I wasn't able to say this when I lived in Wyoming, but Liz Cheney now speaks for me

I'm a life-long Democrat who has voted against Liz Cheney and for her. And, yes, I was a Wyoming resident at the time. I voted against her when she successfully ran for Wyoming's lone House seat. She was considered an outsider (resident of Virginia), despite her name. And her name -- Cheney -- was an issue. She is daughter of Wyoming warmonger Dick and Uber-patriot Lynne who writes books glorifying America and neglecting its faults. Lynne once chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities and then worked with GOP colleagues to try and dismantle it (which Trump & Co. are doing now). When serving on the Equality State Book Festival planning committee, I voted against Lynne Cheney as keynote speaker for our first event. That led to me and my colleague L (you know who you are) being labeled "liberal twits" by the Casper College librarian. Liberal Twit is my handle on the site formerly called Twitter.

But Liz speaks out about Trump, especially his idiocy when he and Vance and the Trump Corps of Bullies ambushed Ukraine President Zelenskyy. Here's what Liz posted on Facebook (reposted by wonderful novelist Connie May Fowler):

All I can say is "Right on, Liz." I know, a term from long ago when we used to say "Right On" only for cool rebels. Now Ms. Cheney is the kind of rebel we need. I know that the Cheney name carries with it a heavy weight. But one also has to acknowledge that Dick Cheney has influence in GOP politics and the energy biz. Wyoming buildings at UW and in his hometown of Casper carry his name. The Natrona County High School football field carries his name (the field but not the stadium). Dick and Lynne are both NCHS grads. The energy sector powers Wyoming. Cheney was chair of Halliburton, for goodness sake. I traveled throughout the state for my job and if I didn't see a Halliburton truck on the road, I might think I was somewhere else.

Republicans in Wyoming have a rich tradition of mainstream conservatism. They have recently abandoned that for what's called the "Freedom Caucus" in the State Legislature, a body of right-wing wackos who spend more time banning books and pronouns than they do caring for Wyoming's people. I am scared for the state because I lived, worked, and retired there before moving to Florida. Florida, of course, has its own crew of wackos led by its blustering governor. I'll find time for them in later posts. 

Meanwhile, I have to ask: where are the Democrats? Why aren't our former presidents and legislators speaking out? This is no time for timidity, no time to contemplate your legacies. There will be no legacy if Trump is not stopped. 

Dear Florida Legislators: Don't monkey around with our state parks

The Sunday Outlook section in the March 2 News-Journal included an editorial by the USA Today Network-Florida Opinion Group. Header: "Support legislation to restrict future development in Florida's parks." An excerpt: "Floridians don't want to see their state parks spoiled by excessive clearing, paving, and building." There was an outcry last year when someone in state government leaked a plan "to put hotels, golf courses, pickleball courts and other development in nine targeted state parks." That plan disappeared but now there's a bill threatening state parks in the Florida Legislature. So USA Today staff requested letters, op-eds, and photos "to remind lawmakers that they should vote to protect some of our most prized assets."

They asked. I responded with this op-ed:

Save Florida State Parks

The road known now as The Loop was uncrowded when our family first visited Tomoka State Park in September 1964. Two adults, eight kids, and a dog crowded into a Ford Falcon station wagon and made the drive along a tree-shrouded road to the park. We grew up in Colorado where you drive to a park through wide-open vistas until you get to your mountain destination where the trees were. This was a different kind of experience, almost magical. It was jungle full of snakes, alligators and armadillos.

We were kids on that first visit 61 years ago, We romped around the park. Mom warned us about snakes and we didn’t hear anything she said because we were busy playing. We went down to the Tomoka River and looked for rocks to skip along the shore but found none. But we saw turtles and imagined giant gators around the bend in the river. We knew there were creatures called sea cows under the tannin-infused river water.

