Thursday, April 30, 2015

Submarine volcano


Over the years, I've climbed four of the five volcanic peaks in Washington -- Mt. Rainier (twice), Glacier Peak (twice), Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens (once before the eruption, several times to the crater edge since).  I was with a group climbing the remaining volcano -- Mt. Baker -- when one of our group developed problems half-way up, and we had to turn around and help her back down.

Mt. Olympus is not a volcano, but -- along with the rest of the Olympic range -- a part of the remnants of Pacific Ocean sea floor that were jammed up against the continent by the eastern motion of the Pacific and/or Juan de Fuca Plates -- remnants that failed to dive under the North American Plate like most of the moving sea floor, and instead were scraped off and ended up above ground.

But even Olympus -- though not a volcano -- apparently resulted indirectly from volcanic activity.  It ended up above the North American plate, rather than subducting beneath it, because it came from a portion of the moving plates that had been built up volcanically to a high elevation -- a "seamount" -- while still far under the surface of the ocean.

Which brings me to the lead article in today's Seattle Times. About 300 miles off the coast of the Northwest Corner, at the junction of the Pacific and Juan de Fuca tectonic plates, one finds the Axial seamount, a volcano rising about three thousand feet above the ocean bottom.  The article points out that -- since it lies nearly a mile under water -- the volcano resembles the shield volcanos of Hawaii more than the pointy peaks of the Cascade range, and results from a flow of magma rather than sudden explosions.

Nevertheless, even non-explosive eruptions are fascinating to scientists for what they reveal about volcanic activity in general.  A week ago, during a 24 hour period, 8,000 small earthquakes were recorded in the area, caused by the movement of magma beneath the sea floor.  These quakes would suggest the imminence of an eruption, but so far an eruption has not been detected.

The Times article was devoted primarily to a discussion of the sophisticated monitoring devices maintained by the University of Washington, and the University scientists' observations based on the resulting data.  But for us non-geologists, the article was fascinating because it brought to our attention the existence of this nearby display of the Earth's dynamism.

This week, the disaster in Nepal has shown one possible effect of the constant movement of tectonic plates.  The Axial Seamount shows us another, one far more benign in terms of its effect on human population. 

Axial is only 3,000 feet high, a baby volcano compared with, say, Mt. Rainier.  Fortunately, it lies far outside the jurisdiction of the State of Washington, so I feel absolutely no compulsion to add it to my scorecard of ascents by attempting to climb it.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Equal protection


Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the long awaited question of same-sex marriage.  The press has debated the issue so extensively over the past several years, and public opinion has moved so rapidly in support of such marriages, that when the Court finally reaches its decision -- whenever it is handed down, and whichever way it goes -- the event may seem anticlimactic.

The actual consequences of a decision against same-sex marriage probably would affect only persons in Southern and some Midwestern states with conservative populations and legislatures.  Even with respect to those states, however, whatever else the Court decides, it appears almost certain that the Court will hold that the "Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution requires all states to recognize the marriage of any couple legally wed in any another state.

To me, the frustrating aspect of the legal debate is the apparent inability to recognize the distinction between civil marriage and marriage as a cultural and/or religious status.  Even Justice Kennedy, who has been on the "liberal" side of this and similar social issues, and who may well cast the deciding vote, worried aloud at today's hearing, noting that the definition of marriage

has been with us for millennia.  It’s very difficult for the court to say, ‘Oh, we know better,’

But marriage, as a civil institution, is a governmental creation, a grant of certain privileges to (and the requiring of certain duties by) individuals who choose to join together as partners. When it comes to ensuring fairness in the granting of governmental benefits, it is the highest duty of the Supreme Court to "know better."

The state isn't consecrating these partnerships, or calling down God's blessings upon them. It's conferring a status under civil law.

It may well be that historically (although with many historical exceptions) marriage has existed between one man and one woman.  It may well be that such a limitation reflects the religious belief of many or most Americans at this time in our history.  It may even well be that such is God's plan for human life and the rearing of children.

