Imagine a worse health care bill than the one drafted by the U.S. Senate's Cruel Thirteen

All my life, I have been sending missives off into the void. I have sent chatty letters off to family and friends -- rarely do they get answered. I send complaint letters that end up in someone's circular file. This prepared my for life as a fiction writer, where many fictions are sent off and few return. It also prepared me for life as a blogger. Many posts, few comments, although I do get some amusing spam. 

So when someone answers a letter I am impressed. It takes some effort to put thoughts down on paper or computer, even if it's bullshit. Today I received an e-mail in letter form from Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, M.D. The letter writer is cool, calm and collected. Not Barrasso, probably, but a staffer. D.C. staffers usually are competent overachievers, college grads who seek to make a mark on the world. I admire their pluck, their ability to make a living in pricey and super-competitive D.C. 

I am including Barrasso's letter here. It's about the health care issue and it deserves to be read. As we know, the "discussion draft" was written by thirteen male Republican senators from red states. Two, Barrasso and Mike Enzi, are from Wyoming. This tells you something right away about the bill.  It does not represent the mainstream of American thought but an aging, white, wealthy fringe group. No surprise that the bill represents a reactionary view of America and Americans. 

I live in Wyoming's largest city (pop. 65,000) in the state's largest county (pop. about 96,000). The entire state has about 580,000 people, mostly white. We are considered a rural state, a "pioneer state" when it comes to federal grantmaking. When I was a grant writer, I often played up the fact that the state has more antelope than humans. The feds always gave us bonus points for that. Not that they wanted antelope to benefit from taxpayer funds. Coastal folks just need a bit of help understanding life without a coffee shop on every corner and sweaty bodies crowded into subway trains. 

If you really wanted to write a health care bill that represented the true needs of Americans, you would convene a committee that represented the U.S. demographic. It would be kind of like the demographic I saw yesterday at the Food Bank for Larimer County in Fort Collins. My daughter's friend had just been kicked out of her apartment. Her husband works but hasn't been paid in months. They have a nine-month-old boy, a smart, cute kid who started life as a premie but is catching up fast. I was in town so I drove her and her son to the food bank. She doesn't have a car. 

At the food bank, I saw an aging hippie, a Hispanic man bent from scoliosis, a young black mother pushing two kids in a shopping cart, three young people who looked like college students. There were lots of white people, most of them without the same means to wealth as Barrasso and Enzi and Mitch McConnell.  They were hungry. Their kids were hungry. Many looked to have health issues. 

Wonder what kind of health care legislation they would draft? Would it cut off access to health care for millions like them? Would it slash Medicaid to benefit the super-rich? 

Lest you think I have some rosy view of poverty, that it ennobles people and would cause them to write benevolent legislation for their fellow humans, think again. If you put thirteen of these food bank patrons into a closed room and demanded them to write a health care bill, they might come up with something terrible, such as death camps for gays or gilded mansions for themselves and screw everyone else. Remember, some of these people voted for Trump. 

But this imaginary committee's legislation cannot be worse than the one drafted by The Cruel Thirteen. A new poll reports that only 17 percent of Americans approve of the Senate bill. That's almost as low as Congress's approval rating.

Did my daughter's friend get food for her baby? The bank was out of formula but had jars of baby food. She was happy to show off a container of blackberries that looked fresh and didn't have any mold on them. Cheese and bread and canned veggies. Nothing great but her family won't starve as it looks for another place to live in Trump's America. 

Anyway, here is Sen. Barrasso's letter. The url of the pdf has a strange title: https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BetterCareReconcilistionAct.6.26.17.pdf. It's a bona fide link and takes you to all 145 pages of this monstrosity. But why "Reconcilistion" rather than "Reconciliation?" Make of it what you will:

Dear Michael,  

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about health care. It is good to hear from you.  

There are serious challenges facing health care in our nation. When Obamacare was being considered in 2009, Americans were promised that the law would give patients more choices and lower costs. This has not occurred.  

Instead, folks in Wyoming are down to just a single insurance company willing to sell Obamacare policies. Our state also has some of the highest insurance rates in the country. Our experience in Wyoming is not unique. Across the county insurance companies are fleeing the individual insurance market and prices continue to skyrocket.  

Congress must act soon before patients are left with no ability to purchase coverage. The Senate is hearing from all sides about the best ways to address the significant problems in health care. In particular, I am committed to improving care for people living in rural communities and protecting patients with preexisting conditions.  

You can review the complete Senate health care discussion draft here: https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BetterCareReconcilistionAct.6.26.17.pdf. In the coming weeks, the Senate will also have an open amendment process, where Senators can bring forward their best ideas to improve this legislation 

Once more, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments about this important issue. 

John Barrasso, M.D. 

What do the Mozambique and Fort Collins beer cultures have in common?

No surprise to find an exhibit about beer in the craft-brewing Nirvana of Fort Collins, Colo.

What is surprising is to find an art museum exploring beer making in Africa. The exhibit, "Crossing Communities: Beer Culture Across Africa," is up in the Griffin Foundation Gallery at the CSU Gregory Allicar Museum of Art through Sept. 23. The Griffin is in the new wing of the museum that opened last year.

I visited on a particularly hot afternoon in late June. Good day for a cold one. I didn't find that at the Allicar but I did find a fascinating exhibit of handmade beer-making equipment from Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire, Malawi and other African cultures.

Exhibit sponsor is Maxline Brewing, a newbie to FoCo, getting its name from its site along the Max Bus Line in Midtown. According to the exhibit catalog, Maxline joined the project in its early days. Brewery staff toured the exhibit, "examined the ceramic brewing pots and learned about traditional African brewing methods, rituals, and ceremonies." Maxline's brewer then went to work crafting a beer meant to imitate those traditional brews. The brew, named "Kulima" for the Swahili word for "cultivate," is made from millet, maize, barley, hops, gesho leaves, and grains of paradise. Maxline's Crowler label was designed by CSU's Liz Griffin.

The public-private partnership is music to the ears of this former arts administrator. A privately-endowed gallery at a publicly-funded land grant university teams up with an eager local start-up company to educate the public about a commodity -- beer -- and traditions of other cultures. The African ceramic vessels were donated to the museum's permanent collection by Robert F. Bina and Delores De Wilde Bina. An anonymous donor helped fund the purchase. Partnership such as this one have been going on for a long time. Often the catalyst is a local or state arts agency or the NEA. But not always, as I found no mention of Fort Fund or Colorado Creative Industries in the catalog. Not necessary. This is America and we don't requite the imprimatur of the culture ministry to approve an exhibit. We damn well can show anything we want. Almost anything, as attempts at censorship are often in the news. But if I was the culture minister, I would want to be associated with this fine show.

The exhibit is comprised of 39 pieces. They include water and grain-carrying vessels, brewing pots, and drinking vessels. All are handcrafted in a technique displayed in the film that accompanies the exhibit. The drinking vessels may be the most interesting. Some were large enough to serve an entire village while other were akin to mugs we use in the West. One featured five spouts, looking almost like an invitation to a drinking game.

Beer in Africa is not just for pleasure. It also serves a ceremonial function. Find out more about this in exhibit catalog essays by CSU student art major Laura Vilaret-Tuma and Dr. David Riep, associate curator of African art. Vilaret-Tuma's essay is "Ceramics Across the African Continent." Dr. Riep writes about "the spiritual aspects of terra firma in ceramic arts across the African continent." Get more info and photos of the exhibit at the museum's web site.

The making and drinking of beer is ritualized all over the world. Beer is a staple at football games and backyard barbecues. Friends sit in a pub drinking beer and swapping tall tales. some of them true. The advent of craft beer caused beer brewing to become almost ceremonial, with brewmasters concocting their creations in public view. Like ancient magicians, they combine intriguing ingredients, such as the aforementioned gesho leaves and grains of paradise, to the mixture. True, their brewing vats are stainless steel and not ceramic, but they serve the same purpose. We sample the beers with a reverence that startles, even annoys, the casual beer drinker slamming down a few cold Buds. Advancing age and good sense led me away from keggers to craft beers. I can sip them at my leisure, marveling at the brewer's art. Most of these beers have a higher alcohol content that mainstream varieties (I am talking about you, Melvin Brewing Co. of Alpine, Wyo.). This can ambush newbies. They won't see God but they may end up talking to Ralph on the big white telephone.