What a place. “The Legend of Chief Tomokie” statue was still in fine form in ’64. Built by noted sculptor Fred Dana Marsh in 1957, the legend was based on one invented by the daughter of the founder of The Halifax Journal. I thought it was amazing, impressed that Florida had Indians too, most of them long-dead from the civilizing effects of white explorers and settlers. Over time, my brothers and I camped with our father in Tomoka and we ventured out there with our Boy Scout troop that met in Ormond’s First Methodist Church. We eventually saw many snakes and gators. Florida wildlife was amazing. The following summer, when my brother Dan and I went to our first Scout summer camp at La-No-Che near Paisley, we were told to watch out for water moccasins dropping into our canoes from the Spanish Moss-draped cypress trees. To a teen, what could be cooler than that?

Over the years, I’ve camped in Juniper Springs, O’Leno, and Sebastian Inlet state parks. I’ve floated the iconic Ichetucknee, canoed the Withlacoochee (Crooked River), and cruised the Wakulla. We spent our honeymoon on a scuba trip to John Pennekamp Coral Reef. It all fed my love of nature. When I graduated from UF and returned West for a job, my wife and I spent all of our spare time in Colorado and Wyoming state and national parks. We shared these experiences with our children; they are stored in memories and photo albums.

My wife and I returned to Ormond Beach in August. One of our first trips was to Tomoka State Park. Retired and disabled from a bad fall, I get around on an electric scooter. Much of Tomoka was accessible to me. I rode my scooter down the road to the dilapidated Tomokie statue but then got stuck in the sand. Two young mountain bikers pushed me out. They were there to ride the trails. We retreated to The Outpost near the boat launch area and drank lemonade. We listened to the birds and watched boats navigate the river. We enjoyed the day and vowed to return. We will continue doing so as long as it remains a state park and doesn’t morph into some raucous Disney-style resort.

Our daughter moved to Ormond Beach in January. A Wyoming native, she’s already explored Tomoka, viewed the manatees at Blue Spring State Park, and taken a scenic cruise on the St. Johns.

I send an appeal to the Florida Legislature. Do not despoil our great state parks with golf courses, pickleball courts, and tourist lodges. We have enough of those elsewhere. Leave us the Great Outdoors, our sacred spaces.

"All the President's Men" meant one thing in the 1970s and an absurdly different one in 2025

I watched "All the President's Men" on TCM Monday night, and not for the first time. A fantastic political thriller in which the good guys win.

In 2025 Trumplandia, "All the President's Men" seems, well, how do I say this? Quaint? Outdated? Just more Boomer nostalgia?

Yet, the GOP's 1970s illegal activities against the Democrats were both real and disgusting. 

But when compared with Trump's 2025 crimes against America, well, the old depredation looks mild.

Nixon and pals took great pains to cover up their misdeeds. All the lying tied them in knots of denial. They couldn't keep it quiet because real journalists from real newspapers and networks kept doing their jobs. And elected Democrats AND especially Republicans remembered their oaths of office.

The difference with Trump and his MAGA minions? They tell us their misdeeds and do them openly. Trump and Musk brag about them. Their backers spent millions outlining their plans in Project 2025. It was all there for us to read. Journalists were not around to awaken the slumbering multitudes. The New York Times could not do it alone. The Washington Post was a lost cause. Metropolitan dailies had been run into the ground by hedge fund babies. And the GOP was not in thrall to "Fearless Leader."

I was a young man of 21 when the Watergate break-in happened. That November was the first time I voted in national elections at a little church on Boston's Beacon Hill. I voted for McGovern as did many in Massachusetts that day. 

Fat lot of good it did us. Draft-age men were turning out to vote for The Peace Candidate in the hopes that this rural Dem from the West would stop feeding us into the Vietnam meat-grinder. It was odd that this heroic World War 2 veteran would be the peacenik on the ticket but that was the case. Nixon served but he wasn't piloting a B-24 bomber dodging flak and Messerschmitts over Germany. In ATPM, the 1972 elections play out in the background on TV screens.  During that campaign, Nixon worked behind the scenes to manipulate the Paris Peace Talks. His skullduggery extended the war.

