Weather on Mt. Washington and other peaks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is often severe. A good example is the wind clocked at 231 mph that blew over Mt. Washington in April, 1934. That’s a good definition of “severe.” Blizzards are frequent, also, occurring often enough that people have constructed cairns so that hikers can find their way along trails during a whiteout. In extreme weather, these piles of rocks become beckoning ghosts as layers of ice accumulate in temperatures below the freezing point. These tangible ghosts are guides that keep lost travelers from wandering astray.
The icy encrustations on cairns are rime, the cold form of dew. It’s the product of deposition, which is an analog of condensation. When the dew point (the temperature at which air becomes saturated) falls below freezing, water vapor aggregates as ice on exposed surfaces. For any exposed objects, the process of being covered by rime is passive. Just as morning dew appears on grass and cars, so rime appears on all exposed objects.
And that’s what happens when we lie exposed to the extreme weather of politics. We don’t have to be active, don’t even have to be political. In the enveloping atmosphere of constant punditry, the rime of partisanship accumulates. All who are exposed cannot avoid the deposition under the blustery atmosphere blowing alternatively from Left or Right. The winds might shift along the treacherous political trail, but the rime continues to accumulate.
AH! So many metaphors and images upon which to draw! What of this? The political traveler beset by the storm is so covered in political rime that he or she becomes the frozen analog of Lot’s wife, the rime of political belief locking the mind in place, preventing one from finding another path, another endpoint; rime-covered, the traveler is frozen in place. Or, what of this? The political traveler beset by freezing winds looks for a different path or for an escape to reason along a trail marked by cairns, guideposts that lead away from pure emotion toward pure reason. Or, even of this? Along any political trail lie cairns placed by ancestral pathfinders who discovered long ago the folly of wandering aimlessly in the storm of partisanship. Or this? Rime-covered cairn along an icy path or rime-covered traveler on that icy path, both lie beneath the bitter political wind, and both bear accumulations of political rime, usually deposited in thick layers during the political season.
I’m sure you can draw your own metaphorical versions and analogs for the rimes of politics and the cairns of guiding reason.*
*You can see pictures of rime-covered cairns online.
The icy encrustations on cairns are rime, the cold form of dew. It’s the product of deposition, which is an analog of condensation. When the dew point (the temperature at which air becomes saturated) falls below freezing, water vapor aggregates as ice on exposed surfaces. For any exposed objects, the process of being covered by rime is passive. Just as morning dew appears on grass and cars, so rime appears on all exposed objects.
And that’s what happens when we lie exposed to the extreme weather of politics. We don’t have to be active, don’t even have to be political. In the enveloping atmosphere of constant punditry, the rime of partisanship accumulates. All who are exposed cannot avoid the deposition under the blustery atmosphere blowing alternatively from Left or Right. The winds might shift along the treacherous political trail, but the rime continues to accumulate.
AH! So many metaphors and images upon which to draw! What of this? The political traveler beset by the storm is so covered in political rime that he or she becomes the frozen analog of Lot’s wife, the rime of political belief locking the mind in place, preventing one from finding another path, another endpoint; rime-covered, the traveler is frozen in place. Or, what of this? The political traveler beset by freezing winds looks for a different path or for an escape to reason along a trail marked by cairns, guideposts that lead away from pure emotion toward pure reason. Or, even of this? Along any political trail lie cairns placed by ancestral pathfinders who discovered long ago the folly of wandering aimlessly in the storm of partisanship. Or this? Rime-covered cairn along an icy path or rime-covered traveler on that icy path, both lie beneath the bitter political wind, and both bear accumulations of political rime, usually deposited in thick layers during the political season.
I’m sure you can draw your own metaphorical versions and analogs for the rimes of politics and the cairns of guiding reason.*
*You can see pictures of rime-covered cairns online.
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