Merry Christmas!

The Northwest Corner's recently lackadaisical proprietor is on his way out the door.

No, no -- I don't mean he's quitting, however desirable that might be!  He's headed for another family Christmas in Sonoma, hopping by prop planes from Seattle, to Portland, to the magnificence of Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa.  The airport that's too exclusive to permit jet landings.  Or something like that.

Hope my readers enjoy Happy Holidays, whatever their religious persuasion (if any).  This entire publishing operation will creak back into motion next weekend.  Or if not then, at least after the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.

Feliz Navidad!  And Joyeaux Noël!

Couging it

Coug it

Refers to the Washington State University (Cougars) football team:
1. To snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
2. To lose when there is no possible way to do so, and to do it in a particularly spectacular manner

It looked like WSU was going to win the game, but they decided to coug it.

--Urban Dictionary

 

The Northwest Corner has many interests, and covers many aspects of life.  Not generally sports reporting, however.

But when a sports term, from my own state, reaches Urban Dictionary -- my window on the "real world" in which I putatively exist -- it seems worthy of comment.  In fact, it seems worthy of memorialization in this chronicle of all things Northwestern.  Where future generations can ponder the phenomenon, and shake their collective head.

As you might guess, the term "coug it" is based on a consistent level of performance, not on any single episode of incompetence.  Yesterday's performance by WSU, however, may have been definitive.  As one on-line comment noted -- from this point forward, when internet dictionaries define "coug it," they will necessarily include a clip from the 2013 New Mexico Bowl.

The New Mexico Bowl was not high on my list of football priorities for the year, but I turned on the TV when the game had less than three minutes to go.  The Cougars had an eight point lead -- Colorado State had just scored.  Not an impressive lead, but WSU had possession of the ball and their CSU opponents had used up all their time outs.  Then the unthinkable happened.  The Cougars fumbled -- they're couging it! -- but no, they were saved! -- the replay showed that the runner's knee was down before the ball came loose.  Whew!  The Cougs had made a first down.  Less than two minutes to play.

At this point, the obvious strategy was based on simple mathematics.  Three knees to the turf, 45 seconds between plays, plus the time taken by each play.  Possibly time for a punt.  The clock runs out.  The game's over.

But we're talking about the hapless Cougars.  The coach inexplicably -- and he has a lot of explaining to do -- runs a play.  The ball's fumbled, this time for real.   Colorado State scores eight points with just 33 seconds left to play.  Wow!  What a recovery for the Rams!  We're going into overtime.

Ooops!  No, we're not.  The receiver for the Mighty Cougs fumbles the kickoff reception deep in their own territory.  Cougs lose by a field goal.

They've couged it again!

But hold up your heads, Cougars.  Be proud.  Not many college football teams can say that their name has become a verb, defined in one of the most popular dictionaries of our time.  Yesterday, you made the term "coug it" immortal.

Going out with gusto

Merrill Newman, age 85, signed up for a tourist trip to North Korea.  Right away, you know this story's going to have a bad ending, right?

As we all know, of course, it almost did have a bad ending.  They grabbed Mr. Newman as he was about to return home and charged him with all those odd offenses that countries like North Korea charge folks with.  After all, the dude fought against them in 1953, the scoundrel.  Luckily, cooler heads eventually prevailed -- I suppose that's what happened -- and a stilted and bogus apology later, Newman is relaxing in Santa Cruz with stories no doubt to tell.

While Newman was being held by the Democratic People's Republic, on-line comments here at home to reports of his capture and detention, while fairly sympathetic, were also laced with strong strains of sarcasm and exasperation.  Why would anyone travel to North Korea, they groused, and especially why would an 85-year-old do so? 

Why indeed?  Well, sixty years is a long time for grudges to be held; Vietnam veterans return routinely to the scenes of their battles in Vietnam.  And Newman, a retired financial officer, has always had a more adventuresome streak than his occupation might suggest.  He and his wife have spent a lifetime traveling around the world -- and that doesn't mean to resort areas.

One of the trekking companies I've used frequently has offered "adventure" travel to North Korea for several years.  While I wouldn't have anticipated an "adventure" such as that granted to Merrill Newman, I did seriously consider such a trip.  I suppose I wouldn't have been much of a target for North Korean paranoia.  Any aggression toward North Korea in the past could only have been in a game or two of Risk. 

I don't rule out such a trip in the future, if the itinerary appears sufficiently interesting.

What would be the downside?  No one was threatening Newman with execution -- the primary risk to his life came from his lack of medication -- but I suppose ten years of hard labor would be an unpleasant way to spend your waning years.  (As the New York Times points out, Kenneth Bae is serving 15 years of hard labor in North Korea because of his alleged Christian proselytizing -- he was a missionary.)

But when I'm 85, if I have to die I'd love knowing that ninety percent of Americans thought I had my death coming for being such a foolishly foolhardy old codger -- for not staying prudently and safely at home practicing origami at the senior center. And it would cheer me onward on my existential voyage to have the other ten percent saying -- aloud or to themselves -- "Right on, dude! If you gotta go, that's the way to go!" 