But the state does not endorse religious or cultural models, except perhaps unconsciously when those models are accepted without question by a vast majority of the population.  The state isn't required to recognize or authorize marriage, any more than it authorizes baptisms or confirmations or requires church attendance.  The government is free to leave marriage to the clergy as a purely religious rite.   But -- if the state wishes to authorize marriage as a civil relationship (perhaps as a means of ensuring the protection and proper rearing of children) -- with all the tax and other benefits that the status confers -- it must do so and confer those benefits subject to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Legally, this conclusion seems obvious to me.  And I fail to see how permitting all citizens to marry interferes with the religious and cultural traditions that limit marriage to one man and one woman, any more than the government's allowing men to use a razor interferes with Hasidic strictures against shaving. 

Much of the argument and confusion about this issue seems based on the simple failure to differentiate between religious and cultural norms for marriage, on the one hand, and the government's constitutional duty to make civil marriage equally open to all citizens, on the other.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

A dome with a view


In the early hours of Easter Sunday, just a week after my 21st birthday, I arrived in Florence with eighty of my college classmates -- beginning a six-month study-abroad program. 

After a couple of hours sleep, a number of us walked from our suburban residence -- alongside the road to Fiesole -- into the center of town.  There, for the first time, appeared before me the towering brick dome of Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral -- known simply as "the Duomo" ("the Cathedral").  I  was awestruck.

I've returned many times to Florence -- never again, alas, as a 21-year-old -- and I've never ceased to be awestruck. 

A couple of weeks after that first arrival, I climbed to the top of the Duomo -- the equivalent of climbing a 40-story building -- muttering in my novice's Italian frequent "scusi's" and "permesso, signore's" as I squeezed past other visitors (at a time when visitors were primarily Italians themselves.)  At the top of the dome, at the base of the lantern, is a balcony from which one views the entire city, and much of Tuscany beyond.  That view is almost an obligatory tourist attraction -- and if the reader has ever visited Florence, he probably has shared my appreciation.

From the garden of the "villa" in which we lived and studied, one could glance up from his books each day and stare at the Duomo in the distance, glistening in the Tuscan sunlight.

Rather than continuing to wax nostalgic, I should say that these memories have been revived by my reading of Brunelleschi's Dome, Ross King's account of how the present cathedral was constructed in the mid-fifteenth century and, in particular, how the challenges inherent in the design and construction of the cathedral's dome were met by the first of the great Renaissance architects, Filippo Brunelleschi.  As King points out, not only was this dome the most ambitious project of its kind since the height of the Roman Empire, but it remains today the world's largest masonry dome -- larger than those of St. Peter's in Rome, St. Paul's in London, and the Capitol in Washington, D.C. 

And it was built without modern technology, by a civilization just beginning its revival from the technological torpor of the Middle Ages.

King's book is interesting from both an historical and an engineering perspective.  He sets forth in clear language the technical problems that Brunelleschi needed to overcome in constructing such an edifice, and his daring decision to build the dome without the use of any interior, supporting, wooden scaffolding -- relying on gravity and mortar alone to hold the rising dome together as it was built.  He describes the engineering difficulties encountered in building a dome of such large dimensions -- and a pointed rather than circular dome -- with none of the visible exterior buttressing that French and German builders used in constructing the pointed arches of Gothic churches.

The author describes the ingenious tools that Brunelleschi designed and built in order to raise and position mammoth blocks of sandstone to unprecedented heights.  He describes the perils of the workmen, as they lay bricks while hanging over the abyss below.

At a less technical -- and more human -- level, he relates the political, artistic, and personal infighting between Brunelleschi and competing architects -- especially his chief rival,  Lorenzo Ghiberti, whose gilded bronze doors on the neighboring Baptistery are one of Florence's artistic wonders.  Although Brunelleschi and Ghiberti built and designed like angels, they squabbled and fought like adolescents. 

