engaging in commerce. You're talking to the lady at the counter.

We are so glad to have you here. Have some tea. You'll be paying for it yourself.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. This week on our radio program, we're trying something unusual for us. This is the second time we've done this. Instead of our usual picking a theme and finding stories on the theme, the theme this week will simply be the week, the week that we all just lived through, these past seven days. Everything on the show has just happened, including stories that are so small and personal-- like, you know, Rediet ordering her first tea-- that they would never belong on a regular news show.

And we have stories that are bigger, too, like this next woman, whose husband is Syrian. They lived there again in Syria till January, when it got too unstable. And she came to America, where she grew up. And then something bad happened.

Ira Glass

Her husband's still in Syria. He owns some businesses there. And two of their employees were taken hostage by the rebel forces who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad. President Obama has called for him to step down, of course, on Thursday. The Pentagon warned him not to use chemical weapons.

Ira Glass

In Doha, Qatar, this week, at the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference, the main goal that they were trying to achieve seemed incredibly modest. The things that the world originally negotiated in 1997 in Kyoto about climate change are about to expire. If all goes as planned, the delegates here hope to recommit to them.

But their bigger mission-- for instance, limiting the increase in world temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, which the world's governments committed to in 2009 in Copenhagen-- is starting to seem impossible, meaning more hurricane Sandys, more drought, more floods more frequently. A typhoon called Bopha hit the Philippines on Tuesday with a death toll that'll probably be twice that of Hurricane Sandy. This man speaking is the lead negotiator from the Philippines, Naderev Sano, giving a speech that becomes, as you'll hear, very unusual for this deeply bureaucratic, diplomatic setting.

Ira Glass

As we poured gases into the atmosphere that are slowly heating the planet, threatening our very existence, we also put on plays for children and the disabled this week. In Montana, the Missoula Community Theatre prepared a special performance of the musical Miracle on 34th Street for people on the autism spectrum. This meant no sudden loud noises, lower lights, volunteers with glow sticks signaling when to applaud, and lower sound levels in general. Director Michael McGill discussed the changes with the cast before the show.

Ira Glass

At the Best of Both Worlds Dance and Step Competition in Charlottesville, Virginia, Akayla Brown, Aquasia Baker, and Destiny Grady, ages 10, 10, and 11, told reporter Eric Mennel that they were confident of winning, even though they were competing against college kids.

Ira Glass

That same day, in Newark, New Jersey, a stranger on the train that carries you between terminals at Newark Airport got into the Kool-Aid of a man named James Braly, asking where he was headed.

Ira Glass

The half-brother, Jan, who is from Norway, recently learned the name of his father for the very first time, did an internet search, discovered James' family in the United States, and was coming to meet them. The guy on the train asked James, what proof do you have? You going to get a DNA test or something?

Ira Glass

When James gets to terminal A, he scans the crowd and spots him.

Ira Glass

His half-brother's a 52-year-old man with a waxed handlebar mustache, hair thinned from chemo, and his dad's eyes. He is instantly recognizable, James says, as family.

Ira Glass

Welcome to WBEZ Chicago. It's This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. Coming up all this hour, stories of all kinds, from all over, all from the past seven days. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

This past Saturday, the first of the seven days that we're covering in today's show, I Skyped with Hyder Akbar-- he's in Kabul, Afghanistan-- to find out if anything was happening there that might be interesting for the radio. Hyder's been on our show a few times. He grew up in California, but his family is from Afghanistan. After college, Hyder moved there.

He said that one of the guys that he's close to, Josef, was thinking about traveling to Kunar Province. That's where he's from. This is an area that's been a Taliban stronghold in the past. It's on the border with Pakistan.

If the Afghan government were to lose control of the country to the Taliban, it would probably start in Kunar. And that's a real possibility-- civil war, the government falling. So what's happening in Kunar right now tells us whether that is in the cards in the future.

Ira Glass

So Josef shows up.

Ira Glass

And Hyder asks him what's happening in Kunar right now.

Ira Glass

So they went to see, in an ancient Toyota Corolla. They drove up there. They'd have to be careful, stay under the radar. A few days before, Hyder said, a few guys with the Afghan National Army were stopped on the road coming from Kunar and killed.

They left on Tuesday. They were going to be back Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Our plan was to talk again 6 o'clock Wednesday night, Kabul time.

Then, Wednesday, Hyder wasn't answering any emails or any phone calls. 6 o'clock came and went. I started to get worried. And then, after an hour or so, I saw that he was online, on Skype. So I tried him.

