What People Do

There is the hypnosis done for entertainment—on the stage or in a room of conference-goers. Like, say, this . A hypnotist gathers a group, asks the members to relax, and watches them, with their eyes closed, to see if they’re receptive to the hypnosis. The hypnotist kicks out the ones who are “faking it” or aren’t relaxing. Then the others cluck like chickens or get hot or cold or act silly.  Ther...

Everybody’s talking about mental health these days. That's, by and large, a good thing. But did you ever wonder why the incidence of diagnosed depression has been skyrocketing even as we talk more openly about our mental and emotional issues? What's going on?  That’s what I talk to retired professor emeritus Dr. Allan Horwitz about. Dr. Horwitz has tilted at the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical...

Veterinarian Dr. Gene Maxwell remembers someone coming up to him after a show in his town where he’d played some easy-going tunes on his guitar, influenced by folk, country, bluegrass, jazz, whatever. And she said his music was relaxing. He was elated inside. Because that’s what sitting and playing guitar does for him today: The tones of the guitar relax him like a feedback loop of calm.   He says...

I mean, he doesn’t just study Xenophon. Dr. Gregory McBrayer teacher political philosophy and international relations as Director, Core Curriculum, and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ashland University.   I’ve been on a kick lately reading excerpts from late-19th-early-20th century series. (Find my writing here.) And each time I wrap up a thinker, I thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat...

This is my big Episode 50. That’s, like, a milestone, right? And it’s with a nice guy I know, so I like it even more. I worked with Greg for years at a veterinary publishing and event company. Now, he’s working on revving up his business in commercial photography, which I think is interesting. What is commercial photography? In Greg's case, he specializes in tabletop product pics, headshots, and p...

I stumbled onto the writing of David Grayson as I reflected on my (sometimes) daily reading of The University Library. Grayson's way of seeing the good in people and letting curiosity turn his feelings of urban oppression into natural wonder were inspiring. Open, curious conversations with people are kind of what this podcast is about.  So, I went on the hunt for someone to talk to about the guy w...

I met Noah when he came to a big synagogue in the Kansas City Metro and spent a weekend with us there. I was teaching kids songs every Sunday, so he trooped around with me and my brilliant guitar-playing assistant and interacted with every age group with us during the day. He says in this podcast that he loves getting down with the kids on the ground and interacting with them in the moment, and th...

Recently retired history professor Jeremy Black was very gracious in allowing me to interview a while back about something I was curious about: war. Black has written many, many books, and a darn big pile of them specifically about military conflicts. His historic perspective—looking at how many common narratives about why wars start and how they’re won are often wrong—was amazingly refreshing, bu...

Two things everywhere around us: Religion. Space. But most people don’t bring them together. Scientists unhappy with religion shake their head at our species’ small-minded tribal violence that bubbles up in religious conflict or old-fashioned “sky daddy” thinking . Religionists unhappy with science shake their head at scientism ’s obsessive materialism and lack of answers and responses to our very...

Last month, we heard from academic Joel Schlosser on Herodotus , inspired by my own blog on some excerpts. Now, a nice Redditor, Georgios  from Greece who's read all of Thucydides agreed to discuss the ancient historian with me. We wander close to Thucydides and far afield, but most of all his enthusiasm, enjoyment and sense of humor about the principal characters and events from these old battles...

I have started reading a new set of old excerpted classics, this one gathering writers’ bits and baubles into generally geographic volumes: Greece, Rome, the British Isles, etc. I also write about them . (I write about another set here .) The first selection in the first volume comes from the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. (You can read my thoughts here .)  Much sharper than my own thoughts, h...

Kit Smith is one of the most confident, stable and exuberant kindergarten teachers I've had the pleasure to work with. (We cross paths in a local synagogue's Sunday School). She's now eyeing a well-deserved retirement from decades of educational work at a private school and her regular Sunday School gig with me. I absolutely needed to talk to her about how she became a teacher, what teaching means...

She’s an awesome veterinary practice manager and management consultant in her day job, but Tracy Sheffield moonlights doing local theater and getting called in for small parts that are just perfect for a horse-smart extra.  Find out about her latest gig in an upcoming episode of Walker (find out where to watch it here ), how she got started, years ago, watching Animal House get made at her mom’s w...

