photosynthesis, plants take up carbon-14, a naturally occurring radioactive isotope that is produced by cosmic rays entering the earth’s atmosphere. Through the consumption of plant materials, or through the consumption of organisms that eat plant materials, the carbon-14 passes into every other living organism on earth—it’s inside of you, your dog, your goldfish, your house plants, and your goldfish’s food. Organisms accumulate the isotope at the same ratio as it occurs in the atmosphere, and the accumulation process stops when the organism dies. From then on, the carbon-14 begins to decay with a half-life of 5,730 years. Through some laboratory wizardry, it’s possible to examine the rate of decay of the remaining carbon-14 in an organism’s tissues and then infer how long the thing’s been dead.
I waited over a month for my results. In the meantime, I followed a somewhat related series of articles that appeared in the
Billings Gazette
about the U.S. Mint’s ten-year, fifty-state commemorative-quarter program. Montana’s quarter was scheduled for a 2007 release, and the state had begun its selection process in the summer of 2005, when Governor Brian Schweitzer’s office put out a call for designs.
Hundreds of proposals were submitted. Suggestions included a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle; a can of beer and a pork chop sandwich; a grizzly bear; “dudes riding three-wheeled ATVs on a hill”; a picture of Lewis and Clark; and the Unabomber’s cabin in Lincoln, Montana. Some ideas were thrown out for being obscene, some were thrown out for being illegal (you can’t use the state symbol on a coin), and others were rejected for being non-coinable, which is the U.S. Mint’s term for a design that is too complicated. The governor proposed the novel idea that Montana’s quarter be minted in palladium, a white metal mined in Montana, but federal law mandates the use of silver.
The six-person selection committee appointed by Schweitzer eventually nominated four ideas: a bull elk; a landscape featuring the sun; a landscape featuring a river; and a buffalo skull. The four ideas were submitted to the U.S. Mint for preliminary design, and the U.S. Mint returned the four ideas in coin form. The images were placed on an Internet-based ballot. The
Billings Gazette
announced the final decision on June 30, 2006, just as I was struggling with my radiocarbon purchase. The story appeared amid a collection of state headlines dominated by stories about car crashes, crystal meth, murder, and a plan to give birth control to wild horses: the elk pulled 30 percent, the sun and the river each nabbed around 18 percent, and the buffalo skull landed 34 percent of the vote. The choice seemed to tear the state apart. Someone pointed out that more people had voted against the skull than had voted for it. Comments flooded in to the
Gazette
:
“That quarter is UG-LY.”
“Man, that coin is dumb! A floating cow skull, what the heck does that have to do with anything?”
“The skull is easily the worst of the four. Carrion has always been such a great beacon for prosperity.”
“I think it was a wonderful choice. We were competing in the ugly quarter contest, weren’t we?”
“Why in the world would Montana choose a symbol of death for its new quarter?”
“Can’t Montana do anything right? A quarter to honor Montana and we choose a dead animal’s skull?”
“UGH!”
The entire process made me feel as though my personal feelings (and cash expenditures) were being put to a public forum. By now, a couple of years had passed since I’d found the skull, and I’d been carrying it from home to home and state to state, trying to find some way to describe what it meant. Not just what it meant to me, but also what it
meant
meant, in a larger way. All I could come up with was that I liked being near it and that I enjoyed staring at it. I described it as somehow symbolic of the American experience, but I could never
I waited over a month for my results. In the meantime, I followed a somewhat related series of articles that appeared in the
Billings Gazette
about the U.S. Mint’s ten-year, fifty-state commemorative-quarter program. Montana’s quarter was scheduled for a 2007 release, and the state had begun its selection process in the summer of 2005, when Governor Brian Schweitzer’s office put out a call for designs.
Hundreds of proposals were submitted. Suggestions included a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle; a can of beer and a pork chop sandwich; a grizzly bear; “dudes riding three-wheeled ATVs on a hill”; a picture of Lewis and Clark; and the Unabomber’s cabin in Lincoln, Montana. Some ideas were thrown out for being obscene, some were thrown out for being illegal (you can’t use the state symbol on a coin), and others were rejected for being non-coinable, which is the U.S. Mint’s term for a design that is too complicated. The governor proposed the novel idea that Montana’s quarter be minted in palladium, a white metal mined in Montana, but federal law mandates the use of silver.
The six-person selection committee appointed by Schweitzer eventually nominated four ideas: a bull elk; a landscape featuring the sun; a landscape featuring a river; and a buffalo skull. The four ideas were submitted to the U.S. Mint for preliminary design, and the U.S. Mint returned the four ideas in coin form. The images were placed on an Internet-based ballot. The
Billings Gazette
announced the final decision on June 30, 2006, just as I was struggling with my radiocarbon purchase. The story appeared amid a collection of state headlines dominated by stories about car crashes, crystal meth, murder, and a plan to give birth control to wild horses: the elk pulled 30 percent, the sun and the river each nabbed around 18 percent, and the buffalo skull landed 34 percent of the vote. The choice seemed to tear the state apart. Someone pointed out that more people had voted against the skull than had voted for it. Comments flooded in to the
Gazette
:
“That quarter is UG-LY.”
“Man, that coin is dumb! A floating cow skull, what the heck does that have to do with anything?”
“The skull is easily the worst of the four. Carrion has always been such a great beacon for prosperity.”
“I think it was a wonderful choice. We were competing in the ugly quarter contest, weren’t we?”
“Why in the world would Montana choose a symbol of death for its new quarter?”
“Can’t Montana do anything right? A quarter to honor Montana and we choose a dead animal’s skull?”
“UGH!”
The entire process made me feel as though my personal feelings (and cash expenditures) were being put to a public forum. By now, a couple of years had passed since I’d found the skull, and I’d been carrying it from home to home and state to state, trying to find some way to describe what it meant. Not just what it meant to me, but also what it
meant
meant, in a larger way. All I could come up with was that I liked being near it and that I enjoyed staring at it. I described it as somehow symbolic of the American experience, but I could never
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