This is a long one, and I’ll probably edit it. The trail isn’t really that steep, either… unless you’re horribly out of shape.

Bridal Veil Falls

Last night I was thinking about a guy I know. i was thinking about him, as if I had told him that he didn’t really understand what was valuable about him, and as if he had asked me what I thought was valuable about him.

I answered like this: He suffered from a lack of perspective. He was unable, at the moment, to see his real situation, at least, not in an honest way. He was making the classic blunder of mistaking reality for reality, if you know what i mean.

I told him, although I didn’t really tell him, that one day soon, sooner than he thinks, he’d look back on what’s transpiring right now, and he’d laugh. He’d look at it and say, What was I thinking? I told him that it was like climbing a mountain. You start off, and all you can do is make a step forward. There’s no escalator. You just have to make every step yourself, and you have to do it with integrity. You just step and step again, and your muscles ache, but you just keep doing it. And before you know it, you’re looking down on the valley below, and you can see two, three more ridges across the way. And then you just keep taking each step, uniquely yours, none exactly the same, but none all that different. You just keep taking the steps and you’re at the summit, and there are no more steps to take.

And when you’re at the summit, you get to see the whole picture. You find the trail you just came up and examine it, thinking about each step you took along it. A breath every, let’s say, four steps. Three steps, maybe, per breath. The strenuous parts were maybe a step per breath, maybe less.

And you find the spots where you rested. Where you took a moment and let your body catch up. On that outcrop there, or the logging road switchback there, or the streambed there, down there where you can see them. Every step visible. Every breath, every pause visible.

And then you know, and you can laugh.

And i told him, without really telling him, because I was talking to myself, I told him, you’ll get to that point. You really will. You don’t even think you’re climbing right now, because that’s how messed up your perspective is, but you are. You’re taking a step up with every smug self-satisfaction, because that’s the only way you know how to think about them. And one day, one day soon, you’ll see it for what it is, because you’ll have reached the point where merely stepping up won’t work any more.

And you’ll laugh.

So today, I went to Bridal Veil Falls.

It’s something like two and a half miles each way, up the side of a mountain. And I thought I was going to die… My lungs ached, my legs threatened to unionize and call a general strike, but my perspective never flagged.

The first two-thirds is a very steady incline, just steep enough to be annoying. It runs through second-growth forest that was clearcut in the ’50s. The trail, in fact, is an old logging road, and hiking much of this trail is like walking down a road, because that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Somewhere about the time you turn a corner into the Bridal Veil creek watershed, you’re in an older second-growth. This part was clearcut in the ’20s, and gives hope that the other forest would eventually turn mysterious again. This slightly-older forest is cool and green and cedar and moist with many tiny dribbling rivulets.

The trail continues on gentle switchbacks, towards more rocky terrain, where the stairs begin. Stairs that look like ladders laid into the ground. Stairs with uniform steps, each demanding a certain measure of effort from the body. Somehow, walking up a steep trail is less tiresome than the steps.

They seem to stretch into infinity. This is where my perspective suffered the most… I’d get to the top of one set, and see another one disappearing into the terrain, and then I’d see someone coming down the trail, far enough above that they might as well be overhead.

Then short respite, and then tiny rocky switchbacks, following dry spillways, where raging waters no doubt make the path impassable during a rainstorm.

Then a tiny forest. A forest that exists only because of the spray from the waterfall. The air is cooler. The roar is louder.

Now, up to this point, you’ve been stealing individual puzzle pieces of grand views between the trees, and through the rocks, but you’re still struggling. Your lungs suggest you to try a different hobby. Your legs start telling you the tale of lactic acid. Your horizon is a rock-strewn path in front of you. Practically staring you in the face, the trail is so steep. The trees hold you in like prison bars. Your universe is about eight feet cubed.

And then you’re at the waterfall, and your universe is three hundred feet high. Your universe is water falling down the face of granite, and 300 years old like the cedar tree standing next to you. Your universe is the valley, the clouds, the mountaintops.

An open email to David Brooks, in response to this article, which I found through our potty-mouth pal, The Rude Pundit.

I read your article where you say the genesis of the current power-stacking melee over judicial nominations is located in Roe v Wade, a supreme court ruling. That’s a bit like saying that we should blame the existence of organized crime on the invention of money.

The current battle over judicial nominations (currently taking the form of ‘debate’ over whether or not Mr. Smith should Go To Washington) has its genesis in the religious right, not in the court case they despise. The Republicans have been wooing the religious right for decades, changing their politics 180-degrees, bending over backwards to get these folks to vote for anything with an ‘(R)’ after its name on the ballot. And the current, ahem, ‘discussion’ is a result of *that* unfortunate truth.