But Nixon and his henchmen came tumbling down, thanks to media and the actions of Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This didn't cause us to run for Congress but it did cause many of us to go into journalism. Up-and-coming Woodwards and Bernsteins were everywhere. 

I was an English major during my years at UF but I did take a journalism course and worked for UF Information Services and The Independent Florida Alligator student paper. We knew that the truth could bring down warmongers and slimy political operatives

But America is a big place and soon we learned that the whims of the populace are unpredictable. And here we are now. Old, disabled, and stunned. That describes me. 

But Americans are waking up and speaking out. We donated to Josh Weil, the Democrat running for the House in Florida District 6, a post held previously by a Trump flunky. We donated to the Democratic Party's campaign to stymie Trump's Project 2025 rampage. 

I will not shop on Amazon on Feb. 28 because of Bezos's collaboration with Trump (damn I've spent a lot of money on Amazon). Other businesses are being boycotted for the day. Money is what MAGA understands so hit 'em where it hurts.

The Irish keep defining dark comedy in books and movies

Blame my errant imagination.

As I read "Glorious Exploits," a new novel by Irish writer Ferdia Lennon, I kept hearing Roddy Doyle. Not that Lennon is copying Doyle's distinctive Irish patter, but the way the two main characters spoke and approached life conjured Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, specifically "The Commitments." Jimmy Rabbitte's mission is to bring the soul music of Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding to 1990 working-class Dublin. The mission is doomed from the start but boy is it a fun ride. 

In "Glorious Exploits," unemployed potters Lampo and Gelon want to stage a Euripides play in 412 BCE in  Seracuse, Sicily (Syracuse now. in both Sicily and N.Y.). They decide to enlist a cast of starving Athenian warriors whose invasion has been defeated and the captured, starving, warriors imprisoned in a dismal rock quarry. Why starving Athenian players? Because the duo's favorite poet is Euripides of Athens and these Athenians are the only ones in Seracuse and they just happen to know The Master's latest work that includes Medea and The Trojan Women. Their quest is doomed, of course. But boyo, it's a fun ride, no bollix.

Irish writers tingle my Irish genes. I have never been to my grandfather's country nor to his rural county of Roscommon. But I've read their best writers and they live in me. Doyle, Yeats, Maeve Binchy, Flann O'Brien, James Joyce all tell wonderful stories grounded in Irish wit and lore. The Irish story is riven with heartache. The latest Irish-set movie, "The Banshees of Inisherin," focuses on a long male friendship that breaks up for unfathomable reasons and leads to tragedy in 1923. There are laugh-out-loud moments, a dose of charm, memorable Celtic music, and then the ending when doom shows up. Meanwhile, the Irish Civil War, where neighbor kills neighbor, wages across the newly-formed country. These two friends' relationship is doomed. But the telling is marvelous. 

It's the voice, nurtured over the centuries. Lennon has found it. In an interview, he says that he wanted to make sure that the book did not have that Merchant Ivory voice of serious dramas of the Classical Age. He succeeded. Lampo and Gelon are  Sicilian-Irishmen on a lark, spending most of their time chatting over flasks of suspect wine at Dismas's place. Must hand it to Lennon. Many sickening things going on in Seracuse. Wine is the only answer. But the author describes in detail the wine they drink and you will thank Dionysus for the local Tiki Bar (we have several here in Ormond Beach). It's illuminating to hear lines of Euripides from the lips of emaciated Athenians, all wearing leg shackles, dressed in ill-fitting costumes and gowns. There is a performance and I won't tell you how it ends once the curtainless stage is cleared. And there is a surprise ending which is very sweet.

I have to admit that the book's cover grabbed me. It's a traditional bust of the historian and philosopher Herodotus with googly eyes. 

