The Tunnel Hill Bike Trail runs from Harrisburg to Karnak, Illinois along an abandoned railroad line. South of Tunnel Hill, the trail crosses a valley by means of the Breeden Trestle, which is shown in these photographs.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Tunnel Hill, Johnson County, Illinois
I wanted to create action shots of Tim as he emerged from this tunnel under a highway on the Tunnel Hill Bike Trail. In continuous shooting mode, my Canon Powershot A590 will take 1.4 shots per second. I failed to switch to continuous shooting mode in time and was only able to get off a single shot as he left the tunnel.
Evidence about the Causes of Race Differences in Cognitive Ability
In 2005, two academic psychologists, J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen, wrote a survey of social science research on whether race differences in IQ result from environmental factors, genetics, or a combination of the two. The survey was published in the American Psychological Association's journal, Psychology, Public Policy and Law. East Asians, whites, black Americans, and sub-Saharan Africans have average IQ scores, in order, of about 106, 100, 85, and 70. The variation in the averages is an uncontroversial fact. The cause of the variation is debated. (Important caveat: The variation tells you nothing about the intelligence of a particular individual. 15-20% of black Americans have an IQ higher than the white average.)
The mainstream view in the social sciences, which can be called the blank slate model, claims that the genes responsible for cognitive ability are evenly distributed among all human population groups. This view denies that any part of the group differences in IQ is due to genes. The alternative view, called the hereditarian model, says that group differences and individual differences at least in part reflect different distributions of the genes responsible for cognitive ability.
To reconcile the assumption of human equality with the fact that the races have different IQ averages, social scientists have relied on three theories. They argue that the racial variation in IQ is due to cultural bias in the tests, that it results from differing levels of effort made by test takers, or that some aspect of the environments of low scoring groups depresses their IQ. In the survey, Rushton and Jensen show that these theories cannot account for all the variation in IQ and that the variation must therefore be due in part to genetics.
I. The pattern of IQ scores cannot be due to cultural bias.
The cultural bias theory has been undermined by research using Raven's Progressive Matrices ("RPM"), which are culture-neutral tests in which the subject selects the missing element in a pattern of geometric shapes. Scores on RPM show the same racial pattern as as other IQ tests. The racial differences on RPM can't be due to cultural bias since the matrices are culture-free.
Further, if IQ tests were biased, the tests would underpredict blacks' grade point averages in school and performance on the job. But multiple studies have shown that IQ tests have equal predictive validity for blacks and whites.
II. The pattern of IQ scores cannot be due to variation in the effort made by different races.
Researchers have used tests of reaction time to analyze whether people of different races make the same effort on IQ tests. Reaction time is negatively correlated with IQ: the smarter you are, the faster you can react to a prompt and the faster you can solve a puzzle. The reaction time data follows the racial same pattern as average IQ scores, with sub-Saharan Africans averaging the longest reaction times (lower intelligence) and East Asians averaging the shortest (higher intelligence). Although Africans have the slowest reaction times, they demonstrate faster finger movements on the tests. This data cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that people of African descent make less of an effort than whites and Asians.
The hypothesis that race differences in IQ result from different levels of effort also conflicts with scores on forward and backward digit span. On these tests, the subject has to repeat a series of single digit numbers in the same order they are read to him or in the opposite order. Repeating the digits backwards is more of a test of raw cognitive ability, whereas digits-forward is a test of short term memory. The subject's score is the largest number of digits he can repeat without error on two consecutive trials. The difference between the average score for blacks and whites on digits-backward is twice as great as the difference on digits-forward. The test of pure cognitive horsepower produces a larger racial gap than the test of short term memory. This difference can't be explained by cultural bias or lack of effort. (It is confirmation of Spearman's hypothesis that the more a test measures raw cognitive ability (or g), the greater will be the difference in two racial groups' scores on the test.)
The mainstream view in the social sciences, which can be called the blank slate model, claims that the genes responsible for cognitive ability are evenly distributed among all human population groups. This view denies that any part of the group differences in IQ is due to genes. The alternative view, called the hereditarian model, says that group differences and individual differences at least in part reflect different distributions of the genes responsible for cognitive ability.
To reconcile the assumption of human equality with the fact that the races have different IQ averages, social scientists have relied on three theories. They argue that the racial variation in IQ is due to cultural bias in the tests, that it results from differing levels of effort made by test takers, or that some aspect of the environments of low scoring groups depresses their IQ. In the survey, Rushton and Jensen show that these theories cannot account for all the variation in IQ and that the variation must therefore be due in part to genetics.
I. The pattern of IQ scores cannot be due to cultural bias.
The cultural bias theory has been undermined by research using Raven's Progressive Matrices ("RPM"), which are culture-neutral tests in which the subject selects the missing element in a pattern of geometric shapes. Scores on RPM show the same racial pattern as as other IQ tests. The racial differences on RPM can't be due to cultural bias since the matrices are culture-free.
Further, if IQ tests were biased, the tests would underpredict blacks' grade point averages in school and performance on the job. But multiple studies have shown that IQ tests have equal predictive validity for blacks and whites.
II. The pattern of IQ scores cannot be due to variation in the effort made by different races.
Researchers have used tests of reaction time to analyze whether people of different races make the same effort on IQ tests. Reaction time is negatively correlated with IQ: the smarter you are, the faster you can react to a prompt and the faster you can solve a puzzle. The reaction time data follows the racial same pattern as average IQ scores, with sub-Saharan Africans averaging the longest reaction times (lower intelligence) and East Asians averaging the shortest (higher intelligence). Although Africans have the slowest reaction times, they demonstrate faster finger movements on the tests. This data cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that people of African descent make less of an effort than whites and Asians.
The hypothesis that race differences in IQ result from different levels of effort also conflicts with scores on forward and backward digit span. On these tests, the subject has to repeat a series of single digit numbers in the same order they are read to him or in the opposite order. Repeating the digits backwards is more of a test of raw cognitive ability, whereas digits-forward is a test of short term memory. The subject's score is the largest number of digits he can repeat without error on two consecutive trials. The difference between the average score for blacks and whites on digits-backward is twice as great as the difference on digits-forward. The test of pure cognitive horsepower produces a larger racial gap than the test of short term memory. This difference can't be explained by cultural bias or lack of effort. (It is confirmation of Spearman's hypothesis that the more a test measures raw cognitive ability (or g), the greater will be the difference in two racial groups' scores on the test.)
