With Good Reason show

With Good Reason

Summary: Each week scholars explore the worlds of literature, science, the arts, politics, history, religion, and business through lively discussion with host Sarah McConnell. From the controversies over slave reparations and global warming, to the unique worlds of comic books and wine-making, With Good Reason is always surprising, challenging and fun!

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  • Artist: Virginia Humanities
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 The Visitors' Center | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

In the summer of 1982, a group of six paraplegic men set out to climb the highest natural peak in Dallas, Texas. Sometimes carrying their wheelchairs up the Guadalupe Peak, they made it. Perri Meldon is working on a disability handbook that tells these stories and more. And: How Lauren McMillan and her students are working with the Patawomeck and Rappahannock Tribes to develop the Virginia Indian Trail in King George County. Later in the show: Tens of thousands of people take pilgrimages to Camino de Santiago each year. Kathleen Jenkins finds that children and parents are especially enlightened by their pilgrimages. Plus: Jolanta Wawrzycka takes us along James Joyce's route through Bloomsday in Dublin.

 Director's Cut: Best of WGR 2022 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

This year, we’re bringing you some of our favorite segments from 2022. We’re starting in the 60’s. Formed in the mid 1960’s, The Soulmasters was an interracial soul band from Danville, VA. Jerry Wilson and John Irby were the two African-American lead singers of The Soulmasters and the other 8 members of the band were white. Producer Matt Darroch met up with Jerry to reflect on his three years in the band, and what it was like touring the South during the height of segregation. This interview originally aired in the April episode Music as Escape. And: The first federally registered Black neighborhood in the United States was Jackson Ward, a once-booming economic and residential district in Richmond, Virginia. Through the Skipwith-Roper Homecoming initiative, Sisters Sesha Moon and Enjoli Moon (JXN Project) are working to reconstruct the gambrel roof cottage of Richmond’s first known Black homeowner: Abraham Skipwith. The JXN Project has since revealed renderings for the Skipwith-Roper Cottage. This past Autumn they hosted an archeological dig on the site. This interview originally aired in the February 2022 episode Homecoming. Later in the show: Fifty years after the last atmospheric nuclear tests on American soil, radioactive elements remain in our food supply. Jim Kaste says the honey is especially hot. This segment originally aired in the September episode How Hot is Your Honey. Plus: Bruce Cahoon spends most of his summers reading a book called Freshwater Algae of North America. It’s fascinating really! But if that’s not your thing, he’s also got two great audiobooks to recommend. This segment originally aired in the July 2022 WGR's 2022 Summer Reading Recs episode.

 Baking By Ear | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

In the mid-20th century, American women were bombarded with tips, tricks, and goods to help them become the perfect housewife. Laura Puaca has studied four records released by General Mills that featured Betty Crocker “talking recipes.” They were developed in response to and in collaboration with blind homemakers and they extended to blind women choices that had long been an option for their non-disabled counterparts. And: Hearing aids are now available to purchase over-the-counter and without a prescription. Christine Eubanks discusses who OTC hearing aids are right for and who is better off working with a doctor. Later in the show: About half of all Americans who get an upper limb prosthetic eventually stop using it. The technology is difficult to use and the limbs don’t always do that much. Siddhartha Sikdar is working with a team to develop new technology for better, more helpful prosthetic arms and hands. And: Many people have heard of wheelchair basketball, but what about kayaking, water skiing, or wakeboarding for full-time wheelchair users? Physical therapist Daniel Miner works with Wheel Love, a Virginia community group that helps make recreational activities available to people with disabilities.

 REPLAY The Wide World Of Video Games | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

eSports has recently grown into a billion dollar industry. Top professional players rake in millions from competing in games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Rocket League. Earlier this year, Old Dominion University opened a new state of the art eSports arena. Producer Matt Darroch has the story. And: Video games have inspired hit songs and have been adapted into countless movies. Boris Willis says the next horizon for video games is the stage. He uses cutting-edge video game technology to turn his performances into interactive experiences. Also: Arcades defined pop culture in the 1980’s and 90’s. But today, they’re almost extinct. Zach Whalen charts the rise and fall of one of America’s most nostalgic institutions: the arcade. Later in the Show: In 2014, Anita Sarkesian posted a series of videos criticizing sexist tropes in video games. The onslaught of harassment directed towards Sarkesian and other women in the gaming community is known as the Gamergate scandal. Bruce Williams says we’re still dealing with the social and political fallout from Gamergate today. Plus: Over the years, politicians and pundits have been quick to blame violent video games for mass shootings. But Jimmy Ivory says there's no evidence to suggest video games lead to violent behavior.

