Without fail, on every drive from IAH to the west suburbs of Houston, I miss the same three exits and have to backtrack. Why can’t I simply remember that the signs for Beltway 8 and the I-10 are going to sneak up on me right after the onset of a comfortable highway hypnosis, and that there are no signs for Dairy Ashford or Eldridge Parkway when driving west on I-10?  It is an inevitability that I see the Katy exits before my internal backseat driver comments, “Hey, ding ding, wake up!  You’re five exits past the one you want.” Committing these snippets of Tex-arcana to memory would spare me an extra 45 minutes and $2.50 spent on the beautiful yet exceptionally lengthy stretches of road here.

Plane rides are great opportunities for meditation. Last evening, I thought of Hunter S. Thompson and how, even three years after his death, I still cannot bring myself to read The Joke’s Over. The book sits in the case, conspicuous through its crisp jacket and uncracked spine. What a wuss. Who buys books not to read them? Yes, HST took his own crazy life in his own crazy style (or did he?) and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Worse than his death is envisioning him at a ripe old age confined to a nursing home. Inconceivable. On top of it all, his ashes were shot out of a giant potato cannon. We should be so lucky. So, why is his passing still so hard to stomach? It’s nothing but a case of not coming to terms with the fact that people – My People – aren’t givens.

Landed at 8pm. Got to the hotel room at 9:45pm. Crashed on the bed out of sheer exhaustion and remembered I hadn’t eaten dinner and was headed for a hypoglycemia attack. 

Ravenous, I arrived at the hotel restaurant 10 minutes before closing time. Now dig this: The server remembered me from almost four years ago and told me exactly where I was from, where I’d sat, and what I ate. Amazing or creepy? Take your pick. While I waited for my meal, he walked up and asked how New Orleans is doing and somehow (somehow, she says) we got to talking about systemic corruption in New Orleans, his native country of Mexico, and India. “It’s a way of life everywhere.  Americans just know how to hide it better.” “New Orleans doesn’t,” I replied. Following this serious exchange, he told me a really bad joke about Jesus which I immediately forgot. It was that bad.

As I walked out of the restaurant, the nice server waved goodbye and said, “See you around some time. My name is Gonzo.”

Hunter Stockton Thompson July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005

NewScientist: New Mississippi delta would limit hurricane damage

[Gary Parker of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Robert Twilley of LSU in Baton Rouge came up with a proposal to] cut breaches into a levee some 150 km south of New Orleans, Louisiana, and 30 km above where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. With the diversions in place, flooding would cause the river to empty into shallow saltwater bays on either side of the river, releasing sediment-rich water to produce new deltas.

Politics is the biggest hurdle, according to both scientists.

“The scientific and engineering barriers are easily overcome,” says Gary Parker, a geologist and engineer at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, who developed the plan with colleagues. “The big issue is political will”.

… A similar plan, presented to the state of Louisiana and the Army Corps of Engineers in 2005, before Hurricane Katrina flooded much of New Orleans, never gained political support. “It was too bold, too aggressive, and too expensive,” Twilley says.

As usual, the first comment following the post at NewScientist.com is even more “ground-breaking” than the proposal itself.

I ended my last post on the city’s announcement of Target Recovery zones by asking how this first phase of rebuilding, redevelopment and renewal will go forward. Karen Gadbois and Laureen Lentz of Squandered Heritage will be featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition regarding the houses on the City List that will be demolished after the March 31st deadline. Karen points out a very disturbing fact about this deadline, which relates one source of Target Recovery funds to the criminal delay of the Road Home program.

Many of the 280+ homes on the current list are a threat to health and safety but there are some which are marginal and cases where the homeowner is awaiting word from the Road Home regarding their funds to repair their property.

… when speaking of his many pots of money for redevelopment [Blakely] mentions [that] the no. 3 ˜chunk“ would come from blight bonds. These bonds would use blighted property adjudicated from homeowners to fund Blakely’s projects.

Here is a glaring example of the lack of coordination between New Orleans and Louisiana governments.  How will an owner know whether or not to keep their land and home while not knowing the amount of their reimbursement in time?  Does the city have the right to effectively seize homes despite proof of ownership and a known Road Home delay? If such cases are only a small percentage of the list, can and will the city make an exception for them? Educate me.

Stayed up late last night and watched Ralph Steadman on C-Span2’s BookTV, waxing gonzo-esque about his buddy and colleague, Hunter S. Thompson. Steadman’s deadpan humor and amazing slideshow of his work is a must-see. Try and catch a re-run. The Joke’s Over and The Curse of Lono are my next purchases.