Descent

“Every worthy act is difficult. Ascent is always difficult.
Descent is easy, but often slippery.“
— Mahatma Gandhi, Courageous or Cowardly, New Delhi, 23 November 1947.

My dad first taught me how to ski in cross-country gear when I was maybe eight or nine years old. As I became older, the boots became heavier and the skis became wider, as I learned how to get them to turn on down-slopes. My dad also taught me how to use “skins” to ski uphill…
and how to locate buried skiers with an avalanche beacon.

Years later, I accompanied my dad on a winter trip to the state of Washington, where we learned how to ski on glaciers. The instruction included a review of crevasse rescue, something I’d first learned about several months earlier. Thinking about this, it probably explains the claustrophobia I sometimes feel in confined spaces. 

Still, I’ve never been a particularly good downhill skier. I never really learned how to properly use ski-bindings that hold a boot’s heel down, something useful for safely negotiating steeper or more technical terrain. But that didn’t necessarily keep me from trying in some moments of more-or-less painful instances of experiential learning.

For me, skis are mostly a way to escape while accessing a kind of beauty that not too many people get to experience. They can also make for an easier return after reaching a high-elevation objective. That trip to Washington with my dad would prepare me for a roped and cautious ski descent down a glacier on Alaska’s almost 5,000-meter tall, Mount Sanford. But that trip would also cure me of any further ambitions to reach those kinds of altitudes.

Last May, I wrote about an expedition to Mount Everest that had been covered in media, mostly due to press-releases. The summit attempt was intended to publicize the use of medical technologies and pre-conditioning to allow four men to reach the 8,849-meter high summit in a record time. But the whole thing struck me as more of a publicity stunt intended to promote expensive selfies as opposed to actual “mountaineering”. But another recently promoted Mount Everest summit attempt actually left me deeply impressed.

As I mentioned in my May post, nearly all climbers reach the summit of Mount Everest while using supplemental oxygen. But on September 22, 2025, the Polish mountaineer, Andrzej Bargiel, summited the mountain without supplemental oxygen. Moreover, he carried up a pair of skis which he then used to ski back down via the South Col Route. The following day, he then skied down the “Khumbu Icefall”, a feat I didn’t even know was possible. The icefall consists of the massive shattered ridges and deep crevasses formed by the constantly moving Khumbu Glacier, which blocks the bottom of the approach to the South Col.

Much of the attempt was filmed, and sometimes guided by a drone that was flown by Bargiel’s brother, Bartek. Some of the drone footage is utterly astounding, really showing the scale of the endeavor. In other places, we get to see Andrzej Bargiel’s perspective as he struggles merely to stay standing in the thin air of Everest’s “death zone”, coughing as fluid slowly fills his lungs.
And knowing what it would mean to fall into a crevasse alone, the icefalls were simply terrifying.

Worthy of a full screen…

 

Please Get Out of My Way.

“…if a man has not discovered something that he will die for,
he isn’t fit to live.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., Walk to Freedom, Detroit, 23 June 1963.

I’ve been watching the 2024 version of Shōgun, the historical drama based on the 1975 novel by James Clavell. I have to say, I’m rather impressed. Most of the actors are Japanese, a majority of the dialogue is in Japanese (if somewhat “jidaigeki“), and the production is pretty authentic to what I know of 16th-century Japan.

I’ve never read Clavell’s novel, which while fictional in detail is based on actual people and events from late 16th-century Japanese history. This was a pivotal moment in Japan, marking the end of the country’s Feudal period, or 418-years of near continuous civil war.

Japan’s Feudal period began in the late 12th-century when the “shōguns”, powerful Japanese military leaders, replaced the imperial court as the country’s central government. Generals loyal to the shōgun were compensated with land and regional powers, becoming the feudal lords known as “daimyo”. But some among the daimyo would eventually grow in power enough to challenge the authority of the shogunate with their own private armies.

This resulted in the rise of the “samurai”, or more accurately, “bushi” (武士), who were an elite professional warrior class. For bushi, war was a way of life that often included entire families. The term “samurai” more accurately denotes service as a trusted retainer to a daimyo. So for bushi as samurai, this amounted to pledging one’s life to a daimyo.

Alliances of convenience among the daimyo, and sometimes even the civil authority of the imperial government, would form and wane through generations as power shifted. And by the mid 15th-century, Japan had become a society that existed in a state of almost constant internal warfare. During this time, Zen Buddhism began to strongly influence the development of a bushi philosophy and an associated code-of-behavior. Much of this emphasized salvation through self-discipline, applying it to Confucian ideals of loyalty and duty.

After 415-years, this pattern of endless warfare would ultimately culminate in the monumental, “Battle of Sekigahara” on 21 October 1600, in which at least 30,000 combatants would lose their lives. But the result would be a subsequent two-and-a-half centuries of peace, economic and cultural development, and isolationism under the unified leadership of the “Tokugawa Shogunate” during Japan’s subsequent “Edo period“. It was during this time that the bushi philosophy would become consolidated into various forms of a doctrine known as “Bushido”, or the “way of the warrior”.

Japanese samurai are usually associated with the use of swords, and primarily the “katana”. With its long curved blade and single sharpened cutting edge, it is intended to be drawn and used quickly in a single slashing motion. In 1588, the right to carry swords was restricted only to samurai, making the wearing of swords also a display of elite social status. However, the sword was not typically the first weapon of choice in warfare.

Especially before the introduction of firearms, the primary weapon of a samurai was actually the “yumi”, an asymmetrical longbow with a shorter lower limb. This design allowed for the bow to be more easily used from horseback, or from behind protection. At over two meters in length, properly drawing and releasing arrows from a yumi requires significant strength and years of training.

