With Good Reason

  An epidemic of over-consumption is sweeping the United States and the rest of the industrialized world. With Good Reason sat down with PBS documentary producer John De Graaf, among whose best-known shows is Affluenza, for an in-depth discussion of happiness and the economy and how the life/work balance got out of whack for American [...]

The United States gives out roughly 25 billion dollars a year in foreign aid projects. Is that money ending up in the right hands and what is it accomplishing? Michael Tierney (College of William and Mary) and his colleagues have created AidData to allow the public to follow the money. Also featured: Biologists have used game theory to [...]

At the height of its popularity, an estimated 12 million listeners were tuning in to each episode of The Lone Ranger. The success of the radio serial was largely the result of clever marketing and licensing by the show’s creator, George Trendle. In a forthcoming book called Selling the Silver Bullet, media professor Avi Santo [...]

The fear of public speaking can be debilitating.  For some, it’s the stuff of nightmares.  And so rather than stumble through a speech, many people avoid doing it altogether. But Molly Bishop Shadel (University of Virginia) and Robert N. Sayler (University of Virginia) say oral advocacy is key to a healthy democracy. Effective speeches can [...]

How badly do foreclosed homes affect a neighborhood?  Does foreclosure spread like a virus? Michael Seiler (Old Dominion University) and researchers at the Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center have created a “Foreclosure Contagion Model,” which uses economic forecasting, modeling and simulation to help policymakers revive distressed real estate markets.  Also featured: The oceans are slowly [...]

Some say that books – that is, the printed, non-digital variety – are destined for the trash heap.  Call it the Age of the Kindle.  Ralph Cohen (James Madison University) spent a lifetime collecting books, many of them very rare.  But recently, after 70 years book collecting, he decided to give away thousands of them.  [...]

What gets a player drafted into the NFL?  After examining six year’s worth of data about wide receivers, Sam Allen (Virginia Military Institute) may know the secret formula for wide receivers who want to be chosen by an NFL team.  Performance on the 40-yard dash, media coverage, the size of the college, and even the [...]

The recent explosion of on-line social media has prompted businesses to change how they get their marketing messages to the public.  Yuping Liu-Thompkins (Old Dominion University) says that, while there are many new ways to market products and brands, companies need to be aware that the new social media allow for less control of a [...]

With Good Reason invites you to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but nearly everything on the table is grown, made, or brewed, within 100 miles of Charlottesville, Virginia.  The dinner host, Tim Beatley (University of Virginia),  introduced the 100-mile Thanksgiving idea to his students after reading The 100-mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating.  About 95 [...]

Inter-country adoptions gone awry have a way of capturing headlines.  A missionary group lands in jail after trying to remove children from Haiti.  An American woman puts her seven year-old adopted son on a one-way flight back to Moscow.  Karen Rotabi (Virginia Commonwealth University) has studied this issue in Guatemala and beyond for decades and [...]