Of "Chained Dogs" and females.

Here is another chunk of Chained Dogs.

Preface

My father, Dr. Wilhelm Kluge, died in a traffic accident in the American city of Phoenix while on his way to take part in a study of dark matter at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) at Mount Graham in the southeastern part of the State of Arizona.

Among his papers was found the following story. It speaks of a short period during Germany's war in North Africa. My father, like many veterans rarely spoke of his experiences in World War II. The most that he shared with us, his wife and children, were a few happy, often comic, interludes.

Reading the story while going through his papers, I found the answer to a few questions raised in the mind of the family by some of his actions. One was why my father named our older brother "Conrad," a name that appears on neither side of the family. A second was why he occasionally used phrases and terms more usual in Upper Bavaria. A third was his habit of going to Munich's Catholic Cathedral, the Frauenkirche, each Friday to light a candle though a confirmed Lutheran. And, fourth, his amassing a large collection of English and American books between the end of the war and his death that had nothing to do with his profession.

My father's writing was clear and crisp. I have had to make very few editorial changes. Thus, it speaks with his voice.

I am indebted to my Canadian wife, Sally, for help with the translation of his story from German to English. If there are mistakes in the manuscript, they are wholly mine.


Manfred Paul Kluge
Munich: 24 December 2008




Is the female of the species, Homo sapiens sapiens, a mammalian ectotherm?

It has come to my attention during the well over half a century I have been observing (including the thirty-four years of my marriage) that the female of our species is apparently a form of mammalian ectotherm [see below]. Through the period of observation, the women in my life have generally complained of low-temperature environmental effects at any temperature below 32 degrees C (90 degrees F). The affect of these declarations is the adjustment of thermal controls to a temperature level incompatable to comfortable survival for the male of the species. This leads to any number of coping strategies such as standing on porches in sub-zero weather for purposes of thermal regulation rather than more normal activities of smoking a really good cigar, or removal of outer coverings to achieve the same outcomes (which explains why, as usual, the writer is sitting in his skivies as he types this).

Professor Jeffrey M. Foxworthy has this noted this, to females, common feature. In his academic work, he points out that ice cold feet in the small of the back at oh-dark-thirty is the norm. He further reported that the men observed sitting in statiums in freezing temperatures stripped to the waist are not, as commonly thought, drunk. Rather they are escorts of significant others who have stripped them of their clothing because "I'm cold."

All this leads to the possible explanation that the female Homo sapiens sapiens is indeed an ectotherm and, thus, unable to regulate her internal temperature. Rather than controlling her internal temperatures, she instead controls her climatic environment, often to the detriment of the males of the species in the immediate area.


Note: An ectotherm is an animal that is unable to regulate its internal temperature independant of its environment. An endotherm such as the male of Homo sapiens sapiens regulates its internal temperature independant of the environment.



4 December 2009: Feast of St. Osmund of Salisbury, Crusaders capture Sidon 1110, Suttee outlawed by Raj 1829, Mary Celeste found abandoned 1872, Marine Raider Long Patrol - Guadalcanal 1942.