Regardless, a skilled samurai on horseback could accurately release an arrow every few seconds while riding at full gallop. These arrows, called “ya”, would be tipped with a variety of different types of steel points depending upon the intended target. In warfare, this allowed for long-range attacks before closing on an adversary.

At closer quarters, however, foot soldiers especially would utilize a type of gripped spear known as a “yari” (槍). Yari were usually equipped with a long and thin, pointed steel tip intended to puncture through armor. These steel tips also sometimes included cross bars or hooks, which were intended to keep an impaled enemy from pushing any closer. But there was also another common polearm.

The “naginata” (薙刀, “mowing sword”) consists of a metal or wooden pole with a long, single-edged, curved blade on its end. The pole extended the reach of the blade, which was intended primarily for slashing and cutting. During warfare, these could be swung at an enemy in order to break lines or to combat cavalry, and were sometimes used by mounted samurai and foot soldiers, as well as warrior monks.

A form of the naginata, the somewhat lighter “ko-naginata”, is the iconic weapon of women of the Japanese nobility. Nearly all women of status were trained to use these weapons to protect themselves, as well as their homes and children. Because of its reach, it could be used to sweep an area clear, or to keep an attacker at a distance. The naginata was also effectively used by female warriors. The legendary female samurai, Tomoe Gozen (“Lady Tomoe”), was said to have wielded the weapon with great skill.
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Sixteenth-century feudal Japan was an at once extraordinarily beautiful, and extraordinarily violent society. And the introduction of Western weapons, such as early firearms and cannons to Japanese battlefields only served to amplify the latter. Important to the context of what the story is attempting to illustrate, the 2024 Shōgun doesn’t shy away from depictions of this violence. It was a utility to the Japanese society of the time. Life was seen as but a fleeting moment in which to appreciate beauty. Purpose came only from dedicating one’s self to something greater.

I won’t get into the plot or the story-line of Shōgun, which is placed during the lead-up to the Battle of Sekigahara, as there are plenty of other sources. But a pivotal character in Clavell’s story is “Toda Mariko” [family name, given name], who is based on the historical, Akechi Tama (明智たま), also known as Hosokawa Gracia (細川ガラシャ).  From an aristocratic bushi family, she lived from 1563 until her death on August 25^th of 1600. After learning both Latin and Portuguese, she was baptized as a Christian in 1587, taking the name Gracia. 

In 1600, the feudal lord Ishida Mitsunari attempted to force Gracia’s husband into joining his side in the coming battle by effectively holding her hostage at Osaka Castle. Unwilling to accept the disgrace, Gracia was said to have had a family retainer end her life since her Christian beliefs would not allow suicide. Her death severely damaged Ishida’s reputation, causing him to lose the support of many generals, several of whom were probably also Christians themselves. These defections would ultimately result in Ishida Mitsunari’s defeat at the Battle of Sekigahara.

Clavell’s version of the real-life Gracia in the character of “Mariko” illustrates the feudal Japanese ideal of samurai bushi, while also bringing together much of the preceding story through her use of the ko-naginata. Meaning is established through a formalized, but unyielding loyalty, even if to fight against one’s own destiny is futile. Whether or not such a death is worthwhile is left to the viewer, as Clavell didn’t take a side in what constitutes “barbarity”.

Warning! Bloody content:

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Notes about some of the images:

“A Medieval Japanese Archer” is a lithograph by Émile Théodose Thérond (1821–1883), and Jean Gauchard (1825-1872). I believe that it was drawn from a photograph with a posed subject, probably taken around the end of the Edo era in 1868 or shortly thereafter. Personal collection.

The arrow points (“yanone” or “yajiri”) are all Edo era (1603-1868). The longer-shafted points were sourced from the Kobe/Osaka region. The others are from the Tokyo/Chiba area (Edo). Some of the smaller points were made with the same craftsmanship as that seen in traditional blades, and were signed by their makers. Personal collection.

Japanese Print, “「英勇一百伝」 「巴御前」” (“One Hundred Tales of Heroes” “Tomoe Gozen”), by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1851).
At the Tokyo Metro Library: https://ukiyo-e.org/image/metro/H020-004

Battlefield Archery: This is a link to a ceremonial demonstration of “kyujutsu”, or battlefield archery. The archers first demonstrate a “Sashiya”, where a group of archers release a steady stream of arrows. This is followed by a “koshia”, where the archers advance in alternating ranks. This was intended to pin-down enemy archers, allowing spearmen from their own ranks of a “kumiyumi”, or a group of archers and spearmen who have trained to work together, to move forward. The headwear signifies that these archers have been temporarily blessed as Shintō priests while they perform as entertainment to the gods of the shrine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJVC6ExVUi4
There’s a good article here.

Yosemite’s Back Door

“This country, with its institutions,
belongs to the people who inhabit it.“
–Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address (1861).

Taking advantage of a local October tradition to shut down the town for a week, combined with the US government’s decision to see which political party can hold its breath longer, we decided to make a dash into the Yosemite high-country while no one was watching. Heading south down US-395, our route took us over a pass known for its autumn trees. Still a little early for full color, the area is at 8,143 foot (2,482 m) Conway Summit. The view is to the southwest, toward the peaks of the Hoover Wilderness.

From the eastern side of the Sierras, the national park’s entrance is reached via Tioga Pass on California State Route 120. This is the southernmost pass for traveling entirely over the Sierra Nevada Range. With most of the route lying within a high-elevation section of Yosemite National Park, the pass usually closes for the winter in late October or early November (closed today as I’m writing this). And overnight parking along the road isn’t allowed after October 15.

