This week’s guest is Donnie Wetzel Jr., tribal liaison for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. Donnie is also the founder of Identity, Inc., which houses the Montana Indian Athletic Hall of Fame. Donnie and his colleagues are working to promote the virtues of warrior culture through sport.

In this conversation, Donnie explains the qualities of warrior culture and emphasizes the importance of connecting Indigenous youth to their cultural roots and identity. And in a shared passion, Donnie and Justin discuss how basketball can be a vessel for that practice.

Tune in to part two of this conversation next week.

This week is the September edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend, Bryce Ward, about some of the broader challenges facing our society.

The two talk role models this month, a topic that’s come up several times in their conversations. They consider how role models provide representation and i…

This week’s guest is Dean Pearson, research ecologist with the United States Forest Service. Dean and his colleagues recently developed the urban pollinator matrix, a model municipalities and citizens can use to help threatened pollinators recover.

In this episode, Dean and Justin discuss pollinator decline, some of the findings of the urban pollinator matrix - including the difference between letting lawns grow wild and planting native species - and what takeaways citizens can glean from the model.

Find the urban pollinator matrix here