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Beast Machine

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Brad McKinniss

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“In the incongruous role of the insurgent party-builder, he made crystal clear the whole host of inferences we have drawn from the experiences of Monroe and Polk: that innovation, however orthodox, is inherently destabilizing; that the purely constructive leadership project is an illusion; that the affiliated leader cannot assume independent ground without ultimately embracing the role of the heretic; that the only way ever to be president in your own right is to become yourself a great repudiator and set yourself directly against the bulwark of received power; that political disruption parallels presidential significance. Roosevelt's insight was not simply that new achievements do not rest securely on old foundations, but that to save the handiwork of his presidency he would have to reconstruct its political base.”

“Onward and upward he pushed until rock, ground, and forest came to an end, until there was nothing but a sharp edge of blunt earth protruding in the late light of the range, where he could see well beyond the park boundaries to national forest land that he had once scouted on foot and horseback. He remembered it then as roadless, the only trails being those hacked by Indians and prospectors. He had taken notes on the flora and fauna, commented on the age of the bristlecone pine trees at the highest elevations, the scrub oak in the valleys, the condors overhead, the trout in alpine tarns. He had lassoed that wild land in ink, returned to Washington, and sent the sketch to the president, who preserved it for posterity. What did Michelangelo feel at the end of his life, staring at a ceiling in the Vatican or a marble figure in Florence? Pinchot knew. And those who followed him, his great-great-grandchildren, Teddy's great-great-grandchildren, people living in a nation one day of five hundred million people, could find their niche as well. Pinchot felt God in his soul, and thanked him, and weariness in his bones. He sensed he had come full circle.”

“Nous pouvons supposer que les premiers hommes modernes européens avaient la peau sombre des populations tropicales. La couleur de la peau est, schématiquement, liée à la quantité d’ultraviolets qui atteignent le sol. Une peau sombre protège contre les risques de cancers de la peau. En revanche, sous les hautes latitudes, une peau claire facilite la pénétration des rayons ultraviolets nécessaires à la synthèse de la vitamine D, dont la carence provoque le rachitisme.”

“D’une façon générale, les peaux foncées bénéficient d’une protection contre les ultraviolets les plus agressifs et sont peu susceptibles de développer des cancers. Elles protègent aussi la vitamine B de la destruction par les UV- A. En l’absence de pelage, les hommes ont développé des peaux foncées dans les zones tropicales où ils se sont d’abord développés. Mais cette adaptation s’est transformée en handicap lors de la colonisation de régions peu ensoleillées, car en l’absence de soleil, les peaux colorées ralentissent la synthèse de la vitamine D nécessaire à la fixation du calcium dans le squelette.”