III. The pattern of IQ scores cannot be due to different environments.
After refuting the idea that race differences in IQ reflect varying levels of effort or cultural bias, Rushton and Jensen review several categories of evidence that shed light on whether the differences can be pinned entirely on the environment, or whether genetics must also play a role. The conventional wisdom in the West holds that people of sub-Saharan African descent show depressed IQ scores because of poverty, a culture that undervalues education, or other harmful environmental influences. Egalitarians make an analogy to corn seeds. Corn seeds in normal soil will produce plants of normal height, while the same seeds produce stunted plants in a deprived environment.
Several categories of evidence show that environmental differences cannot account for all the racial variation in IQ. First, the IQ gap remains even when consideration is limited to blacks from privileged backgrounds. Black Americans with high socioeconomic status have lower average IQ scores and lower SAT scores than white Americans from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study looked at black children, mixed race children, and white children who were adopted by upper middle class white parents. The IQ of the adoptees was measured at ages 7 and 17 and compared to the IQ of the nonadopted white children of the parents in the study.
The blank slate model assumes that some aspect of the black environment is depressing black IQ. In the study, the harmful black environment had been replaced with an upper middle class white environment, which should eliminate or reduce the harmful effects of the black environment. However, when the subjects' IQ was measured at age 17, the mean IQ of the black adoptees was the same as the mean IQ for all blacks in Minnesota (89). The mixed race adoptees had an average IQ of 99 (which was intermediate between the mean for blacks and whites). The averages for the black and mixed race children were below the average IQ of the white adoptees (106) and the average of the nonadopted white children (109). The blank slate model is unable to explain why the racial variation remains even after the black environment has been completely replaced with a white environment.
The hereditarian model can explain these results. They are due to racial differences in the distribution of genes responsible for cognitive ability. When the black environment is replaced by the white environment, average black IQ will still be below the white average because the two populations don't have the same set of genes that affect cognitive ability.
Regression to the mean in IQ bears out the hereditarian view and further undercuts the blank slate model. Regression to the mean refers to the fact that the children of geniuses will tend to be less intelligent than their parents because the parents on average won't pass on all the genes that are responsible for their exceptional minds. On the other hand, the children of people who are of below average intelligence will tend to be smarter than their parents because the parents won't pass on all the genes responsible for their cognitive deficiency. "For any trait, scores should move toward the average for the population."
Genetic theory predicts that the children of black Americans will regress toward the black IQ average of 85 and the children of white Americans will regress toward the white IQ average of 100. Studies have confirmed the prediction. When white and black students were matched at an IQ of 120, the siblings of the black students had an average IQ of 100 and and the siblings of the white students had an IQ of 110. If the blank slate model is correct that environment is causing the variation in IQ, the siblings of the black students with an IQ of 120 also ought to have an IQ of 120, and there is no reason for them to have a significantly lower average IQ than the siblings of the white children. The blank slate model cannot explain this data. Genetic theory can.
Studies have shown that, as people age, the effect of shared genes on IQ gets stronger, while the effect of shared environments on IQ gets weaker. The correlation in the IQ of siblings who are raised apart rises from 0.24 in childhood to 0.49 in adulthood. The correlation in the IQ of unrelated people who are raised together drops from 0.24 in childhood to 0.01 in adulthood. Since environmental effects weaken and genetic effects get stronger over time, environmental differences are unlikely to account for the variation observed in the average IQ of adult blacks and whites.
The blank slate model cannot account for the positive relationship between IQ and head size, and the positive relationship between IQ and the volume of gray matter in the frontal cortex. The average head size for East Asians, whites, and Africans follows the same pattern as their IQ scores, with East Asians largest, blacks smallest, and whites intermediate. However, when whites and blacks are matched for true-score IQ, the difference in average cranial circumferences drops to zero. This data suggests that the race difference in IQ is due to brain physiology. Proponents of the blank slate model have not offered a theory to explain how environmental differences could result in average differences in head size.
Finally, the testing data related to mixed race individuals contradicts environmental explanations for the racial pattern in IQ. On average, mixed race individuals have IQ scores that are intermediate between the mean scores for unmixed populations. This outcome is consistent with the genetic hypothesis, since mixed race individuals would have some genes associated with the black average and some genes associated with the white average, leading to an IQ score that is intermediate between the averages for unmixed populations.
IV. Conclusion
The blank slate model cannot account for the transracial adoption studies, the discrepancy between the IQ of low socioeconomic status whites and high socioeconomic status blacks, the head size data, or the data on regression toward the mean. The available evidence refutes the notion that the racial pattern in IQ is due solely to the environment, culturally biased tests, or lack of effort, which means that genetics must be responsible for part of the racial variation in IQ.
After refuting the idea that race differences in IQ reflect varying levels of effort or cultural bias, Rushton and Jensen review several categories of evidence that shed light on whether the differences can be pinned entirely on the environment, or whether genetics must also play a role. The conventional wisdom in the West holds that people of sub-Saharan African descent show depressed IQ scores because of poverty, a culture that undervalues education, or other harmful environmental influences. Egalitarians make an analogy to corn seeds. Corn seeds in normal soil will produce plants of normal height, while the same seeds produce stunted plants in a deprived environment.
Several categories of evidence show that environmental differences cannot account for all the racial variation in IQ. First, the IQ gap remains even when consideration is limited to blacks from privileged backgrounds. Black Americans with high socioeconomic status have lower average IQ scores and lower SAT scores than white Americans from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study looked at black children, mixed race children, and white children who were adopted by upper middle class white parents. The IQ of the adoptees was measured at ages 7 and 17 and compared to the IQ of the nonadopted white children of the parents in the study.
The blank slate model assumes that some aspect of the black environment is depressing black IQ. In the study, the harmful black environment had been replaced with an upper middle class white environment, which should eliminate or reduce the harmful effects of the black environment. However, when the subjects' IQ was measured at age 17, the mean IQ of the black adoptees was the same as the mean IQ for all blacks in Minnesota (89). The mixed race adoptees had an average IQ of 99 (which was intermediate between the mean for blacks and whites). The averages for the black and mixed race children were below the average IQ of the white adoptees (106) and the average of the nonadopted white children (109). The blank slate model is unable to explain why the racial variation remains even after the black environment has been completely replaced with a white environment.
The hereditarian model can explain these results. They are due to racial differences in the distribution of genes responsible for cognitive ability. When the black environment is replaced by the white environment, average black IQ will still be below the white average because the two populations don't have the same set of genes that affect cognitive ability.