Lennon was the subject of a Q&A interview in the Aug. 31, 2024, Observer. I include an excerpt here because it speaks to Ireland’s rich literary tradition and info about how contemporary Irish writers are supported by their Arts Council. I worked with writers for 25 years at the Wyoming Arts Council and for two years assisted with creative writing fellowships at the National Endowment for the Arts in D.C. It’s instructional in a time when the NEA, the NEH, and the Institute of Museums and Library Services are under the gun by Trump, Musk, and their techie minions who wouldn’t know James Joyce unless you wacked them on the head with a hardcover edition of “Ulysses.”

The Guardian's book critic wrote a review of "Glorious Exploits." Header: "Uproarious am-dram in ancient Sicily." I had to look up am-dram and it's British slang for amateur drama, those plays put on by your local community theatre.

From the Guardian:

Q: How do you explain the current wave of successful Irish novelists? 

A: I remember that when I was a student, James Joyce’s house was five minutes up the road: just seeing that plaque, there’s something nice about having that literary history celebrated around you. On a practical level, the structures in Ireland make it easier for writers. An Arts Council grant helped me write this book. I wasn’t in any way established, but you could submit a work in progress to a panel of your peers and if you’re lucky, you might get money that will give you a couple of months that could be the break. I feel part of the burgeoning moment in Irish literature has to do with the financial crash. A whole generation was devastated, in Ireland maybe more than most. There were no jobs, so you felt freer to do what you wanted, even if it made no money; I started writing in Granada [in Spain] while unemployed.

The Nomad anthology wanders from the western wilds to my fog-wrapped Florida mailbox

The first anthology of The Nomad literary magazine landed in my mailbox yesterday. Unassuming cover with lots of goodies inside. Last summer Ken Waldman, one of the Nomad founders, asked me to send in two pieces of my work, one that I was proud of and had been published and another that I liked and hadn't been published. He tasked me with writing a short essay on my choices. So I sent editor Rachel White one story that had been published several times, "The Problem with Mrs. P," and one I just finished in June, "That Time We Got Married at a Tent Revival." The first story is set in Wyoming and the second in Florida and South Carolina.

I spent 46 years in Wyoming and Colorado, did a lot of my growing up in East Coast Florida and spent my first two years of a not-very-successful university stint in South Carolina. I've also written speculative fiction that takes place off-world and in an Earth future that I imagined. I have returned to Florida which has its own otherworldly aspects. 

I am in such good company with this anthology. My long-time friend Ken Waldman has two poems, one set in the Alaska he calls home and a villanelle set in New Orleans. New Mexico's Lisa D. Chavez includes a poem which turns the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale on its head and a nonce sonnet, the meaning I had to look up. Detroit's M.L. Liebler weighs in with "Flag" which dissects yet "another dark chapter in American history" (the one happening now) and "Decoration Day" about Vietnam.

Wyoming friends still talk about 2002-2003 poetry and music performances featuring M.L. and Country Joe McDonald. Buffalo, Wyoming's David Romtvedt explores "another past life" and a childhood dream in his selections. I was undone by the images in Amy Gerstler's poem "Siren" which opens the anthology. Paul Fericano made me laugh with "Still Life with Mormons in My Living Room." Amy and Paul are from L.A. Paul published some of my prose poems on his Yossarian Universal News Service site (yunews.com). New Zealand's Michael McClane got my attention with the long title and World War 2 theme in "On the Disembarkation of Sergeant Nathan E. Cook in Auckland, 13 June 1942."

That's just the beginning. Lots of great selections. You can get a copy of the book by subscribing to The Nomad. It's $25 for one year and $40 for two. You can also donate to this "non-for-profit labor of love by two writers." New submission guidelines are up for 2025. See the web site for the Bountiful, Utah, mailing address.

Remembering Paul Fussell’s great book on the Not-So-Great European War of 1914-1918

I subscribe to the New York Times Online. Because I now live in East Coast Florida, I could also have the print copy delivered. But I already get the Daytona Beach News-Journal delivered before dawn (usually) in a plastic bag at the end of my garage. I fetch it in my e-scooter, braving whatever elements might exist including niceness, wind, humidity, and – occasionally – rain. I pick up the paper with my handy grabber and roll back to the house. I read local news, the sports page, some national coverage. I read obits, especially on Sunday when there are pages of them.