If given only the two choices, in other words, I'd choose a fall off a mountain or facing a DPRK firing squad to spending my final six months going quietly psychotic while hooked up to machines in an intensive care ward in Seattle.

Caffeinating my telomeres

Whenever I see a teenager downing a cup of coffee, I recall that I was 23 before lack of sleep -- and perhaps a desire for the semblance of adulthood -- forced me to step up to a fast food stand in Menlo Park, California, and order my first cup of coffee.  Until that day, I had found the taste strangely nauseating, preferring to take my caffeine in tablet form.

Since that first cup, my consumption has increased exponentially.  I can down a pot of coffee a day without blinking my eyes.  It's hot, it's liquid, it perks me up -- in fact, frequent coffee consumption may be all that keeps my heart beating.

From the beginning, I've been nervous about the effect of all that stimulant on my health.  But, in recent years, I've been cheered and reassured by studies that have indicated that the oxidants and other ingredients in coffee actually improve one's health and prolong one's life.  The ultimate American dream -- a vice that's good for you!  I've embraced the dark brown brew wholeheartedly.

It was too good to last, of course.  Now, studies reveal that caffeine shortens the telomeres on one's DNA.

Telomeres are a fashionable topic right now, if you haven't noticed.  They are the caps on the strands of DNA within your body, protecting the DNA -- as the article analogizes -- like the plastic tips on your shoe laces.  Every time your DNA divides, however, the telomeres shorten.  Ultimately, they shorten to nothing, nada, zip, and the cell dies.  Soon, many cells die.  When you run out of critical cells, you -- how to put this gently?  --  you then cash in your chips.

Experiments on the DNA of a yeast (one cultivated to bear certain genetic properties similar to those of humans) have shown that ethanol (the good stuff in beer) lengthens telomeres, but that caffeine shortens them.  In other words, I've spent my life since age 23 in a fool's paradise.  I should have been drinking beer.

Next time I pass a gentleman whose state of intoxication is obviously chronic rather than merely acute sprawled on the sidewalk, I expect him to leer drunkenly at me.  "Dude!" he'll shout!  "Look at me!  See my nice long telomeres?  Hahaha!  I'll soon be dancing on your grave -- me and my bottle, we will! 

"But have a nice day, and go have yourself another nice cuppa Java!" 

And I'll grind my teeth, muttering to myself: "He's right!"  That first cup in Menlo Park started me down the long slippery path of telomere shrinkage.  What a fool I was!

Until I read next month's study refuting today's revelation.
----------------------------------
(12-5-23) Three years after I wrote the above, a study showed that while caffeine itelf shortens telomeres, coffee as a whole substance lengthens telomeres.

The present study, which investigated the relationships between caffeine and coffee intakes and telomere length, shows that as intake of caffeine -- as an isolated substance -- increases, telomeres tend to be shorter in U.S. adults. On the other hand, this investigation indicates that as coffee intake increases, telomeres tend to be longer. Because telomere length is a biomarker of the senescence of cells, the present findings suggest that cell aging may be accelerated in U.S. adults as caffeine intake increases, but may be decelerated as coffee consumption increases. Given the magnitude and importance of these relationships, additional research is warranted.

Drink coffee, avoid No-Doz!

Tucker, L.A. Caffeine consumption and telomere length in men and women of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Nutr Metab (Lond) 14, 10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-017-0162-x

Easter for Neanderthals

Neanderthal burial ceremony
(portrayal)

Reading science fiction will do it to you -- lure you into thinking outside whatever comfortable box you habitually curl up in.  I'm nearing the conclusion of Children of the Mind, the fourth volume in a series by Orson Scott Card, the series that began with Ender's Game.  Mr. Card's interests are extremely broad, and his series delves into -- among many other topics -- microbiology and comparative religion.

But my sci fi reading merely predisposed me to worry about the topic I want to discuss.  The actual trigger was today's MSNBC article discussing gene sequencing performed on the oldest DNA so far discovered -- DNA from well-preserved bones believed to be 400,000 years old.  Analysis of the DNA showed that the bones, discovered in northern Spain in an area well-frequented at one time by Neanderthal populations, were actually more closely related to a pre-human population whose fossil remains were recently uncovered in Siberia.  The MSNBC article discusses the possible implications for the ancestral relationship between "modern" humans, Neanderthals, and other species or subspecies that roamed about Europe and Asia during the past 600,000 years or so.

The discussion was interesting, but what it triggered in my own mind were the theological implications.  Neanderthals themselves were not stupid, and presumably the populations with DNA more closely related to our own were also, like the Neanderthals, tool-makers, artists, users of oral language, and (probably) practitioners of primitive religious rites. Modern man (e.g., Cro Magnon) may or may not have interbred with Neanderthals -- no conclusive evidence is yet available.  What -- to put it bluntly -- is the Christian position on the Neanderthal question?  Did they have souls?  Were they subject to divine judgment?  Will Cro Magnons and Neanderthals, and the early hominids related to them, consort together with us in Heaven?