Regression to the mean in IQ bears out the hereditarian view and further undercuts the blank slate model. Regression to the mean refers to the fact that the children of geniuses will tend to be less intelligent than their parents because the parents on average won't pass on all the genes that are responsible for their exceptional minds. On the other hand, the children of people who are of below average intelligence will tend to be smarter than their parents because the parents won't pass on all the genes responsible for their cognitive deficiency. "For any trait, scores should move toward the average for the population."
Genetic theory predicts that the children of black Americans will regress toward the black IQ average of 85 and the children of white Americans will regress toward the white IQ average of 100. Studies have confirmed the prediction. When white and black students were matched at an IQ of 120, the siblings of the black students had an average IQ of 100 and and the siblings of the white students had an IQ of 110. If the blank slate model is correct that environment is causing the variation in IQ, the siblings of the black students with an IQ of 120 also ought to have an IQ of 120, and there is no reason for them to have a significantly lower average IQ than the siblings of the white children. The blank slate model cannot explain this data. Genetic theory can.
Studies have shown that, as people age, the effect of shared genes on IQ gets stronger, while the effect of shared environments on IQ gets weaker. The correlation in the IQ of siblings who are raised apart rises from 0.24 in childhood to 0.49 in adulthood. The correlation in the IQ of unrelated people who are raised together drops from 0.24 in childhood to 0.01 in adulthood. Since environmental effects weaken and genetic effects get stronger over time, environmental differences are unlikely to account for the variation observed in the average IQ of adult blacks and whites.
The blank slate model cannot account for the positive relationship between IQ and head size, and the positive relationship between IQ and the volume of gray matter in the frontal cortex. The average head size for East Asians, whites, and Africans follows the same pattern as their IQ scores, with East Asians largest, blacks smallest, and whites intermediate. However, when whites and blacks are matched for true-score IQ, the difference in average cranial circumferences drops to zero. This data suggests that the race difference in IQ is due to brain physiology. Proponents of the blank slate model have not offered a theory to explain how environmental differences could result in average differences in head size.
Finally, the testing data related to mixed race individuals contradicts environmental explanations for the racial pattern in IQ. On average, mixed race individuals have IQ scores that are intermediate between the mean scores for unmixed populations. This outcome is consistent with the genetic hypothesis, since mixed race individuals would have some genes associated with the black average and some genes associated with the white average, leading to an IQ score that is intermediate between the averages for unmixed populations.
IV. Conclusion
The blank slate model cannot account for the transracial adoption studies, the discrepancy between the IQ of low socioeconomic status whites and high socioeconomic status blacks, the head size data, or the data on regression toward the mean. The available evidence refutes the notion that the racial pattern in IQ is due solely to the environment, culturally biased tests, or lack of effort, which means that genetics must be responsible for part of the racial variation in IQ.
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Serpent's Egg
Ingmar Bergman's father was a Lutheran minister who became chaplain to the King of Sweden. Despite his religious background, I would guess Bergman leaned toward atheism based on the secular thinking his characters exhibit. The main character in Wild Strawberries suggests that his wife's infidelity is not a betrayal because human beings lack free will and they are not morally responsible for their conduct. In Scenes from a Marriage, a married lawyer gets pregnant, and she and her husband decide to abort the pregnancy for the sake of convenience. The son of the main character in Wild Strawberries threatens to leave his wife unless she has an abortion because his sense of duty to his child would deprive him of the option of committing suicide when he felt like it.
If Bergman was an atheist, he bears some resemblance to Friedrich Nietzsche. Although Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister, Nietzsche argued that religious ideas disparage man's existence. They suggest that life on Earth is corrupt and evil, and that true value resides in a transcendent beyond where we will become one with God after we die. This view is foolish because, although life on Earth may be full of suffering and violence, it is also full of beauty, and it is only the existence we will know. There is nothing beyond this world.
Bergman seemed to respect Christianity's ability to inspire us to create beauty. He said it was worthwhile to build cathedrals whether or not God existed. The sentiment that religion is false, but uplifting and not altogether bad, is expressed by the priest in the following dialogue from Bergman's 1977 film, The Serpent's Egg:
Manuela: And I try to tell him that we’ll help each other, but that’s only words for him. And everything I say is useless. The only real thing is fear. And I’m sick. I don’t know what’s wrong. Is there any forgiveness?
Priest: Would you like me to pray for you?
Manuela: Do you think that would help?
Priest: I don’t know.
Manuela: Now?
Priest: Yes, now.
Manuela: Is it a special prayer?
Priest: Yes, yes. Let me think.
We ...
We live so far away from God...
...that he probably doesn’t hear us when we pray for help.
So ...
we must help each other, give each other the forgiveness that a remote God denies us.
I...say to you...
...that you are forgiven for your husband’s death. You’re no longer to blame. And I beg your forgiveness...
...for my apathy...
...and my indifference.
Do you forgive me?
Manuela: Yes, I forgive you.
Priest: That’s all we can do. I must hurry. The parish priest becomes annoyed if I’m late.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wild Strawberries
At the beginning of this 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman, an elderly professor of medicine, Isak Borg, explains that he has withdrawn from society because human relationships make it necessary to discuss other people's conduct, and he wants to avoid the mistakes and exaggerations that go along with judging others. Borg has tried to suppress his interest in and feeling for people. He laughs when his ravishing daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin, shown in the screenshot above), reveals that his son, Evald, hates him. He has no interest in the marital problems that caused Marianne to leave Evald several weeks earlier.Borg and Marianne drive to Lund, Sweden, where Borg will receive an honorary degree. Borg confronts his approaching death and revisits painful moments of his past in a series of flashbacks and dreams. When a coffin falls out of a horse-drawn wagon on a deserted street in a dream sequence, the body inside turns out to be his own. Marianne and Borg stop at the house in the country where Borg spent the summers of his youth. In a flashback there, his younger brother wins the affections of Sara, the cousin he loved. A dream he has while Marianne is driving reenacts the episode in which his wife, 40 years earlier, yielded to the advances of another man in a forest. In post-coital talk, she tells her seducer that Borg will express pity for her and insist that she has committed no wrong that he can forgive. Borg has transcended the idea of free will to the point he can't hold his wife's breach of her marital vows against her.
After waking up from this painful dream, Borg tells Marianne that his dreams have been forcing him to acknowledge truths that he avoids while awake. Reciprocating his confidence in her, Marianne volunteers that she left Evald because she recently got pregnant and Evald insisted that she abort the pregnancy.