You’re correct about the nature and scope of this problem: We’re seeing a destruction of the culture of the Senate and of limited government. But this has nothing to do with Roe v. Wade — this is a result of unmitigated pandering by Republicans, and the Republicans’ success in the last few elections (and their subsequent inability to keep their one-party government fantasies in their pants).

You are correct that moderate Republicans find themselves really hating this situation, as well they should. They should because, as Molly Ivins said, you gotta dance with them what brung ya. The religious right is out for blood, and it’s not the blood of the lamb.

But to get back to your central strawman: Roe v. Wade is a good ruling. It doesn’t ‘invent’ rights. It’s not the result of ‘activist’ ruling. If it were those things, then you might have a snowball’s chance of blaming the current fracas on the judges who made it. But it’s not.

Your solution to this ‘problem’ would be laughable if it weren’t so completely horrific. The whole point of having a Supreme Court is to decide exactly these kinds of issues. Would you say that we should have a vote on whether rulings against racially-discriminatory laws were ‘good’ or not? Would you really want to put legalized lynchings up for a vote? Would you, with a straight face, suggest that the civil rights of African-Americans should be decided by referendum?

This question isn’t so far removed from your rhetoric as you might think. You’re saying (with a straight face) that women’s reproductive freedom, having been ruled a civil right, is now not worth so much any more. You’re saying that a Supreme Court ruling against laws which prevent women from having sovereignty over their own bodies should be thrown out, justified *only* by the fact that there are people with political power who don’t like the ruling.

You’re ultimately saying that you want women’s rights to be something states decide. You say the current threat of the ‘nuclear option’ would ‘damage the cause of limited government,’ but to demote the rights of women in this way would damage the cause of human rights, certainly damaging to the cause of individual liberty, which conservatives are suppose to hold dear.

But that’s not what’s horrific about your article, though it’s certainly horrific enough. What’s horrific is that this slides out of your fingers into your word processor without your even thinking about it. At least, one hopes it was an oversight.

You are feeding the fire you proclaim to be putting out.

Respectfully, PJM.

Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest database. WA, OR, ID, BC.

Found this looking for info about the Foss River trail.

The great thing about open source software is that there’s no shortage of how-to articles, for every conceivable task.

Like this one, which tells you how to make a PHP/MySQL image gallery in your spare time.

Phil A. Buster teaches you all about the filibuster. Sort of. Or not. It’s a little political thing to tell you to write your congresscritter to save the checks and balances of government.

But when I watched it, I could only think of ‘I’m just a bill/And I’m sittin’ here on Capitol Hill…’

I’m just a Phil (A. Buster)
And I’m sittin’ here on Capitol Hill
Blockin’ all the right-wing nutjob court appointments…

(Click any of these pics for bigger versions.)

The Moon.

I wonder how Xanga will mangle it.

This is a 1:1 crop of a moonlight test of my ‘new’ Tamron 80-210 zoom lens. Thrift stores RULE. Nevertheless, I have promised myself that the next lens I buy with a three-digit focal length will be the SMC-F* (or FA*) 300/4.5 prime, or the f/2.8 version if I win the lottery. It is highly unlikely that either of these lenses will be at a thrift store. Until I can afford it, no more.

Some other pics I took today, on a trip to Juanita Bay Park. Both are crops… 210mm won’t get you that close… I’m still getting used to this lens. I thought it was automatic (meaning, you can set the aperture on the camera), but it isn’t. It has the wrong Tamron adaptor for that. Frikken’ adaptors!

Red-winged blackbird:

Great blue heron:

This is the first heron pic I took today. After this, he moved around like he was going to strike at a fish in the water. I sat there for 15 minutes waiting while he stood still as a tree branch. Finally he just hopped into the reeds and started wandering around. Out of sight, of course. No action shots today, but more than a few anticipatory ones.

The trouble with life is that it ebbs and flows. But not even that.. Ebb and flow describe tides, which are predictable.

And it isn’t so much that the ebb-tide-except-not-really isn’t predictable… You can see it coming, you can know what you’re doing wrong now to make it happen… It’s that it’s not tied to the rythms of a celestial body outside your control. You can’t blame the weather or the Republican congress.

Some changes are, in fact, outside your control, and social scientists and other astrologers have been trying to understand those rythms for quite a while. But there are also a few other things over which you have total control but which nevertheless end up being your momentary, cyclical downfall.

