30 Minute special also available on PRX: http://www.prx.org/pieces/111157-untitled-february-13-2014

94-year old Selma Koch runs the Town Shop, one of New York's last old-style bra fitting shop. The Town Shop is a fourth-generation family business that emphasizes personal service and custom fitting. Selma still works every day alongside her son and grandson. Their motto: "We know your size." WNYC's The Next Big Thing/NPR's All Things Considered 2002

HOST:  Today on This I Believe, we hear from former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.  Beyond his athletic achievements, he's known for his irrepressible personality, his public conversion to Islam, his resistance to the Vietnam War, and his humanitarian efforts around the world.  Ali worked on his statement with his wife, Lonnie.  They discussed with family members the stories and lessons of Ali's life.  And because his speech and motor skills are affected by Parkinson's Disease, Ali asked his wife to read the essay out loud for him.  But we also left a recorder at their house so, when his voice was strong, Ali could speak a few words of introduction. Here are Lonnie and Muhammad Ali with his essay for This I Believe.  

MUHAMMAD ALI:  I’m Muhammad Ali, and this I believe.

LONNIE ALI:   have always believed in myself, even as a young child growing up in Louisville, Ky.  My parents instilled a sense of pride and confidence in me, and taught me and my brother that we could be the best at anything.  I must have believed them because I remember being the neighborhood marble champion and challenging my neighborhood buddies to see who could jump the tallest hedges or run a foot race the length of the block. Of course I knew when I made the challenge that I would win.  I never even thought of losing.

In high school I boasted weekly—if not daily—that one day I was going to be the heavy weight champion of the world. As part of my boxing training, I would run down Fourth Street in downtown Louisville, darting in and out of local shops, taking just enough time to tell them I was training for the Olympics and I was going to win a gold medal. And when I came back home I was going to turn pro and become the world heavyweight champion in boxing.  I never thought of the possibility of failing—only of the fame and glory I was going to get when I won. I could see it.  I could almost feel it.  When I proclaimed that I was the “Greatest of All Time,” I believed in myself.   And still do.

Throughout my entire boxing career, my belief in my abilities triumphed over the skill of an opponent. My will was stronger than their skills. What I didn’t know was that my will would be tested even more when I retired.

In 1984, I was conclusively diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Since that diagnosis, my symptoms have increased and my ability to speak in audible tones has diminished.  If there was anything that would strike at the core of my confidence in myself, it would be this insidious disease. But my confidence and will to continue to live life as I choose won’t be compromised.

Early in 1996, I was asked to light the cauldron at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga.  Of course my immediate answer was yes. I never even thought of having Parkinson’s or what physical challenges that would present for me. 

When the moment came for me to walk out on the 140-foot high scaffolding and take the torch from Janet Evans, I realized I had the eyes of the world on me. I also realized that as I held the Olympic torch high above my head, my tremors had taken over.  Just at that moment, I heard a rumble in the stadium that became a pounding roar and then turned into a deafening applause. I was reminded of my 1960 Olympic experience in Rome, when I won the gold medal.  Those 36 years between Rome and Atlanta flashed before me and I realized that I had come full circle.  

Nothing in life has defeated me. I am still the “Greatest.” This I believe.

MUHAMMAD ALI:  I’m still the greatest of all time. This I Believe.

Produced for Weekend America, first broadcast on June 25, 2005

"More than a reflection of the inner monologue of strangers on a subway, Jonathan Mitchell’s piece Eye Contact, originally made in 2005 for Weekend America, explores the anxieties of coincidence and all the fears and awkwardness that can surround interactions in public spaces. Using improvising actors to represent multiple narrators, the piece is woven through with the anxiety of uncanny parallels fueling these uncomfortable, albeit everyday, scenarios." - Kyla Imberg, The [Un]observed


 

We bring animals into our lives for companionship. And this newly formed relationship redefines the idea of family. This is a look at pet love and loss with a spiritual twist - do animals have souls? If they do, how does this affect the way we grieve when a pet passes on? Does this mean we can communicate with them, offer them blessings, and hope for re-incarnation?

