Dennis Held on the hold Spokane has on residents
Dennis titled this "The Theory of the Movement of Humans Through a Semi-Permeable Membrane, or, Osmosis: An Aquifer Indicted."
"Because the Spokane Aquifer is directly beneath this whole valley, with a thick layer of semi-permeable gravel between us and it; and because human beings themselves are basically just skin sacs full of constantly leaking fluids; and because the power of osmosis, the passage of a fluid through a semi-permeable membrane into a solution where the concentrations are lower, seeking to equalize the conditions on both sides of the barrier; and because, unlike many more well-behaved aquifers that tend to stay put because they are, well, aquifers, and because the Spokane Aquifer is enormous and is moving, ever moving, to the sea, the inevitable dark and endless all-encompassing sea -- where was I -- oh yes, because of the unceasing osmotic tug of the ever-leaving aquifer, we are drawn down, inexorably down.
"And here in Spokane, with the rimrock of adamantine black basalt that rings the valley providing the oversized bowl, we here are all caught in the Giant Swirly of Life as the Good Lord above intelligently designed it. Some of us spin here forever, never to rise above the rim, while others are spun out for periods of years before succumbing to the long, slow, sweet suck that it is -- Spokane."
