With Good Reason Radio

A few lucky college students who love the Harry Potter fantasy series get to travel to London for 3 weeks of magical creatures, potions, and herbology.

And if you're impatient for the final season of Game of Thrones, we have your GoT fix--how the women of Westeros gain and lose power in that fictional patriarchal world of dragons and warfare.

Plus: Long before there was Black Panther or the Blaxploitation movies, there were Race Movies. 500 were created by black actors and directors, but only 100 remain.

A story of Native American resilience comes to life in a new biography of Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota medicine man and Catholic preacher. Black Elk was born in 1863 and died at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Another new book illuminates the life of a Pequot Indian activist and author who is little known today, but has been called the Native American Frederick Douglas. William Apess challenged the power structure of his day using the pen, the pulpit, and protest.

In her new book, Real Love, Sharon Salzberg--one of the world's leading authorities on love and meditation--shows us love isn't just an emotion we feel when we're in a romantic relationship. It's an ability we can nurture and cultivate.

Also, Oliver Hill shares his journey in the 1960's from the segregated south, to black radicalism, to Transcendental Meditation with the Beach Boys.

Also: How "The Pause" got started. We talk with emergency care nurse Jonathan Bartels, who just wanted to take a quiet moment to honor the life of the patient who had just died before people rushed in to clean up and change the sheets.

Poet Kiki Petrosino in her poem, If My Body Is a Text, reflects on a year of tragic outcomes during traffic stops between police and African American drivers. Plus: Most of us have heard of Negro League Baseball, but there were many other all-black sports leagues and teams across America in the 20th century. David Wiggins shares how African-American athletes built their own place for sports in a segregated world.

Donald Trump’s election was seen by many commentators as a decisive statement by a marginalized White working class. A new book The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality explains where this theory comes from and why so many White voters are feeling class and racial resentment. Plus we dive into the immigration debate and why good numbers are hard to find.

Until recently, Caroline Shaw was uncomfortable calling herself a composer–violin, singer, musician, sure. But not a composer. Then in 2013, her composition Partita for 8 Voices made her the youngest recipient ever of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Now she’s one of the most respected composers on the New Music scene and has been heralded as the future of music. Today, Shaw’s compositions range from traditional quartets and solo piano pieces to a cappella and collaborations with Kanye West.

This week, a grab bag of some of our favorite stories of unexpected discoveries. First, we talk to an anthropologist cataloguing one of the few remaining melodic forms of speech among the rugged mountains of Mexico. Then, we talk to one of the world's foremost experts in dimes on discovering a small fortune in his father's tackle box.

Later on, we revisit our story about the discovery of a lost vault of klezmer music, and talk to a scholar about America's long-forgotten love affair with opera.

Thanksgiving was once a holiday known for bringing people together -- now, it's almost synonymous with uncomfortable political conversations and familial drama. In preparation for the big holiday, we talk with an expert who offers some tips on navigating the more delicate aspects of family gathering.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

In the first episode of With Good Reason’s new documentary series on the Vietnam War, historians Fred Turner and Wilbur J. Scott explore how the self-image of America was shattered in Vietnam, and we hear the first-hand accounts of veterans’ return to America after the trauma of conflict. Then, historian Christian Appy tells the story of the draft -- who it ensnared, who escaped, and the trauma it left on a generation of Americans.

Every day, scientists are discovering exotic new planets, encrusted with diamonds and wandering between distant stars. We talk to one of the people making these discoveries about the crazy planets he's seen -- and what hope there might be for life out there.

Plus, more stories in science, from "sonic nets" used to save birds from jet engines, to a database of plays that hopes to put science onstage.

For more than a million Americans with Type 1 diabetes, managing their disease can be a lot of painful -- and dangerous -- guesswork. But now, a new piece of technology promises to automate insulin delivery, and its helping some sufferers sleep through the night for the first time in their lives.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 5 minutes.

