Writer and two Western Govs will address Wyo. Democratic convention

The Wyoming Democratic Party is making it awfully difficult not to spend money at the state convention.

First, they recruited Wilson-based author and screenwriter Bill Broyles as the luncheon speaker. Broyles has written extensively for Esquire, The Atlantic and New York Times. He was the founding editor of the feisty and entertaining Texas Monthly magazine. His book "Brothers in Arms" is a fine account of his experiences as a Marine infantry lieutenant in Vietnam. He was the co-creator of the TV series, "China Beach," and wrote screenplays for "Apollo 13," "Cast Away," "Jarhead," and "Flags of Our Fathers." A great batch of screen credits – I’ve seen all of these films and liked them. Broyles won an Oscar for "Apollo 13."

He seems to be able to sneak social commentary into all his work. One of the cool things about "Cast Away" was how useless Tom Hanks (the castaway) found all of the junk he was marooned with on the desert island. He’d spent his entire career working for a company (FedEx) that transported beach balls and paperwork across the oceans. He almost died doing it – his fellow crew members did. Bill’s wife Andrea is an artist. One of her monoprints, which is described on her web site as "an abstracted set of wings," was the image on the FedEx box in "Cast Away." Variations of the wings were made into sculptures which represented the work of an artist character in the film.

Bill Broyles will speak at the convention luncheon on Saturday, May 24. I may have to pop for the $50 ticket and one for my wife so I can hear him speak about his work. It's all for a good cause -- defeat of Republicans in local, state, and national elections.

At that night’s banquet, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal are the featured speakers. Banquet tickets are $100 apiece, a little rich for my blood. As much as I’d like to hear Gov Bri and Gov Dave, I may have to give the budget a rest that night and head to the taco shop downtown. The two Govs represent a line of Democrats that tracks along the spine of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico: Mont., Wyo., Colo. (Ritter) and New Mexico (Richardson). And more to come. Schweitzer is the guy to talk to about coal gasification and clean-coal technology. He also knows his beeves, as he was raised on a cattle farm near Havre and got his undergrad aggie creds at CSU in Fort Collins before heading back to Montana.

Said WyoDem Chairman John Millin:

"We are fortunate to have such magnificent speakers for one of the most exciting conventions in our state's history. This has been an incredible year with the visits by the two major candidates on the eve of our county caucuses and the record voter turnout at the caucuses. We are thrilled to have an award-winning author and two Western Democratic governors on hand to address the delegates."

People can purchase tickets for either event by contacting the Wyoming Democratic Party at (800) 729-3367 by May 19.

Hummingbirdminds chosen as WYO blog

This is wild! The Democratic National Committee has announced that my blog, hummingbirdminds, will be the credentialed blog from Wyoming at the Denver convention in August. I’ll be seated on the convention floor with the state’s delegation, posting the action as it happens. A front row seat, as DNCC Chair Howard Dean says in this announcement:

http://www.demconvention.com/bloggercorps/blog-announce-wy.mov (Quicktime file)

Now I'll have to dust off my coal-powered laptop and get it ready to rumble at DemCon08.

Later, I'll post a full list of the prog-bloggers going to Denver.

"Freewheelin" to bring bikes to DemCon08

As a possible delegate or blogger to the big Dem convention in Denver this August, I've been receiving a slew of e-mails from the host committee. Some of these e-mails contain crucial info, others are notices of press conferences, "green" initiatives, contracts with major vendors/sponsors, etc.

Yesterday I received one about a "greening effort" press conference set for today at the Colorado Convention Center for this project:

The Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, along with representatives from Humana and Bikes Belong have joined to bring 1,000 bikes to Denver for people to use during the week of the Democratic National Convention. Freewheelin is a national bike-sharing program developed by Humana and bike industry leaders like Bikes Belong to encourage healthy living and environmental sustainability. The 1,000 bikes can be used free of charge by anyone looking for an alternative to automobiles while the convention is in town.

Denver is an excellent cycling city. This was true in the 1980s, when I lived there. I rode the South Platte River and Cherry Creek bikepaths, as well as the Highline Canal Trail. While there wasn't as many bike lanes as there are now, I still felt fairly safe riding the streets. Denverites are used to bicycle commuters and don't seem to intentionally go out of their way to run them off the road. Denverites have lots of options for non-auto transportation. Car is still king, but the crown is slipping a bit as gas creeps up to $4 a gallon (diesel's already above $4).

When I lived in Denver's Platte Park neighborhood, I walked to work at the Gates Rubber Company, just five blocks away (now falling to the wrecker's ball). My family and I walked to the library and parks and shops and restaurants along South Pearl Street. If we still lived there still, we could catch the light rail trains a few blocks away that could take us downtown or out to the Tech Center.