If you require an excuse to travel to FoCo for a ritual beer tasting. the museum invites you to the reception for the exhibit on Thursday, June 29, 5-7 p.m. View the arts and sample Maxline's Kulima out in the sculpture garden.

What better way to spend a summer evening?

Never fear -- the world will never run out of material for fiction writers

I read Adam Johnson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about North Korea last spring. "The Orphan Master's Son" is a humorous and harrowing look inside a country that most of us know through occasional TV clips that show the ridiculous-looking Kim Jong Un viewing a military parade or inspecting a missile site. The West lampoons him often, yet he still holds an iron grip over his citizens. Dennis Rodman visits occasionally, as The Great Dictator is a roundball fan. North Korea is is a great example of what an authoritarian regime can do once its power is institutionalized.

The latest stunt by North Korea is horrific. The country returned a comatose Otto Warmbier to the U.S. a week ago. Warmbier spent 18 months in a North Korea prison for stealing a propaganda poster from a wall. He supposedly wanted a souvenir. What he got was torture. U.S. officials tried to get him released but North Korea just relented when Warmbier was on his deathbed. An Ohio coroner has decided to investigate the case.

I saw a photo of his parents online. The looks on their stricken faces said it all. This wasn't supposed to happen... That could be and my wife standing there. We've experienced those 3 a.m. phone calls. None involved capture and torture and eventual death. But we know the look. The life of our child wasn't supposed to be like this... Will someone please explain this to us...

We are left with what could be the plot of a novel. A young American student gets more than he bargained for during a trip to N.K. He dies under mysterious circumstances. Trump bloviates. Kim Jong Un goes into hiding, fearing a decapitation attack by the U.S. and South Korea assassins. Could be fiction but it's not. It throws Johnson's novel into relief. Absurd and awful things happen to its North Korean protagonist, who has an orphan name but is not really an orphan.

What is fiction and what is fact?  We now have a billionaire reality TV star for president. He tweets nonsensical statements. Republican congressional reps draft major legislation in secret -- and lie about it. They are afraid to hold public meetings in their districts because people keep yelling at them. Our attorney general wants to recriminalize marijuana and return to those golden days of yesteryear when men were men, women were in the kitchen and everyone was afraid of  colored people. The Trumpists work hard to erase any record of our black president's eight years in office.

The world is so confusing. It can be a brutal place for a 22-year-old college student who takes one wrong step.

This makes it a fantastic place to be a writer.

How else can we make sense of it?

Our new overlords in the West will offer scads of jobs but little hope

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately about the state's brain drain.

No, we're not talking about the sinking IQ levels of WY GOP legislators. We're talking about the exodus of smart young people. The recent high school graduates. The grads of our community colleges and lone four-year state university. Some will establish lives in Wyoming. Most will depart for jobs and adventures in other states. other countries. Parents urge our young ones to fly from the nest. It's done with more than a little sadness accompanied by a dash of hope. People seek out jobs in metro areas, and Wyoming is sadly lacking in those. I read an article in The Denver Post that said local unemployment numbers were closing in on zero. Zero? Colorado's unemployment rate of 2.3 percent in April was the lowest in the nation for the second straight month.

In case your geography isn't up to snuff, Colorado borders Wyoming. The Colorado border is 13.9 highway miles from my front door. I can be in Old Town Fort Collins in 45 minutes, about the length of an average rush-hour commute in Denver. When my daughter Annie was living in Aurora, a Denver suburb, I could get to her house in less than two hours. My trips were made during retiree hours, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays. I sometimes was trapped in evening traffic, which was no fun. Friday evening is the worst. Beware if it snows or hails. Denver traffic jams is how I discovered The Colorado Sound on 105.5 FM. Wonderful indie music with an emphasis on Colorado bands and no commercials.

There's a trade-off, see? Can't have low unemployment without high population. And you can't have low unemployment if your economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction. Good jobs abound when those industries prosper. Wyoming loses jobs and population when that sector goes south.

What about those jobs that used to be called "white collar?" We have them, mainly in government. Of course, our enlightened GOP legislators have responded to the downturn in the usual way -- cutting state government. Trump and his minions are doing the same on the federal level. Fewer jobs are the result. Americans looks elsewhere for work. We have no real tech sector, although there are some bright spots. Tourism continues to be hot, especially during this Total Eclipse year. But those sites and resources that cater to travelers are being hit by cutbacks. Entrepreneurs do their best to start small businesses and local bistros. But again, they are faced with declining population in the state that's already the sparsest populated in the U.S.

But there is one bright spot, according to Jim Dobson's June 10 article in Forbes, "The Shocking Doomsday Maps of the World and the Billionaire Escape Plans." Billionaires are buying up chunks of land in the Intermountain West. They are using the land as an escape from the coming apocalypse. Lest you think this land is mostly in resort areas such as Jackson and Aspen, think again. The buyers want farm land and acres for cattle grazing and accessible coal mines so they can be self-sufficient when the shit hits the fan (as shown in the article's accompanying maps). Who will do the work on these enclaves? You and me, the less affluent residents of the West. We will be like the serfs of old, farming the fields from dawn to dusk for the feudal lord. The menfolk and kidfolk will scrape coal from Powder River Basin mines and transport it by mule cart to the coal-burning private power plants which no longer have to worry about pollution controls. Our womenfolk will make and serve meals to the lord in his fortified castle. All of it will be guarded by a private security force trained in Iraq and Afghanistan and any other wars we can conjure up with in the next several hundred years.

So, there is hope for our sons and daughters and grandchildren. Jobs galore created by our new feudal overlords.

No hope but lots of jobs.

Republicans are aghast that anger rages in America

Republicans are aghast that someone would be so angry as to take a shot at Congressional reps practicing for a baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia.

I am aghast that they would be aghast at this turn of events.

Republicans and their Fox News mouthpiece have been stoking American anger for decades.  This led to the simmering stew of hatred that begat Trump.

A Republican rep says that America is "fraying around the edges" earlier this week on CBS This Morning. And who is responsible for that turn of events? A Bernie Sanders fan who was a little frayed around the edges, frayed enough to go shoot up a baseball field? He was angry. Many are angry. And they have guns.

What do these Republicans expect? They stoked grassroots anger for eight years during the Obama administration. And the recipients of this barrage of hate were not all Republicans. A fair number of Democrats and Independents watch Fox, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and voted for Trump.

So who's to blame? All of us. For inciting hatred and letting it slide -- or stoking it with snark. For not countering hatred with love and tolerance. For not doing something to make the world a better place.

I am as guilty as you are. I have been poking fun at conservatives online since 2005. For eight years, I assumed that we were a civilized nation with a minority of ignorant, regressive haters. I was smug. I made fun of those Obama haters who carried misspelled signs to Tea Party rallies. I even invented a character called Tea Party Slim, whom I imbued with the many TP utterings I heard at rallies and on the Internet.

All of that only stoked more hatred and resentment. Our leader, Barack Obama, provided an example for us to look up to. Meanwhile, he did little or nothing to stem the tide of resentment. Obama didn't fight hard enough for the America we wanted. Neither did I.

It's game on now. The enemy is obvious. Our government is trying to kill us and our planet. For the second time in my 66 years, I know who to fight. During Vietnam, my government wanted to kill all of its young men in pursuit of a rotten Cold War policy in Vietnam. Our government would rather kill its sons than admit it was wrong. That's why the trauma of Vietnam will never end. Let's hope Ken Burns informs us of the real reasons behind Vietnam this fall on PBS. I am not optimistic.