After Marianne and Borg arrive in Lund and Borg receives the honorary degree, he retires to bed in Evald's home. Borg forgives the debt that Evald had been working long hours to repay, and Evald reveals that he could not live without Marianne and had therefore accepted her decision to keep the child. To rid himself of restlessness, as he is preparing for sleep in the final scene, Borg recalls an image of his childhood at the summerhouse. It is one of the three or four most powerful moments I have ever experienced in film.
...
The greatness of films can't be separated from dialogue and personality, which are literary qualities that can't be reproduced in a still image. I think this is why film posters for great movies are almost always disappointing in comparison to the films they advertise.
...
Bergman used surrealistic elements to develop his characters' personalities. In Wild Strawberries, Bibbi Anderson plays the cousin Borg loved and one of a trio of hitchhikers whom Borg and Marianne pick up. They're both named Sara, but the hitchhiker has short hair so the fact that it's the same actress isn't immediately obvious. Andersson's dual role subtly conveys that Borg is still obsessing over Sara's choice of his brother 60 years after the fact. "Get over it." It's easier said than done.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Photographs of Mt. Aix
Mt. Rainier framed by the firs on Nelson Ridge.
The triangular rock that seems to cut into the glaciers at the bottom center is Little Tahoma Peak, elevation 11,138. In June, Luke and I had camped on the Ingraham Flats above Little Tahoma before we summited Rainier. The island of rock at about 10:00 p.m. relative to Little Tahoma is the Disappointment Cleaver, which we climbed up and down when we summited.
The lighting is nice in the full-sized picture.
No, they couldn't be poisonous. If they were poisonous would they look just like blueberries? Eat them for heaven's sake!Mt. Aix
Aaron and I did a day hike in the Cascades before heading to the Tri-Cities for Olszta's wedding. Like many of our trips to the woods, this one began with a petty dispute. The weighty subject of the argument was where we should get grub on the drive from SeaTac to the mountains. We had put some of the rancor behind us two hours later when we were making camp in the Wenatchee National Forest about 22 miles east of Rainier, near the head of the trail that leads to Mt. Aix's summit. Aaron made a fire while I pitched the tent. It was a clear night. We drank Mirror Pond Pale Ale and marveled over the luminosity of the Milky Way above us.
The next morning I made coffee by boiling water with my new MSR Whisper Lite stove. To each cup of water I added two heaping scoops of Folger's instant coffee, which was about three times the recommended amount. The result was a chemical sludge that was repellently strong until you drank a half cup, by which time your taste buds had become desensitized from exposure.
Galvanized by the Folger's, we set off for Aix's summit at 6:40 a.m. The trail heads east and south up the Nelson Ridge via a series of switchbacks. Once we got half way up the ridge, we had tremendous views of massive Mt. Rainier to the west. I could make out the main features of the route Luke and I had taken when we climbed Rainier two months earlier.
From the top of Nelson Ridge, the trail heads south to Aix's summit ridge. On the west side of the summit ridge, the trail forks. The left fork climbs up a scree field directly to the summit. The right fork contours around to the southern end of the summit ridge. We took the right fork because it was more challenging. We climbed between gendarmes on the south face to reach the top of the summit ridge. After we traversed a Class 3 ledge that was exposed to a good sized fall, Aaron commented, "This is pretty hairy." I answered, "Yeah, but it's fun too."
We topped off on the summit a couple hundred feet after the ledge. The summit gave up an inspiring view of Rainier to the west. Mt. Adams dominated the southern horizon. Smoke from a forest fire was spreading out east and west across the valley south of Aix. Mt. St. Helens was faintly visible to the southwest.
We climbed down the scree field because it was more direct than retracing our path back to the southern end of the summit ridge. The scree field was steep and the rocks flowed each time you put your foot down. During the descent on Nelson Ridge, Aaron complained that he was tired, out of shape, and his feet hurt. I asked if he couldn't just accept that discomfort was an inescapable part of experiencing the woods and mountains. His accepting pain wasn't the issue, though. The issue was my accepting his complaints about pain.
After we finished the hike, we drove through the Wenatchee National Forest on Highway 410. The delicate green leaves of a tree on the banks of a mountain stream were shimmering in the wind and glowing with the sun's golden light.
The next morning I made coffee by boiling water with my new MSR Whisper Lite stove. To each cup of water I added two heaping scoops of Folger's instant coffee, which was about three times the recommended amount. The result was a chemical sludge that was repellently strong until you drank a half cup, by which time your taste buds had become desensitized from exposure.
Galvanized by the Folger's, we set off for Aix's summit at 6:40 a.m. The trail heads east and south up the Nelson Ridge via a series of switchbacks. Once we got half way up the ridge, we had tremendous views of massive Mt. Rainier to the west. I could make out the main features of the route Luke and I had taken when we climbed Rainier two months earlier.
From the top of Nelson Ridge, the trail heads south to Aix's summit ridge. On the west side of the summit ridge, the trail forks. The left fork climbs up a scree field directly to the summit. The right fork contours around to the southern end of the summit ridge. We took the right fork because it was more challenging. We climbed between gendarmes on the south face to reach the top of the summit ridge. After we traversed a Class 3 ledge that was exposed to a good sized fall, Aaron commented, "This is pretty hairy." I answered, "Yeah, but it's fun too."
We topped off on the summit a couple hundred feet after the ledge. The summit gave up an inspiring view of Rainier to the west. Mt. Adams dominated the southern horizon. Smoke from a forest fire was spreading out east and west across the valley south of Aix. Mt. St. Helens was faintly visible to the southwest.
We climbed down the scree field because it was more direct than retracing our path back to the southern end of the summit ridge. The scree field was steep and the rocks flowed each time you put your foot down. During the descent on Nelson Ridge, Aaron complained that he was tired, out of shape, and his feet hurt. I asked if he couldn't just accept that discomfort was an inescapable part of experiencing the woods and mountains. His accepting pain wasn't the issue, though. The issue was my accepting his complaints about pain.
After we finished the hike, we drove through the Wenatchee National Forest on Highway 410. The delicate green leaves of a tree on the banks of a mountain stream were shimmering in the wind and glowing with the sun's golden light.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Blanca in Pictures
Ellingwood Peak
Blanca Basin from Little Bear's West Ridge
Another look at the Blanca Basin
Lake Como basin. Ellingwood Peak is right of center.