For many in Charlottesville and around the country, the events of August 12th were a shock. But for black residents, it wasn't a surprise at all to see white supremacists marching in the street of a southern college town.

Charlottesville brought into light, again, America's long history of racism. This week on With Good Reason, we reflect on American racism past and present. We talk to two filmmakers who documented the "social phenomenon" of lynching that claimed 4,000 lives; we hear from some of the nation's top journalists on how the media perpetuates racism; and we get Charlottesville residents' reflections on the violence of August 12th.

For many Americans, August 12th marked a shift in the national conversation about white supremacy and racism. For the people who were injured in the vehicle attack in Charlottesville that killed Heather Heyer, the 12th marks Day One of a long process of recovery.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in a short, digestible segment.

Spanning the golden age of American rock 'n' roll, the Vietnam War has one of the most evocative soundtracks of any conflict. Now, two scholars have interviewed hundreds of veterans to compile the "official" soundtrack to one of America's longest wars.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

Underneath the heated rhetoric, sometimes our biggest bogeymen are nothing to fear. We talk to two professors who are busting stereotypes about illegal immigrants by teaching English in the east coast's largest detention center; we hear the guy who hunts poachers "telephoning" fish and stealing bear spleen; and we look at some misunderstood monsters of cinema and literature, from Godzilla to Germany's hard-bitten detectives.

Farmville may only be a tiny Virginian town, home to about 8,000 mostly White people. But nearby, Farmville Detention Center is the home to people from the world over -- it's the biggest immigration jail on the whole east coast. Two professors decided it was time to bring the two worlds together.

From With Good Reason, The Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

There was a time in America when, for a few glorious decades, people rich and poor, urban and rural, embraced a love of the bicycle. So how did the humble cyclist fall from grace?

Plus, we look back on a grab bag of interviews, including a conversation with an animator behind Hey Arnold!, Spongebob Squarepants, and The Simpsons; the unusual case of Patrick Swayze's disappearing lake; and more.

When we think about the way public education should look, we tend to think about big suburban schools or struggling inner cities. That means when federal education policy gets written, vast swaths of rural America are being forgotten.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

Where do you go when your homeland disappears? In our first half-hour, we ask that question both at home and abroad, and look at a project trying to preserve a record of a disappearing land.

Plus, we explore how fishermen were among the earliest conservationists, take a look inside a hurricane, and give a preview of the total eclipse of the sun that had American astronomers booking hotels three years in advance.

Tangier Island, a tiny spit of land in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, is sinking -- and fast.

Without a new sea wall, its residents may become America's first climate refugees. Now, a new project is virtually mapping the island before it disappears beneath the waves.

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Explore Google's interactive map of Tangier Island from this page: http://virginiahumanities.org/2017/08/virtual-tour-of-climate-change-endangered-tangier/

Diplomatic trips, like the one Trump made to the Middle East and Europe just a few months ago, can quickly become very expensive. In a day and age when you can video chat with Bangkok at the push of a button, are they still worth it?

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

How does a community move on from a mass shooting? Journalist Tom Kapsidelis has been speaking to the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting for the past 10 years. He offers his insights into what it takes for a community to heal.

Plus, we explore how many of our most common beliefs about the perpetrators of these crimes are incorrect. And we look at other misconceptions in the courtroom, from the effect of slow-motion video on juries to the disadvantages faced by the children of incarcerated parents.

Stories of massive student debt and for-profit school scams make it clear that the post-secondary system can be an unfriendly place to many disadvantaged students. But how are America’s universities and colleges hoping to use their institutions to reduce inequality?

We look at how affirmative action is being justified by today's white educators and how HBCUs are getting the short shrift by governments. Plus, we take a look at who is hit the hardest by ballooning student debt, and ask what do students really get at for-profit colleges and universities?

We explore two new technologies that hope to help patients navigate cancer -- an that app tries to ease the pressure on patients making tough decisions, and new gene manipulation technology that could cut risk for developing breast cancer dramatically.