Now our government wants to maximize riches and marginalize the rest of us. We are on our way to be serfs, a return to the Dark Ages of Europe. Ironically, Europe is experiencing a golden age.

Response is to #Resist with the tools we have. We have wit and grit. #Resist on your own and with like-minded people. Marginalize those who urge violence. Many of those people are not our friends and may be insurgents in our midst. Now that an apparent anti-Trump person shot up a baseball field and some Republican reps, look for law enforcement to plant operatives in #Resist groups. It may have happened already. This sounds paranoid. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't following you. Read some of the first-hand account of the antiwar and Civil Rights movements. They often were the targets of COINTELPRO units of the FBI. They were provocateurs who knew that to turn a protest violent invited a violent response from the police. No better way to discredit dirty hippies than to show them getting beat up by the police. The 1968 Police Riot in Chicago was caused by those dirty hippies (and Yippies) that were getting bloodied by Mayor Daley's Finest. At least that's how Middle America saw it and turned to Tricky Dick and Kissinger for a solution for Vietnam.

You saw how that worked out.

Angry Americans have now turned to a spoiled rich boy who gets his way because the Republicans in Congress have fallen into lockstep behind him. Shame on them. Shame on us for letting it happen.

#Resist

Saturday morning round-up: Of betrayal, downed tree limbs and fractured history

BREAKING: Trump still president. the world mourns (and guffaws)

ON "THE KEEPERS" AND BETRAYAL: I have been trying to write about the Netflix docuseries "The Keepers" for the past week. I've written plenty but can't seem to plumb my true feelings on betrayal and the Catholic Church. In 1969, was a Baltimore nun murdered because she threatened to expose a priest and his police buddies for their sexual abuse of students at a Catholic girls school? I don't know the answer, as I've seen only two episodes of "The Keepers" and may not watch the remaining five. I have watched other true crime shows such as "The People vs. O.J., Simpson" and "Amanda Knox." I read hard-boiled detective novels by the score. "Chinatown" is one of my favorite movies. Want to talk about betrayal? "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." The Keepers" has affected me in a strange way. The murder took place in the year I graduated from a Catholic high school. I recognize the nuns and priests and female students from their photos in the school annual. I know how we respected and feared the nuns and priests. I know the heavy hand of the hierarchy that raised me and how it still operated when dogged reporters blew the lid off of the Boston clergy abuse scandals (as seen in "Spotlight"). It could have happened at my school. It didn't, as far as I know. But that's only as far as I know. Forget it, Mike, it's not Chinatown -- it's the Catholic Church.

AFTER THE DELUGE: Note to the City of Cheyenne -- I still have tree limbs out front waiting to be picked up and shredded. The limbs came down in the big May 18-19 snowstorm, which dumped three feet of heavy, wet snow. Three big limbs detached from my elm. With a handsaw, I cut them into shorter lengths and dragged them to my front yard. Now I hear that the city may not get to them for several more weeks. The brush piles will make nice birthing centers for local rabbits. My cat already seeks shelter there and birds land and perch. I may soon turn it into a public work of art. If that happens, you won't be able to touch it due to my artistic license, which never expires.

BOOKS AND HISTORY: If you think our politics are dysfunctional, you should read history. Reading is FUN-damental. Tell that to our president. I am reading "The Proud Tower" by Barbara Tuchman. The subtitle, "A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914," speaks volumes. The world was a mess before The Great War and possessed all of the elements that led us into the carnage of 1914-1918. Even though the book is packed with names and details and is a bit daunting at times, tension trembles on each page because we know what is coming. The world sets up its own disaster. It is traumatized by the results. We know the antiwar poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. But what propelled these British gentlemen to march off to battle, go home for shell-shock treatment, and then return, even when they suspected what the end would be? We are combative mammals that, apparently, never learn. If you think that we do, watch "War Machine" on Netflix. This recounts the reasons that we still are in Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires."

DANCIN' ON THE PLAZA: Last night, Chris and I hung out at Depot Plaza with other music lovers to hear sounds from Soul-X and JJ and Wilito's Final Touch. Great music -- and free. Fun to dance to. We especially liked the Santana set by Final Touch. I moved around while Chris actually danced because she can. It was dark, so I felt secure that the crowd was not watching me but intent on the fine musicians on the lighted stage. This is summer, stuff we eagerly await all fall and winter and spring. Thanks to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle for sponsoring Soul-X. Thanks for the organizers of the Cheyenne Hispanic Festival for bringing in Final Touch and other bands that will play at the plaza today. And thanks to the beer vendors, who staffed taps for the usual suspects and ones for Modelo, Stone IPA and New Belgium Watermelon/Lime ale.  Variety -- that's the ticket. I still have some beer tickets. See you next Friday.

Read it all -- you might be a winner on Jeopardy

The history teacher from Texas won the $100,000 Teachers' Challenge on Jeopardy last week. He clinched the championship because he knew that New Orleans was the U.S. city that dropped off the top-50 cities list but reappeared 10 years later. He permanently moved into first place the day before because he because he knew the author of a very famous book. This very famous book, written in 1936, is 1,037 pages long and the only novel published by the author in her lifetime. You won't find it on any literary lists, mainly because it is basically a southern romance. Not only that. If it doesn't exactly glorify the southern cause in The Civil War, it does portray members of the KKK as brave protectors of southern womanhood.

You know the answer: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta. A big potboiler of a book that was transformed into a big potboiler of a movie in 1939. The book sold well in its time, but it really took off when the star-studded movie came out. The movie is considered a classic. The book, not so much. That's probably why the two English teachers in the Jeopardy semifinals did not know the answer. They guessed Edith Wharton and Jane Austen. Very smart modern women who knew two members of the American Literary Canon. But didn't know a best-selling author who died too young when run over by a car in downtown Atlanta in 1949.

These two English teachers didn't know GWTW because schoolkids don't read it. I know why (see reasons above) but still, they are all missing out on something good. Have you ever read a big, fat, bloated novel? Of course you have. James Michener excelled at these. In "Hawaii," it takes the reader a 100 pages to get to the spot where human beings actually appear on ancient Hawaii. In "Centennial," set in my part of the country, the author takes his time reaching the arrival of Native Americans to pre-state Colorado and Wyoming. Neither of these books are part of the canon, although you might find both in history classes or, worse, in multicultural studies classes that exhibit books of "cultural appropriation."

Political correctness rears its ugly head.

My liberal self knows that the whole anti-PC movement is an excuse by racists to be racists, misogynists to be misogynists, Trump to be Trump, etc. Still, we are caught up in a ridiculous fight over who has the right to speak for who. Is it valid for a white writer such as myself to speak in the voice of a black woman or a Native American? Yes, because writers have the freedom to write from any POV, including non-human and intergalactic ones. What's that Harlan Ellison story told from the POV of a planet-exploring dog? Fantasy and sci-fi are filled with mythical characters who come alive in the hands of skilled writers. We live in an era of fantastic beasts and superheroes. Not enough of these writers are women or people of color. But that is changing, albeit slowly. The push is on for a balanced perspective, pushed by the country's changing demographics and tastes

But back to "Gone with the Wind." My grandfather Shay boasted that he read GWTW once a year. He was not  a Southerner but an Iowa farm boy who served in the Great War and came home to be a Denver insurance salesman for 60 years. My father was a GWTW fan, which is probably how I came upon the book, sitting forlornly in Dad's library after he and my mother finished with it. I was thrilled by the war narrative but rushed through the mushy stuff, hoping to find sex scenes, but in vain. Meanwhile, I was trying to get my hands on Terry Southern's "Candy." A copy was circulating through Sister Theresa's eighth grade class at Our Lady of Perpetual Chastity Grade School. The girls bogarted the book, which led to the ringleaders being discovered and forbidden from graduating with the class. Some of the boys read it too, although only the girls were punished. Catholic school was instructive in so many ways.

I knew that GWTW was the answer to the Jeopardy question.

"The English teachers will know that," said Chris.

