With Good Reason Radio » Politics

What’s the Economy For, Anyway?

cms4tf — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 05:00:37 +0000

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 workers. De Graaf, the author of a new book on the economy, proposes solutions for living more sustainably. Take the Happiness Survey!

Also featured: The story of life has a complex cast of characters, and Fred Singer (Radford University) says we’re losing many of them due to poor judgment and our own astounding biological success. Singer has interviewed Jane Goodall, Dan Jansen and other renowned scientists for his new textbook on ecology.

Making Foreign Aid Accountable

cms4tf — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:01:10 +0000

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 explain the rise and fall of species. Now Atin Basu (Virginia Military Institute) and fellow economists have applied evolutionary game theory to the greatest organism of all: human civilization. They believe the lack of “foresightedness” in a culture can explain the fall of a civilization.

Making Foreign Aid Accountable – Web Extra

cms4tf — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:01:00 +0000

Michael J. Tierney is also the co-author of Greening Aid?: Understanding the Environmental Impact of Development Assistance, which examines the environmental aid spending that took place in the last two decades of the 20th century.

Black in Cuba

tap2ae — Sat, 28 May 2011 05:01:36 +0000

Two years after his 1959 speech at the Havana Labor Rally Fidel Castro declared that the age of racism and discrimination was over. Geoffroy de Laforcade (Norfolk State University) and William Alexander (Norfolk State University) discuss the validity of Castro’s declaration in today’s Cuba. This summer, they will be leading students from the United States on an intensive study program in that country. Also featured: When poet Sheikh Kamarah (Virginia State University) left Sierra Leone to get his PhD in America, a civil war broke out that prevented him from returning home for 10 years. In his poetry collection, Singing in Exile and The Child of War, Kamarah writes about the Sierra Leone he knew as a child when it was renowned as the most peaceful nation in West Africa.

The American Graduation Initiative

tap2ae — Sat, 07 May 2011 05:01:19 +0000

The federal government unveiled a 12 billion dollar initiative last summer to add 5 million new community college graduates by 2020. Frank Friedman (Piedmont Virginia Community College) says community college enrollment has exploded during the recession, but colleges are struggling to keep up with the demand for faculty and facilities. Also featured: Realizing that most foster care children don’t do well after high school, Barbara and Mark Fried made the founding gift for the new Great Expectations program which helps get these young people into community college. Jennifer Gentry (Virginia Community College System) talks about the new organization that provides financial support, but also the guidance, encouragement, and yes, pressure and nagging, to get these kids into higher education.

Beyond the Islamic Golden Age

klibby — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 05:01:59 +0000

Scholars from around the world gathered recently for George Mason University’s forum Beyond Golden Age and Decline: Muslim Societies and Global Modernity, 1300-1900. Some of the scholars joined With Good Reason to talk about the legacy of Muslim societies in today’s world. Giancarlo Casale (University of Minnesota) says in its heyday, the Ottoman Empire was a land of opportunity with many parallels to modern-day United States. Cemil Aydin (George Mason University) is researching the intellectual history of the idea of the Muslim World . Also featured: From ketchup to bluejeans–Susan Douglass (George Mason University) reminds us things we consider around us every day are the result of complex global trade from this period.

This Old House (of Representatives)

tap2ae — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 17:29:34 +0000

America has elected 44 different presidents, but more than 12,000 people have served in Congress. Matthew Wasniewski (James Madison University alum) was recently appointed as the fourth official historian of the U.S. House of Representatives. He says that while much has changed in the House since its first session (members no longer carry weapons on the floor, for example), most of today’s divisions and disagreements have parallels in history. Also featured: Can Internet news gatherers who are not traditional, professional journalists help regenerate the movement called public or civic journalism that was first envisioned two decades ago by a loose-knit group of newspaper editors and academics? Burton St. John III (Old Dominion University) answers with a qualified yes in the new book he co-edited “Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press.”

The Controversy Over International Adoptions

tap2ae — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:01:16 +0000

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 says that overseas adoptions, while a source of hope and love for many families, can have a dark side. Also featured: Baseball leagues for kids with disabilities have sprouted up all over the United States. Matt Lucas (Longwood University) put together a team in rural Virginia and discovered that the games were just as valuable to the parents. And also featured: The Hispanic population is the fastest growing in the U.S., but Mirta Martin, Dean of Virginia State University’s School of Business, says schools aren’t yet prepared, culturally or academically, for the influx of Hispanic students.

Arab Defamation in Film

VFHwebdev — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:00:37 +0000

Author and media critic Jack Shaheen has watched over 1,000 films from the last century to see how Middle Eastern characters fare. Not so well. More often than not, the silver screen resorts to demeaning Arab stereotypes. Hanadi Al-Samman (University of Virginia) studies contemporary Arabic literature and culture and joins the conversation. Also featured: Iraq once had one of the most advanced higher education systems in the Middle East, but Karim Altaii (James Madison University) says that system has been destroyed by the assassination of professors, bombs, looting, and neglect. Altaii is currently in Iraq working on capacity building – especially in higher education.

On the Trail of the DC Snipers

VFHwebdev — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:50:04 +0000

In October 2002, filling up a gas tank or loading groceries into the car brought fear to many residents of metropolitan Washington, D.C. region. Over the course of three weeks, two snipers killed 10 people and injured three others in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia. Jack Censer (George Mason University) in his new book “On the Trail of the D.C. Sniper: Fear and the Media” asks if the press, by intensifying its focus on the atmosphere of heightened anxiety, also intensified the sense of fear. Also featured: Tod Burke (Radford University) and Stephen Owen (Radford University) examine how cell phones are being smuggled into prison facilities worldwide in swelling numbers and are being used to orchestrate crimes, retaliate against other inmates, and to intimidate and threaten witnesses. Also: David Weisburd (George Mason University) says concentrating on “hot spots” or specific streets where crime is occurring, instead of entire neighborhoods, enables police and communities to focus their resources.

The American Graduation Initiative

VFHwebdev — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:27:30 +0000

Women at War

VFHwebdev — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:59:07 +0000

Women journalists who covered the Vietnam War are often not given their proper due when the history of the conflict is told. Joyce Hoffman (Old Dominion University) is the author of On Their Own: Women Journalists in Vietnam. She shares stories of women who won esteemed prizes for their reporting and several who broke new ground covering the war. Also featured: More and more military mothers are being deployed throughout the world. Mona Ternus (George Mason University) says there is a connection between the length of time military mothers are deployed and an increase in drug use, attempted suicide, and other risk factors for their children.