Near Nature. Near Perfect. Well almost.

Spokane is about to be thrust back into the National Spotlight. Pam's Blend has the scoop:

Frontline: the hidden life of Spokane Mayor Jim West
Sunday, November 12, 2006

Before there was Mark Foley and his abuse of power to prey on pages for his sexual needs, there was the double life of anti-gay Jim West, Spokane's Republican mayor. There are plenty of Blend posts about the late mayor, who was voted out of office in a landslide in the city's first-ever recall election.PBS has a Frontline documentary, A Hidden Life, that premieres on Tuesday at 9pm, covers the whole sordid mess.

On May 5, 2005, the residents of Spokane, Washington, awoke to one of the strangest headlines in the town's history: "West Tied to Sex Abuse in '70s, Using Office to Lure Young Men." The popular, socially conservative Republican mayor of Spokane, Jim West, had been outed by the town's newspaper The Spokesman-Review. The paper told the sordid story of a man with two lives: in public, he had once sponsored legislation forbidding gays from teaching in public schools, while in private, the paper alleged, he was trawling for young men online, using the trappings of his office to lure them into sexual relationships.

But as bizarre as the revelations were, so too were the newspaper's methods. For months, a middle-aged "forensic computer specialist" had posed as an 18-year-old boy online, engaging the mayor in a relationship that became more and more intimate, ultimately exploding on the front page of the newspaper.

In a media climate where sexual scandals dominate the headlines, FRONTLINE producers Rachel Dretzin and Barak Goodman investigate the complex relationship between politics, sexuality, fear, and judgment in one all-American town.On the taxpayers' dime (and town computers), West cruised online, preying on young men, including making a pass at a state senator's 18-year-old son ("I want to do to your son what no mother would want to know"). His online chats hit the news.

His pickup lines, in this case, were so lame that he struck out. This victim was Ryan Oelrich, one of West's pursuits, who also received a job from the Spokane mayor, according to The Spokesman-Review.

So here are some shots of the Inland Empire. Spokane means "children of the sun" in local native tongues...

I live about 65 miles due northeast of where these shots were taken, about 40 minutes past Mount Spokane. This snow capped mountain is the most southern peak in the Selkirk Range and its eastern lower flank is actually in Idaho. The mountain is about 40 miles south east of Newport Washington/Oldtown Idaho.

All of these shots were taken from Spokane's upscale South Hill District. They face North and capture both the Kettle River Range as well as the Selkirk Range in the distance.

Too bad Mayor West and his Republican antics had to tarnish such a beautiful place to live...