"No they won't."

She seemed shocked when I was right. I told her about the status of GWTW on college campuses and in high school classrooms. At the same time, Mayor Mitch Landrieu had crews dismantling Confederate symbols around New Orleans. A week ago, alt-right demonstrators carrying torches (really guys, torches?) showed up to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. Some guy drives around Cheyenne in a white pick-up flying a large confederate flag.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

So wrote William Faulkner in "Requiem for a Nun."

In the South -- and in some parts of Wyoming -- the past is present.

So public school teachers in California don't read and don't teach GWTW. So, the Cali school teacher on Jeopardy was an also-ran in the big Teachers' Challenge prize.

While all of the Cali population was not alive in 1865, about half of the state's population is now non-white. GWTW would hurt their feelings. But they will always miss out on a compelling story. They might know the movie but not Mitchell's language and style, which is a damn shame, my dear. They may be an English major at UW or Stanford. They will get to know Austen and Wharton, Toni Morrison and and Jame Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros and Flannery O'Connor.

I've read Michener and Michael Crichton and tons of thrillers and detective novels. I've read treacly romances and predictable Zane Grey westerns.

Read it all.

Don't limit your world. That's how we got into this mess.

Reading a novel of letters -- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

It takes skill to pull off an epistolary novel. That's one of the reasons I was so impressed by "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," co-written by American aunt/niece duo Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows. The authors reveal the story through letters from the main characters. The voices ring out through the letters, a lost art, unfortunately. You can find out so much about a person through letters, material you won't get through Twitter and Facebook.

One of the fascinating things about "Guernsey" is how much we learn about communication in the England of 1946. Letters to Guernsey on the Channel islands arrive by boat and airplane. Characters send cables and telegrams. On the island, note are slipped under doors. There are phone calls that are recalled via letter. When they aren't writing, people talk to one another, hang out together and take walks. They later write letters about it.

On the surface, the book is about the main character's effort to find a suitable topic for her next book. Juliet Ashton's claim to fame is her biography of one of the benighted Bronte sisters, Anne. She followed this up with a collection of newspaper columns she wrote during the war, "Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War." Ashton's plucky alter-ego recounts, with humor, her spirited efforts to make it through the home front during the Battle of Britain.

Did you know that the Channel Islands were occupied by the Nazis during World War Two? I guess I did, in an offhand sort of way. The occupation went from 1940-45, which is longer than some of Europe's German-occupied countries. The Channel Islands were isolated, closer to France than England. The British War Office realized bombing or invasion would kill more civilians than have any lasting effect on the war. A Resistance existed, with citizens sabotaging the Germans in subtle and unusual ways. Some hid escaped Todt (imprisoned) workers. That spells doom for one of the islanders, Elizabeth McKenna. She is sent to a Nazi concentration camp and, for most of the book, we await news on her fate. We also await the future path of Elizabeth's daughter Kit, conceived in an illicit affair with a German officer who was more human being than Nazi automaton.

The novel is a bit of a potboiler. Will Juliet find love with the American millionaire or the rugged islander? Will she adopt Kit? Will he ever write the book about Guernsey occupation during the war? Alas, dear reader, you have to read the book made up of many letters. Or you can watch the cable series (Showtime, I think) in the works for 2018.

As you know, the book is best.

Scouting report: Finding the best Wyoming spot to watch the eclipse

View from The Castle, looking west toward Laramie Peak.

The family and I drove to Guernsey State Park for Mother's Day. This is only my second visit to the park in the 26 years that I've lived in Wyoming. The first visit was in May 2008 when I joined my colleagues at Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources to celebrate the 75th anniversary of FDR's New Deal, which included the Civilian Conservation Corps and WPA projects for writers, artists and actors. Writers earned a buck from Uncle Sam by writing field guides of the states and conducting oral histories of residents, as Zora Neale Hurston did with ex-slaves in Florida. Nelson Algren and Richard Wright researched and wrote in Illinois. Noted author Vardis Fisher wrote the Idaho guide, still regarded as one of the best of its kind.

CCC workers built many magnificent structures in this park. Guernsey is home to The Castle, a rock-and-timber shelter that overlooks the park. A few paces down the walking path is a restroom dubbed the Million Dollar Biffy. The interpretive sign says that workers gave it that name not because it took a million dollars to build, which is a lot of Depression-era money, but that it took so darn long to build. Unemployed young men from Iowa and Tennessee hewed the timbers and cut the rock and forged the iron. It should last a thousand years, causing archaeologists of 5017 to remark, "These ancient humans certainly built quality restrooms." In 5017, the biffy and The Castle may overlook a teeming inland sea. The waves will be bitchin'.

We visited the park to see if it would serve as an outpost to watch the total solar eclipse set for high noon on August 21. We are a bit late getting started. Some have been planning eclipse activities for years. Hotels in Casper, eclipse epicenter, have been booked up for months. Campgrounds, too along the event's path in WYO, which runs from touristy Jackson in the west to sleepy Torrington in the east, with stops in Riverton, Hell's Half Acre, AstroCon 2017 in downtown Casper, the burg of Glenrock, and Douglas, home of the state fair,  Chris and I  are trying to find an eclipse-watching spot somewhere in there. We bought a Guernsey day pass for Aug. 21. We also got on the campsite waiting list. We thought that might be fun during this grand ol' party celebrating the majestic universe which can't be any older than 6,600 years, give or take.

Chris and I won't be around the next time, when Colorado gets the nod in 2045. By then, we will have experienced a total eclipse of the heart. We hope that the words of the Federal Writers Project will survive, although in what form it's hard to say. Thee printed word has gone through amazing changes since Gutenberg. Since the 1930s, books have gone from typed-and-printed form to e-books. It happened a lot quicker than that -- from the 1980s to now.

One hopes that books survive as long as the biffy.

"The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things" -- what will it be for Trump?

"The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things", painting by "Hieronymus Bosch" (disputed), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8829283

How many days has Trump been in office? Only 100-something. It seems like a thousand. If it was a thousand -- we hope that day never comes -- we will all be dead or living on the streets. The policies put forth by Trump and his Republican minions amount to cruel and unusual punishment, which would be unconstitutional if we were imprisoned. How did we put our precious country into the hands of a madman? That's not entirely accurate -- and unkind toward those with mental illness. Trump may indeed be mentally ill. Or he might be one of those twisted leaders thrown up regularly by history.

Trump has many SM nicknames. Tweeter in Chief. Twitler, The Orange One. Twitler is a handy one as it evokes images of Herr Hitler. But then we are back to madmen again. Hitler was human, after all. My father's black and white photos showed him and his Signal Corps pals at Berchtesgaden in 1945. He also had photos of newly-liberated death camps. He knew what Hitler wrought. But, as he liked to say on occasion, "Even Hitler loved his dogs." Great quote from an accountant who loved to read actual books. It was too easy to label Hitler as a monster. He loved his dogs. Humans? Not so much.  Also, the quote is a cautionary tale for us kids. Sure, that person may love his/her dogs, but notice how they treat people. Is it with the same kind of affection? Or would they like to throw you into an oven?

My parents were kind. I've inherited their attitude toward people. I also like dogs and cats. I also am a fallible human being. I hate Trump as president because I believe he is unqualified. Would I like to toss him in an oven? No. Would I like to toss him out of office? Yes. I hate Trump because he favors inhuman policies toward me and my family. He is fallible in the way that all humans are fallible. They are born with original sin, as the catechism says. They also are subject to the failings of the Seven Deadly Sins:  Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride.

Trump is a greedy bastard. He admits his lustful thoughts, or at least he admitted he did before Inauguration Day. Sloth -- too much golf? His political style shows much wrath. He envies Hillary Clinton's victory in the popular vote. Pride? Just look at his photos. And his figure exhibits gluttony, as do all of the photos showing him surrounded by gilded stuff, food included. His bloated body also shows signs of too much, too much.

Does this make Trump a monster? No, just human. Extravagantly human. Exorbitantly human. Does it make him president? Well, it did, according to the rules of the Electoral College.