[RING]

[SKYPE CALL STARTING]

Ira Glass

OK, soon after this in the conversation, I let Hyder know that if he is ever again in any situation where he might get killed, it is OK if he runs away and stops recording for the radio show. So he explained that they went around the bend. They saw two civilian cars stopped there. They were still being shot at. So they got into those cars. They got away.

This was the first time, Hyder said, that somebody specifically tried to kill him. And he thinks that they wanted him because they were letting other cars pass by on the road, and they specifically tried to stop his car. But who was it who was targeting him? And why were they targeting him? That wasn't clear to him at all.

Ira Glass

And it's not crazy to think that Hyder is now at a point where he would be worth killing. His family's from Kunar. His father and uncle were in the insurgency in Kunar that drove out the Soviets in the 1980s. When the current Afghan government came to power after September 11, Hyder's dad was appointed governor of Kunar. They have friends there. They have a base of support.

And as the Americans pull out in the next two years, there's going to be a power vacuum in the country. And people are getting in position for that, including Hyder. He is setting himself up to do politics. The way that he explains it, he says he wants to be the Afghan equivalent of a congressman, though with a militia. You need a militia, because it's Afghanistan.

We talked for a while. Hyder insisted that he is planning on going back to Kunar soon. And he's going to do it just like he did this time, in another beat-up old car, to prove that they didn't scare him, to prove that he wasn't going to stay away, which I really hope that his mom and his dad and his uncle talk him out of. And then we finally got to the reason for his trip in the first place, the story that he was so excited to bring back, that he ended up risking his life for, of what was happening in the province.

Ira Glass

Again, this is the government's army. This for the government of Afghanistan.

Ira Glass

Hyder Akbar. He's the author of the book Come Back to Afghanistan. This song that's playing right now is one that he swears was playing on his iPod when he was ambushed. And it's such a weird choice that it's hard to believe that he'd make that up. It's the Geto Boys' 1991 hit, "Mind Playing Tricks On Me."

[MUSIC - "MIND PLAYING TRICKS ON ME" BY GETO BOYS]

Ira Glass

Well, if you live in a part of the country that has already had snow this year, you may find it hard to relate to the thrill experienced by some people in Arizona this past week. Lisa Pollak explains.

Lisa Pollak

When I heard that an outdoor mall in Tuscon was promising snow on Saturday, a day when the high temperature hit 77 degrees, I figured there were only two possible explanations-- a pre-Christmas meteorological miracle or a ski resort style snow machine. But there was, in fact, a third option. I heard about it from Melanie Sutton, the senior marketing manager at La Encantada mall, the mall that sponsors the annual event known as the Enchanted Snowfall. She said that what we were about to see falling from sky that night was a desert style snow.

Lisa Pollak

Got that? Me, neither. But minutes later, along with hundreds of parents and kids in the mall's open-air courtyard, I had a chance to see it for myself.

Lisa Pollak

"Oh, oh, here we go," I heard one of the dads say. Then there was a whooshing sound, followed by white stuff falling from the sky.

Lisa Pollak

From a distance, I can report that it did indeed resemble snow-- heavy, white flakes lit up by spotlights in the darkness. Up close, though, it was hard to be fooled. Imagine little clumps of bath suds or globs of latte foam, with a faintly fresh smell.

Lisa Pollak

This man is talking to his three-year-old son, Cameron, who at first seemed to be saying how much he liked the snow--

Lisa Pollak

--but on closer examination, was actually saying how much he didn't like the snow.

Lisa Pollak

Cameron was the exception. All around me, kids seemed to be going insane with joy. Over by the Apple store, a group of them had planted themselves under one of the faux snow machines and seemed to be trying to get as much white foam on their hair and clothes as possible. Others ran around with outstretched hands, trying to catch enough to make mushy snowballs and smash it on each other's heads.

[CHILD LAUGHING]

Lisa Pollak

One boy walked up to me with a mass of suds in each hand and a look on his face like he couldn't believe his good fortune.

Lisa Pollak

Suddenly I felt a sense of duty. Shouldn't these kids know the truth? I would break it to them gently.

Lisa Pollak

About halfway through the show, I noticed I was starting to cough. And I wasn't the only one. I overheard this lady talking to her husband. Everyone's coughing, she said.

Lisa Pollak

I checked with Melanie, the mall's marketing manager. She assured me that whatever was in the bubbles had been tested and was nontoxic. Though I believed her, I was a little relieved when the Enchanted Snowfall powered down after 15 minutes. Like a lot of things about the holidays, it was at its best from a distance, and a little went a long way.

Ira Glass

Lisa Pollak. Coming up, a guy walks into a bar-- usually not a life-or-death situation. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. This week, instead of the usual sort of theme we do on our show, our theme is just the seven days that have just passed. We have stories, small and personal, and big and national, and international.