Five families share their perspectives on what all this means when Fido or Fluffy pass on.

**Sue and Jeff Bush – a mother and son team, managing and caretaking the Pet Haven Pet Cemetery

**Danyelle Argese and her boyfriend, James Conklin – who after recently losing their dog, Kya, found comfort from the elders of the Oneida Nation.

**Judy Ruta – a cat lover who buried her cat Misty at Pet Haven Cemetery only to see her reincarnated as Angelina

**Colleen Nicholson – an established animal communicator using her telepathic skills to help pet owners communicate with their pets in the present and in the afterlife

**Betty Lennon- a life-long fan of pot-belly pigs taking her pet, Spam, to the annual Blessing of the Animals service.

A no-holds-barred look at the strip club scene through the eyes of strippers, patrons, bouncers and a sociologist. What draws them to America's thriving sex industry? Who are they? In suburban Detroit, Los Angeles and New York City, their voices are riveting, consistently surprising and guaranteed to rock widely held assumptions and shatter stereotypes. This is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that will have your phones buzzing. Strip Club USA was included in the second season of A SENSE OF PLACE and distributed by PRI. One :15 promo for parts 1 & 2(click "listen" page, promo labeled "Segment 2") One :30 promo for parts 1 & 2(click "listen" page, promo labeled "Segment 3")

Billie Jean Hill is a 25-year-old woman with a young son, who recently lost her job as a hotel housekeeper.  All of the language in this poem -- except for the last sentence -- comes directly from the forms and flyers at the New York State Office of Temporary Assistance.

Legendary novelist, poet, and essayist Margaret Atwood delivers a surprising look at the topic of debt. In her wide-ranging, entertaining, and imaginative approach to the subject, Atwood proposes that debt is like air - something we take for granted until things go wrong. And then, while gasping for breath, we become very interested in it. Payback is not about practical debt management or high finance. Rather, it is an investigation into the idea of debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature, and the structure of human societies. Margaret Atwood writes "These are not lectures about how to get out of debt; rather, they're about the debtor/creditor twinship in the broadest sense ? from human sacrifice to pawnshops to revenge. In this light, what we owe and how we pay is a feature of all human societies, and profoundly shapes our shared values and our cultures." Margaret Atwood is one of the world's pre-eminent writers - winner of the Booker Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Governor General's Literary Award, among many other honours. She is the bestselling author of more than thirty-five books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake. She is an International Vice President of PEN, which assists writers around the world in the peaceful expression of their ideas. Most recently, she is the 2008 recipient of the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.

Crimes of passion are not uncommon, but in the late 19th century, a lower-class woman being acquitted of a high-class murder on an insanity defense was unheard of. KFAI producer Bobbie Scott recalls the the 1877 case of Kate Noonan--a young servant girl who fatally shot local businessman Will Siedel, and the unusual case that followed.

Death impacts everyone and we often shy from from discussing it. We talk to a variety of people to puzzle out questions that come along with death.

Voices:

Saul Arber -  Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center. He is a Radiology Oncologist and Director of Radiology Oncology Dept. at Brookdale.

Daniel Braunfeld - The Facing History High School. He is a high school history teacher and lives in Manhattan.

Phil Harris - Harris Funeral Homes. He has been a licensed director since 1977 and along with his wife Cathy has lived in West Bend since 1987. They are the parents of Allison and Ashley Harris.

Steven Luper - Trinity University Philosophy Dept. He specializes in epistemology and ethics. Epistemology: In “The Epistemic Predicament” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62 (1984) 26-50, on p. 38, I defended the condition that has come to be called the safety condition for knowledge. Ethics: Much of my work on ethics concerns the philosophy of death. In "Annihilation" The Philosophical Quarterly 37 (1985) 233-252, I argue that Epicurus's position that death is not bad for us makes sense only if life is not good for us. In The Philosophy of Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) I argue that death is sometimes bad for its victims both in a timeless sense and also retroactively.