Plus, we examine the hidden AIDS epidemic among elderly African-Americans and talk the physician training thousands of surgeons to prevent blindness in developing countries.

About 1 in 8 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime. Some of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer come from an inherited gene mutation, but new research is looking for ways to fix that mutation.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 5 minutes.

Foreign policy might be the hardest part of a president's job. But the way the US conducts itself overseas may be making things harder.

We talk to two scholars who believe they have the fix for America's woes in the Middle East -- a hard dose of realism. And we get an update on the far right's takeover of Eastern Europe. Plus, where our foreign aid dollars are going. And: the games we play at the end of civilization.

While Marine le Pen failed to win the recent French presidential election, her increased popularity is just the most recent example of how far right nationalism has spread. Allison Quantz reports on what the right wing populist surge looks like in Eastern Europe.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines short-form storytelling and compelling interviews to bring you the best of each week's episode in under 10 minutes.

The word obscenity comes from the Greek concept of “off-stage.” Violence, sexuality, abuse—these are the things that we consider private, things that should happen off-stage. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel brings these perceived obscenities into the public eye and under the theatre spotlight. Throughout her accomplished career, Vogel has tackled traditionally taboo subjects including homosexuality, race, incest, and abuse. In a different role, Vogel has also distinguished herself as an exceptional teacher of young playwrights. Over the years, four of her students have gone on to win Pulitzer Prizes themselves.

Later in the show: In Mexico, theaters are more than just a place for entertainment. Jacqueline Bixler says they are a forum for working out the traumatic events that have shaped Mexican history. Bixler was named Outstanding Faculty of 2016 by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Also: Ann Marie Stock has opened her heart to Cuban film and her home to Cuban filmmakers. She has traveled regularly to Cuba and was in Havana when the American flag was raised at the U.S. embassy for the first time in more than half a century.

Animal Intersections

In his forthcoming book A Hoot in the Light: Illuminating the Sensory Modes of Animal Communication, Alex Parrish says that by recognizing animal voices, we do not diminish our own – but open the potential to make our particular brand of humanism a little more humane. Parrish talks with us about how communication evolves, and how wildly different species of animals employ similar persuasive tactics in order to solve similar problems. And: In Norfolk’s Calvert Square, preschoolers plant watermelon and okra next to 200,000 live bees. They aren’t alone. Carrie “Honeybee” Brown has planted apiaries in community gardens across the city in an effort to save the ailing honeybee. Now, she’s planning to shave bees and attach transmitters to get neighbourhood kids interested in entomology.

Later in the show: Biologist Kevin Hamed discovered a consistently alarming number of tiny skulls stuck in glass bottles found roadside litter. Tiny shrews are crawling in, but can’t get back out. He and his students are on the case, trying to solve mysteries where humans and the wilderness intersect. Plus: A study in Appalacia is taking very close look at roadkill. James Vance and Gabrielle Smith hope to find ways to help animals avoid crossing a particularly high-traffic area.

We ask a lot of primary schools: to teach kids about themselves and their communities, to prepare them to read and write, and to instill the right values in our youngest citizens. On top of that, schools are increasingly asked to take responsibility for the other stuff, like making sure kids are sleeping well and eating enough.

In the second episode of our ongoing series, Degrees of Separation, we look at how primary schools are meeting these demands to reduce inequality and the subtle ways they may be reinforcing it.

Most of America's public school teachers are white, but they're working in classrooms of increasing ethnic and racial diversity. A recent study from the University of Virginia looked at whether a teacher's race changed their students' outcomes.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in around 5 minutes.

It used to be that a high school education was enough to support a comfortably middle class lifestyle. But these days, it takes a lot more to get a well-paying job. One program offers convenient college credit courses to high school students... for free.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in about five minutes.

When we look back on history, we remember the Rockefellers. Our grand sweep of history tends to leave out the little guys.

