George Lakoff’s Expansive Lecture: How Linguistics Relates to Everything Else.

This talk by George Lakoff has got to be one of the most ambitious 40-minute talks I’ve ever watched. Lakoff is a linguist who has spent his life studying language, but not merely language. He has also drilled down into the brain using neuroscience, connecting our use of language to such things as neural binding and mirror neurons. He has also looked upward from conceptual metaphors to point out their personal and cultural ramifications.

Metaphors begin taking root in three-year old children based on physical activities. As adults, we employ these metaphors ever-so-easily in order to understand complex social phenomena such as romantic relationships, art, teaching and politics. Whenever we employ these metaphors (and we are always doing this) we are thinking with our bodies. Further, without these metaphors we would have an impoverished understanding of essentially everything that is important to us. If you don’t want to invest in the entire 40-minute talk, I would urge you to go to the 24-minute mark to hear Lakoff’s story how the explosion of research on conceptual metaphors began with a tearful graduate student’s comment, “I’ve got a metaphor problem with my boyfriend.” After hearing this story and watching the short audience participation segment where Lakoff connects up romantic love with the physical act of traveling, the field of conceptual metaphor will likely become vivid and compelling for you. Conceptual metaphors are invisible to most of us, but once you see how they work, you will see them everywhere.  You might even feel that you have new superpowers for seeing how people talk, think and attempt to persuade each other.

Lakoff is probably best known for his work on metaphors (with philosopher Mark Johnson), beginning (but by no means ending) with the book, “Metaphors We Live By.” I’ve written on the importance of metaphors in many other places, including here, here and here.  Conceptual metaphors are critical to my own profession, the legal profession. I’ve published my own analysis on the critical connection between metaphors and the legal doctrine of stare decisis here: "The Exaggerated Importance of Stare Decisis." 

Continue ReadingGeorge Lakoff’s Expansive Lecture: How Linguistics Relates to Everything Else.

Rule #1: Take Time to Say Hello to Strangers

Over the past couple of decades, I've become eager to say hello to people I don't know, but it wasn't always this way. I'm most definitely an introvert and it was easy to walk on by.  Through trial and error, though, I've learned that you have no idea who that person is, the one you are passing on the street. It might be a person with a fantastic story. For instance, when my kids were young, I often walked past a man at my kids' grade school, merely saying hello. It was months later that I learned that he was a Grammy Award winning jazz piano player who toured the world.

About 20 years ago, at a Christmastime event at the home of a neighbor of my former family-in-law my father-in-law asked me, "Erich, have you met James Watson yet?" I hadn't. That night, while most of the neighbors sang Christmas carols, I had the opportunity to discuss the double helix with the co-discoverer of DNA.

There's all kinds of interesting people all around you. Most of them don't send you any clues to their accomplishments, not until you say hello and strike up a conversation.  You will miss out on some of the best parts of life if you don't take the time to say hello to strangers.

Sixteen years ago, in April, 2004, I took the time to get to know a woman who walked her two dogs (Cara Mia and Bobinskion) up and down my street every day. The woman's name was Bisia and it turned out that she was a Polish Countess who had an unusual story, a heroic story based on her life in Poland during World War II. She was 85-years old when I sat down to interview her for the Flora Place neighborhood newsletter. At that time, Bisa was married to her 95 year old husband, Isham. They have both passed away since I interviewed with her. After I wrote up her story, I noticed that the local PBS station had produced a feature on her too. I've embedded that link below.

I wrote this 15 years ago and rediscovered it today. I'd like to once again share her story. I hope you enjoy this.

The Countess of Flora Place

Originally Published April, 2004

Each of us might not have ended up living on Flora Place.  Life offers many paths to many other places.  I, for instance, grew up in St. Louis County and learned of this beautiful street through friends. My personal path to becoming a Flora Place resident, then, was not surprising.

For others, though, the journey followed convoluted and precarious paths.  One such person is Bisia Reavis, who has lived with her husband Isham at 4122 Flora Place since 1958.  As one of the most prominent dog-walkers on the street, Bisia is virtually an institution.  Always ready with her kind smile and encouraging words, she is generally accompanied on her walks by Cara Mia (a Doberman) and Bobinski (“Bo,” a Poodle).

The current editor of this newsletter has decided to begin a series of articles highlighting the stories some of our many interesting neighbors. Bisia was kind enough to share her journey from Poland to Flora Place as the first article in this series.

