812: The Bear at the End of the Tunnel

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

People who have a good, long time to think about what they’re doing, look hard at what’s ahead of them, and decide to keep moving forward anyway.

Prologue: Brothers Wes and Jeff spent a winter tagging black bears in Bryce Canyon National Park. One of the bears they needed to tag decided to hibernate at the end of an usually long tunnel. Wes and Jeff try to figure out their next move. (5 minutes)
Act One: The story of Wes and Jeff venturing into the bear den continues. (11 minutes)
Act 2: Miki Meek reports on the situation for pregnant women in Idaho under the state’s new, post-Roe abortion laws, which are some of the most restrictive in the country. OB-GYNs say the state is in a crisis. Miki also talks to Idaho legislators who voted for the laws, some of whom now think there should be some changes to the laws. (42 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there are podcast listeners, it's Tyra, with a quick message before the episode.
0:04.0	I've been using this space now and then to tell you about other podcasts you might like,
0:08.0	and today I want to talk about heavyweight, Jonathan Goldstein's show.
0:12.0	I just listened to the opening episode of their new
0:14.8	season and it is one of the most beautifully made stories I've heard anybody make in
0:19.6	a while and it is it was such perfect kind of masterful efficiency. It's about a childhood friend of his and about getting older and about the people we lose.
0:29.0	And there are these old recordings of him and this friend when they were kids and when Jonathan goes back to
0:34.4	them today they seem to contain so much more than they did at the time. I cried
0:39.1	which I almost never do at a podcast. So that's my recommendation this week. Heavyweight season
0:47.2	3, episode 1. It's titled Lenny. If you don't know Heavyweight, it's reliably one of the weirdest funniest most accomplished shows out there. Jonathan invented a way to host a podcast and a thing to do in a podcast that's different from anybody else.
1:01.0	And you used to have to get the show on the Spotify app, but now it is
1:07.2	available wherever you get your podcasts. So, heavyweight. Try a bunch of them. And now here's our show for the week.
1:17.0	A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the
1:21.5	show. If you prefer a beeped version you can find
1:24.4	that at our website this American life.org. There's just first time working for his
1:30.0	big brother. His brother needed somebody last minute because the guy bailed on him.
1:35.3	Jeff also had somebody bail on him. He moved back home for the summer for this girl he liked.
1:39.9	And it became like really apparent right away that like that wasn't going to work out.
1:44.7	So he had some time on his hands.
1:46.7	His brother was doing a research study on black bears.
1:49.6	His brother was a wildlife biologist and offered in this job as a field tech.
1:54.0	And a summer working with black bears was a dream so...
	...

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