Above is an illustration of the Seven Deadly Sins by artist Hieronymus Bosch.

Recently, Hieronymus Bosch became a script line in "Bosch" the Amazon Prime series. Actually, Bosch is always alive on the show and in Michael Connelly's Bosch detective novels. LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is known for taking shortcuts on the way to convicting the bad guys. The bad guys have failings in one or more of the Seven Deadly Sins. But so does Bosch. Is he a bad guy or good guy? When confronted by his partner, Bosch answers: "We do what we have to do."

The struggle is at the heart of most memorable detective novels and movies. Most novels, period. Sam Spade is having an affair with his partner's wife. His partner gets killed following up one of Spade's leads. Spade has to step in and find the killer which opens up "The Maltese Falcon," which contains most of the deadly sins. They are personified by the characters who show up in search of the falcon. Spade falls in love with Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the one who killed his partner -- Spade discovers this along the way. He turns in O'Shaughnessy and makes this confession:

"When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere." 

Bad for business. Nothing to do with right or wrong. We know it's just an excuse. Sam Spade is a cad. But he's also the avenging angel. He's somewhere in that Bosch illustration. As is Trump. As am I.

I have to sound a spoiler alert for the following.

I just finished watching the final episode of season three of "Bosch." It ends with Bosch sitting in the dark in an auditorium. At the podium, Mayor Ramos and Police Commission President Bradley Walker have just pinned the captain's bars on Irvin Irving. Walker, we have discovered through hours of binge watching, is guilty of the murder of Bosch's call-girl mother 30 years earlier. Bosch, we know from the look on his face and from reading many of Michael Connelly's novels, will get his revenge. He is the avenging angel. In the process, he may be cast into the fiery pit. By Captain Irving. By Walker. By L.A.'s notoriously fickle justice system. By Satan himself.

How will it end for Trump? Could it be one of "The Four Last Things?" They are

1. Death of the sinner
2. Judgment
3. Hell
4. Glory

Any one is possible.

God only knows.

Happy 35th anniversary, Christine Marie Shay

Chris and I made solemn vows 35 years ago today in Ormond Beach, FL. First, we got married. Second, we vowed to never smush cake in each other's faces. Third, we vowed to toast our good health as often as possible. So far, so good. Happy 35th anniversary to my beautiful wife.

Happy birthday, Anna Marie Hett Shay. I miss you.

Happy birthday to my mom, Anna Marie Hett Shay, who would have been 91 today. Unfortunately, she died from ovarian cancer at 59 in 1986, a year after my son Kevin was born and seven years before our daughter, Anne Marie Shay, was born. In photo, it's just me and mom at our house at 1280 Worchester St. in Aurora, Colo., circa 1952. This is the only photo I have of just the two of us just hanging out. Soon, I would be joined by my brother Dan and then a succession of siblings, as was the Irish-Catholic custom back then.

We need more than sound and fury to defeat the GOP's cruel policies

Chris and I wore tutus to a local bar last Friday night.

Nobody beat us up. 

Our tutus were homemade from strips of tulle and, well, left a little bit to be desired. They were blue and black. We wore them over our jeans. Not as noticeable or as flamboyant as the pink tutus worn by others at Accomplice Brewing Company at the old train station. 

People all over Wyoming wore tutus to work and school and bars on Friday. It was in response to Sen. Mike Enzi's April 20 comments.  

This from the #LiveAndLetTutu Facebook page:

During a recent event at Greybull High School in Greybull, a sophomore courageously stood up to ask Senator Mike Enzi a question -- what he was doing to support LGBT youth in Wyoming? To which Senator Enzi responded, "I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it." This message delivered directly to the youth of Wyoming sends the message that if you're bullied in high school things are NOT going to get better. His comments say that to find happiness you must leave Wyoming.

Patrick and Brian Harrington came up with the #LiveAndLetTutu theme and hashtag. They are creative people in Laramie, You may have seen Brian's excellent photos all over the place. On April 22, he took great shots of Laramie's March for Science. The two brothers are from Greybull. They know some of the stigma attached to people who are a bit different in any small town. That's why Enzi's remarks rankled me. It was if he was proclaiming that there was a correct way to be a Wyomingite and an incorrect one. Many incorrect ones. If you follow any of these paths, you will get your ass beat. Or worse. Remember Matthew Shepard.

This is an era when our differences define us more than our similarities. Too bad, since we have so many things in common. For 25 years, I traveled Wyoming promoting the arts. I met all kinds of people. We talked art and not politics. The two are intertwined, but most people in Wyoming what's best for their families. The arts and arts education mean a lot. I once saw a performance of "Annie Get Your Gun" at Greybull High School, the same one when Sen. Enzi made his comments. The whole town, it seemed, turned out that night. It was a high school performance so not all of the voices were stellar and a few lines were dropped. "Annie Get Your Gun" is a bit dated, what with its portrayal of Native Americans and women and the West. Still, any attempt at high school theatre must be applauded. Most schools in Wyoming still have art teachers but theatre teachers are in short supply. Plays are usually supervised by a local with theatre background or a faculty member who (as I did) played The Second Dead Man in a minimalist version of "Our Town."

An event such as #LiveAndLetTutu" features elements of protest and theatre. Protest is always partly theatre. Clever signs and outrageous costumes play a part. So do music and poetry, as in the recent March for Science in D.C., and our own homegrown one in Laramie.

Is protest as theatre effective? It helps us get our ya-yas out. It does nurture community. But it didn't stop the House GOP from passing the so-called American Health Care Act. The better name is Trumpcare. Or Ryancare. Or Tryancare. More creative challenges for us wordsmiths. The GOP has effectively taken over enough state houses to gerrymander the hell out of many states. Their voter suppression efforts have paid off -- for them, anyway. Margins can be thin when half the electorate stays home because you've made it too hard for them to vote. Or their brains have been turned to mush from too much Fox.

Trump & Company only understand one thing -- raw power. We shut them down by voting them out and changing the laws that feed the oligarchy. This won't be easy as we've grown complacent. The theatre of protest will have some effect. But without serious involvement, I am but

a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/And then is heard no more: it is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.

Sound and Fury. We need more than that. Much more.

"No Human is Illegal" the theme of Cheyenne May Day march

Front page of this morning's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle

The WTE second-page jump header quoted Rev. Rodger McDaniel over a photo of me. This struggle is biblical in many ways. Love thy neighbor as oneself. Stuff like that. 

Artwork and protest signs complement each other at the May Day March in the Depot. The multimedia piece in the foreground is CylieAnn Erickson's "Executive Order 13769."

I was one of a hundred-plus souls who came out on a rainy Monday for the May Day March to Keep Families Together in Cheyenne.

Organized by Juntos, the march protested Trump & Company's cruel attempts to demonize people from Mexico or anywhere south of the border. Put it together with Trump's attempted Muslim ban and you have a set of racist policies that deserve protesting.

Juntos enlisted the arts as part of its rally. One of the organizers, Gonz Serrano, read his poetry to the crowd as it sought shelter post-march in the Cheyenne Depot. A high school mariachi band played. Laramie artist Adrienne Vetter worked with Juntos organizers to stage an art show. The arts both personalize and magnify the cause.

Before the poetry and music came the march. The goal was to carry a letter, signed by organizers, to Gov. Matt Mead. His HQ resides at the other end of  Capitol Ave., the route  followed by most marches in Cheyenne. Rally at the Depot Plaza and walk eight blocks to the capitol, usually with a police escort. The capitol complex will be under construction for three years. So we visited the governor at his temp HQ at the old Schraeder Funeral Home quarters on the corner of 24th and Carey.

A delegation, led by Juntos Director Antonio Serrano, left the march and walked inside to deliver the letter to the Gov. They returned a few minutes later with the news that the Gov was in meetings all day and couldn't meet with them. The crowd was not pleased. Since the goal was peaceful protest and not civil disobedience, we turned around and walked back to the Depot.