This shot captures aesthetic qualities that make me love mountaineering. It is a view of Blanca and her subordinate peaks from the southwest, off of Highway 150, about a half mile north of Highway 160.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Little Bear
6.4 rugged uphill miles lie between the Lake Como trailhead and Little Bear's summit. Jeeps modified for rock crawling and all terrain vehicles can drive up the 4X4 road to Lake Como at 11,760 feet. From the lake, the trek to the summit is just 1.1 miles. The pitch of the road approaches 30 degrees on some sections. There are massive rocks. Looking down, you can see the wreckage of trucks that have crashed on the steep mountainsides below. I noticed a memorial for someone who had died in such a wreck.
The road would have torn apart the rented P.T. Cruiser we were driving so we parked at the trailhead and set off under sunny skies carrying overnight packs. While the sun shone down on the trail, chalk gray clouds squatted over Blanca and Little Bear. Luke thought they would blow over but they started dumping hail and sleet on us around 3:30 p.m. We ran into the woods above the stream that the trail follows, looking for a branch that we could drape Luke's rain poncho over. Instead, we found a flat site above the stream and decided to make camp. We pitched the tent in minutes flat, threw our gear in, and then thew ourselves in. My body core was warm but my fingertips had gone numb from exposure to the freezing precipitation. It had been a rush to run into the trees and pitch the tent at breakneck speed with the hail coming down.
When the precipitation ended, we hiked up the trail and discovered that the storm had caught us just a couple hundred yards below Lake Como. We talked with two hikers who had weathered the storm in the shelter on the lake after trying to summit Bear earlier in the day. One had turned around at the Hourglass Gully because it was iced over. The other had been able to climb up the gully by staying on the left side.
We left the trail and hiked to the south side of Como where we surveyed the steep north-facing gully that takes you to the top of Little Bear's west ridge. From the west ridge, the route heads east to a steep, rain-polished gully called the Hourglass. The Hourglass is the crux of the route and climbs up Bear's southwest face. From the top of the Hourglass, you scramble a couple hundred feet to reach the summit.
We set off for Lake Como at 5:50 a.m. the next day and reached the top of the gully that climbs up Bear's west ridge by 7:00 a.m. The west ridge provided stunning views of the Lake Como basin and Ellingwood Peak. The rocks in the gully were icy. We hoped the conditions would be better in the Hourglass.
An hour later, we were at the base of the Hourglass. Five or six ancient ropes that had been tied into a rappel anchor were hanging down the gully. Much of the rock was covered in ice. Water flowed down the center of the gully. The ropes were water-logged and the strength of the anchor was unknown, so we started climbing up on the left side in the hope of finding a route that was free of ice. Luke led.
The gully is rated Class 4 terrain, which means vertical climbing. A fall may kill you. Some people prefer to climb fourth class terrain with a rope as protection against falls, but handholds and footholds are abundant enough that protection is not mandatory, which distinguishes Class 4 terrain from Class 5 terrain.
The climb got hairier the higher we went. Half way up, Luke climbed up a few feet, side-stepped left on narrow footholds under an overhanging bulge, and then climbed up to a flat step above the bulge where he was secure. We belayed my pack up to him so that I would be unencumbered when I climbed the section. As I climbed, I found bomber handholds on the bulge and rushed across the horizontal section without paying attention to my feet. My failure to place my feet cautiously freaked Luke out. "You're being a jerky fucking climber, Pete!! You're not paying any attention to wear your feet are going!!" I answered, "Sorry, man. You're right. I'll pay more attention."
At that point, we were 20 or 30 feet below the anchor the ropes were tied into. We were nearly done with the crux of the route, but the prospect of climbing the rest of the gully and climbing all the way down was frightening. I couldn't see any readily climbable line to the anchor. The ice had made it impossible to safely reach the summit, so we decided to turn around. It was a frustrating but sensible decision. Bear and Blanca will have to wait till next season.
September 18-19, 2009
The road would have torn apart the rented P.T. Cruiser we were driving so we parked at the trailhead and set off under sunny skies carrying overnight packs. While the sun shone down on the trail, chalk gray clouds squatted over Blanca and Little Bear. Luke thought they would blow over but they started dumping hail and sleet on us around 3:30 p.m. We ran into the woods above the stream that the trail follows, looking for a branch that we could drape Luke's rain poncho over. Instead, we found a flat site above the stream and decided to make camp. We pitched the tent in minutes flat, threw our gear in, and then thew ourselves in. My body core was warm but my fingertips had gone numb from exposure to the freezing precipitation. It had been a rush to run into the trees and pitch the tent at breakneck speed with the hail coming down.
When the precipitation ended, we hiked up the trail and discovered that the storm had caught us just a couple hundred yards below Lake Como. We talked with two hikers who had weathered the storm in the shelter on the lake after trying to summit Bear earlier in the day. One had turned around at the Hourglass Gully because it was iced over. The other had been able to climb up the gully by staying on the left side.
We left the trail and hiked to the south side of Como where we surveyed the steep north-facing gully that takes you to the top of Little Bear's west ridge. From the west ridge, the route heads east to a steep, rain-polished gully called the Hourglass. The Hourglass is the crux of the route and climbs up Bear's southwest face. From the top of the Hourglass, you scramble a couple hundred feet to reach the summit.
We set off for Lake Como at 5:50 a.m. the next day and reached the top of the gully that climbs up Bear's west ridge by 7:00 a.m. The west ridge provided stunning views of the Lake Como basin and Ellingwood Peak. The rocks in the gully were icy. We hoped the conditions would be better in the Hourglass.
An hour later, we were at the base of the Hourglass. Five or six ancient ropes that had been tied into a rappel anchor were hanging down the gully. Much of the rock was covered in ice. Water flowed down the center of the gully. The ropes were water-logged and the strength of the anchor was unknown, so we started climbing up on the left side in the hope of finding a route that was free of ice. Luke led.
The gully is rated Class 4 terrain, which means vertical climbing. A fall may kill you. Some people prefer to climb fourth class terrain with a rope as protection against falls, but handholds and footholds are abundant enough that protection is not mandatory, which distinguishes Class 4 terrain from Class 5 terrain.
The climb got hairier the higher we went. Half way up, Luke climbed up a few feet, side-stepped left on narrow footholds under an overhanging bulge, and then climbed up to a flat step above the bulge where he was secure. We belayed my pack up to him so that I would be unencumbered when I climbed the section. As I climbed, I found bomber handholds on the bulge and rushed across the horizontal section without paying attention to my feet. My failure to place my feet cautiously freaked Luke out. "You're being a jerky fucking climber, Pete!! You're not paying any attention to wear your feet are going!!" I answered, "Sorry, man. You're right. I'll pay more attention."
