Forever (a short story)

The man stood leaning against the wall in such a way that it was unclear if the wall was supporting him or vice versa.

If contact was broken one of them would topple. That much seemed certain.

While he stood there his gaze rested on a face in the crowd. Hers.

The moment he had seen her he had fallen for her, although he wasn't in the habit of falling for just any woman.

But he knew: if he fell now he would keep falling.
Forever.

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00K4007NG

Rosie the Riveter and the Woozle effect

We have all seen this picture of 'Rosie the Riveter', the strong woman who supports the soldiers fighting for God, country and democracy while she works herself in a sweat providing bullets to kill the evil Germans and Japanese. Right?

For years people knew who she was in real life. But they were wrong. Here's the story on that: http://time.com/5114251/rosie-the-riveter-real-identity/?utm_campaign=time&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter

People believing they knew who the real Rosie was were victims of the 'Woozle effect': believing something is true for the sole reason you heard and read it often. The effect is named after the imaginary creature by the same name in a Winnie the Pooh story: he believes the creature is real because his friend does and vice versa.

The Woozle effect is very real on social media where it's even possible to quote a non-existing research paper as 'evidence' for an non-proven theory, leading people to believe anything. You probably know of a few examples. Here's one:

Many people believe Al Gore was wrong when he stated humans are in large parts responsible for climate change. More than a few point to a quote that was widely spread through social media. For a large part by fake accounts that all quoted the same snippet from a conservative source. Why do people believe these 'facts'? Because they are reported not only just often but often by people who hold the same believes as they do. Here's the full story: https://www.skepticalscience.com/comeback-strategies-al-gore.html


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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00K4007NG

How to solve the opioid crisis?

More people die from the use of legal drugs than from the use of illegal drugs. So why are some drugs legal and other drugs are not? Would that change if the pharmaceutical industry could make money selling marihuana and heroin? It's an unfortunate fact that a lot of American families are suffering from drug abuse. But how to fight the opioid crisis?



Luckily there are alternatives out there for all those nasty drugs. Those nice people from the pharmaceutical industry worked together with some policiticians to come up with synthetic drugs. Yeah!

Just too bad that stuff is deadly. But the US government still allowes the stuff to be sold 'because it's not illegal'.



But how to really do something about the problem of drugs abuse? Well, we can look at how they basically solved it in Portugal. And Norway:



Legalize it!

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Want to read (more of) my short stories? My author page: Terrence Weijnschenk at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00K4007NG