Cheyenne is no slouch when it comes to cycling. We boast an incredible Greenway, and voters just approved a major extension. There are bike lanes on some of the major streets, and more and more of us seem to be commuting when the wind is not peeling the skin off our faces and the snow is not forming icicles on our noses. Until I blew out a knee two years ago, I commuted to work by bike four months of the year. Now that the surgeons have fixed me up, I'm back commuting this spring and summer.

We still lack a bona fide public transportation system. We have buses, but their routes and hours are limited. During the summer, there's a downtown circulator bus. Maybe once a week we should all ride the bus, just so the city can boast to federal funders that ridership is growing and we need more buses and longer hours and more frequent service.

It's tough to pry Wyomingites out of their cars and trucks. But higher gas prices has people pondering alternatives.

This summer in Denver, I may grab one of those Freewheelin bikes and cruise around town. One complaint: Did the Dems have to bring Humana in on this? It is one of the biggest of the health care conglomerates, and their concern is always the bottom line. Do we really need Humana's money this badly?

The woeful plight of a Clinton alternate

As she was reading the paper this morning, Chris asked: "What am I going to do at the state convention if Hillary drops out?"

"You can experience some of the outdoor wonders of the Jackson Hole area," I replied.

She laughed (it was weird -- she sounded just like SNL's Amy Poehler imitating Hillary). "I guess I could shop for some new walking shorts."

I assured her that she could find some very nice walking shorts for a pretty penny at one of the chichi shops in the Jackson Town Square.

"Does the hotel accept dogs? I could bring the dog and take long walks."

"I'll check their web site," I said, returning my attention to the always lively world of the blogosphere.

What will she do as a Clinton alternate if her candidate drops out by May 24? What will she do at the convention as an alternate if Clinton stays in?

I don't have all the answers to Chris's questions, but I know where to find them. She's never been to a state convention, but I'm a battle-hardened veteran of these gatherings, having blundered my way through the 2004 convention in Sheridan. As an Obama delegate, I know what I'm supposed to do -- support Obama and my fellow Obama delegates, and be patient as we discuss the arcane details of the party platform. I caution myself not to become angry when I propose platform planks from the floor, as most of them have been decided the day before in platform committee meetings. I know that a lot of horse-trading transpires, as hundreds vie for the 18 delegate slots to the national convention.

My role as an Obama delegate as already earned me some attention from other Obama delegates who want to go to the national convention in Denver. The other day I received a voice-mail message from an Obama delegate in Evanston, which rests in the far southwestern corner of the state that used to be part of Utah (and still is, in some ways).

I also received a two-page letter from Lander's Cynthia Nunley, who's seeking my support in her bid for re-election as National Committeewoman for Wyoming. The letter outlines her qualifications, which includes experience in democratic activities on the local, state, and national level. She supports Howard Dean's "50 state strategy," which leaves no state behind in the race for the presidency, not even us big square states. She also chaired the 2006 campaign of Michelle Hoffman for Wyoming State School Superintendent. Hoffman was the best candidate, but fell to the onslaught of Republican Party-centric voters.

Ms. Nunley writes a very good letter, persuasive, and she'll have my vote -- unless I get even better letters from other candidates for this position. Let's face it -- everything is up for grabs this year. It's an exciting time.

Meanwhile, my wife, the Clinton alternate, makes plans to fill her free time while in Jackson.

Why I voted against a new rec center

Can a prog-blogger really be progressive if he/she/it votes against cultural and recreational amenities to the city?

On Tuesday, Laramie County held a special election. The ballot had four items seeking funding through the county's sixth-penny tax. The largest and fourth ballot initiative, the one that generated a lot of heat but very little light on the op-ed pages, asked voters to approve a $55 million recreation center. It was a fine-looking rec center, one designed to have an amenity for every taste. Want kilns to bake your pottery? We got it. Want several pools for lap swimming? We got it. Want an indoor walking/running track to avoid winter frostbite and wind attacks? We got it? Want a special section for old codgers to work out in peace while they talk about how rotten the government is? We got it.

In the end, it was too much. The rec center initiative went down in flames while the other three initiatives passed. So, no rec center. But voters okayed almost $3 million for the very popular Greenway, and more than $2 million for design work for the very popular Botanic Gardens and the not so popular airport terminal. We also gave thumbs up on $60,000 for a new sprinkler system in the Pine Bluffs cemetery, and $137,000 so the town of Burns can buy a garbage truck and lease a police car.

I voted yes on 1, 2, and 3, but no on 4. The rec center was too big and unwieldy. City leaders could never decide how much money it was going to cost to run. It was not "green" enough -- designers hadn't incorporated enough energy-saving technology. But most of all, I voted against it because the city had not consulted with the non-profit YMCA and the for-profit exercise centers to see how they could all work together on making Cheyenne a healthier place. I have to admit that my wife works at the YMCA, so I'm far from unbiased. But why didn't people from the city rec department talk to the YMCA? Did they look upon the Y as a threat to their own project? Probably. But the YMCA of the USA is the biggest non-profit in the country and has decades of experience in sports and fitness and even cultural programs. They specialize in programs for youth and families. They have daycare and after-school care for kids. They offer scores of programs for Active Older Adults. Could the YMCA staff have provided valuable advice to the city? Yes. Was it sought out? No.