From its junction with US-395 at the south end of the town of Lee Vining, the route ascends 3,000 vertical feet over twelve miles to the eastern park entrance. The Yosemite National Park entry at the 9,945 foot (3,031 m.) summit is usually backed up with traffic while visitors have their reservations checked and and hand over a $35 “parking fee”. However, the reservation requirement had been lifted for the remainder of 2025, and no one was manning the entry station. And since the park is “cashless”, there was no way to pay. Oh well… 

Our only real destination for this trip was 10,620-foot Tresidder Peak, which was named after the 1943 to 1948 President of Stanford University. This mountain actually has two prominences, a lower northern peak, and a somewhat higher and more difficult to reach southern peak. There’s also another interesting tower of rock along a ridge to the south known as Columbia Finger. This mountain had been on our radar since a trip up nearby Cathedral Peak in late 2017. Reaching our destination would require staying in the higher elevation, Tuolumne Meadows region of the park. 

Northeast toward Tenaya Lake, which is at an elevation of 9,039-feet.
Tresidder is on the other side of 10,266-ft Tenaya Peak, which rises to the right of the lake.

Tresidder Peak from Upper Cathedral Lake.

The Columbia Finger, flipping off bureaucracy from its 10,360 foot perch.

High country hiking.

After a couple of days in the high country, it was time to head back to the alternate reality of “civilization”, thus justifying a trip into the Yosemite Valley part of the national park for grub and gasoline. This is the part of the national park with which most people are familiar. Despite the government shutdown, the valley was mostly business-as-usual since its public services are mainly run by a contractor, “Yosemite Hospitality” (aka: Aramark). This meant that everything from gasoline to groceries, and even the valley shuttle busses were fully operational.

Half Dome from the Curry Village area of the valley.

It was the usual traffic into the valley, with people stopping to take pictures. But this time of year avoids the back-ups and traffic jams that are why Yosemite started requiring reservations to enter the national park several years back. Still, the crowds were far less than we expected; and it was fairly easy to get ourselves parked right in the central, Yosemite Village area. That left us with plenty of time for lunch and to be tourists.

Yosemite Falls and the Lost Arrow Spire.

A leisurely drive home over Tioga Pass would take us back into Lee Vining by late afternoon. And after a dinner at one of the local mom-and-pops, we made a stop by the US Forest Service, Mono Basin Scenic Visitor Center… which was closed. It’s an interesting facility with good bathrooms; however, it’s usually shut down in the winter. This time, however, the website hosted a rather more terse message. Meh… whatever.

So, we walked ourselves around the back of the building where we could watch the shadow of the eastern Sierras settle over Mono Lake…

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September Shots

In this autumntime,
why do I so feel the years?
In the clouds a bird

–Matsuo Basho
(Translation by Andrew Fitzsimons)  

Just a few shots from the last month. Clicking on a photo should cause it to enlarge in a new tab.
It was a pretty pleasant summer this year, with moderate temperatures, and at least one high-elevation snow. September has marked the end of summer with several days of rain and some cooling temperatures. It’s not quite autumn here yet. But the seasons are definitely changing.

Looking up toward the eastern Sierras from the bottom of Route 88. Our destination is Ebbetts Pass, which is on the other side of the distant mountain to the left, Reynolds Peak.

Upper Kinney Lake is at about 8,700-feet elevation, just off the Pacific Crest Trail a few miles north of Ebbetts Pass. Raymond Peak is in the background. The pass is one of the least used routes over the Sierras, so this is an area that hikers can have pretty much to themselves.

A local shot from State Route 28 on Lake Tahoe’s east shore. The structures to the left are part of Thunderbird Lodge, a once private estate built in the latter 1930s. The mountains, about 20-miles distant, rise above Emerald Bay on the lake’s west shore to form the crest of the Sierra Nevadas.

Much of Nevada is accessed by back roads. This was from a day trip with a geologist-friend out to a quarry site about 30-miles to the east.

A panorama from the same trip, toward the route to a 7,200-foot elevation pass over the Pine Nut Range. These mountains divide the southern Lake Tahoe region from the Mason Valley area in Nevada. This characterizes most of the “Great Basin” region of Nevada, with mountain ranges separating high-elevation valleys.

Autumn is my favorite season. So we’ll see what October brings…

 

 

The Water of Kiyomizu-dera

“What water is there for us to clean ourselves?“
– Friedrich Nietzsche, The Parable of the Madman (1882).

Among the first destinations of many visitors to the Japanese city of Kyoto is the UNESCO World Heritage site of Kiyomizu-dera. The mountainside location is a Buddhist temple complex founded in 780 AD, during Japan’s “Heian” period. The temple was originally associated with the Hossō school of Buddhism. This is a unique and interesting branch of Buddhism which originated in Nara in 654 AD, and that drew ideas from the Yogachara approach to Mahayana Buddhism.

Kiyomizu-dera’s original construction was commissioned by the Shogun, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro. But in 805 AD, the site was officially designated as an imperial temple. The current temple complex structures date to 1633, when the Shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu, ordered that they should be rebuilt. Between 2008 and 2020, several of the buildings within the temple complex were also heavily renovated.

The temple’s full name, Otowa-san Kiyomizu-dera (音羽山 清水寺), literally “Otowa Mountain Pure Water Temple”, is drawn from the mountainside waterfall, the Otowa-no-taki, around which the temple complex was constructed. The waterfall feeds into the “Three Sacred Streams”, three small streams of water emanating from overhead outlets in a shrine below the falls. Visitors would traditionally stand in the shrine, beneath the small jets of water. Then they would reach out with a shrine cup to catch some of the falling water to drink for blessings.

The water shrine is visible from the “Kiyomizu no Butai”, or the “Stage”, an open deck behind the Hondō or the temple complex main hall. Views from the 13-meter (45-foot) high Stage, as well as views of the structure itself are among the most photographed and well recognized images of Kiyomizu-dera.