The book is a short read, containing a wealth of architectural and engineering information, a story of technological triumph immersed in a sea of political in-fighting, military history, social and economic background, and Tuscan landscapes. 

For anyone who has ever visited Florence, there will be "ah ha" moments, where one thinks "yes!  I remember seeing that!"  In reading how Brunelleschi constructed both an interior and an exterior dome, I remembered my first climb to the top -- how I found myself leaning farther and farther inward, to avoid the slanting roof over my head.  I realized at the time that I was in some sort of space between two shells -- but after reading King's book I have a much clearer picture of just where I had been climbing.  The reader will find many similar enjoyable revelations.

Florence can be enjoyed on many levels.  But Brunelleschi's Dome, by showing the genius and hard work that produced the city's most memorable building, adds greatly to that enjoyment. 

Monday, April 13, 2015

The Alex Crow


On his fourteenth birthday, Ariel played Pierrot the clown in a school play.  He stayed dressed in his clown suit after the play, because one of his classmates had hidden his clothes as a joke. 

Later the same day, the rebel soldiers came to town.  They abducted some of his friends as involuntary conscripts; they killed the others.  Ariel hid in a walk-in refrigerator while the rest of the town was gassed to death.  Only Ariel survived.  For the next few months, Ariel wandered about, struggling for survival -- an orphan and a refugee -- dressed in the clothes on his back -- those of Pierrot the clown.

A year ago, I reviewed Andrew Smith's funny, revolting, and preposterous YA novel, Grasshopper Jungle.  Yesterday, I ran across the New York Times's review of Smith's latest novel, The Alex Crow.

I had to read it.  And I have.

But for a jammed rebel rifle, Ariel would have died on his fourteenth birthday.  He escapes one harrowing experience after another, including forcible rape by older boys in a UN refugee camp, until, just before he turns 15, he bumps into an American officer at the camp.  The officer -- Major Knott --befriends him, brings him back to America, and places him with the family of a friend and co-worker in West Virginia.

We never learn the location of Ariel's homeland, except that it's in the eastern hemisphere.  But, as Major Knott learns, Ariel has accomplishments beyond those of a survivor.  He is fluent in both English and French ("I like languages").  He knows immediately that West Virginia is "in the eastern United States, between Virginia and Ohio."  He is intelligent, and he is observant.

In West Virginia, he meets his adopted family, including a brother Max, just sixteen days his senior.  Max and Ariel are sent to a summer camp for six weeks.  A major portion of the novel relates their adventures at camp (extremely funny at times), the growing if strained friendship between the two brothers, and Ariel's gradual discovery of the reason Major Knott was so generous with his time and energy, and so willing to bring Ariel to the United States.

All bullying involves the bully's desire to exercise control over another.  But not all those who long to control others are obvious bullies -- they aren't necessarily tough "big kids" in school, or violent rebel soldiers, or teen rapists, or insecure camp counselors.  Nor even overly-inquisitive psychologists.  Sometimes control freaks come to us under the guise of friends, as good people who wish to "make the world exactly the way we want it to be.  All for the best, of course."

After reading the review -- a favorable review -- in the Times, I was expecting a book full of horrors, a book every bit as bizarre as Grasshopper Jungle.  A book that, as the review put it, "left me uncomfortable and emotional and  wondering what exactly would make someone write a book like this."  But no.  Aside from a bit of science fiction, that isn't what I read.  I found Ariel's life to be amazing and unusual and frightening and sad, but not unbelievable. (Although there were a couple of bizarre side plots, involving other characters.) And very touching.

And the aspects of science fiction?  In another five or ten years they may seem prescient.  To those of us in 2015 who know of drones, drones used both for observation and for targeted killings; of omnipresent surveillance cameras; of warrantless monitoring of communications; of unchallengeable "no fly" orders; of the exponential increase in the computing power of chips -- none of the disturbing and intrusive science in The Alex Crow seems preposterous.  Just not fully developed, as of yet.

So far as we know.