A sound system had been set up on the Depot stage. But rain and a bit of hail forced us inside. I pondered the largest artwork in the exhibit. CylieAnn Erickson's multi-media piece, "Executive Order 13769," featured a human-sized Statue of Liberty behind a chain-link fence. The artist had included cutouts of newspaper headlines on the subject. It included a snake-like lamp jutting from the panel far enough that I almost bonked my head on it. It appeared that the lamp worked and was meant to illuminate the assemblage.

Writers attempt to comprehend the deeper meanings behind an event, and not always successfully. Marches like this were held all over on this May Day. L.A. had a huge crowd with reps from more than 100 organizations and unions, including the Screen Actors Guild, which may go on strike soon. Why should I care about a Hollywood screenwriter making a lot more money than I ever did as a writer? Because they are fellow humans trying to make a living in an economic system that does not care if you live or die. You must fight for it. Just as these immigrants are doing. ICE agents bust into their homes and haul away family members. Schoolkids taunt Hispanic peers. Cruelty abounds. Trump and his minions lead the charge.

The headline on the news clip above speaks of the universal nature of this issue.

Biblical? Shakespearean? Historic? You could describe our current situation with any of those. Or find your own term. We need witnesses. In print. In art. In music.

Message to Sen. Mike Enzi: You are no help on the Senate HELP Committee

Received this letter from my U.S. Senator Mike Enzi today. It was a response to my postcard appeal back in March to Sen. Enzi, a member of the Senate Arts Caucus, to save funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, which Trump has targeted in his draft budget. Every time I receive a Congressional response, I frame it with  drawings of the human body in the excellent big-format book, "Wall Chart of Human Anatomy," 24 charts of "3D anatomy based on the National Library of Medicine's Visible Human Project." It's a very sciencey book which is appropriate due to  the hundreds of marches for science we had last weekend. Republicans have yet to show that they have human circulatory systems. 

I received a nice note from Sen. Enzi today. It was short, but I understand, as Sen. Enzi had an action-packed week advising Wyomingites the proper attire to wear (or not to wear) to a Wyoming bar. He was specific about the attire -- a tutu -- but not specific on which bar. It could be the railroaders bar in Bill or the cowboy bar in Cheyenne or the brewpub in a barn in Ten Sleep. He told high school students in Greybull that anyone who wears a tutu into a bar in Wyoming gets what he deserves. We know he was talking about Wyoming's Larry "Sissy" Goodwin, a heterosexual Wyoming man who wears women's clothes and has been beat up several times by drunks who don't think that Wyoming men should be walking around in tutus. Sissy and I have spoken at Democratic Party and union meetings. Sissy is quite a dresser.

So Sen. Enzi has been busy apologizing and, in turn, not apologizing.

So I will forgive the abruptness of his response. But I do want to deconstruct it as it includes some strange statements. Some non-explaining explanations, if you will. Maybe even some alternative facts.

Sen. Enzi points out that he is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. As such,

"I believe that the arts and humanities are an important part of a quality education for our children."

Who can argue with that? Children need the arts just like they need to breathe. But it's not just the children -- all of us need the arts. Republicans know that they can get into the least amount of trouble by saying they are for the children and education. If they said, "I love the arts for art's sake" at the local bar, they would be beat to a pulp. Or if they said they supported the rights of artists to artistic expression -- the same result. They might be spared if they said they supported their local arts councils which sponsor much-needed artistic performances in some of the smallest communities in the state. But then if they told the mugs at the bar that the money for these activities came from taxpayer dollars, they might object. Tax money shouldn't support the arts and artists. That's something they might say. Or this: The arts should be self-supporting. This is funny coming from a Wyoming taxpayer, who annually receives more in federal funding than they contribute.

Does anyone find it odd that the Senate has a committee called HELP? There might have been a time when Congress looked out for people's health care, public education, the rights of labor unions and the ability of seniors to support themselves after a lifetime of working. Those days are gone. If you need any proof, just take a look at the Repubs' latest healthcare legislation. None of us will get any HELP from this bill. Keep your eyes on Sen. Enzi's vote when it comes to the Senate. Let's see how much HELP he offers to his constituents. He was a foe of Obamacare and will probably gush over the latest cruel version of Trumpcare.

Here's another statement from Enzi's letter:

"In Washington, I am working to encourage people across the country to get more actively involved in the arts."

As James Baldwin once said, "I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do." This is a notable writer saying that "actions speak louder than words."

The statement that really got me riled was this one:

"As we celebrate the arts, culture, and humanities that are native to our land, we encourage our young people to learn about the past and develop their own artistic abilities."

What exactly are the "the arts, culture and humanities that are are native to our land?" You have to admit that the native artists who etched the petroglyphs were talented. Native artists to our land created beautiful baskets and pottery and jewelry. They built Mesa Verde in Colorado and the mounds in Indiana. The medicine wheel on the crest of the Big Horns.

Not sure that's what Sen. Enzi means. The man reads books and he attends arts events around the state. As a mayor, he energized the arts in Gillette. But his statement smacks of the Nativist mentality that got Trump elected. When they say native, they mean white men. White Protestants founded this nation, by God, and we are the native race. All those other cultures don't count. Witness the Arizona law that forbids schools to teach Latino culture. Are African-American art forms such as jazz and blues and hip-hop counted among the arts native to this land? Salsa dancing? Non-representational art created by New Yorkers and Coloradans and Wyomingites who may find their influences in art from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Japan, Iraq, or Ukraine?

The U.S., surprisingly enough, did not invent the arts and humanities. We come from many cultures, many lands, many religions. We all deserve to be heard and seen.

Sen. Enzi wraps up his letter with a cautionary note that "the president's budget is always just a starting point." OK, so get started and do something to ensure that arts and humanities thrive in these United States. Make a stand and say that you will no longer follow the voting patterns of the Republican right-wing kook caucus. Tell your constituents you will no longer follow Trump as he marches us off of a cliff.

HELP us!

And I leave you with this artistic image, which I thought was hilarious.

This from Wyoming Equality: LGBTQ friends and straight allies put a tutu on, we're going out!
Find a #ToLiveAndLetTutu party near you: https://goo.gl/IqdZQ6

Gary Snyder: "I pledge allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island"

Jane Hirshfield has teamed up with the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University to form #poetsforscience which will commemorate this weekend's March for Science and Earth Day. Hirshfield will read her poem "On the Fifth Day" on Saturday's march in Washington, D.C. This poster is part of a series celebrating poetry and science and the environment. Gary Snyder's "Turtle Island" was my favorite poetry book in the 1970s and I took it with me on backpacking trips in the Rockies: "Ah to be alive/on a mid-September morn/fording a stream/barefoot, pants rolled up/holding boots, pack on,/sunshine, ice in the shallows,/northern rockies."

What would Kurt Vonnegut say about the April 22 March for Science?

If he were still alive, Kurt Vonnegut might have attended the science march near him this weekend. New York City will probably have a big one. He would probably attend more to protest numbskull Trump than to applaud science.

Some of Vonnegut's big books, especially Cat's Cradle, carry warnings about runaway scientific research. In Galapagos, Vonnegut posits a future where humankind has evolved into sea-lion-like creatures with flippers and beaks and smaller brains in heads streamlined for swimming. One of that book's recurring themes is that contemporary human brains are too big and possess all sorts of ways to screw things up. In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Vonnegut has fun with time travel and memory. He also has the fire-bombing of Dresden, brought to us by masterminds in science and war-making. They go hand in hand. So it goes.