Perhaps just to illustrate that viral messaging and stupidity aren’t anything new, an idea somehow circulated during Japan’s Edo period that if one leapt from the Stage and managed to survive, that his wish would be granted. Afterward, 234 people apparently jumped, with a surprising 199 recorded to have survived. However, I haven’t been able to find any record of wishes being granted. And the Kyoto government officially banned any further Stage-diving in 1872.

While I don’t have much of a fear of heights, Kiyomizu-dera does mark one particularly terrifying experience. Beneath the Zuigu-do Hall, a large structure to the northwest of the Hondō and the Stage, is a less well known location called the “Tainai Meguri”, or the “Journey to the Womb”. It’s essentially a long, winding, pitch-black passage beneath the Zuigu-do Hall, symbolic of finding one’s way through darkness, and subsequent rebirth.

Did I mention that I’m extremely claustrophobic?

After a small fee of 100 yen, removing your shoes, and assuring that there will be absolutely no flashlights, photography, or peeking whatsoever, individuals are led to the bottom of a flight of stone steps. And from there, it’s a one-way journey into the absolute darkness of the womb of the female Bodhisattva, Daizuigu. The only guidance is a chain of wooden beads that can be felt along in one’s left hand. For most people, this probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Regardless, I was fortunate to have had someone who could push me along from behind (contractions?) while I clenched my sweating palms and tried to keep from passing out in the darkness.

With regard to its more reverent status as a religious site, Kiyomizu-dera remains an important location for Buddhist pilgrimages, with each area of the complex dedicated to a different Buddhist deity. Perhaps most importantly, however, the temple is known as a “Kan’non Reijo”. The term “Kannon” refers to the Buddhist deity of mercy and compassion. And a “Reijo” is a holy or reverent location. The particular Kannon revered at Kiyomizu-dera is known as the “Henge Kan’non” (変化観音), or the “Transformational Kannon”. It’s depicted in a form that dates to around the 9th century.

Henge Kan’non can be identified by their 11 heads, visible on the Kiyomizu-dera representation in its crown. The three front faces represent the Kannon’s compassion. Three faces to the left watch over us, while three faces to the right encourage our own determination. A face on the back is said to “laugh-off evil”. And the face on the top, known as “Butsomen”, represents truth.

The Kannon is usually described as having “1,000 arms”. But around the 8th century, common physical depictions included 42 arms, with each hand having a specific meaning, either through a particular hand position, or by holding an object. The Kiyomizu-dera Kannon includes two arms with hands in prayer, and two arms holding a smaller statue above its head, both somewhat unusual in Japanese depictions of Kannon. I don’t have any photos, as the Kiyomizu-dera Kannon is considered a “hibitsu”, or “hidden Buddha”; so any photography would have been extraordinarily disrespectful. But the link below is to their site for pilgrimages, and it has some images.
https://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/en/pray/

Kiyomizu-dera is a popular and well-known tourist destination, so there are many sources of information available to visitors. But one thing I’ve never seen noted anywhere is that there’s actually a small Shinto shrine located at the very center of this Buddhist temple complex. It’s dedicated to the goddess, Benzaiten, a water deity associated with dragons, fortune, creativity, and love. Located on a small island in the middle of a pond, it’s accessible via two walkway bridges.
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Leaving the temple complex on foot, the most direct route toward the Gion District where one might hope to see some of the city’s traditional Geisha and Maiko, is to the northwest through the Nio-mon Gate and down the narrow, and touristy, Matsubara-dori. This is actually a really nice walk along a route past the old shops and food vendors, and into the surrounding neighborhood… if it’s not too crowded. Lately, however, the masses of tourists along this narrow road have been overwhelming.
But there is a lesser known and considerably more peaceful alternative to the southwest, if you don’t mind the company…
down the route through the massive and ancient Otani Cemetery. 

The Pain Scale of Acetaminophen

“When pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”
– Jane Austen

Acetaminophen (aka: “APAP”, “paracetamol” or “Tylenol”) has been in the news lately, for reasons I won’t even bother to address. However, I find this all rather amusing. The drug is actually something I avoid for several reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the current kerffuffle.

Acetaminophen is a non-opioid, non-steroidal “analgesic” (pain-reliever) and “antipyretic” (fever-reducer”) that is widely available as an over-the-counter drug sold under various brand names, including Tylenol and Panadol. It’s commonly used as an alternative to acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) or ibuprofen in cases where these latter medications cause stomach or gastrointestinal discomfort. It’s generally not considered an especially controversial drug. However, I avoid acetaminophen entirely for a couple of reasons that I think are worth mentioning.

Acetaminophen isn’t a “patent drug”, so it’s too inexpensive to be profitably researched by the pharmaceuticals industry. So there haven’t been many controlled studies regarding its efficacy or long-term side-effects. Most information regarding its effectiveness and safety is consequently either anecdotal, observational, or from documented cases of overdose.

These show a consistent pattern relating acetaminophen use with increases in mortality, strokes and heart-attacks, kidney damage, and gastrointestinal bleeding. However, causal relationships here aren’t clear. That’s to say that while acetaminophen may have caused the noted problems, it could also be that whatever caused the health problems merely encouraged the use of the acetaminophen. It is known, however, that acetaminophen does cause an increase in blood pressure and heart rate.

Acetaminophen is, however, well known to be “hepatotoxic”, or harmful to the human liver. In fact, by the time of my brief stint as a pre-med in the 1990s, unintentional acetaminophen overdoses accounted for nearly 25% of all emergency-room (ER) visits, a large percentage of which resulted in hospitalizations.

The drug can cause “hepatocellular necrosis”, or the death of liver cells. In fact, acetaminophen toxicity had become the single most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States as of 2003. And as of 2005, acetaminophen accounted for the single largest number of drug overdoses in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. And as of 2004, acetaminophen overdose resulted in more calls to poison control centers in the U.S. than overdose of any other drug or medication.