I let someone down recently. More than one person, in fact. I haven’t been keeping up with the things I should keep up with. And I don’t think I’m being hard on myself about these things… It’s just that I wish my circumstance didn’t involve sitting around with my thumb up my butt waiting for someone else to take care of this stuff.

Having the Asperger tendencies means it’s diffictult to deal with these things. It’s not an abrogation of responsibility, but a mitigation and explanation. I have to forgive myself every time, because I’d forgive anyone else. The alternative is to go nuts with guilt and shame.

But the question is: Is it enough to simply declare that I’m irresponsible and the world is going to have to deal?

Couple nights ago, I rented a bunch of movies, and I’m just now getting around to writing about them.

First, Miazaki: ‘The Cat Returns.’ Why must Disney hire stars to voice these characters? It’s completely distracting, especially since the Baron is voiced by Cary Elwes, who was Wesley in ‘The Princess Bride.’ Different character, same voice. They all do great jobs, but they are who they are. Peter Boyle voices one character, and I kept waiting for him to start singing ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ with Gene Wilder.

Casting aside, it’s a generic Miazaki/Ghibli film. A prepubescent pre-teen girl goes on an adventure into a fantasy world and grows up a little bit. Think ‘Spirited Away’ without the detail or beauty. It’s good, fun, enjoyable, worth seeing once or maybe twice. But no one’s going to say this is their favorite Miazaki, and no pre-pubescent girl who sees this movie will, as an adult, fondly remember its importance.

The story is that Disney was going to release ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ instead of this one, and didn’t because there was some kind of quality issue with the remastering. Hopefully that’ll all change soon, and we’ll get to hear catbus voiced by Tim Allen or something.

If you can choose between this and another Miazaki, just realize that you can always return to ‘The Cat Returns.’ Get ‘Spirited Away’ instead.

Movie Number Two: ‘An American Astronaut.’ Man, what a great idea, down the freakin’ tubes. Imagine if outer space were an interstate, and the planets were bars, and space stations were barns to hide in while the cops were lookin’ for ye. Oh, and it’s a musical, with outer space honky tonk truck drivin’ tunes. Great setting for a story…. Too bad there wasn’t one. If you’re drunk, you might enjoy this movie because you passed out before it ended, so you don’t know what failure it ended up being.

And speaking of rip-offs, when I started watching this thing, it reminded me of a story a friend of mine wrote a while back, about white trash in outer space. Now I have to find out if someone stole the idea from him.

Movie Numero Tres: ‘Casshern.’ Remember a little while back I lambasted ‘Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’ as all style and no substance? Well, ‘Casshern’ isn’t all that different, except the style is the substance, in a very Marshal McLuhan kind of way. It’s another actors-on-a-green-screen computer-generated fantasy epic, but this time with actual imagination involved. Plus, to make matters worse/better, deus ex machina is, itself, a character.

It’s a live-action computer-generated anime, in essence. Visual spectacle with a side order of epilepsy-inducing battle scenes are the special of the day at this particular restaurant, with eye candy for dessert. The plot works like this: The world of the future/past is polluted and toxic, and a scientist has discovered a new kind of genetic material which will cure those devastated by the pollution. But, of course, during the testing of these new genes, whole human beings start growing in the vats. Some of these new humans escape to the mountains, where they discover a hidden robot army (because, as we all know, there are robot armies hidden in mountains everywhere). The new humans declare war on humanity, and naturally, their champion will end up facing the human champion.

Some of what we see is really interesting. Some of it is downright insipid. As with a lot of anime, it’s a mixed bag. But whereas with ‘American Astronaut’ you should get drunk first, with ‘Casshern’ you should just assume from the outset that there’s really no payoff, and enjoy the ride. Because it’s really quite a ride, and the design and visual style are quite beautiful and amazing. Think art nouveau meets ‘Frankenstein’ meets Power Rangers.

Also, the scientist is played by Akira Terao, whom I’ll always think of as the hapless Everyman from Kurosawa’s ‘Dreams.’ “Vouz est Monsieur VanGogh?”

“We almost had ourselves the William Hung of patriotism.”

–Bob Harris

Photogeekery:

Really great website: ReallyRightStuff. They manufacture clamps and tripod heads and other assorted photo-related hardware, but the site is very well laid out and quite informative. If you’re setting up a web site for retail, ReallyRightStuff should be your prototype.

Now, if only their multi-axis pano bracket kit weren’t $405… Nodal Ninja to the rescue!