With Good Reason

Paul Freedman (University of Virginia) says negative political ads actually help to educate and engage voters. Television viewers may instinctively reach for their remote controls when yet another negative ad airs during a commercial break, but those who stay tuned might reap some surprising benefits. Also: Quentin Kidd (Christopher Newport University) examines the likely impact—or [...]

After September 11, 2001 President Bush and his administration were under tremendous pressure to try to prevent another devastating attack, which they believed was imminent. This led to the secret authorization of interrogation methods that many have called torture. Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side, and Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, discuss [...]

What do you get when you combine 150 singers from five American choral groups with an 55-piece/member Chinese orchestra and put them under the direction of  Virginia Commonwealth University conductor John Guthmiller? Answer: a musical tribute to the 2008 Beijing Olympics that deeply moved the Chinese audiences who heard it as well as Guthmiller, himself.  [...]

Children of Asian immigrants face tension between pressures at home and demands of the broader American culture. Social Worker Peter Nguyen ( Virginia Commonwealth University) says we need more culturally sensitive therapists and social workers to help parents and children work through the extremely tough task of living in two worlds. Also: America must compete [...]

Dan Kerr (James Madison University) says America has a homelessness crisis. To find out why, he spoke to homeless people on the streets and in the shelters of Cleveland, Ohio, and he has recordings of those conversations to share. He’s found that the causes of homelessness lie in the lack of affordable housing and the [...]

Eleven women have been put to death for murder since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976. In her book, Wretched Sisters, Mary Atwell (Radford University) offers an analysis of the circumstances that determined how these eleven came to be subjected to the ultimate punishment. Also featured; The gun-toting woman holds enormous symbolic [...]

Before Brown v. Board…, African Americans wanted civil rights that addressed both economic and legal inequalities. When the NAACP fought for civil rights in Brown…, however, the economic component was left behind. In her recent book, Risa Goluboff (University of Virginia)explores how different things could have been. Also featured: In 2003, electronic voting machines in [...]

In a timely new book, economist and business professor Stewart Husted (Virginia Military Institute) writes about George C. Marshall’s leadership during WWII and in post-war Europe. It was Marshall who said that seven years is about the length of time a democratic society can sustain a war and Husted points to WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as evidence [...]

Exactly 100 years ago, US markets went haywire, liquidity vanished, and investors panicked. Sean Carr and Robert Bruner (University of Virginia) share lessons from their new book, “The Panic of 1907.” Also Featured: We usually think of low voter turnout as a problem to be corrected: How can we live in a participatory democracy if [...]

This year, oil prices reached record high levels and many wondered whether we were headed towards another 1973-style oil crisis. Steve Yetiv ( Old Dominion University ) believes that the world market in petroleum products is far more stable and predictable than portrayed by the media and lawmakers. Also: Nathan Busch (Christopher Newport University) says the global threat posed by [...]