More recently, acetaminophen overdoses have become associated with recreational drug use, and especially opioids. These drugs are often “cut”, or combined with with acetaminophen, with the drug’s toxic effects on the liver amplified by concurrent alcohol consumption.

Acetaminophen toxicity presently accounts for around 500 deaths, 100,000 calls to Poison Control Centers, 50,000 emergency room visits, and 10,000 hospitalizations per year in the US alone. As an over-the-counter and prescription drug (when mixed with prescription opioids), acetaminophen toxicity far surpasses all other prescription drugs as a cause for acute liver failure in both the United States and Europe. And despite this well known risk, it still isn’t significantly regulated.

To add insult to injury, acetaminophen is also recognized as a relatively ineffective pharmaceutical for pain relief. Among the few serious scientific studies done on the drug, most have involved its efficacy as an overall pain-reliever, including as a means to reduce opioid use in cases of severe pain. Among these…

• In a 2020, randomized, double-blind controlled trial published in a peer-reviewed journal, IV acetaminophen when compared to a placebo, the drug entirely failed to show any beneficial effect.
• In a 2021 Australian study of the effects of acetaminophen in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial, the authors concluded: “For most conditions, evidence regarding the effectiveness of paracetamol (acetaminophen) is insufficient for drawing firm conclusions. …there is strong evidence that paracetamol is not effective for reducing acute low back pain.”
• A 2017 Cochrane Review study of pain relief in children and adolescents, researchers examined the reported efficacy of acetaminophen in treating chronic, non cancer-related pain in children and adolescents between infancy and 17 years old. The researchers concluded that results were too statistically insignificant to conclusively draw any conclusion one way or another. 
• Another Cochrane review in 2016 citing a study of over 1,700 subjects concluded that acetaminophen was ineffective in treating lower back pain.
• In 2016, Dr. Andrew Moore, then Director of Pain Research at Oxford, who had by then written 200 systematic reviews, posted a blog entry titled, “Paracetamol: widely used and largely ineffective“. Dr. Moore also refuted the idea that acetaminophen is safe.
• In 2017, Dr. Jonathan (Josh) Bloom, Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science at The American Council on Science and Health, one of the least hyperbolic resources for legitimate US health information available, suggested that Tylenol could be, “By Far The Most Dangerous Drug Ever Made?” And in 2023, Dr. Bloom went on to conclude, “…acetaminophen fails to provide adequate pain relief for any condition. Yet, hospitals will dispense the pills like candy and/or an expensive and useless IV form of the drug.”

Subjectively, my own experiences with acetaminophen, including some instances when dosages were sufficient to cause liver pain, haven’t encouraged its use. I don’t even keep any in the house, as I’ve found it ineffective for even minor headaches or muscle pain. I also tolerate aspirin, which seems to work well for muscle and joint pain. And I’ve found ibuprofen to be as effective as a non-narcotic gets for anything else.

To be fair, I could find research concluding that acetaminophen is about 10% more effective than a placebo in relieving headaches, and that it can probably help with cold symptoms. I also came across something suggesting that it can augment ibuprofen after a wisdom tooth extraction. And it has been shown to help reduce fevers in children.

Still, I’ve grown rather attached to my liver… or at least what’s left of it. So current distractions notwithstanding, I have to question whether any of these benefits might outweigh acetaminophen’s already well known risk.

Getting an Enshittification

“I don’t have a short temper;
I just have a quick reaction to bullshit.”
– Elizabeth Taylor.

 

Maybe I just have a tolerance problem. But it seems to me that an expectation of crap has simply become the norm… crap products, crap service, crap management, and the crap expectations that result. Society blames the people we see holding the crap. But with the possible exception of what gets pumped over the local mountain pass, shit generally rolls downhill.

The term, “enshittification” comes from the writings of Cory Doctorow, a science-fiction writer, journalist, and co-editor of the science/technology/futurism group-blog, “Boing Boing”. Also termed “crapification” or “platform decay”, it refers to ways in which high-quality consumer services almost invariably become shittier over time.

Expanding on the idea in Wired Magazine, Doctorow used TicTok, Amazon, and Facebook as examples. Each company initially attracted customers by offering free access to high-quality platforms. And then, they proceeded to trash their own products in order to bring in advertising revenue or to increase corporate profits. The process, however, is symptomatic of something far more pervasive than just online services, extending well into the domains of physical products and actual human services.

The ability of producers to enshittify the very commodities they ply is only possible as a result of some form of entrapment. In cases where better options are available, most consumers will eventually move to those better products. But when there’s a required investment in a particular platform, it can be prohibitively costly to make the switch.

Social or intellectual investment can be as simple as human connections or an established audience. But an investment can also be physical. Commodities from refrigerators to automobiles may now compel subscriptions for the ability to adjust the temperature, use the heated seats, or to fully charge batteries. Devices like cameras or printers may even be rendered inoperable without first connecting them to Internet services that collect data or that require regular purchases. The “cloud” has become synonymous with enshittification.

Entrapment also occurs when institutions simply swallow-up or ruin competitors and grow to dominate entire market segments, as with Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. But even worse are cases where government bureaucracies actually encourage such monopolies, as with construction contractors, public services, for-profit utilities, or Internet providers. Recently, however, I’ve been witness to a kind of government promoted enshittifaction that I find frankly more than a little disturbing.

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My first ever online blog post was about two decades back on a now defunct site called “Gather”. It was about the ludicrous bureaucratic machinations involved in attempting to donate a piece of technology to a local public school classroom. What I encountered was a bureaucracy in its most inefficient and counterproductive manifestation, utterly devoid of human purpose. And ultimately, my attempts at working to the benefit of others proved futile.

Now, I find myself participating in what will certainly be my final year as an adjunct (cheap labor) for the local college, supposedly supporting new teachers. But mostly I’ve been getting paid to sit through a series of what are essentially sales-pitches for extremely costly systems intended to repair the mess left by decades of public education enshitification.

