TPMmuckracker quotes from a new book about “Duke” Cunningham:

For one thing, Wilkes was totally disgusted by the hot tub Cunningham put on the boat’s deck during the autumn and winter. What repelled Wilkes — and others invited to the parties — was both the water Cunningham put in the hot tub and the congressman’s penchant for using it while naked, even if everybody else at the party was clothed. Cunningham used water siphoned directly from the polluted Potomac River and never changed it out during the season. “Wilkes thought it was unbelievably dirty and joked if you got in there it would leave a dark water line on your chest,” said one person familiar with the parties. “The water was so gross that very few people were willing to get into the hot tub other than Duke and his paramour.” That was a reference to Cunningham’s most frequently seen girlfriend, a flight attendant who lived in Maryland.

Wikipedia:

[..] In the 2000 census, the 51st District was renumbered the 50th District. The district was gerrymandered to exclude the relatively liberal areas of La Jolla, Bird Rock, downtown La Jolla, and UCSD. Those areas were moved to the more-liberal 53rd District, and the more conservative community of Clairemont Mesa was added to the new 50th District. George W. Bush received 55% of the vote in this district in 2004. The district has a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of R +5.

Yay gerrymandering!

Hah!

I mentioned that I’m planning to drive a big chunk of the Nez Perce National Historic Trail. (Nez Perce Trail Foundation, Nez Perce National Historical Park)

It shares a lot with the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail, which is, of course, highly ironic.

And it also shares a lot with the accomplishment of a couple hundred American citizens of Japanese descent who were interred near Kooskia, ID, where they were ‘employed’ to work on what would become US highway 12.

I’m re-capping all this so no one has to re-read the rambling post about it earlier.

The point here is that I read about a book that was maybe going to be published by a researcher who is focusing on Kooskia. I emailed her to find out if it was in the process of being published, but it hasn’t found a deal yet. But we’ve had an amiable couple of emails about the topic, and I discovered that I was about 30 miles off! The camp was not located near the town, as I’d believed, based on a Google Earth layer available here. Instead, it’s near a USFS campground, just off the road, right in the middle of the mountains.

The researcher is Priscilla Wegars, PhD, and her book is tentatively titled, “Imprisoned in Paradise: Federal Convicts and Japanese Internees Build a Highway in the Wilderness.” She also graciously offered to send me a pamphlet she developed around the topic. I’m not sure who the audience is supposed to be (it emphasizes Californians who were interred in Kooskia, and it’s only 8 pages, so…).

And, there’s another interesting story: That of Toraichi Kono, who ended up in Kooskia. The link takes you to the myspace page for a documentary being made about Kono.

A Firefox plug-in which removes ad banners and replaces them with fine art.

Still in development, but already in the New York Times.

That’s Emma. And this is a spoke hubcap:

I got a new lens. Pentax SMC-DA 16-45/4 ED/AL. I can decode that if you want me to.

It has a flaw. The coating on the front is chipped, which I could probably live with, but which detracts from its resale value. And it’s all about the resale value.

But the real tale of woe goes like this: I mentioned before that Pentax was releasing a new line of pro-level lenses, called DA* (dee-ay-star). They were supposed to be available at the beginning of this month, which would have coincided just perfectly with my trip. So I ordered one.

Well, now they won’t actually be available until August. So mine’s still on order, and I guess I’ll use it to take pictures of autumn leaves or something. In the mean time, I needed a step up from the kit lens, so it was either the venerable DA 16-45/4, or else the even more venerable FA 20-35/4, which you can only find used, if at all.

Update: The new lens isn’t flawed. It just came out of the factory with a spatter of something on it, and needed cleaning.

And shoot… If it can make Betty gasp, then I better keep it, right?

US National Forests are now easily visible in Google Earth, which hadn’t been true previously. The new feature also includes campsites, fire lookouts, and ranger stations.

All of which makes me very, very happy. It’s missing a few details like the names of campsites and stations and so forth, but this makes it much easier for me to plan.

I’d hacked together my own shape file for the forests, but it never really worked properly. I was most eager to get campsites, but neither the USGS nor USFS GIS web sites had that info, that I could find.

So yay. Next challenge: BLM.

Only on the Mississippi delta: The Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in picturesque downtown Morgan City, Louisiana. August 30th to Septempter 3rd.

I ended up noticing it because I read that the US Army Corps of Engineers is recommending closure of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). President Bush has to sign off on it, though, and a considerable amount of shipping happens along this route. The storm surge from Katrina pushed water straight up this channel, causing flooding. (I love the headline: “Corps recommends closing MRGO to President.” Maybe they’re recommending it stay open, but that the President can’t go there.)

After figuring out where the MRGO is actually located, I started browsing the delta in Google Earth. I have a fantasy about one day spending a bunch of time poking around down there, learning stuff. But of course that applies to every place I find that’s even halfway interesting.

We like Theologikos.

I watched ‘Children of Men’ again tonight. I bought the DVD a while back.

I sometimes latch on to movies and watch them semi-obsessively (or fully so). ‘Harold and Maude’ was one. ‘Forbidden Planet’ was one, ‘The Wicker Man,’ too (the 1973 version, not the recent remake, with a preference for the ‘extended version’ that was the original cut sent to distributors as promo). See?

