Radio stories to make you laugh, cry, and think

The Mojo Mom Podcast will return with our first show of the New Year next Friday. Co-host Sheryl Grant started graduate school this week--go Sheryl!--and I am still getting back into the swing of work after the holidays, so we need one more week to our first show produced.

I heard three brilliant hours of radio this week, which you can listen to thanks to the magic of podcasting. All 3 are available free from the iTunes podcast directory, and I am also linking here to the shows' individual sites.

The Story, "There for the Birth"
January 9, 2007, WUNC North Carolina Public Radio

Dick Gordon talked to a woman who was a teenage mother herself who now serves as a doula (birth assistant and mentor) to help at-risk, low income teen moms cope before, during and after the birth of their babies.

The State of Things, "The South in Black and White"
January 9, 2007, WUNC North Carolina Public Radio

A new class offered to students at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke and N.C. Central, as well as to community members, explores the history, politics, art and music of the South. This fascinating interview shows what all of us, everywhere across the country, can learn about race and history by studying ths South. Most interesting to me was the idea that even the "losing" groups whose history was not recorded in textbooks found ways to keep their stories alive through culture and religion. Some of those lost histories, such as the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898, are finally being discovered and understood by the dominant community. Proponents of "minority" movements everywhere, including the women's movement, have a great deal to learn from this examination of how history is created.

This American Life, "The Super"
January 5, 2007, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio

I read the episode description and wondered how a whole show about building superintendents could possibly be interesting.
But, this is "This American Life," so I knew it must be good. It did not disappoint. Two of the three stories in this episode are just about the best I've heard in 10 years of listening. The third act was so funny that I was walking down the street wearing headphones, laughing my butt off and not caring whether I looked crazy. Trust me on this one.