But now, historians and activists are trying to recapture and preserve the stories of working-class communities across the country -- and they're having an impact. This week, we hear from a community activist who helped prevent toxic waste from being dumped in a blue-collar Richmond neighborhood. Plus, we examine how wrong our perceptions of homelessness can really be.

Taking a step back from the debates on immigration, we look at the evolution of one of America's first nations: The Cherokee Nation.

Today, the Cherokee Nation is the third largest Native American tribe in the United States, with an enormous population of Americans claiming Cherokee ancestry.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in about five minutes.

America is hooked on opioids — by one count, there are currently more opioid prescriptions than people in the southeastern United States. This week, we we’re taking a deep dive into the causes of the opioid crisis.

We speak to the author of Dreamland, Sam Quinones, on how communities have been torn apart by addiction. We hear from a surgeon and father who lost his son to opioid addiction. And we tackle the latest research on how opioid dependency is affecting so many Americans.

America is facing a opioids crisis of epic proportions. In the southeastern United States, there are more opioid prescriptions than there are people -- and it's having lethal effects.

Now, a new study has shown that the path to opioid abuse can begin even before you're conscious -- on the operating table.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews and short-form storytelling to bring you the best of each week's episode in under five minutes.

"Music has always moved movements."

This is how Arthur Romano puts it on this week's show. He would know -- he trains musicians on navigating the complexities of representing hip-hop abroad on behalf of the US government.

He's not the only one who wrestles with the politics of music. We also speak to Noel Lobley, who's project to remix historical recordings of African musicians tries to reverse the legacy of the colonial archive.

Kiki Petrosino is afraid when she gets behind the wheel -- afraid that she will be killed by police in a routine traffic stop. In "Letter beginning, 'If My Body is a Text'", she tries to express this fear of being misunderstood by white authorities. This week, we speak with Petrosino about her work, and continue our series on remarkable, untold stories from black history -- this time, in the world of sports.

Plus, we talk to a scholar who is mapping the history of the KKK -- despite descendants' efforts to erase records -- and trace the origin of revolutionary thinking.

Under the indignity of the Jim Crow South, some truly remarkable stories were born. This week, we speak with the authors who chronicled two true stories of African-American resistance that have now become Oscar-nominated movies: Margot Lee Shetterly, whose book Hidden Figures documents the tale of the African-American women who put a man on the moon; and Peter Wallenstein, who tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple who struck down bans on interracial marriage. Plus, producer Kelley Libby talks with the voice of NPR about their different experiences of growing up in the South.

This week's show is for the bibliophiles. We take a deeper dive into the unusual story of Ferdinand, the pacifist bull who terrified dictators and earned a rebuke from Ernest Hemingway (he never liked bulls much anyway). Then we poke around the margins of old library books and discover the forgotten stories of mourning mothers and licentious lovers. Plus we talk with authors and educators exploring new worlds with literature.

You know the expression “Like a bull in a china shop”? Well, that phrase came to mind while we were working on our show this week -- and not because any of us were more clumsy than usual in the studios.

It's because we’ve been talking about the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand”, the classic children’s book with a bright red cover, about the little bull who just wants to smell flowers. It was published in 1936, at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War. And almost immediately, it was a success.

But this nice little story about a sweet-hearted bull wasn't just for kids. It managed to upset the likes of Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler. Here's why.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in around five minutes.

We might think the glory days of cigarettes are long over. But new science is revealing a damaging new trend for flavored cigarettes. It might not be long until menthol goes the way of the dodo.

From With Good Reason, the Short Listen combines compelling interviews with short-form storytelling to bring the best of each week's episode in around five minutes.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Nadine Kabbani, associate professor of molecular neuroscience at George Mason University.

Religion and politics go together like cheese and apple pie - some people love it, some people hate it. This week, we take a look at America's rocky relationship with the politics of faith, from Jefferson's vision for a secular utopia to politicians use of the bible today. Along the way, we look at how teleprojected pastors are changing evangelism, and try to determine what the Founding Fathers really believed.