Monday, you probably heard, House Speaker John Boehner issued his counterproposal to avoid the fiscal cliff. It was promptly rejected by the White House. By Wednesday, there were front-page stories that Republican leaders are considering a fallback plan to extend tax cuts to the middle class now, fight about the rest of it in January or February.

Also this week, Boehner cracked the whip in his own party. Republicans who didn't vote his way lost committee assignments. He warned to other House members that he would be watching. To put all of this in perspective, I called veteran Congress-watcher Norman Ornstein, who happened to be in Prague when I phoned him. His official title is Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Ira Glass

Norman Ornstein. I asked him, why do they even bother going through the theater this week? Why not just skip to the part where they actually hammer out the deal? His answer, I thought, was interesting.

He said that the Republicans need to demonstrate to Grover Norquist and Rush Limbaugh and all their own constituents that they tried everything, their back is against the wall, there was no other choice before they can raise taxes. The Democrats have their own version of it. They have to demonstrate to their base they had no choice but to cut entitlements before any deal. Both sides need to say no, he says, for a while.

Ira Glass

Wednesday night, New Orleans, French Quarter. A 25-year-old blonde girl named Joni Cooper is going up to everybody in this bar, asking a question that you probably wouldn't expect to hear on a night out drinking.

Ira Glass

NO/AIDS is an organization in Louisiana that works to prevent and reduce the spread of HIV and help treat people who are infected. Louisiana has the fourth highest estimated AIDS rate in the country. In 2011, nearly 60% of new HIV diagnoses in Louisiana were gay man. 74% were African Americans. So NO/AIDS tries to make finding at your HIV status as convenient as they possibly can, which means, for them, going into bars, asking people to put down their drink for 15 minutes, and come get tested. They get the results on the spot.

Ira Glass

Joni is pitching a group of guys who are out for their friend's 30th birthday. You might think this would not be a receptive crowd, but listen to what happens.

Ira Glass

Robin Pearce runs the testing program, which has testing sites all over New Orleans, not just in bars.

Ira Glass

The week that we're covering here today happened to begin with World AIDS Day. And thinking about that, we sent out a writer, Nathaniel Rich, to watch the HIV testing at one of the highest risk venues NO/AIDS tests at-- Club New Orleans, a five-story sex club for men in the center of the French Quarter, which means that this story might not be appropriate for all children or maybe any of them. It acknowledges the existence of sex. Here's Nathaniel. We changed the name of the guy he's writing about in this story.

Nathaniel Rich

Room 300 was the largest bedroom in the club, just large enough to fit a chair and a queen size bed covered with red satin sheets. Sitting cross-legged on the bed was Alex Lee, a 25-year-old counselor for NO/AIDS, who's also a student at the University of New Orleans. He's majoring in anthropology. In fact, he had a final exam the next morning.

When Mark entered the room, Alex was reading an essay about Occam's razor. Alex asked Mark to sit in the chair. He explained that the HIV test would only detect an infection that occurred more than three months ago. He showed Mark how to use an applicator to swab this mouth-- first his upper gums, then his lower gums. When Mark was finished, he dipped the end of the applicator into a small vial.

Alex set a timer to 20 minutes, the time it takes for a test result to appear, and placed it on the bedside table between them. He asked Mark a series of questions. "When was your last test?" "About a year ago," said Mark, "at a bar, in fact."

"In the past 12 months," asked Alex, "have you had anal sex with a man?" "Yes," said Mark. "Have you had sex without using a condom?" "As a giver," said Mark. "How about sex with an anonymous, casual, or internet partner, someone you didn't know too well?" "I'm sure I have," said Mark.

He seemed to become increasingly anxious. He crossed his arms, holding his elbows, hugging his chest. "Have you knowingly had sex with someone who's living with HIV?" "No." "Have you injected any drugs?" "No."

"Have you had sex with someone who injects drugs?" Mark paused for two seconds. "No," he said. Alex started the next question, but Mark interrupted him. "Yes," he said, "yes, I have." "Sex with someone who injects drugs?" "Yeah. I just didn't know it until after."

The timer beeped. "Does that mean it's ready?" asked Mark. "No," said Alex. "It just beeps sometimes."

"It's so funny," said Mark, "and this is so crude, but I did have intercourse last night, not wearing a condom. It's just weird. The guy told me he was negative, but for some reason, after all was said and done, I thought he was really positive. And then I was thinking on the walk home how stupid that was."