 Piping Up For Community | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

Brian Donaldson is one of the most accomplished pipers in the world - winning many of the major awards and even performing in front of the queen of England. Now he’s the pipe band director at Virginia Military institute. He says Queen Elizabeth was a huge fan of bagpipe music. And: Zines and 90’s punk culture are intimately linked. Iconic punk bands like Bikini Kill relied on zines to gain a following and spread the word. Christopher Kardamibikis says Washington DC was the spot for zines and the underground punk scene. Later in the show: Being a mom is hard. But it can also be one of the most joyous experiences of life. Jessica Gardner’s ceramic artwork explores the good, the bad, and the ugly of motherhood in the modern era. Plus: There’s a second arts and crafts movement underway and it’s flourishing on social media apps like Instagram and Tiktok. Mary Wright says just like the first one, the second arts and crafts movement is a response against consumerist culture and mass production.

 REPLAY Life After Life | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

You only die once. But you can get close a few times. Bruce Greyson never was very spiritual, but after interviewing 1,000’s of people who have had near-death experiences he’s changed his mind about life after death. His book is After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond. Later in the show: William Isom II is the director of Black in Appalachia. His work with Amy Clark led to his discovery in Tennessee of the grave of his great, great grandfather. Plus: For a decade, now, Amy Clark has been probing family land to make sense of ghost stories. A cemetery of enslaved people punctuates the family homestead. Now she’s troubling myths of Appalachia to make the ground talk.

 Real Robots, Real Life | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

There’s a new robot in town. Nathan Sprague and the JMU X-Lab faculty are in their fifth year of retrofitting a golf cart. The automated machine will ideally transport seniors around senior citizen communities. And: What’s real? A documentarian used AI to generate the late celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s voice in a documentary. William Little says the controversy illuminates our celebrity worship. Later in the show: Technology is only as good as the minds that make it. Daphne Yao is improving medical data bias by simply introducing data of more marginalized people. Plus: Google’s “Alpha Fold 2” allows scientists to see what they’re targeting when creating medicine. Amarda Shehu says this dramatically transforms the field of molecular biology, where scientists have worked without this “structure prediction miracle.”

 Musical Legacies | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

A.D. Carson’s new album, “iv: talking with ghosts,” was written under the heaviness of covid lockdown, the deaths of close friends and family, and the worldwide protests addressing the deaths of Black people at the hands of police. Carson shares the deeply personal place this album comes from and his work to include his family and friends in the historical record. Later in the show: Africans and their descendants once made up a big part of the colonial Mexican population. But the musical canon from this period is so white. Sarah Finley is uncovering a thriving Afro-Mexican sound culture whose influence can still be heard in present-day Mexican music. And: In recent years, much has been done to reroot genres like blues, jazz, reggaeton, and calypso in African musical traditions. We know that enslaved African Americans played a lot of music and that music was important to their lives. And yet, we know very little about what the music of enslaved people actually sounded like during their own times. Mary Caton Lingold’s forthcoming book aims to account for that music and trumpet the legacy of performers whose names have largely been forgotten, but whose sounds still echo.

 REPLAY Food Is Family | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

The Philippines takes Christmas to another level. From September to December, the island-country celebrates the longest Christmas season in the world. Ken Garcia Olaes and his parents bake some Bibingka, a filipino-style cake, and share fond memories of Christmas time in the Philippines. And: Erica Cavanagh spent two years as a member of the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa. She says sharing food with her host family helped to shed her long-held values of independence and self-reliance. Plus: Over the last few decades, pumpkin spice has become synonymous with the Fall season. If you’ve never had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks have you ever truly experienced the glory of Fall? Catherine Franssen breaks down our obsession with pumpkin spice and explains how our brain is hardwired to love Fall. Later in the show: Ever tried to drink a bottle of hot sauce? That’s what Ray Parrish says his new Signal One beer tastes like. He’s teamed up with Sarah Smith and her student, Val Ebenki, to attempt to create the world’s spiciest beer.

 Virginia: The Birthplace of Mac n' Cheese | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

You have Chef James Hemings, who cooked for Thomas Jefferson, to thank for the macaroni and cheese on your plate this Thanksgiving. Setting the Table's Deb Freeman tells us how the French dish became so baked into American cuisine. And: Across troubled waters, enslaved people carried benne seeds and grew them in a new land. Chef Amethyst Ganaway is snacking on benne wafers while thickening the Thanksgiving stew. Plus: The Lowcountry is always cooking. Chef BJ Dennis says the vast rice plantations of the Lowcountry are visible from outer space. The famed Gullah Geechee chef honors the grain with his smoky tomato purloo.