I’m no expert on the topic… which is apparently just as well. But I guess the “Whole Language” approach to teaching reading became a big thing among public education establishment some time after I left college in the mid-nineties. It’s based in an idea that kids will simply learn how to read by osmosis. So instead of teaching students how to use the tools of sounding-out unfamiliar words, they are instead supposed to just read past the offending collections of meaningless letters and derive a meaning from the rest of what they can’t read.

Yes, the idea is just as stupid as it sounds; and it’s evidently okay to say that openly now. Not quite so okay, however, is to mention that competent teachers knew this all along, and were quietly supplementing official materials with their own phonics programs. At the local elementary, there is even a teacher whose unofficial specialty has been to help fill the phonics gaps left by official curriculum.

Regardless, as more experienced teachers have retired, or simply given up and quit, fewer students have been the recipients of that kind of functional expertise. The result has been, of course, predictable. So parents with the resource to do so have responded by either enrolling their children in private schools with better programs, or by turning to homeschooling. And this flight of more capable students has occurred at a time when public schools are also having to deal with the end result of COVID policies and swelling immigrant and disabled populations. Think: Declining test scores!
The desperation is palpable.

This has spurred the middle-managers and bureaucrats in charge of making decisions for the people who do the actual work to come up with a program to address the record numbers of US, middle-school aged kids who read like 3rd-graders… if at all. This new approach is known as, “The Science of Reading”. And since it’s “scientific”, I understand that it’s also “research-based”.

Education science “research”, however, apparently isn’t constrained by sciency things like double-blinded studies, repeatable data, peer review, or even actual “science”. To make the point, last week I was shown a picture of a “brain scan” that looked suspiciously like a clip-art with arrows pointing to words such as “cognitive activating region” and “zone of phonemic awareness”. Regardless, it was enough to justify an “all new” program that emphasizes… phonics!

The only problem now is that years of neglect at the level of those who do the actual work has left most public schools without enough qualified teachers. And the best solution the current bureaucracy can come up with is to move education onto the cloud. I am, however, assured that these high-tech, cloud-based programs will stimulate students’ cognitive activating regions and zones of phonemic awareness by including engaging cognitive tasks… or what used to be called, “games”.

I’d like to be able to say that I’m making this shit up. But the reality is that US public education has become a bureaucratic monopoly that mostly responds to lobbyists from the very companies that produce the proprietary tests of what now qualifies as “learning”. It no longer serves even itself, its current enshittification being addressed by new programs that will simply bury everything under a fresh layer of virtual bullshit.

This grieves me tremendously. As a first-generation immigrant to this country, my own public education provided a gift of self-determination that I can never repay. Even if I may not have appreciated it at the time, I had many excellent public school teachers, competent and knowledgeable people who actually cared, and who kept me motivated. But somewhere along the way, public education became a system more invested in billion-dollar publishing and tech monopolies, and overpaid bureaucrats who justify themselves by blaming the very teachers who tried their best to keep it from failing. And now I fear it’s too late.

US public education cannibalized itself in order to feed its own bureaucracies. And what’s left is the natural result.

 

 

Japan’s Great Empress

“All men are influenced by class-feelings,
and there are few who are intelligent.“
– Seventeen-article Constitution, Japan (603CE?).

The “Nihon Shoki” is a written account of early Japanese myth and history, compiled around 720CE. Among the events listed in its pages is the reign of the Emperor Kinmei. Claiming direct descent from the sun goddess, Amaterasu, Kinmei reigned as the traditional 29^th emperor of Japan from 539CE until his death in 571. Most Japanese historians view Kinmei as the earliest archaeologically verified traditional Japanese monarch.

To secure his political status, Kinmei had established himself as the central leader of the “Yamato”, a powerful confederation of various feudal clans. His consort, Princess Kitashi, came from the powerful Soga clan. And according to the Nihon shoki, Kitashi gave birth to a daughter, the Princess Nukatabe, during the middle of the monarch’s reign in the year 554.

Precedent excluded Princess Nukatabe from inheriting her father’s authority, though there were powerful female rulers in various regions of ancient Japan. The princess’s official role, however, would be to further solidify the power of the Soga clan by becoming the consort of her own half brother, the Emperor Bidatsu, in 576 at the age of twenty-two, and with whom she would give issue to five daughters and two sons.

As the new leader of the Yamato confederation, Bidatsu sought also to consolidate a relationship with Korean Kingdoms, in part by adopting Buddhism. However, this led to conflicts with the Mononobe clan, who opposed abandoning the traditional Japanese gods through which they justified their own authority. This dispute would occupy much of Bidatsu’s attentions until his death in 585, apparently as one of the first recorded cases of smallpox in Japan.

Princess Nukatabe’s brother, Yōmei, would then take the throne. But his turbulent reign would last only two years before his own death at the age of forty-six. Fighting would then erupt between the Shintoist/anti-Buddhist forces of the Mononobe, and pro-Buddhists including the Sogas. But after the leader of the Mononobe clan was killed along with his own pretender to the throne, pro-Buddhist factions including the Sogas ultimately established complete control over the Yamato confederation.

By this time, the princess’s uncle, Soga Umako, had established himself as wielding the actual force behind the imperial monarch. And he used this power to effectively appoint Princess Nukatabe’s cousin, Sushun, to the throne. However, many Japanese scholars suspect that the person actually in control was in fact the princess herself, backed by her uncle, and with Yōmei and Sushun merely acting as male figureheads.

So in 592, when it looked as though the Emperor Sushun might have been consolidating a little too much independent power, Soga Umako arranged to have him assassinated. And with no acceptable male heirs, Umako requested that the then thirty-nine year old Princess Nukatabe should step in to fill the power vacuum. And thus, Princess Nukatabe became…

Empress Suiko, “Great Queen of Yamato”, and the 33^rd monarch of Japan.