Vonnegut studied biochemistry as an undergrad and has a master's degree in anthropology. He worked as a PR guy for General Electric while he wrote his novels and raised his family. He and his fictional alter-ago, Kilgore Trout, are noted sci-fi writers. But Vonnegut stands out for his scientific background and his social commentary. Baby Boomers discovered his novels just as we headed off to college or Vietnam or the assembly line or wherever. It spoke to the absurdity of war, as did Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Ken  Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest completes the big three books of the 1960s that changed my life and many others. Just think about their backgrounds for a minute. Heller was a World War II veteran and NYC ad man in the Mad Men era. Kesey was a rural Oregon boy who made his way to Stanford and sixties legend as part of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He wrapped up his life on a farm in Oregon, back where he started. Vonnegut came from an educated Indianapolis family but the war changed everything, as it did for many of our fathers. My father was able to attend college on the G.I. Bill, begin a career as an accountant, marry a nurse and fathered nine children, of which I am the oldest.

Dedicated sci-fi readers know the thrill and the danger of science. We know that science leads to Hiroshima and to the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator or ICD. I wear one of those in my chest. It was invented by Morton Mower, a Denver resident, now a millionaire art collector. Part of his world-renowned collection of Impressionists (Degas, Renoir, Monet, etc.) is now on display at the Fulginiti Pavilion for Bioethics and Humanities at the Anschutz Medical Center, 13080 E. 19th Ave. in Aurora. A med center with a gallery that exhibits artwork collected by a scientist/inventor? You can attend for free as you get an ICD check-up at the cardiac telemetry unit. A nifty blend of science and art, invention and patronage.

Saturday's Science March is not an effort to promote science above religion or instead of religion. It is a move to celebrate scientific innovation against those who would hide inconvenient facts and cut funding for research. Consider the Know Nothings of the 19th century U.S. They professed to "know nothing" other than that written in their bibles. They valued The Word over words and imagination and science. Today's conservative Republicans are descendants of the Know Nothings.  They are threatened by humankind;'s march into the future. And it is scary. Technology brings drastic changes. The arts expose our children to other voices and other cultures. People who don't look like us force us to consider our deeply held beliefs about race and gender.

It's really fear that drives conservatives. Fear of galloping change. Science and the arts and education represent the most threatening fields. That's why Congressional conservatives' budget cuts target them. If only we could stop the clock, everything would be all right with the world!

But you can't stop change. So we write and we march and we challenge the people who want to deny climate change and evolution and higher ed.

On Saturday, April 22, we meet at 10:30 a.m. in the service station parking lot at Little America in Cheyenne. We then caravan over to Laramie, where we will join others at noon for the Wyoming March for Science from the UW Classroom Building at 9th and Ivinson to downtown. An Earth Day Rally follows, with music by Laramie's Wynona. If you are interested in making an appropriately clever sign, one that honors wit and science, gather at the UU Church in Cheyenne from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, April 21. I missed the Wyoming Art Party's sign-making session last night in Laramie. You may remember WAP's performance art at the Women's March in Cheyenne in January. Their uterine-based signage ("Wild Wombs of the West") was a big hit for many, although some follow-up letters in the local paper called them crude and insulting to women. It's always a good thing when a protest incites letters to the editor.

See you on Science Day on Saturday. It's also Earth Day. Naturally.

Vonnegut won't be there. He's on Tralfamadore, most likely. But he will be there in spirit, both as an encouragement -- and as a warning.

Trump Chicken asks: Where are Trump's missing tax returns?

The Trump Chump Chicken was the centerpiece of the Tax March rally today in Cheyenne. The building in the right background is IRS HQ. Some 150 rally attendees in Cheyenne, plus tens of thousands all over the country, request that Trump release his tax returns because we suspect shady dealings with Russia and almost any other entity on the planet. As one sign said, "No tax reform without tax returns." Creative people, creative signs. Next Saturday, April 22: March for Science in Laramie. Will you be there?

Tax Day Protest set for April 15 in Cheyenne

On Saturday, April 15, concerned citizens will gather in Cheyenne to protest Trump's refusal to release his tax returns. It's Tax Day, the day usually devoted to the wailing and gnashing of teeth over tax filing deadlines. This year, however, Tax Day is officially April 18 due to the weekend and Easter and. presumably, the traditional Easter Egg Roll at the White House, which Trump will emcee this year. Imagine that. If it doesn't go well, if the eggs are not rolled to his liking, expect another Tomahawk launch on Syria.

Why is it important for Trump to release his taxes? Because we need accountability and transparency from this man who has shown so little during his 70 years. Release your tax returns, now, Donald. Or remain the nefarious robber baron that we suspect you are. More info on the protest at https://www.facebook.com/events/1256681387753289/ The Cheyenne protest was highlighted in an April 4 article on CNN Money.

I will make a sign and march on April 15. Will it accomplish anything? If you mean: will Trump finally release his tax returns? No, he will not. We will announce our opposition to his crooked ways, experience camaraderie along the way. At the Women's March in January, I had fun and met the nicest people. New people, mainly, although I saw some old friends. These sorts of gatherings help hold us together as Trump and his minions try to divide us.

See you April 15 at 10 a.m. at IRS HQ, 5353 Yellowstone Rd,, Cheyenne. Bring a sign. If you don't have a sign, and would like to make one in the company of good people, come to the Unitarian Universalist Church, 3005 Thomes Ave, at 6 p.m. on April 14.

And those of you interested in protest and body art, the Wyoming Women March on Equality group also is hosting a "Nevertheless, She Persisted" tattoo party from noon to whenever on April 15 at T.R.I.B.E. Zoo, 1901 Central Ave. in downtown Cheyenne. T.R.I.B.E. artists will charge $75 for a "Nevertheless, She Persisted" tattoo, with $50 going to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. The offer is good through May 15.

MIA: Barrasso, Cheney, Enzi

Newspaper ad organized by local activists at Indivisible Cheyenne and paid for by just people.

May 1 Cheyenne exhibit will showcase the stories and struggles of immigrants

Interested in participating in this exhibit? Contact Adrienne Vetter in Laramie,

Welcome to April's Wyoming Congressional town hall meetings with (probably) no Congressionals

While I was blogging the events for April I forgot this...

Heather Webb Springer of Indivisible Cheyenne/SE Wyoming posted this on the Indivisible Facebook page:

Please help us to promote the upcoming Town Halls being hosted by Wyoming constituents on Tuesday, April 11, 6-8 p.m., Laramie County Public Library, and Wednesday, April 19, 6 p.m., Laramie County Community College. 

First action item -- spread the news far and wide and help us produce a large turnout for these events! Please stay tuned for a copy of the letter that was delivered to the Congressional Delegation Offices on 3/29 inviting them to attend for 4/11 and/or 4/19. 

Invitations and letters to the editor are encouraged to help promote these Town Halls.

This is the beginning of my invitations, followed up by postcards and/or letters. The rest of you -- start writing. Or blogging. Or calling. To get you started, here is Rep. Cheney's contact info:

Cheyenne office: 2120 Capitol Ave., Suite 8005, Cheyenne, WY 82001, 307-772-2595
Web: http://www.cheney.house.gov
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/replizcheney

April 2017 brings flowers, poetry and demonstrations -- snow, too

It's snowing. April comes in like a lion...

Those cruel bastards that make up the Republican Party will get more wake-up calls in April with demos by concerned Americans who've had it up to here with the likes of these people.

First up in April, though, is National Poetry Month. In the past, it has been an occasion for cordial celebratory readings of poetry, past and present. This year, poetry takes on new meaning and a new urgency. Words matter. Expression matters. Heart and soul matter.

To get things off on the right note, here is a spring poem I like. It's Noma Dumezweni reading Wordsworth's "Daffodils" on BBC Radio 4. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio

William Wordsworth seemed to me a stuffy old Brit before I took an undergrad English course at the University of Florida on "The Early Romantic Poets." Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake were early, calendar-wise. The late Romantics, which I took the following semester, covered Keats, Shelley and Byron. An amazing group of poets. From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to Ozymandias. Wordsworth noting the beauty of spring daffodils in the lake country to Byron dying for Green independence at a young age. Blake's mysticism and otherworldly drawings.

Think poetry as you attend any of these other activities celebrating free expression.

