Memories of the 28th Century

Psychological Considerations in Winter Coats

Living in an area that has been frequented by part of the Polar Vortex this Winter has given me the opportunity to observe the varied ways that people dress for chilly weather. As anyone who lives in a chilly region knows, there is considerable variation in how people dress for Winter days. Through the decades I have tried many sorts of coat, and I have found little difference in warmth among them. The materials, thickness, etc. seem to ...

Someone I am acquainted with made an interesting suggestion. He said that he would turn me in as Joseph Mengele and collect the reward. I pointed out that I don’t look even a day over ninety years old, and he mentioned that some of Mengele’s experiments were with transplantation of flesh and he would have rejuvenated himself. Well he hasn’t tried it yet, so I looked up Mengele and learned that the body of a drowned man was identified as Mengele. I don’t know if they used DNA at the time, but there ...

I have a mind that tends to associate things. Today it is rather chilly and windy around here, and I happened to notice a guy with a nose ring. I don’t usually think about piercings, but my mind put together the coolth and the metal in his nose, and I wondered how that might feel, not that I really want to know that. That brought to frostbite.

I usually forget such vagrant ideas when I get into doing something else, but this afternoon I spent about twenty minutes outside, and it ...

Recently it has become patently obvious to me that most people are afraid of the natural world, and I'm not the first or only one to notice this disturbing change in human nature. I have known for quite some time that many people did not like the natural world, but those were just some oddballs who grew up in urban areas, so I didn't pay much attention to them. But in recent years they have become more common and more influential.

Some of those people who fear nature have gained ...

Recently there has been a kerfuffle about parents not having their children vaccinated against measles. This arose from a small outbreak of measles among people who had visited Disneyland. Apparently someone came to the U.S. with measles, and several children who had not been vaccinated were exposed. There are a number of reasons why some parents prefer that their children not be vaccinated, and some of the reasons are very flaky, while a few of the reasons are reasonable. One of the flakier reasons ...