Education in Pakistan, Funeral Potatoes, Listening to the Bees

Guest: Tariq Banuri, PhD, Professor of Economics, Director of The U.S.-Pakistan Centers for Advanced Studies in Water, University of Utah, and Newly Appointed Commissioner of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and an important partner for the United States in a region fraught with insecurity and terrorism. Since January, the US has been withholding security funding from Pakistan, hoping to pressure Pakistan to target terrorists on its soil who are killing Americans in Afghanistan. Pakistan has suffered from terror attacks, too – especially at schools where Taliban militants have killed hundreds in recent years. Why schools? Well, a strong education is fundamental to a country’s stability.

Guest: Mark Augason, President of Blue Chip Group and Augason Farms Wal-Mart did an ad campaign for a freeze-dried casserole dish recently that caused a lot of consternation. People were suddenly seeing ads on Facebook for “Funeral Potatoes” and wondering what kind of sick joke the store was playing. “Is Wal-Mart threatening me?” some mused. Why would a marketing team choose such a morbid name? Well, it was all just a misunderstanding. In Utah, Idaho and other Mormon enclaves, funeral potatoes are simply what you call a baked dish of potatoes, cheese and cream soup topped with cornflakes. It’s the edible embodiment of a warm hug – which is one reason they’re so popular at funeral receptions. Hence the name.

Guests: Co-Authors of "Listening to the Bees": Mark Winston, PhD, Professor and Senior Fellow at the Center for Dialogue and Professor of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University; Renée Sarojini Saklikar, JD, Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey, British Columbia, and Instructor of Creative Writing, Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Community College If you ever came upon a swarm of bees, your first reaction would be to back slowly away. But poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar and biologist Mark Winston make the case in their new book for “Listening to the Bees” more closely. Bees can teach us quite a bit about being better humans.

(Originally aired 1/31/18) Guest: Peter Guest, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Roman Archaeology, Director of Postgraduate School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University in Wales Decades ago, in a village called Hoxne, near Suffolk, England, a man set out with a metal detector to find his lost hammer in a field. He eventually found it, but first, he stumbled on the largest Roman treasure cache ever discovered in Britain. Archaeologists have been puzzling over the “Hoxne Hoard” ever since.

(Originally aired 3/5/18) Guest: Cristal Glangchai, PhD, Founder and CEO, VentureLab, Author of “Venture Girls,” Director of Blackstone LaunchPad, University of Texas at Austin, Director of Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange, UT Austin Women hold only a quarter of the jobs in science, technology, engineering, or math (or STEM) fields, according to the US Department of Commerce. There have been all sorts of initiatives across the country to boost that number, but Cristal Glangchai says we haven’t gotten to the root of the problem: teaching young girls to be entrepreneurs. So she founded the non-profit “VentureLab” to do that and her new book is called “Venture Girls.” Learn more about VentureLab here.

(Originally 2/21/2018) Guest: Rick Steves, Author of “Travel As a Political Act: How to Leave Your Baggage Behind” Sometimes we consider vacation travel as a break from daily life - a way to relax, see cool things, eat good food. And often, Americans have a “Rick Steves Travel Guide” in their bag to make the logistics of the trip go smoothly. But if he’s being honest, Rick Steves doesn’t care so much about how well your trip goes logistically. He’s more interested in what you learn from your travel and how you put that to use. Rick Steves’ manifesto “Travel as a Political Act” calls for Americans to take vacations that are more challenging – maybe a little less consumed with eating and site-seeing, and more focused on understanding other cultures.