American Mensa Header

Mensa Bulletin Features

Crash-Landed From Another Planet: An American Pilgrimage

In June, we packed up the Jeep for a father-and-son road trip across America. We didn’t set out to “discover America” or one-up Alexis de Tocqueville but nonetheless made observations about contemporary America on our long drive.

By Robert and Asa Moran • Illustrated by Jon Moore
Making Peace With the Stranger in the Mirror

A breast cancer survivor surveys her transformed body and evaluates what’s left, what she lost, and what matters most.

By Natalie Stanfield • Illustrated by Amanda Mattison
The Best Toy Ever

Back before safety standards, the best toys came with flesh-searing hotplates used to make plastic bugs, cars, and second-degree burns.

By Vic Larson • Illustrated by Jon Moore
Role of the Government in the Creation and Supply of Money

In antebellum America, thousands of loosely regulated currencies flooded the market without the backing of a central bank. The era bears similarities to this current period of proliferating cryptocurrencies.

By Pascal Su
The Buyback

JJ had bought the gun for cash at an antique store. He took one final look at the old seven-shot revolver in his own old hands before e saw the sign: GUN BUYBACK. The following day, there was a report about a double murder not too far from where he lived.

By George M. Hollenback • Illustrated by Tim Ogline
Here’s Your Lunch, Human

We delivery robots have got human beings all figured out. Humans need food several times a day. When they’re too busy to fetch it themselves, they order it by phone. That’s where we come in.

By Stephen Stuart • Illustrated by Amanda Mattison
Nemesis: A Short Story

A young boy spends his final moments with an unexpected old friend — a wonder of nature that he first climbed at age 3. A monster it was, elliptical in shape, as big as a school bus. From the county road it looked like some humpbacked marine leviathan breaching the stillness of an emerald-green sea.

By K. E. Bevier
Politics & the Media: The Tipping Point

Advances in communication, in particular the rapid growth of social media, have transformed the political landscape to where our elected leaders execute their responsibilities in ways that would no longer be familiar to the Founding Fathers who crafted the process.

By Tom Cooke • Illustrated by Jon Moore
Intelligence & Unbelief

Mensan Phillip Power examines the role intelligence plays in religiosity, arguing that it’s neither correct nor helpful to frame theism and atheism into a paradigm of intelligence values.

By Phillip Power • Illustrated by Cherie Fruehan
End-of-Life Empowerment

As a physician, health plan admin, and screenwriter, Mensan Csaba Mera endeavors to let patients die on their terms. He co-wrote the film Here Awhile as part of his quest to bring choice and dignity to end-of-life planning.

By Csaba Mera, M.D., FAAP, FRCPC • Illustrated by Amanda Mattison
Helping My Daughter Avoid Getting Hungover

Everyone knows that as we age, our metabolism slows down — we can’t eat the way we did when we were in our 20s. The same is true for alcohol metabolism. In inventing a product for my millennial daughter, I actually created a product for myself. How’s that for a happy accident?

By Linda J. Kaplan, M.D.
Cess Now?

Covid-19 has brought many new words and phrases front and center in the American lexicon: Zoom meeting, social distance, ventilator…. The pandemic has also forced millions of intubations. A respiratory therapist recalls his first — and the confusing command that followed.

By Michael Breton • Illustrated by Jon Moore
Mensa Brain or Monkey Brain — Which Is at the Helm of Our Voluntary Activities?

Monkey Brain is the construct Mensan Kent Keith uses to describe the subconscious programming that runs our lives. Think of it as the amalgamation of our brain’s many autonomous programs that control all sorts of functions we’re not aware of at any given moment.

By Kent Keith • Illustrated by Jon Moore
Common Threads: An Inspection of the Morgellons Community

Morgellons disease has a complicated history, and many medical professionals do not consider the condition to be a real disease. Whether the symptoms are physical, mental, or both, Morgellons disease needs to be given consideration, argues Mensan Genevieve M.H. Corrada.

By Genevieve M.H. Corrada
In the Company of Heroes

Journey to Royal: A WWII Rescue Mission, produced by Mensan Mariana Tosca, p.g.a. and written and directed by Christopher Johnson, seeks to preserve the legacy of the 4th Emergency Rescue Squadron, whose men saved 576 lives during the war.

By Mariana Tosca
Mensan’s Elam Ending to Close NBA All-Star Game Again

We’ve all seen it: crisp, competitive basketball games devolving into foul fests in the final minutes. It’s time for basketball to finally demote a once-indispensable element of the sport — the game clock.

By Nick Elam
More Than We Think

We might not all look or sound like what people think of as the typical Mensan, but we’re all here in this little community of outliers together. And that’s pretty cool. So, I think I’ll stick around.

By Ronni Peck • Illustrated by Kirsten Wahlquist
My Father and the Fitz

About 180 years ago, Henry Fitz built his first telescope, a beautiful wood, brass, and glass 6-inch achromatic refractor. Years later, one of Henry’s creations became a beloved member of our family, bringing us closer to the stars — and each other.

By Rick Clarke
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Dyslexic Genius

If you know a brilliant little dyslexic Einstein of your own, make sure they get the best academic and emotional support. But also give them a solid exposure to the many new assistive devices that make life so much easier.

By Carol Barnier
The Fine Art of Snowplowing

Oh, plowing the snow’s an art, no question about it. Takes years of experience to get’er down good and proper. So there ain’t no way the city’s gonna turn loose a young tenderfoot like you in a blizzard like this — not on his own, anyways.

By Greg Jenkins • Illustrated by Jon Moore