Mark had been busy all day at work, so it had been easy to avoid thinking about it. But that evening, he went for a walk and soon found himself standing in front of the club. It was odd, Mark said, because he hadn't visited the club for a year. As soon as he stepped inside, a voice came on the loudspeaker announcing that there would be free HIV testing that evening. Suddenly, Mark understood why he had come to the club, and he felt scared.

There were five minutes left on the timer. "I'm really anxious," said Mark. He looked it. He was jittery. He rose from his chair. He said he was going to walk around and come back when his result was ready.

But five minutes later, when the timer went off, Mark was gone. Alex waited another 10 minutes, then another 10. A different man was tested, waited for his result, then left. Still no sign of Mark.

Alex was mystified. In his two years testing men at bars, nobody had ever fled before finding out his results. It was now almost 11:30. His shift had official ended half an hour ago, and his anthropology final was at 10:00 AM.

As Alex gathered his testing materials, his colleague, Brandon, decided to make one final effort to find Mark. Brandon started in the gym. Mark wasn't there. Nor was Mark in the sauna or the whirlpool.

He was not in the room called the Bookstore, which doesn't have any books, nor was he in the Barracks. He was not in the so-called Porno Room, in which every surface is made of black rubber. And he was not in the Dungeon.

Brandon paced through the narrow hallways, which are lined with more than 50 tiny bedrooms. Some of the doors were ajar. He saw harnesses and swings. He saw men watching videos.

And then, in another bedroom, Brandon saw Mark. He was sitting on a bed, talking with a naked man. "Oh," said Mark, "are you looking for me?"

Five minutes later, Mark returned to room 300. His fingers were trembling. He was too nervous to sit. Alex told him that his test had come back negative.

"Yay!" Mark shouted. He was ecstatic. He asked Alex to show him the result on the test form. "God, I'm so happy. Thank you. Oh my god."

He thanked Alex a few more times and said he was grateful for the work that NO/AIIDS was doing. Mark even said he wanted to volunteer for the organization, that he felt, as a member of the New Orleans gay community, it was the right thing to do. Then, negative test results in hand, he disappeared into the club.

Ira Glass

Nathaniel Rich. He's the author of the forthcoming book Odds Against Tomorrow.

[MUSIC - "ERASE" BY THE CHAINSMOKERS]

This, what you're listening to right now, is a Samantha Ronson remix, released this week by the Chainsmokers. Except for the Geto Boys, all the songs between stories today was a release or on albums that were released in the last seven days.

Ira Glass

A week can be a long time, when every day seems to shift the direction of your entire country. Egypt has had a week of demonstrations, counter demonstrations, and violence. The demonstrations are for and against the country's president, Mohammed Morsi.

And OK, quick review-- Morsi was democratically elected a couple months ago. But at the end of November, he shocked many Egyptians by issuing a decree giving himself enormous powers, basically putting all his decisions, past and present, above the law. He said he had to do this because judges appointed by Egypt's ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak, were undermining him. Some of those judges had dissolved Egypt's newly elected parliament right before Morsi took office.

So now, if you follow the news at all, you've seen this-- both sides are dug in, each convinced that they represent true democracy in Egypt. There are a lot of ways for things to get worse, very few for them to get better. Nancy Updike reports on what has happened and how some of the anger is being spread around.

Nancy Updike

Up until this past Wednesday, opponents and supporters of President Morsi had held their rallies in different places-- on purpose, to avoid confrontations. But late in the day on Wednesday, supporters of President Morsi, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, marched to the presidential palace, where some anti-Morsi protesters were camped out. And after that, all night long, people fought or ran or hid.

By Thursday morning, seven people were dead, and hundreds were injured. And four of Morsi's advisers had resigned in protest. As of right now, Friday evening, around 6:00 PM Egypt time, the leaders of both sides aren't talking to each other, and protesters are still in the streets, separate and peaceful for the moment.

When I was in Cairo after Mubarak was ousted last year, I saw a scene that now seems impossible-- writers and editors, secular Egyptians, who were talking over croissants with members of a formerly violent Islamist group named Gamaa Islamiya, an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. The secular men and the devout men weren't becoming friends. But they weren't beating each other up in the streets, either.

[PHONE RINGING]

Nancy Updike

On Thursday night, I made a phone call through an interpreter. She was shouting a bit to make herself heard. And we called one of the people from that meeting, an Egyptian novelist in his 70s named Yusuf al-Qaid to find out his take on the week's events. He remembered me, but he wanted to make absolutely sure I knew where he stands in this fight.

Nancy Updike

So against Morsi. And since he brought up the fact that I'm American, I told al-Qaid that I'd seen pictures of anti-Morsi protesters, people like him, carrying signs talking about the US and President Obama. I didn't mention this specific one to him, but I saw a sign that said, "Obama, your bitch is our dictator." The vehemence of al-Qaid's response caught me by surprise.