In her new role as now Empress Regnant, Suiko was already well versed in court politics. So she immediately established herself as more than another mere figurehead by appointing her then 19-year old nephew and Emperor Yōmei’s son, Shōtoku, as Prince Regent. This placed an influential hereditary buffer between herself and Soga Umako, despite their amicable relationship. Thus, Empress Suiko’s reign as the first traditional and archeologically verifiable female monarch of Japan would remain secure for thirty-six years.

Empress Suiko would continue endeavors to improve relations with other East Asian powers. In 594, she established Buddhism as the official religion through the “Flourishing Three Treasures Edict”. This helped to open relations with two large Korean kingdoms. But it also shrewdly served to further weaken the power of rival clans who continued to justify their own claims to authority as descendants of Shintō gods.

Shortly thereafter, Korean Buddhist monks familiar with Chinese culture arrived in Japan, establishing “Hōryū-ji”, a Buddhist temple presently known as including the world’s oldest existing wooden buildings. This cultural exchange also introduced many Chinese arts, technologies, traditions and practices to Japan. The Chinese calendar was adopted, and the Chinese writing system was adapted into the Japanese language, thus facilitating the very texts that would record the Empress Suiko’s own history. The empress also began a series of public infrastructural developments, including road and irrigation projects intended to interconnect cities and territories, improve trade, and to secure agricultural productivity.

Chinese construction techniques were also used in the building of a new imperial palace at Oharidano-miya in present-day Nara prefecture, which was completed in 603. Subsequently, Empress Suiko established a Chinese-based meritocratic, “rank and cap” systems into Japanese government. This bureaucratic reformation also led Empress Suiko to establish Japan’s first written constitution, the “Seventeen-article Constitution”. Rather than outlining a political system or set of laws, the document established a set of moral values and virtuous behaviors drawn from Confucian traditions and expected of government officials:
“Harmony is to be valued, and an avoidance of wanton opposition to be honored. All men are influenced by class-feelings, and there are few who are intelligent. Hence, there are some who disobey their lords and fathers, or who maintain feuds with the neighboring villages. But when those above are harmonious and those below are friendly, and there is concord in the discussion of business, right views of things spontaneously gain acceptance.”

During this time, Empress Suiko also softened her stance on Shintoism, encouraging its coexistence alongside Buddhism. This served both to prevent conflict and to help in the administration of state affairs. It also allowed for the peaceful introduction of Chinese cultural ideas, and began the uniquely Japanese syncretic blending of the two religions.

In 607, Empress Suiko sent the envoy, Ono no Imoko, to Sui China, where he presented a letter to to the Sui Emperor, Yang. Yang was infuriated by the letter’s content, which introduced the Japanese empress as an equal. Regardless, Chinese political intrigues compelled Yang to recognize Japanese sovereignty, thus aligning himself with the Korean kingdoms of Baekje and Silla. This first established Japan as a nation that was at least diplomatically commensurate to China.

Imoko, accompanied by a Sui envoy and a large group of scholars and monks would return to Japan, bringing knowledge of Sui dynasty Chinese cultural, legal, centralized government, and taxation systems with them. And they also brought strategically valuable information about events in China and on the Korean Peninsula that would further assist Empress Suiko in her dealings with the various power-shifts among mainland kingdoms.

The Nihon Shoki records Empress Suiko’s reign as overall a period of relative peace and prosperity for Japan under the guidance of a wise and compassionate ruler. Ultimately, she would outlive her nephew, Prince Regent Shōtoku, who would die at the age of forty-nine in 622, just days after the death of his consort. And she would also outlive the man who had first facilitated her rise to the throne, Soga Umako, who died in 626. But when Umako’s son, Soga no Emishi, took on his authority, imperial succession again became a source of conflict.

According to the Nihon Shoki, recognizing the approach of her death at a time of famine, Empress Suiko instructed that no resources should be consumed in constructing a mausoleum. Her final wish was that she instead be entombed with her first son, Prince Takeda, who it is believed died around the time of Suiko’s enthronement. Empress Suiko died on April 15^th in the year 628, at the age of 74. She was given the Japanese Buddhist “shigō”, or posthumous name, Empress Toyomikushiyatahime, the Chinese kanji used to write the name suggesting that she had worked to feed her people.

The Nihon Shoki records that Empress Suiko was entombed with her son at the Ueyama Tumulus located at Gojono, in Kashihara City, Nara Prefecture. And archaeologists have indeed found two stone coffins at the site, believed to have been the original resting places of the empress and of her son. However, at some unknown later time, both were apparently reburied at Shinaga no Yamada no Misasagi (the Yamada Imperial tomb in Shinaga, a.k.a. the Yamada Takatsuka Tumulus) at Yamada, Taishi-cho, Minami Kawachi-gun, Osaka Prefecture.

Despite a traditionally patriarchal lineage to the Japanese imperial throne, there would be seven more Japanese empresses through the 18th-century. Two culturally founding empresses are also traditionally considered to have reigned well before Suiko, though their histories have become intertwined with mythology. Indeed, the Emperors of Japan are traditionally considered direct descendants of the goddess, Ameterasu, who is ranked highest among the Shintō hierarchy of gods. And the paleolithic religious traditions of Japan’s earliest inhabitants, still preserved in the Ryukyuan religious beliefs of the archipelago’s far southern islands, are uniquely matriarchal.

As a final note, the Nihon Shoki is as much about Japanese mythology as history. Even the kanji, or Chinese characters used to represent “Suiko” suggest a “push” against “antiquity”, echoing a time when Japan would transition into a new era. So while the Empress Suiko certainly existed as an actual person, some historians view her narrative merely as a justification for Shōtoku’s political power as Prince Regent, and suspect that the Seventeen-article Constitution was probably a later forgery. But while it can be difficult to discern historical truth from exaggeration, Empress Suiko’s reign did mark the emergence of Japan as a nation among nations. And her story remains at the very least an allegory for both pragmatic and compassionate leadership.

