Valentine’s Day is similar to Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other significant holidays in raising expectations that may not be met. We idealize the loving couple out for dinner, holding hands, eyes locked together throughout their slow, romantic evening, exchanging thoughtful gifts.…
Bee Audacious
Just back from the Bee Audacious conference, and it was astounding, possibly the best bee meeting I’ve ever been at. It combined bees and dialogue, and was a model of both civility and tangible outcomes. There will be a full…
Nonfiction Course
I’ll be teaching a new nonfiction course, “Nonfiction Series for the Weekend Student” at Simon Fraser University beginning in January. It’s six Saturdays, and is open to anyone interested in working on their nonfiction writing ability. Below is a partial…
The One Room Schoolhouse
It was a red brick former one-room schoolhouse, standing forlorn and isolated at the edge of a swatch of Midwestern prairie. I was similarly lonely, having just arrived in Lawrence, Kansas to take up graduate studies, with no place to…
Sweet Deal
(photo by Kevin Payravi, Wikimedia Commons) I recently authored a report for the Vancity Credit Union about economic opportunities with bees and pollination. There’s lots of gloom and doom out there about bees, but there also are many opportunities. Vancity…
Fragments
Poetry and science may seem to have little in common, but they do share one trait: building from fragments. I’m collaborating with a wonderful poet, Renee Sarojini Saklikar, on the Honey, Hives and Poetry project, in which we’ve been reading…
Bees and Dialogue video/ Semester in Dialogue Fosters Understanding, Leadership
A couple of recent updates in the bees and dialogue vein: Global Civic Policy Salon, “Bees and Dialogue,” video 4 May 2016 A nice article in the 30 May 2016 Toronto Globe and Mail Western Universities Report about the Undergraduate…
Competing Doomsdays
There is a remarkable story unfolding in Ontario and Quebec around pesticides and bees, rooted in two competing doomsday scenarios. Grain farmers claim pests will destroy their crops unless they are allowed to use neonicitinoid pesticides, while beekeepers point to…
Review of “The Dancing Bees”
I recently reviewed a new book for Nature ( 533, 32–33, 05 May 2016, doi:10.1038/533032a), “The Dancing Bees” by Tania Munz, focused largely on how Karl von Frisch discovered the function of the honeybee dance language while in the heart of…
Authors for Indies
I’m excited to be taking part in my first “Authors for Indies” day on Saturday 30 April, at 32Books in North Vancouver. But even more exciting has been my growing realization that independent bookstores in North America are alive and…