At that point, we were 20 or 30 feet below the anchor the ropes were tied into. We were nearly done with the crux of the route, but the prospect of climbing the rest of the gully and climbing all the way down was frightening. I couldn't see any readily climbable line to the anchor. The ice had made it impossible to safely reach the summit, so we decided to turn around. It was a frustrating but sensible decision. Bear and Blanca will have to wait till next season.
September 18-19, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Caldwell on Eurabia
I laughed out loud reading Rod Liddle's review of Christopher Caldwell's book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, which argues that Europe's growing Muslim population is unlikely to assimilate to Western culture. Caldwell worries that cultural change is more likely to run in the opposite direction, with guilty European elites trying to buy peace with assertive Muslim populations by clamping down on the things that piss the newcomers off, like homosexuality, jokes about the Prophet Mohammed, and criticism of Muslim immigration. Caldwell:
Liddle's review starts with an account of his relationship with an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri, who after being granted asylum in Britain called on Muslims to create an Islamic state there through jihad. The cleric's sons were recently arrested on charges that they had stolen a million pounds worth of cars and went on a coke and hookers spree. This boosted the hopes of the political mainstream that Muslims might assimilate after all.
According to Caldwell, assimilation isn't occurring because Muslim immigrants start off hostile to Western values, and the host countries, instead of trying try to impress those values on the immigrants, tell them that their Islamic values are equal in worth. Multiculturalism combined with Muslim prudishness leads to what Liddle calls "magnificent absurdities:"
Caldwell is overly optimistic to the extent he claims that large Muslim populations would assimilate if only the Western host countries had the self-confidence to insist that they adopt Western values. Islam is not just a moral code and a description of man's supposed relationship to the divine. Islam claims to be the ultimate basis for a society's laws and government, and laws and government must yield to the extent they clash with Islam's teachings. Islam is incompatible with the Western tradition in which religion is limited to the spiritual sphere of life, while the state governs secular affairs.
The difference in the cognitive abilities of Muslims and Westerners as measured on IQ tests would preclude assimilation even if Islam were not a totalitarian faith. The average IQ in Muslim countries ranges from 83 in Egypt to 90 in Turkey. That's nearly a standard deviation below the average IQ of white Europeans. Groups with dramatically different cognitive abilities will not adopt the same views about how a society should be governed or what goals a society should pursue. There is a minimum average IQ that a population needs to sustain the political institutions of a democratic state, like a legislature and the rule of law. The authoritarian character of the governments of Muslim countries indicates that Muslim populations fall below that minimum.
When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.
Liddle's review starts with an account of his relationship with an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri, who after being granted asylum in Britain called on Muslims to create an Islamic state there through jihad. The cleric's sons were recently arrested on charges that they had stolen a million pounds worth of cars and went on a coke and hookers spree. This boosted the hopes of the political mainstream that Muslims might assimilate after all.
that, give it time, we will win over these angry young boys from the deserts of Arabia with the wonderful stuff the West has: freedom, consumer durables, pornography, and Class A drugs. All this jihadi nonsense will stop when you see what we have to offer. No need to blow yourself up to secure the services of 72 virgins—you can have them now, pretty much, all you have to do is ask, Western women being very obliging that way. OK, they won’t be virgins, but still—fill your boots.
According to Caldwell, assimilation isn't occurring because Muslim immigrants start off hostile to Western values, and the host countries, instead of trying try to impress those values on the immigrants, tell them that their Islamic values are equal in worth. Multiculturalism combined with Muslim prudishness leads to what Liddle calls "magnificent absurdities:"
A few months after the government passed a law insisting that the religion of Islam and the Koran be treated with “respect,” the boss of the Muslim Council of Britain appeared on a BBC news program arguing that homosexuality was counter to the aims of civil society. The police were immediately dispatched to his house. Iqbal Sacranie faced a charge of inciting homophobic hatred for having divested himself, in the most moderate language, of the Koran’s fairly rigorous position on homosexuality: “kill the one who is doing it and the one to whom it is being done.” So, we must respect Islam, but simply to express one of its fundamental tenets, even in bowdlerized form, will bring the police around to your door. Presumably arguing that Islam is homophobic would have a similar consequence.
Caldwell is overly optimistic to the extent he claims that large Muslim populations would assimilate if only the Western host countries had the self-confidence to insist that they adopt Western values. Islam is not just a moral code and a description of man's supposed relationship to the divine. Islam claims to be the ultimate basis for a society's laws and government, and laws and government must yield to the extent they clash with Islam's teachings. Islam is incompatible with the Western tradition in which religion is limited to the spiritual sphere of life, while the state governs secular affairs.
The difference in the cognitive abilities of Muslims and Westerners as measured on IQ tests would preclude assimilation even if Islam were not a totalitarian faith. The average IQ in Muslim countries ranges from 83 in Egypt to 90 in Turkey. That's nearly a standard deviation below the average IQ of white Europeans. Groups with dramatically different cognitive abilities will not adopt the same views about how a society should be governed or what goals a society should pursue. There is a minimum average IQ that a population needs to sustain the political institutions of a democratic state, like a legislature and the rule of law. The authoritarian character of the governments of Muslim countries indicates that Muslim populations fall below that minimum.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Custer County, Colorado
Just right of center, there are the twin peaks of Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak, and to the right of them Humboldt Peak.
This picture of the flat bottom of the valley between the Sangre de Cristos and the Wet Mountains shows the curvature of the earth.
In the full-sized image, you can make out the tip top of Blanca Peak peaking out over the horizon in the center of the frame. Equality
In the middle ages you could get thrown into jail for denying that the earth was the center of the solar system or that God created the universe. Today we don't have to accept false empirical claims to avoid being cast out of polite society.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Berlin --> Prague, 2001
I chain smoked Marlboro Reds and drank coffee to take the edge off a hangover that made it impossible to sleep. Through the window of the cafe car, I watched Southeastern Germany's forest and factories pass by. The train got into Prague over seven years ago, but part of me remains on board, looking at the nuclear reactors in the Czech countryside.
Hitchens zings Franken, Stewart, and Colbert
Al Franken, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart have egos the size of a planet, but Hitchens' review of their books hopefully hurt a little.