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Images:

The legendary Empress Jingu, apocryphal 15th monarch of Japan, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1880).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EmpressJinguInKorea.jpg

Portrait of the Empress Suiko by Tosa Mitsuyoshi of Eifuku-ji (temple) in Taishi, Osaka (1726).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Empress_Suiko_by_Tosa_Mitsuyoshi_1726_Eifukuji_Osaka.png

Painting of Empress Suiko (554 – 15 April 628) in the Asuka period, unknown artist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Empress_Suiko_painting.png

 

Just Some Photos

Haven’t been so inclined to sit in front of a computer this summer. So these are just a few recent photos from some local excursions around the neighborhood. I’m trying the “block editor” this time around. I’d mostly given up on it since it was deleting my first paragraphs whenever I tried to hand edit anything (like this ridiculous text size). But I think I’ll give the “expand” function for photos a try this time around.

The south meadow at Mount Rose Summit. Just below the pass at about 8,900-feet, the boardwalk heads out toward “Chickadee Ridge”. The unofficial name is due to so many tourists feeding the birds in the area that they have learned to land on people’s outstretched hands.

A dead tree along the Rim Trail, right at about the alpine limit. It impresses me that anything at all can grow here. This will be under at least ten-feet of snow in the winter. (This one links to the image file.)

Lake Tahoe, from above the northeastern shore. The mountains on the left are the Carson Range of the Sierra Nevadas. The Sierra Nevada high country, which marks the divide between the California watershed and the Great Basin, is on the other side of the lake. That means that none of this water ever reaches the sea.

The Spooner Lake loop off the Tahoe Rim Trail. This area is adjacent to Highway-50 at Spooner Summit and pretty easily accessible. Unfortunately, the northern Lake Tahoe side of the Carson Range has been closed this summer due to work on the higher elevation Marlette Lake dam, which was originally built in the late 1800s.

Spooner Lake, looking north. The dam on the opposite side was also built in the late 1800s. The water was used in flumes that moved timber down the slopes to the east to Carson City. The lake is a regular stop for migrating birds, and it’s a popular fishing spot. However, I wouldn’t recommend swimming here. The lake is, unfortunately, also home to some kind of invasive leech.

The end of the trail.

Belief

“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution.
It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
-Niels Bohr

Leaning back into space, weight shifted slowly from my feet onto the rope that would keep me from falling. Finally, pushing off from the rock, I loosened my grip on its connection to the earth and allowed my body to fall… just a little. It was a moment of faith, balanced by reason.

“Reason” is that characteristic of mind through which we come to rational conclusions. “Faith” is merely an acceptance of that not empirically provable. A combination of both is the source of all foundations upon which we build our lives, whether functional, intellectual, moral, or religious. And once established, they become the beliefs, or the set of rules from which trusted expectations are drawn. So it’s no small thing when those foundations fail.

Constructing a reliable climbing or rappel anchor requires a fair amount of informed consideration. And among the first things learned is not to place much faith in those structures relied upon by others. Rusted bolts and sun-rotted nylon webbing are but crumbling invitations to disaster. That worthy of trust requires knowledge, understanding, and the effort to create and to verify for one’s self. But in science, this defines the trade-off in avoiding “Type II” error; minimizing the risk of bad ideas comes at the cost of overlooking potentially good ones.

“Cognitive Dissonance” is what we feel when established expectations suddenly fail to describe reality. Opening the front door of my old house one morning, the snow-covered tree that had fallen across the front porch during the night’s blizzard resulted in a moment of startled confusion. The rational expectation of a familiar world was suddenly replaced by a profoundly disturbing experience.  It was as the unexpected sensation of falling in a dream.

There are two ways to avoid such moments. The first is to plan carefully, and to prepare backups for those times when things fall apart anyway. Likewise, a good climbing anchor is not only sturdily constructed, but it’s also built with no single point-of-failure. Regardless, there will always be risks beyond our ability to control.

But the alternative is merely not to climb.

In the mountains, acceptable risk is understood to be subjective; and it’s usually assessed by looking at four factors: probability, consequence, exposure, and tolerance. The first three multiply to increase actual risk. And this is where things like building a good anchor, or tying knots at the ends of a rope can make a difference.

Still, there are always risks in the approach to a summit. Some are physical. Others are the consequence of a clear view, the experience of nearing the boundaries of both reason and faith, and peering into the abyss. Plato called them the “beautiful dangers”. Heidegger called it “metaphysical vertigo”.  And the degree of willingness to accept such risk can only be determined by an individual.

Tolerance is consequently founded in something deeply personal. It represents a threshold for an acceptance of risk in exchange for what it promises in return. For the honest and informed, it’s a belief in one’s self grounded in experience, ability, fortitude, and goals.

But there’s always some aspect of a Kierkegaardian-like leap as one leans back, trusting in the thin strand that holds a spirit to the mountain.

Todd Skinner leaned back into space, just as he had thousands of times before. This particular day in October of 2006, he and his climbing partner, Jim Hewett, had been exploring a route for a first free-climb of the 3,000-foot, “Leaning Tower” in Yosemite. Deciding to call-it-a-day in the heat of the afternoon, they ate a lunch and then began a series of easy rappels back down.

As Skinner neared the end of his second rappel, Hewett heard a strange sound. “I looked down really quickly and just saw him falling… and I knew he was dead.” Skinner had experienced an almost unheard of equipment failure of the “belay loop” on his harness, the sturdy and utterly reliable nylon ring through which climbers secure themselves to their ropes.