Putting my trust in Yahoo, whose mighty search engine never fails me, I did a quick search.  I was fairly sure that none of the major churches had developed any definitive doctrine on the subject, but I wanted to test the winds of serious theological discussion.  I was sorely disappointed.  I found a lot of message boards that discussed the issue as a joke, or declared with dogmatic certainty that Neanderthals, if they had even ever existed, existed before Adam and Eve were created, and so were just another form of chimpanzee.

And there are Catholic forums, where you might expect to find some theological analysis, but these forums merely raised the question, allowing equally unqualified laymen to speculate with answers.  The typical response:  Wow, that's a good question!

Likewise, this post proposes no solution to the question, because no one appears to have given it serious consideration.  Or, perhaps wisely, serious theological discussion may have been deferred until we have more scientific data to work with.  For a Christian, the fate of Neanderthal souls is irrelevant to his own life and salvation, I suppose.  But, like the fate of those millions of fully human individuals who lived before Christ's birth, it does perhaps affect how he views the nature of God and his religion. (Or, perhaps, conversely.)

For a Calvinist, I doubt that the question poses much of a problem.  Humanity is such a mess that it's wonderful that God predestined a few of us (Calvinists) for Heaven, just to show that he's a good guy at heart, leaving the rest of us to the horrors that we so richly deserve.  On the other hand, for those Christians who believe that Christ's sacrifice redeemed all of mankind, including those born too early to accept explicitly his redemption, the answer is easier: If, in fact, Neanderthals had souls capable of choosing between right and wrong, the possibility of redemption was provided to them retroactively, and will depend on the nature of their lives and their willingness to worship God in whatever form he appeared to their level of civilization.

Those represent two extremes, perhaps, on the "Neanderthal in Heaven" continuum.  Obviously, theological speculation on such a subject would be grossly speculative.  Nevertheless, it would be interesting to read serious discussion of the issue by theologians who are considered well-qualified by the branch or denomination of Christianity to which they belong.

If no theologians want to discuss the subject, I'm confident that Orson Scott Card would be willing to write science fiction taking it on.  He would suggest solutions that are intelligent, moving, satisfying -- but perhaps not wholly orthodox.

Storming the Bastille

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.

--"The Gondoliers"

I hate elitism.

Except, of course, on those rare occasions when I happen to be a member of the elite.  As I believed myself to be, a couple of years ago, when Alaska Airlines first invited me to apply for "Pre-Check" status with TSA.  After a brief background check by the appropriate authorities, during which they apparently overlooked a couple of unexcused absences in junior high school, I was notified of my new status.

I had met the enemy, and he was me.  I was elite.  And, hypocritical liberal that I am, I loved it.

For two years, every time I flew anywhere I was reminded of my elite status.  The riff-raff stood in long, serpentine lines, waiting to go through security.  I walked up to the Pre-Check line -- but there was virtually no line, just a bored TSA attendant waiting for me -- showed my boarding pass and driver's license, put my carry-on bag on the conveyer, and walked through an old-fashioned metal detector.  At a time when the poor sucker waiting in the normal line had moved four feet forward, I had already settled into a bar and ordered a beer.

That was it!  No shoe removal.  No displaying of my under-three-ounce liquid containers.  No emptying of pockets and embarrassing unbuckling of belt.  No display of my x-rayed body to a crew of giggling, lascivious, flight attendants.  (Well, that last sentence was based only on suspicion, not observation.)

But this October, things changed.  I walked to the Pre-Check line and discovered -- horrors! -- a line.  A long line.  Full of passengers whom I can only, in all charity, describe as "riff-raff."  Sub-noble.  Un-elite.  And yet, all believing themselves my equal in the airline aristocracy.  At Thanksgiving, it was even worse.  The Pre-Check lines were longer than the regular lines.  What was going on?

As a story in today's New York Times relates, TSA has opened the floodgates.  No longer are only specially selected members of airlines' mileage programs permitted to apply.  TSA has set a goal of shoving 25 percent of the traveling public into Pre-Check status by the end of the year, a goal that the Times says has already been met.  The "unintended consequence" -- unintended but hardly unpredictable -- being a longer line at the sole Pre-Check check-in point than at the many "normal" check-ins.

As one flyer complained, “If we’re all going to be ‘special,’ we need more security lines devoted to our specialness.”

All I can say is that I enjoyed my two years of specialness.  If I had been the pauper in The Prince and the Pauper, the prince would never have pushed his way back into the palace.  But, like so much that is good in life -- well, enjoyable if not "good" -- my flirtation with elitism has come to an end.  As the Grand Inquisitor points out in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, once we're all noble, no one's noble. 

At least I still get to keep my shoes on as I wend my way through security.