Nancy Updike

By strategic relationship, he means that the United States is more concerned about Egypt's dealings with Israel than about Egypt's dealings with its own citizens. This week, more than ever, I realized that no matter how angry and caught up in their own national issues a person is, depending on what country they're in, they probably still have plenty of anger left over for the United States.

After I hung up with al-Qaid, I called another person I met in Cairo last year-- completely different guy, a religious man, young, 28 years old, named Mohammed Agiba. Mohammed spent years in the Muslim Brotherhood. But now he's marching against Morsi too. He knew Morsi's power grab would divide the country. And he thinks the proposed constitution is a disaster that has to be stopped.

And talking about the constitution is when we ended up at the same place I ended up with al-Qaid, the secular guy. Mohammed talked about how the constitution calls for a joint civilian military council, weighted toward the military, that has to be consulted before the president can declare a war. The council also has a role in deciding on the military's budget. Mohammed sees the council as one thing only.

Nancy Updike

I asked Mohammed one more question, not about America, but about Egypt and the choices people have faced there since the revolution. I asked him if he'd voted for Morsi. He did, like a lot of people who are now protesting against Morsi.

He said he doesn't regret it. The alternative was worse. He says he just hopes Morsi can pull out of this and pull Egypt out too.

Ira Glass

Nancy Updike. She's one of the producers of our show.

Ira Glass

OK, let's go back to America. Friday morning, Boston, Logan Airport, 5:40 AM.

Ira Glass

30 times a night, six nights a week, Fred Beaton drives the shuttle bus on the same loop, from the parking garage to the terminals, picking people up, dropping them off, every 20 minutes, same loop. He's been doing this for 16 years, till this morning. He's retiring.

Ira Glass

That one was his boss, Vinny, over the radio.

Ira Glass

But everybody got in on it.

Ira Glass

His stepson, Ryan Murdoch, is riding with him, making this recording and talking to him. They calculate that he's done this loop 128,000 times in 16 years. And at 6 o'clock, when he gets to the end of his very last ride, the guy who was supposed to show up was late.

So he has to do one more. Perfect, right? And then he gets to pull the shuttle bus over one last, last time, and climb out.

Ira Glass

In Chicago, Linc Cohen began his retirement this week. He worked at a steel mill for 18 years, and then for 20 years after, for the union AFSCME. Monday was his first day home as a retired person. And his wife, Sandi Wisenberg, had some questions. She recorded them.

Ira Glass

In other news with people not getting to work in the morning-- Springfield, Oregon, Monday morning of this week, 7:30, a grad student named Morgan Peach hears the alarm that is supposed to wake him up. Then he shuts it off. This happens again at 7:35--

[CELL PHONE ALARM]

--and then again at 7:40.

Ira Glass

Once more at 7:45.

[CELL PHONE ALARM]

You get the idea. 8:15, 8:25. Finally, 9 o'clock, his girlfriend Angela Evancie, who made this recording, steps in.

Ira Glass

He doesn't get up. It's finals week. Besides an exam, he has two research papers to turn in and 55 exams and papers to grade. Angela sees him struggle every day with waking up. But she thought, this week, this week, for once, he would do it when the alarm sounds, because he has so much to do.

Tuesday, it goes off first at 7:30, then seven more times-- 7:40, 7:45, 8 o'clock, 8:05, 8:10, 8:15, 8:20. Wednesday, pretty much the same deal. At some point, Angela says to her sleeping boyfriend--

Ira Glass

Wednesday night, Morgan tells Angela that the next morning, Thursday, he actually is going to have to get up early. A geography paper is due at noon.

Ira Glass

Hours pass.

Ira Glass

Sometime near 10:00 AM, they finally have this conversation.

Ira Glass

And then, still lying in bed, he explains the whole thing perfectly. It would be impossible to say this better.

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced this week by Sarah Koenig, our senior producer, Julie Snyder, and me, with Alex Blumberg, Ben Calhoun, Jonathan Menjivar, Lisa Pollak, Brian Reed, Robin Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Production help from Tarek Fouda. Amy Phillips, from Pitchfork Media, was our music consultant, finding brand new songs. Seth Lind is our operations director. Elise Bergerson's our administrative assistant.

At our website this week, we have a gallery of photos taken on Instagram by people all over the world in these last seven days of events large and small. Emily Condon on our staff did the photo curating. She did so good. You should look. That's at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International. And our film Sleepwalk With Me is now available for download at iTunes-- itunes.com/sleepwalkwithme. WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia, who never stops saying--

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.

Announcer

PRI, Public Radio International.