 Expanding Our Origin Story | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

Cauline Yates was at a family reunion the first time she heard she was a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. In 2019, she was asked to help develop the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. With Good Reason producer Matt Darroch has the story. And: Clint Smith is the author of the award-winning book, How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. He travels to 9 historic sites to understand how slavery is remembered and taught. Later in the Show: Gayle Jessup White was on a tour at Monticello with her son when she raised her hand and told the guide she was related to Sally Hemings. She says it was a moment that changed her life forever. Her memoir, Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy, chronicles her journey to uncovering her family’s roots at Monticello. Plus: Descendants recently gained structural parity at James Madison’s Montpelier. James French, a descendant himself, represents the descendant community on Montpelier’s board.

 The Five Senses | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

In 19th century American cities, the smell of rapid industrial growth was overwhelming. This was particularly concerning, because at the time, people thought smells actually caused disease. Melanie Kiechle tells us about the official smell committees that were created to track down offensive odors and the lengths cities went to in order to cover those smells up. And: Buried in a folio of a 15th century monk’s writing is a poem about the absolutely annoying noise of blacksmiths–not just the pounding of their hammers, but the gnaw and gnash of their voices. Adin Lears explores the noises of early English voices and writing. Later in the show: Leonardo DaVinci is often thought of as a painter who later became a scientist. But Francesca Fiorani argues that DaVinci was obsessed from his artistic beginning with the science of sight. Indeed, his paintings were a kind of lab experiment in light, shadow, and perception. Plus: We can learn a lot about cultures through their food. Kara Keeling and Scott Pollard have spent decades exploring the significance of food in children’s literature, from Winnie the Pooh’s honey pot to Ojibwe rice gathering in Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House.

 Checkout Charity | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

Right after the cashier tells you your total, they induce the moral dilemma: Would you like to round up to donate? Adrienne Sudbury says that most checkout charity donors give less than a dollar. And: America has a pay inequality problem. Caroline Hanley says that the age-old advice to get more education to increase income isn’t going to cut it. This is a structural issue. Later in the show: The future of work is digital. Will robots displace workers? Does automation mean the end of work as we know it? In the digital commonwealth, Sarah Grace Masnki envisions people owning the companies they work for. America has a pay inequality problem. Caroline Hanley says that the age-old advice to get more education to increase income isn’t going to cut it. This is a structural issue. Plus: Grocery prices have been obscene. Chris Herrington has a few ideas why.

 Spooky Season | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

Could a centuries-old curse be to blame for the infamous slap between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Academy Awards? Amanda Kellogg uncovers the long history of a spooky playhouse superstition known as Macbeth’s curse. And: Anna Beecher first encountered the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale, The Boy Who Went Forth to Learn to Shudder, as a young kid and was thoroughly frightened. The story haunted her for years and in 2017 she wrote Skin of the Teeth, a play based on that same Grimm’s fairy tale. Later in the show: Halloween and Scream are some of the most blood-curdling, panic-inducing slasher movies. But they’re more than just jump-scares and gore. Jennifer McLawhorn says slasher movies open a window into important social anxieties around gender. Plus: If you can believe it, the first horror movies had no sound. Classics like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari came out in the 1920’s, during the silent film era. Jenny Taylor says the roots of the horror movie genre can be traced back to Germany’s Weimar Republic.

 The Pets We Love | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:00

In the earlier stages of the pandemic, when many people were still staying as close to home as possible, nearly 1 in 5 American households adopted a pet. Furry cats and snuggly dogs–and some temperamental pigs. Sherrie Clark is a veterinarian who treats and studies pet pigs. She says they make good pets–for the right family. And: Relationships between dogs and humans go back 10,000 years. Nancy Gee says that today relationships between people and pooches improve health outcomes for everyone with two or four legs. Later in the show: As a kid, Wynne DiGrassie was always bringing lizards and small snakes home in her pockets. After years focused on work as a horse veterinarian, Wynne has fallen back in love with reptiles. She talks about the common mistakes lizard and snake owners make and what it’s like inviting these slithery friends into your home. Plus: Cats rule the internet and they’ve been part of it from the beginning. Dylan Wittkower gets philosophical about why we can’t stop making and sharing cat memes.

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