But the NYT has the writers and global coverage that I need, now especially, as we try to survive assaults on reality by Trump, Musk, and their GOP bullies. Also, arts reviews, especially of new and some old books. A few months ago, I read about John Dufresne’s new novel, “My Darling Boy.”  It sounded so good and personally relevant that I bought the e-book on Kindle (and wrote my own review here). I read a Style-section article last June by Alyson Krueger about Miranda July and her “rethinking of marriage and family life.” It also took me to a review of her book. I bought and read it and indeed it is a more-than-spicy take on monogamy. I didn’t post a review on my blog but I did come across a finished piece in my blog files which I was too skittish to post.

This morning I read a Feb. 13 “Critic’s Notebook” piece by Dwight Garner about the 50^th anniversary of Paul Fussell’s “The Great War and Modern Memory.” I read the book 40-some years ago and discovered the dirty truth about The Great War of 1914-1918. Fussell explored the war I the trenches through the eyes of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, two combatant-writers who wrote the truth about their war. Garner writes that it changed his view about how nonfiction should be written. It allowed me to find those voices that I barely knew. In high school, the only poem of the era I remember is “Rouge Bouquet” by Joyce Kilmer, poet best known for “Trees.” Kilmer died in combat and is remembered for his formal rhymes and is considered as one of the last poets of the Romantic era. He was swept away by the honesty and rage in works by Sassoon and Owen and other poets of the so-called Lost Generation.

Garner urges readers to return to Fussell’s book to find the real story of this war that is no longer a living memory but lives on in the work of so many powerful writers. My grandfather was a cavalry officer in France and my grandmother a nurse with Maryland 42^nd Field Hospital. The dismounted cavalry officer spent a limited time in the trenches and my grandmother repaired the wounds of tr5ench warfare. Neither recalled for us war’s horror. Neither did my World War 2 vet father, who saw action in France, Belgium, and Germany. They left that up to their children and grandchildren in wars-to-come. Those wars have given us great literature and have very little to do with stopping the slaughter.

For me, I have written two novels about the aftermath of the Great War in the U.S., mainly Colorado. I am publishing them myself. I know nothing of war except what I read and see in movies and what I conjure in my imagination. Draftees of Vietnam have done their best to tell it like it is. We read about the senseless slaughter of what Robert Stone called “a mistake 10,000 miles long.” Maybe we learn and maybe we don’t. But books such as Fussell’s can give us glimpses into humankind’s dirtiest business.

What does fog sound like in a place known for noise?

February in a place known for its noise. Race cars that roar to grandstands of screaming fans. The pounding noise of motorcycles on every city street. Crowds of collegians arrive in March, their music and noise rise from beachside hotels, their cars parade A1A. On this morning wrapped in fog, I rolled outside, watched and listened. Birds sang and I didn’t know what kind of birds but it didn’t matter. The tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker. What does a bird hear? Fog doesn’t caution the noise nor does it enhance it. It just is. A carpenter saws and pounds nails next door. I live between two north-south main roads and cars hiss on wet pavement. An SUV’s headlights glow as it drives down my street which connects the two main roads. A train blares on the Ormond mainland a mile away, a train that stops traffic daily on the main east-west road that’s a hurricane evacuation route. Neighbors pass, quietly walking their dogs. They say nothing but wave. One sound I can’t hear – the sounds of surf slapping the beach. That came through my bedroom window last night but the day’s fog stole it away. A plane flies and it’s hidden by the fog and I wonder what fog looks like through the windshield of a small plane. In ten years, will I hear any of this? Will it be lodged in my memory, that foggy February morning when I skipped the TV news and cellphone screens and just listened? Will it be a molecule among my ashes swirling in the Atlantic? Where will these moments live?