Formerly known as Countess Elizbieta Krasicka, Bisia was the youngest of six children born in 1921 to Count August from Siecin Krasicki and Countess Isabella from Granow Wodzicka.  The family lived at the Castle at Lesko, in Poland (present day Ukraine) tucked along the Carpathian Mountains.  The sprawling estate stretched to the borders of both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The bright red family coat of arms is the symbol of a lineage of nobility stretching back to 1540.  Bisia’s story involves many ancillary episodes.  Her Grandfather Stanislaw traveled to Mexico to serve as one of Maximillian’s officers in the 1860’s.   Her uncle, the Archbishop of Krakow, ordained Pope John-Paul II.

Bisia was 17 when war broke out in September, 1939. The Germans and Soviets quickly decided that the San River (which flowed through the family garden) would serve as their contentious line of demarcation.

Continue ReadingRule #1: Take Time to Say Hello to Strangers

Bill McKibben: COVID-19 Is Presenting Us With an Opportunity to Reconceptualize Our Social Lives

It's awkward to discuss silver linings while so many people are suffering and when things might get much worse before they become better. That said, COVID-19 appears to be presenting us with an opportunity to reboot how we should be interacting with each other. Bill McKibben discusses this opportunity at Yale365:

[As Society Reopens], we might actually find ourselves embracing gregariousness. In truth, we began social distancing a long time ago. First came the move to the suburbs: In the postwar years, America spent the bulk of its prosperity on the task of building bigger houses farther apart from each other. This caused environmental woes — all those big houses to heat and cool and migrate between — but it also meant that we simply ran into each other less. The average size of a new house has doubled since 1970, even as the number of people living in it has steadily shrunk — the average density of most recent housing developments is about two people per acre, down from about 10 persons per acre for cities, suburbs, and towns in 1920. Between 1974 and 1994 the fraction of Americans who said they frequently visited with their neighbors fell from almost a third to barely a fifth. That number has kept dropping, now less because of suburbanization than because of screens: If you look at teenagers, for instance, a wild behavioral shift is noticeable beginning about 2012 when the numbers of Americans with a smartphone passed the 50 percent mark. The number of young people who got together with their friends in person every day dropped by 40 percent from 2010 to 2015, a curve that seems to be accelerating according to Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University.

Photo by Erich Vieth

Continue ReadingBill McKibben: COVID-19 Is Presenting Us With an Opportunity to Reconceptualize Our Social Lives

Darrin Patrick’s Final Sermon: Life is Precious and Fleeting

A friend of mine, Darrin Patrick, was a pastor of a St. Louis Church called "The Journey." He died suddenly two days ago. The Post-Dispatch reports this: [N]o official cause of death has been released. The gunshot wound appeared to be self-inflicted; foul play is not suspected." I don't know anything further than this cryptic account.

I hadn't seen Darrin for several years, but I could have tried harder to connect with him again. That's one of the crazy things that life does, right? You don't make enough effort and then, suddenly, it's too late. This is not the first time this has happened to me. Perhaps this was Darrin's last sermon: life is truly precious and fleeting and you need to seize the day and make real efforts to maintain your connections to your people. He would likely add that it is critically important to be creative in those connections, because it was a significant part of his mission to support artists and writers.

When we last visited, Darrin spoke highly of his wife Amie and their kids, but I hadn't met them. Yesterday, Amie posted a sad sweet announcement on his FB page, and I just posted a short comment, which I will paste below. Mine was the 918th comment to her announcement. For another glimpse at what an unusual and innovative person Darrin was, check out this post at Dangerous Intersection.  In fact, I'm going to spoil it: I would bet you don't know of any other pastor who invited an atheist to discuss skepticism in front of hundreds of parishioners as part of a church service.

Amie, you and I have never met, but I am one of the many people touched by Darrin. By no means am I the sort of person that would be expected to fit into Darrin's flock, but I suspect that Darrin was surrounded by such people. He challenged me and I challenged him back and that's how he wanted it. That's because he was a real person, filled with intelligence, good-heartedness and energy but also nuance. I'm so sorry for your loss. Please know that I will miss him too. He changed me for the better and that's the bottom line.

Continue ReadingDarrin Patrick’s Final Sermon: Life is Precious and Fleeting

New Study: Noise Impairs Productivity

Finding from new study from the University of Chicago:, "Noise, Cognitive Function, and Worker Productivity":

As the developing world continues to become more urban and industrial, noise pollution is destined to spread even further. Between 2001 and 2015, the number of cars per person in India tripled, and this growth shows no signs of slowing (Government of India 2017). While this should be celebrated as a sign of progress, it will undoubtedly bring with it even more noise pollution. The results in this paper suggest this is a policy problem that warrants both further research and policy makers’ attention. This paper presents evidence that an increase of 10 dB inhibits cognitive function and that this results in a decrease in productivity of approximately 5%.

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