Wyoming is the site for three March for Science events on April 22. The largest one will be in Laramie. There also is Pinedale and Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. To RSVP to your local March for Science, go to https://www.marchforscience.com/rsvp.

Why March for Science? If you were paying attention the past three months, Trump and the Republicans have marched out one anti-science bill after another. It's a horror show. So we march.

Many of us in Cheyenne will carpool to Laramie. Marchers meet outside of the UW Classroom Building (the lawn on 9th and Ivinson) at noon and from there march downtown for an Earth Day rally with music, info booths and speakers. Probably food and beverages. If you are interested in being part of a Laramie citywide clean-up, meet at Coal Creek Coffee at 10 a.m.

But before the March for Science comes the Tax March on Saturday, April 15, 10 a.m., at the Cheyenne IRS HQ, 5353 Yellowstone Rd. We will be making clever signs on Friday evening. These sign-making sessions have been dubbed Wines and Signs or, you prefer, Whine and Signs. Keep posted on the Tax March Facebook page.at https://www.facebook.com/events/1256681387753289/.

And time to plan ahead for Monday, May 1. The May Day March to Keep Families Together is sponsored by Juntos Wyoming and convenes at Cheyenne Depot Plaza from 2-5 p.m. While at the march, check out the art exhibit in the Depot Building. FMI: https://www.facebook.com/events/223220958143613/

And for those who like meetings (and who doesn't?) the Laramie County Democrats monthly meeting takes place at the IBEW HQ in Cheyenne, 6:30 p/m/-whenever. Lots of newbies been showing up as they are upset with all things Trump and we don't blame them.

If you like to drink and complain about the Trump regime, please come to Laramie County Drinking Liberally on 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 20, at the Albany Bar downtown.

And don't forget the Laramie County Town Hall Meeting with Rep. Jim Byrd at 6 p.m., April 4, in the Laramie County Public Library's Cottonwood Room.

More events are planned. Check out the Prairie Progressives calendar at http://prairieprogressives.com/calendar/

Wyofile's Studio Wyoming Review features my take on Wimmer exhibit

Studio Wyoming Review is the section Wyofile devotes to art in Wyoming, specifically the visual arts. I am one of the writers providing reviews for the Review. Spearheaded by my former Wyoming Arts Council colleague, Camellia El-Antably, SWR fills a gap in arts coverage formerly addressed by some of the state's larger newspapers, if at all. Camellia is an artist who co-owns a Cheyenne gallery, Clay Paper Scissors. It's housed in a renovated downtown building and features work by contemporary regional artists, most of them from Wyoming.

My first contribution to SWR appeared today in WyoFile with the headline: "Wimmer collages draw on past, touch on today's politics" Feel free to read it and tell me what you think.

And keep reading Wyofile. It's a welcome addition to the Wyoming media scene. Not new, really, although some of you may be noticing it for the first time.

Keep reading.

P.S.: Attention artists.  Mystery Print Gallery in Pinedale and Clay Paper Scissors are co-sponsoring "Rendezvous: A Juried Exhibit of Wyoming Artists." Enter your work via Submittable through April 14.

During spring cleaning, the bell tolls for booklovers

What do I keep? What do I recycle? What do I throw away?

The questions of spring cleaning.

Over the weekend, I vowed to clean up my writing room. Spring cleaning fever hit us on Saturday as we helped our daughter move to a new place in Fort Collins. We tackled her room first, which she hadn't lived in for 18 months. Because it was vacant, I used it as a storage room for the stuff overflowing from my office. The jig was up. She's at home, searching for stuff for the move. So I had to comb through the boxes of receipts and old checkbooks and manuscripts and books.

I tackled the books first. The difficulty is that I want to read parts of a book to decide if it's a keeper. Got stuck on a Brad Leithauser poem, "The Odd Last Thing She Did" by his collection of the same title. It's about a suicidal young woman who disappears after leaving her car running on a cliff overlooking the ocean. "The car/Is Empty. A Friday, the first week/Of June. Nineteen fifty-three." A mystery is at the heart of this poem. Could be the setting for a 250-page hard-boiled mystery novel, a case for Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. But it's a four-page poem, long for a poem, short for a novel. The summer night is lovely with "the stars easing through the blue,/Engine and ocean breathing together." She could have been abducted, but that's not what the poem implies. She threw herself off the cliff. A suicide. A pretty, 23-year-old, and one with a car. But she didn't want to live.

"What are you doing?" Chris asks

I look up. "Reading," I say.

"That's not spring cleaning."

"Yes, but..." I want to say that this poem is wonderful and filled with mystery. It's why we read. But realize that I have been caught in the act.

Now my daughter is looking at me. She writes poetry. "C'mon, Dad," she says, hauling another box of rejected books out to the car trunk. She will take three boxes of books to the library today.

Caught in the act. I close Brad's book and put it into a box labeled "Mike books." Our rooms and basement have many such boxes as the bookshelves are full. In some circles, I would be labeled a hoarder. But among booklovers? Also in the box is "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, which I keep pledging to finally read; "The Voice of America," stories by Rick DeMarinis, which doesn't have my fave DeMarinis story ("Under the Wheat") but does have "The Voice of America" and "Aliens;" and a 1968 Fawcett Crest Book edition of Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" or, if you prefer the German, "Im Westen Nichts Neues." I have been tempted lately to reread the latter book as I am working on a novel set in the years after The Great War. But I have other research to do and may never get to it.

Therein lies the bookie's dilemma. What to keep, what to send to the library? I cannot bear to throw away a book as it seems too much like burning a book. Someone, somewhere wants to read the book that I don't want. Just as I want to read a book that someone else doesn't want, which is why I stop at garage sales.

I am 66 with grown children who are both readers. What will I make of all of this when I am gone? My accountant father painstakingly put the division of his library in his will. He read history and presidential biographies and autobiographies. I got everything from Lincoln to Kennedy, including a beat-up 1885 edition of the "Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Volume 1." Not sure which of my four brothers got the other volumes, if there were any. But I also got a trade paperback of the Grant memoirs which is comprehensive but not nearly as compelling as the original.

Technology is changing reading and collecting habits. Old books fall apart. Indie bookstores die along with their proprietors and aging customers. Good news, though -- it appears that this trend may be reversing. Our kids read books but spend a lot of time on Kindle and online reading.

I am tempted to bring up all these issues with my family. But I am in a losing battle against time. Nobody will care for these books as I do. Some will be claimed by my heirs but most will end up in library second-hand sales or in paperback bookstores or on the curb in garage sales. I will get rid of those that I can now and let time take its toll on the rest. John Donne said it well, and I don't have a single Donne book, not even holdovers from my undergrad and grad school English courses.

Here's the quote, which you may recognize:

"... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Before those bells start tolling, I need to tackle these books. Wish me luck.

Call for artists: Juntos Wyoming May 1 exhibit

Here's a call for entries for a May 1 exhibit in Cheyenne that's part of the May Day March to Keep Families Together sponsored by Juntos Wyoming:

ATTENTION! Calling all Artists from all walks of life...painters, writers, poets, photographers, graphic designers, sculptors and dancers to join us May 1. We are want to have an artist exhibit showcasing the struggles immigrants endure, sacrifices and successes through artwork and literature. 

Any artist interested in participating and showcasing their work please contact: adriennevetter@gmail.com with info by April 19. Please include:
-artist name
-name of artwork
-medium of artwork
-is art for sale.

Artists need to arrive with their work and setup between 9-11 a.m. So it can be displayed for the duration of the day. Thank you.

En Espanol:

Nos gustaría invitarles a todos a nuestra marcha anual! Este año, es especialmente importante que se presente y se mantenga firme en contra de aquellos que harían daño a nuestras comunidades de inmigrantes. 

Únase a nosotros mientras luchamos para mantener a las familias juntas, en Wyoming.
¡Póngase en contacto con nosotros para ver cómo puede ser voluntario para ayudar!  

Juntos (Together).

P.S. If you have some lightweight display walls you can lend Juntos for this exhibit, please comment below or message me on Facebook.