[Their material] certainly works very well with audiences who laugh not because they find something to be funny, but to confirm that they are—and who can doubt it?—cool enough to “get” the joke....Stewart, too, has something of a fat-target problem, and seems partly unaware of this problem’s source in his own need to please an audience that has a limited range of reference. In Naked Pictures of Famous People, when he decides to lampoon Larry King—who in any context is a barn-door-size target—he still manages to make the attack too broad. There’s no slight nudge, but a huge dig in the ribs. It needs to be “Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview.” And Hitler has to be a guest who has been helped by therapy to become more of a people person. Here’s his opening reply to King’s welcome to the show.
HITLER: (biting into a bagel) First of all, Larry, I don’t know what I was so afraid of. These are delicious!!!At whose expense, I wonder, are those three (count them!) exclamation marks? Who is afraid that who will miss what point?
...
But [Franken who has a powerful wit] is barely even funny when funny is all he is trying to be. See if the following causes you to smile. It’s taken from his inaugural address, on page 223 of Why Not Me?
As the Mandingo buck, Mede, says in the movie after he has been brought to James Mason’s plantation to be used as breeding stock, “Massa, it beez wrong to sell a nigger like a plow horse.” He’s right. It does beez wrong. It beez very wrong. These words are as true today as when Ken Norton said them twenty-six short years ago. And I am here today to say that it was wrong to hunt escaped slaves down on horseback; it was wrong to boil slaves alive; and it was wrong to sell a black woman merely because her breasts had grown too droopy.Jeepers. Of course the “irony” is that the passage is supposed to make you cringe a bit, but this crucially lowered and degraded definition of what is ironic is accidentally confessed a touch later on in the same book, when Franken is writing in his own voice:
“Ironic distance” is not [Al] Gore’s problem. Not that he doesn’t have a well-developed sense of irony. He actually has a terrific sense of humor.See, there’s your problem. A sense of irony is to be carefully, indeed strictly, distinguished from the possession of a funny bone. Irony is not air-quote finger-marks, as if to say “Just kidding” when in fact one is not quite kidding. (Does anyone ever say “Just kidding” when in fact only kidding?) Bathos is not irony, though Franken and Stewart and Colbert seem unaware of this. Irony usually partakes of some element of the unintended consequence.
Franken's comments about slavery are funny because a presidential candidate who made insensitive comments about race would destroy his career. The humor lies in the discrepancy between how you expect a pol to talk about race and how Franken's send-up of a pol talks about race. This discrepancy is not irony; it is absurd humor. But Franken reveals that he thinks absurd humor and irony are the same thing when he says that Al Gore's sense of ironic distance is proven by his terrific sense of humor.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Chicago Half Marathon
I wanted to complete the 13.1 mile course at a pace between 8:00 and 8:30 per mile. I kept to an 8:00 per mile pace over the first 8 miles. After I slowed down to slam Gatorade at an aid station past mile 8, my quadriceps felt leaden and my pace slowed. I finished in 1:50:21, for a pace of 8:25 per mile, placing 286th out of 1,116 male runners aged 30-34.
I biked 17 miles to get to the race. I would have run a little faster had I driven.
For two weeks before the race a lower back injury prevented me from running with completely upright posture. I was hungover during the last long run I did. Until the muscle fatigue dominated my consciousness, I relished the absence of pain caused by a hangover or back injury.
Local bands were situated every couple of miles along the course. Around mile 10 three Asian guys and a white drummer were playing proggy metal. A mile later a pretty girl with an acoustic band was covering Waterfalls by TLC. Michael Jackson's best stuff was being played on sound systems all over the course. The music made me want to spend energy even though I was dog tired.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Fermata
Nicholson Baker's novel, The Fermata, is the fictional autobiography of a man, Arno Strine, who can stop time for the rest of the world, while he continues to act and think. He mainly uses his power to drop into the Fermata (or enter the Fold or instigate an Estoppel) to undress women and gratify himself with their stationary bodies.
The happiness of the book runs against the grain of my character, but it's an undeniably great piece of fiction. Baker is a virtuosic writer. His writing is informal but intricate and atomically precise. Effort is necessary to parse his best descriptions, but the effort is rewarded when the image created by the writing comes into focus. Baker's description of the french braid of the woman who has caught Arno's eye packs a big payoff:
An account of towels spinning in a washing machine exhausts the reader before giving up its reward:
Just after starting the autobiography, Arno articulates the main challenge that writing poses for me (aside from coming up with something interesting to say):
The money shot at the end of the first piece of rot is unforgettable. The female character, Marian the Librarian, has mounted a dildo to the floor of a delivery truck and fucks it as the truck bounces over a country road while the driver looks on ecstatically:
During Arno's second work of rot, Marian the Librarian persuades a teenaged girl to take a shit while the girl sucks off her boyfriend in Marian's garden:
While catching and disposing of the turd, Marian is squatting over an antique platter to which was mounted a dildo inserted into Marian's anus. El oh el.
The best fiction is tragic; it depicts human suffering or the impossibility of fulfillment while conveying the beauty and nobility of human life. The Fermata is devoid of the tragic. Arno's physical suffering is limited to a passing case of carpal tunnel syndrome and a busted lip. He is immune to psychological pain and utterly content with his lot in life.
The quality of Arno's writing and subjects he addresses leave no doubt that he is a genius. If a genius could stop time, wouldn't he use that power to advance the political causes he supports or remake the world according to his ideals? Arno pauses time only to undress women and figure out people's names when he runs into acquaintances who recognize him. In the one larger ambition he mentions, he drops into the Fold to undress the inhabitants of a small town, and turns time on with their clothes piled up in the town square. (Chapter 13). In response to the criticism that he perverts time frivolously, he says, "What else [is] there in the world besides masturbation? Nothing." (Chapter 8). It's a good comeback.
The happiness of the book runs against the grain of my character, but it's an undeniably great piece of fiction. Baker is a virtuosic writer. His writing is informal but intricate and atomically precise. Effort is necessary to parse his best descriptions, but the effort is rewarded when the image created by the writing comes into focus. Baker's description of the french braid of the woman who has caught Arno's eye packs a big payoff:
It is arranged in what I think is called a French braid. Each of the solid clumps of her hair feeds into the overall solidity of the braid, and the whole structure is plaited as part of her head, like a set of glossy external vertebrae. I'm impressed that women are able to arrange this sort of complicated figure, without too many stray strands, without help, in the morning, by feel. Women are much more in touch with the backs of themselves than men are: they can reach higher up on their back, and do so daily to unfasten bras; they can clip and braid their hair; they can keep their rearward blouse-tails smoothly tucked into their skirts. They give thought to how the edges of their underpants look through their pocketless pants from the back. ("Panties" is a word to be avoided, I feel.) But French braids, in which three sporting dolphins dip smoothly under one another and surface in a continuous elegant entrainment, are the most beautiful and impressive results of this sense of dorsal space. As soon as I saw Joyce's braid I knew that it was time to stop time. I needed to feel her solid braid, and her head beneath it, in my palm. (Chapter 1).