I’m not sure why I pick the ones I do. Maybe the movie comes along at the right time, or maybe something transcendental is lurking behind these films, trying to show itself to me. I don’t really know. Sometimes I think I’m going to write a screenplay. A remake of ‘Forbidden Planet’ has been brewing in my brain for a while, but I doubt it’ll ever make it to paper. Mostly I think this talk of being productive is a conceit, because really I’m just guided by mysterious motives I don’t quite understand, and might one day figure out. Just like everybody, except maybe moreso.

Autism. Obsessive behavior. Who’da thought?

But ‘Children of Men’… I could go on and on about it. There are just so many ways of approaching it; it’s like dream interpretation of the near future. It always makes me cry, and maybe that’s the attraction. “Sad fugee face…”

I’ve been doing some dilletantish reading on the Ni-Mee-Poo or Nez Perce. Mostly the biggest chase scene in history, across half a continent. Within the next couple weeks I’ll be driving most of the western half of it, or at least the part you can get to without leaving your car. I had planned this route for other reasons, mainly having to do with primitive hot springs and my desire to spend as much time as possible in the mountains of Idaho. But you start clicking around on Google Earth and you find things, like Big Hole.

Big Hole: Sad fugee face. Major battle. Lots of dead people. National Historic Monument. Near a town called Wisdom. We like irony, especially when it’s in Montana, so we must drive there. Lost Creek Pass out of the Bitterroot Mountains, down to the Big Hole and the far-reaching headwaters of the Missouri River… Ironically (again) this is where I’ll leave the trail. So let me back up.

Northeastern Oregon and Idaho. I’ll miss the origin of the trail, where Chief Joseph and his cohorts took off, refusing to be sent to a reservation. I’ve been to that area (the magnificent Wallowa valley), but I didn’t know this piece of its history.

I’ll pick up the trail in the… It cracks me up every time I think about it. There’s a Lewiston, ID, and a Clarkston, WA. They’re on opposite sides of the mighty Snake River at the confluence with the Clearwater. Lewiston and Clarkston. Everywhere you look in this region, there’s a town named after Lewis and Clark in some way. Lewis County and Clark County. You can’t escape it. I had an idea where I’d write a thing about all the places named for Lewis and Clark, but I bet someone’s already done that.

But US 12 goes through these Lewish and Clarkian towns on the mighty Snake, and so will I. The Nez Perce National Historical Trail passes near there, and there are many parks and markers along US 12 to inform the curious traveler.

Sometimes I think that being able to gain a cursory understanding of the history of conflict by reading a plaque by the road is utterly wrong. Like it’s insipid. Morally wrong. It doesn’t communicate anything real. Of course there was a war here… What do you expect? Some people say you repeat history if you don’t understand it, but I have these thoughts about war… I think that understanding war is why we fight them. We innoculate ourselves with understanding. We under-prepare ourselves by thinking about it, then go out and do it, and bemoan the result. Not to say that history is worthless, just that we don’t feel it, and if we do, we cut off the feeling with blame. ‘Those goddamned Indians should have stayed on their reservation!’

See, I have this theory that war is as intrinsic to human nature as anything else we do. We don’t like to think that we’re warlike, or that we’re violent. But we are. There has always been war, and I don’t think there’s any reason to assume there won’t be in the future. War is a social reflex. It will happen if there is the capability for it to happen. Being at war might mean the loss of one’s innocence or one’s soul, but it’s not necessarily the loss of one’s humanity, for one simple reason: Human beings fight wars.

And for more evidence: Even as US 12 simultaneously marks and erases the rebellion of Chief Joseph et al, it passes through a town called Kooskia. And at Kooskia, between 1942 and 1945 inclusive, close to 300 American citizens of Japanese descent were interned. All that remains at this date is a field. The prison camp removed from existence and almost forgotten. However, US 12 does not erase their story; it is their story. They built the road through the mountains, the road I want to drive for pleasure.

The capability to fight war is the enabler. And, see, that’s the real problem, because in order to defend yourself from someone else who is only doing what comes naturally, you have to equip yourself (mentally, socially, materially) to fight. In order to fight no more forever (as the man says), we have to completely give up.

There’s an image from Arthurian legend, where one of the knights can only save himself by removing his armor. It’s a common image, too, taking off the armor in order to gain the flexibility required to solve the real problem. We have to give up, not in the sense of surrender, but to have no need to surrender.

OK. Enough rambling. I’ll be completely embarassed reading this tomorrow.

Once upon a time there was an album by Daniel Lanois called ‘Acadie.’ It’s really, really good, and well worth seeking out. Lanois has produced U2 and Peter Gabriel and worked a lot with Brian Eno and Jon Hassell and about a zillion other interesting people. Like, say, The Neville Brothers’ ‘Yellow Moon,’ and a Willie Nelson album. So Lanois is no slouch or anything.

Anyway. In ‘Acadie,’ what Lanois discovered was that you could take a musical trip around the Great Lakes, and up and down the Mississippi River, and take everything you found and put it in a context of something grand and large and expansive. Something patient and gorgeous. Something quiet and contemplative. So take the folkway, the idiom, and the accent, and approach it with sophistication, and give it nobility.

Which is way too much writing about music. But I remember hearing him describing his cover of ‘Amazing Grace,’ talking about it as if aliens came and heard the song got excited and learned it and took it back to their home planet to play it for their people.

Great Lake Swimmers give me a similar vibe. They’re finding a contemplative and easy intersection of bluegrass and country and traditional styles, and injecting a sort of Big Mind consciousness into it. As in this song:

Call it Rural Zen. Just leave it on and start doing other things. You’ll miss it when it stops.