Robert A. Neimeyer - University of Memphis Psychology Dept. He is a professor in the Psychotherapy Research Area of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, where he also maintains an active clinical practice. Since completing his doctoral training at the University of Nebraska in 1982, he has conducted extensive research on the topics of death, grief, loss, and suicide intervention. Neimeyer has published 25 books, including Grief and bereavement in contemporary society: Bridging research and practice, Constructivist Psychotherapy, and The Art of Longing, a book of contemporary poetry. The author of nearly 400 articles and book chapters, he is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process, both in his published work and through his frequent professional workshops for national and international audiences.

Helen Spiegel - Animal Kind Clinic in Brooklyn. She has been a veterinarian at Animal Kind since the fall of 1996. When she is not working she can be found at the park holding onto two misbehaved rat terriers, "Molly" and "Milo". Dr Spiegel enjoys working and living in Park Slope.

Michelle Valladares - The City College of New York. She is a Creative Writing and Poetry professor as well as an active poet.

Tyler Volk - New York University Biology Dept. He is biology professor and Environmental Studies Director and has been active in what might be called biosphere theory, or Gaia theory (with "biosphere" or "Gaia" defined as the system of atmosphere, ocean, soil, and life). Are there unifying scientific principles that govern diverse phenomena within the biosphere? Past work in Gaia theory has primarily focused on the state of the global environment that surrounds living things, for example, on the chemistry or temperature of atmosphere or ocean. He has been suggesting another approach. This involves close attention to how organisms fit into and in fact make the chemical cycles, the so-called biogeochemical cycles. A potential universal metric for these cycles is the "cycling ratio." This is the ratio of an element's flux into the photosynthesizers within a system (either the biosphere system or subsystems within) relative to the flux of that same element across the system's boundary into the system. Volk explores how this metric could be useful for biosphere theory, as a way of comparing systems with life across different scales of space, essential nutrients, and evolutionary time.

Simkah Weintraub - The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services in New York City. He serves as Rabbinic Director of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS), one of the nation's premier voluntary mental health and social service agencies, serving more than 60,000 New Yorkers of all religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds through a diverse network of 172 community-based programs, residential facilities and day-treatment centers. He maintains a private practice in Couples and Family Therapy in New York, working with couples and families confronting a wide range of issues, including chronic illness, infertility, and bereavement.

What are the origins of the idea of a national humanitarian obligation? When and why has the U.S. felt justified to intervene in other nations’ affairs? How have these interventions shaped Americans’ attitudes toward the world—and the world’s attitudes toward us? These are among the questions that Brian, Ed, and Peter explore in this episode of BackStory, looking to history to help listeners make sense of America’s international role. 

Guests include:

• Daniel Feller, University of Tennessee, on Jacksonian America and the “humanitarian” claims made on both sides of the Cherokee removal question.
• Ann Marie Wilson, Leiden College, on an 1894 debate over military intervention in the Ottoman Empire—and how America's failure to act then helped build the case for a "humanitarian" war with Spain a few years later.
• Timothy M. Roberts, Western Illinois University, on how one Hungarian revolutionary's call for U.S. military aid in the 1850s sparked a national conversation on America's role in the world.

After a 4 year suspension by the US Supreme Court, the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976, and since then, over 1,400 people have been put to death.  Today we talk with Ray Krone, an innocent man who was sentenced to die and later distinguished as the 100th American death row exonoree, Jane Davis, a former death row media witness turned death row counselor, Frank Thompson, a retired warden responsible for overseeing the death penalty for the state of Oregon, Marc Hyden, a conservative working to bring a new awareness of the death penalty to his colleagues, and Bill Pelke, who experienced a radical shift in his understanding of the death penalty after his grandmother was brutally murdered. Come with us as we deconstruct popular understandings of the death penalty, and uncover stories of lives caught up in the web of state-sponsored killing.

As a law student, Bryan Stevenson was sent to a maximum security prison to meet a man on death row. The man told Stevenson he’d never met an African-American lawyer, and the two of them talked for hours. It was a day that changed Stevenson’s life. He’s spent the last 30 years working to get people off of death row, but has also spent the final hours with men he could not save from execution. He argues that each of us is deserving of mercy.