An account of towels spinning in a washing machine exhausts the reader before giving up its reward:
At its peak speed, the basket of a clothes-washer turns at something like six hundred revolutions per minute. Towels, which are ordinarily the very soul of magnanimous absorbency, are at six hundred r.p.m. compressed into loutish, wedge-shaped chunks of raw textility, apotheoses of waddedness, their folds so conclusively superimposed, and their thousands of gently torqued turf-tassels so expunged, or exsponged, of reserve capacity, that I feel, after the last steady pints of blue-gray water have pulsed from the exit hose and the loud tick from within the machine signals some final disengagement of its transmission, and the spinning slows and stops, as if I am tossing boneless hams or (in the case of washcloths) little steaks into the dryer, rather than potential exhibits in a fabric-softener testimonial. (Chapter 7).
Just after starting the autobiography, Arno articulates the main challenge that writing poses for me (aside from coming up with something interesting to say):
it is just as hard to write during a Fermation as it is in real time. You still must dole out all the things you have to say one by one, when what you want of course is to say them all at once. But I am going to give it a try. (Chapter 1).
I thought that brilliant writers were spared the urge to write everything at once and that setting their thoughts down one at a time came naturally for them. That that is not the case increases my resolve to try to write well.
Arno stops time to write erotica (or "rot" as he calls it) which he conceals so that attractive women will stumble upon it (and become aroused by it, he hopes) when he turns time back on. The rot is hilariously over-the-top. While he is sunbathing in his backyard on a towel, before discovering that he can stop time by pushing his glasses up his nose, he fights the urge to masturbate:
I knew that I was almost ready to turn over on my back, and I knew that if I turned over on my back my bathing suit would come off a minute later (and who cared if anyone saw me--I wanted people to see me! ...), and once my my bathing suit was off, my Juiceman would writhe and elongate against my thigh until, in attempting to rise and make a drunken statement, it would lose its balance and fall heavily back against my hip bone, where it would writhe some more. (Chapter 8).
The money shot at the end of the first piece of rot is unforgettable. The female character, Marian the Librarian, has mounted a dildo to the floor of a delivery truck and fucks it as the truck bounces over a country road while the driver looks on ecstatically:
The UPS man had his head cranked around and was watching her crammed crotch, pop-eyed. He made a vowelly groan and lifted his butt clear off the seat. "Oh, here it comes!" he said. With a final upward fist-stroke, his squat thick dick blew a united parcel of peckerpaste all over the sleeve of his uniform. "Ooh, yeah babe. Ooh yeah."
During Arno's second work of rot, Marian the Librarian persuades a teenaged girl to take a shit while the girl sucks off her boyfriend in Marian's garden:
Sylvie moaned again. Her asshole domed and opened wider, and a big dark hard dickshape began to push its way straight out. Marian held the napkin underneath. "Oh yeah. Keep pushing baby. Push it all out." She felt the weight drop in her hand and immediately folded the napkin over it and sprayed Sylvie clean.
While catching and disposing of the turd, Marian is squatting over an antique platter to which was mounted a dildo inserted into Marian's anus. El oh el.
Arno has weighty things to say about consciousness. He believes that a force like the centrifugal force is necessary to draw a coherent identity out of the chaos of memories and desires that make up a human being's mental experiences. His analogy has overtones of cognitive science. Each person's "I" is a top level process that runs above and mediates between all the other conscious and unconscious routines in the brain.
Baker does not explicitly complete the analogy between the centrifugal force that pulls water out of laundry and makes DNA pellet and the force that allows Arno to spin down his past into a coherent narrative. In the reality of the reader, Baker himself is the spinning force that creates Arno's narrative. In the world of the book, what is the force turning Arno's past into a narrative? I think it is Arno's consciousness. The book is a celebration of the mind.
in order to write my life properly I need the entire receptacle of my consciousness spun, as the ultracentrifuge's rotor spins its vials of biological freight, fast enough to conquer diffusion and impose some artificial order. I need to dangle in a severe vacuum from a one-tenth-inch-thick length of piano wire ..., while a xenon lamp flashes some unforgiving wavelength over my memory sample, rotating sixty times faster than the washing machine in my basement did--I want all of the semi-remembered images of half-dressed women, all these fragments of my voyeuristic history, that still remain in messy colloidal suspension to fly around at the speed of insight until they are compelled to file themselves away once and for all into neat radial gradients of macromolecular uniformity, like layered cocktails or fancy multicolored creations in Jell-O.
I happen to know, from a three-week assignment in the research department of Kilmer Pharmaceuticals ..., that biochemists routinely use the centrifuge ... to spin down, or "pellet," lengths of DNA in order to purify or clean them. And everything in the mind--that final triumph of protein chemistry--is likewise in helpless motion, afloat, diffuse, impure, unwilling to commit to precipitation: only an artificially induced pensive force of hundreds of thousands of gravities can spin down some intelligible fraction of one's true past self, one's frustratingly polydisperse personality, into a pellet of print.
I happen to know, from a three-week assignment in the research department of Kilmer Pharmaceuticals ..., that biochemists routinely use the centrifuge ... to spin down, or "pellet," lengths of DNA in order to purify or clean them. And everything in the mind--that final triumph of protein chemistry--is likewise in helpless motion, afloat, diffuse, impure, unwilling to commit to precipitation: only an artificially induced pensive force of hundreds of thousands of gravities can spin down some intelligible fraction of one's true past self, one's frustratingly polydisperse personality, into a pellet of print.
Baker does not explicitly complete the analogy between the centrifugal force that pulls water out of laundry and makes DNA pellet and the force that allows Arno to spin down his past into a coherent narrative. In the reality of the reader, Baker himself is the spinning force that creates Arno's narrative. In the world of the book, what is the force turning Arno's past into a narrative? I think it is Arno's consciousness. The book is a celebration of the mind.
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