University of Omaha at Omaha’s Heike Langdon explains what goes into an Urban Studies concentration , what she likes best about nonprofit work, and why she was attracted to a field that touches on serious societal problems today and historically.   She’s focused, especially, on redlining in a few large American cities as her degree’s final project. What’s red-lining? Glad you asked. And she’s stud...

Louis teaches “Industrial Tech” at North Kansas City High School. That’s exciting enough. But one of his classes—and a ton of his extracurricular student assistance—is building robots with kids there.  The team competes under the international umbrella of the FIRST Robotics Competition .  Louis switched from his engineering degree to a new world of teaching skills like that to kids.  Here’s Louis’...

"If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.” Maybe that line wouldn’t work on you, but what about somebody who says they’ve found gold, uranium, oil somewhere in them thar hills?  Retired geologist Dan Plazak (pronounced “PLAZ-ick,” not “PLAY-zack” as I figured) wrote a book on it: A Hole in the Ground With a Liar at the Top: Fraud and Deceit in the Golden Age of American Mining...

I’ve known Hilal Dogan for years now. She first came onto my radar when I worked for a veterinary publishing and CE conference company, and she was rocking The Veterinary Confessionals Project . She was a veterinarian by this time, although she put the project together during her time in veterinary school (hear more) .  But that’s not my favorite thing about Hilal. My favorite thing about Hilal is...

If you’ve been to a used bookstore, a thrift store or a house with many, many books, you absolutely positively have seen one: a reprint of another book collected in a series to make great work more accessible to average reader of modest means—and squeeze out the last dollar from books that otherwise would drop out of print.  I stumbled onto John Krygier’s online collection of such books as I work...

When I spoke to her, Hannah was a manager at The Dusty Bookshelf in Manhattan, Kan., home of Kansas State University. Her location—there’s another in Lawrence, home to University of Kansas—sells new books, used books, gifts and other sundries and, yes, coffee. Hannah liked the coffee side of things so much, the hustle and bustle, helping folks fast and efficiently, that she was about to run off on...

Jainism, birthed out of the rich religions of India, asks practitioners to be as careful as they can in not hurting a single thing. They step carefully on the ground and wear masks to avoid inhaling and accidentally killing the little things we thoughtlessly murder. Now, that, but writ large: Gandhi, and the nonviolent movement that sought Indian independence from British rule.  Well, we don’t tal...

Oh, that means she does art projects at the local museum? No. Right, well, that means she helps creatives unstick when they’re working on their novels, like, say, Julie Cameron? Well, a little closer. No, Portia (at Mind Full Creatives ) is really on the path of helping anyone with unleashing their creativity, but especially those who want to unleash creativity and actually get something done, whe...

How do you keep learning when you get old? Keep learning when you get old. It’s not a riddle, say Tania Rodriguez and Leah Ferguson (with the red streaks on the left, if you see the thumbnail) working at the Calla Lab at UC Riverside with their inspiring leader, Rachel Wu, PhD. (Stay to the end to hear how awesome Wu is.)  Rodriguez is a first-year PhD student in the psychology program studying lo...

Kelly and I used to work together, and she was always very high-energy, a big laugher, a loud, ringing and positive voice. She was in sales, so none of that should surprise. But what I found out later, after I’d worked with her for a while, was she was an actress. Maybe on temporary, busy-life hiatus, but she’d had a whole ‘nother life before this one in the arts, in New York acting school, in New...

"Whimsy ponderable”: how Carol Branson’s friend described her art. I’d call it child-like, folk-art-flavored found art. You can see the fun, but it makes you think, too. Her online gallery starts with old guitars and goes from there . My daughter is particularly partial, in a major way, to the skateboard art. There’s wood, metal, paint and lighting elements: found objects transformed into feelings...

I throw inflammatory questions and opinions about teenagers at Washington State University sociology professor Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson , and she handles them with aplomb. Teenagers have a rough time, and different teenagers have different rough times depending on who they are, where they live, what their parents are like, and how much money they've got. Most interesting, and sounding right, Mon...