With Good Reason

Mt. Trashmore has the distinction of being the first landfill converted into a park. And for many years, it was a popular spot for locals to hangout in Virginia Beach. Until it exploded on April 1st 1992… Well, not exactly. It was an April Fools prank that went wrong. VERY wrong. Producer, Matt Darroch has the story. And: In grade school, many of us learn that America was founded as an exceptional society - a land of religious freedom and boundless opportunity. But Nancy Isenberg says Britain saw colonial America as a wasteland where they could get rid of their underclass of poor whites, otherwise known as “waste people.” Also: Some of the most iconic athletes, like Muhammad Ali, used trash-talk to get into the head of their opponents and gain the upper hand. But does trash talk hit the same if it’s coming from a robot? Aaron Roth set up an experiment to see how humans were influenced by a trash talking robot. Later in the show: From reality shows to b-list rom coms, we’ve all found ourselves vegging out on

We’re drawn to people who are kind to others. But once that kind person becomes our partner, we want special treatment. Lalin Anik says we get a boost from feeling our "uniqueness" affirmed. She shares just how critical that special treatment is to a fulfilling relationship. And: Can one person really satisfy all of our needs? Julian Glover says no. They share how non-monogamy can be a freedom practice. Later in the show: Studies show that the more we look at screens, the less we feel our body. Scary, right? In our virtual world, we are becoming increasingly out of touch. Two days after Sushma Subramanian got engaged, she moved to Virginia to teach, leaving her fiance behind. She tells us about the app that got them talking -- and touching-- across the distance. Plus: Kristina Feeser shares her bittersweet realities of love.

Lauren K. Alleyne lived the first part of her life in Trinidad and then moved to America at 18 and has been there since. Her poems explore what it’s like to have one foot in Trinidad and one in America. Home, she says, is her poetry. And: Alexia Arthurs award-winning short story collection is called How To Love A Jamaican. She says she wrote the collection while she was in the Midwest as a way to feel closer to her cultural home. Later in the show: The themes of a coming-of-age story are universal: independence, disillusionment, purpose, power. But it’s the particulars, whether Dickens’ England or Baldwin’s Harlem that make a story stick with us. Maggie Marangione’s novel Across the Blue Ridge Mountains roots coming-of-age in the Appalachian communities of Shenandoah. Plus: Solomon Isekeije says his art is all about mixing, just like his identity. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria with a mix of languages and backgrounds all around him. Now Isekeiji makes art that grapples with the different parts of who he is.

Gay men’s choruses have a rich history that stretches back to San Francisco in the 1970’s. Kevin Schattenkirk-Harbaugh is a longtime member of a gay men’s chorus and he says it was one of the first spaces where he truly felt like he belonged. And: David Trouille embedded himself in a community of Latino immigrants who regularly played park soccer in West Los Angeles. The soccer field was a place where these men could bond, share work opportunities, and blow off steam. But then the surrounding white neighborhood started to take notice… Later in the show: Many African American intellectual and civil rights leaders like W.E.B Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, and Medgar Evers were Freemasons. But little has been written about the role of Black freemasonry during the Civil Rights Movement. Derrick Lanois says African American fraternal organizations offered a safe space where Black men could plan the resistance against racial oppression. Plus: Boys learn what it means to be a man from various sources in society. And

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.

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

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 wak

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 deali

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.

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.

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.”

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 L

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 th

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.

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 desce

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 s

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: 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. Later in the show: 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.

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

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 mem

The consecutive terrorist attack on two mosques in Churchchrist, New Zealand was streamed live on Facebook. Within 24 hours, an AI tool was able to delete millions of copies of the footage. Ariel Pinto is working to further develop AI tools that find and delete terrorism online. And: Kwabena Konadu says that America is on a cybersecurity spending spree because the bad guys just keep getting smarter. Later in the show: We’re a society of devices, and we’re all plugged in. Why Hwajung Lee shares the benefits, and why we should slow down before we plug anything else in. Plus: Increasingly, we have smart devices connected to our home. In the face of an impending energy shortage, Murat Kuzlu says the data experts gather from these smart homes shows a clear path forward to being more energy efficient.