So I voted "No" on the rec center.

Editor of the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Reed Eckhardt, wrote in his Saturday editorial today that "the city's reach finally exceeded its grasp." Reed was a champion of the rec center, his paper one of its primary promoters. He sees the rec center as an amenity necessary for a progressive city. When he says "progressive," he means "progress," as in Cheyenne is making progress "with the idea that it can be a great Front Range community." He's always railing against the "naysayers" who want Cheyenne to remain the same high plains backwater it has always been. He promotes the plans of Cheyenne's progressive major, Jack Spiker, and the more forward-looking members of the City Council, such as bicycle shop owner Patrick Collins.

"Cheyenne has come a long way under their direction -- and they need to show the voters just that. They must not concede the direction of this community to go-slowers and naysayers who fret that Cheyenne is going to become Wyoming's Fort Collins, whatever that means."

For readers outside of this region, some explanation may be in order. Fort Collins is the Colorado city 45 minutes south of Cheyenne. To many in Cheyenne and Laramie, it is the land of (soy) milk and (organic) honey, a common destination for those seeking Thai food, independent films, and a plethora of shopping opportunities. On Friday nights, teens motor to Fort Collins to cruise College Avenue in search of ways to get into trouble further from home. In 1988, I dragged my family from Denver (Gomorrah of the Front Range) to Fort Collins so I could attend grad school. To Denverites and especially those citizens of Boulder (Sodom of the Flatirons), Fort Collins was a hick town, home of the aggie college, second-rate when compared to CU. But I loved The Fort, as did my wife and son. When I graduated and went to work in Cheyenne, our friends in F.C. looked on in wonder and asked, "Where's Cheyenne?" You see, it's a lot farther from F.C. to Cheyenne than it is from Cheyenne to F.C., as it's uphill all the way.

One more Fort Collins note. When city leaders were looking for a new slogan, they asked residents for their responses. One of the funniest was this: "Fort Collins -- Where Cheyenne Shops."

Funny, yet true, at least at the time. In the early 1990s, before Sam's Club and Super Wal-Mart, we used to travel to F.C. to shop. Our family had blossomed with another issue, and this issue needed a lot of diapers and stuff. The rest of us continued to eat with no let-up in sight. So every couple weeks we hopped in the car and joined the weekend exodus to The Fort.

Cheyenne still doesn't have a Thai restaurant, although the Mexican and Chinese food selections are pretty good. We now boast a Sam's Club and Super Wal-Mart. Alas, I no longer need their services as the son has flown the coop and the daughter is a vegetarian and is satisfied with occasional helpings of birdseed and tofu.

Maybe I'm getting less progressive in my old age. But I did not vote no on the rec center because I am afraid that Cheyenne is becoming like Fort Collins. I voted no on the rec center because city leaders had not done their homework and they were not following their own advice to seek out collaborations when there's something big you want to accomplish.

Environment focus of May 15 Dem meeting

The May 15 meeting of the Laramie County Democratic Grassroots Coalition will focus on environmental issues. Speakers will be Wyoming State Representative Mary Throne and City of Cheyenne Sanitation Director Dennis Pino. The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Sunflower Room in the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne. Free and open to the public, even if you're a Republican (who knows -- you might learn that global warming actually exists).

Wyoming faces a host of environmental issues. Oil and gas development tearing up the Wyoming Range. Coal gasification. Wind farms. Solar energy. Geothermal power. Water quality. Air quality (ozone levels rising dramatically near Pinedale). Drought. Threat of unregulated uranium mining returning to the state (Today's Casper Star-Trib: "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received 30 applications for new uranium mines, restarts of closed mines and expansions of existing mines. Twenty of them are in Wyoming.")

First question to Mr. Pino: When will curbside recycling begin?

Wyomingites can pursuade Montanans

The Montana primary is on June 3. By the looks of things, the Democratic Party presidential race will still be up for grabs. Gabe Cohen, one of the youngsters who ran the Obama campaign in Wyoming prior to our very successful caucuses, is directing the Obama effort in Montana. Here's part of an e-mail he sent out to like-minded people in the Rocky Mountain region:

As you read this message, there are Democratic ballots sitting on kitchen tables all across Montana.

That's right. Thousands of folks here in Montana have already received their absentee ballots in the mail, and they're thinking seriously about whose name to check.

You can make this decision easy -- and here's how.

Our team has put together a list of people here who recently received their absentee ballots. Your voice could persuade them to cast their votes for Barack and mail in their ballots today -- but only if you use our simple online tool right now and give them a call.

Get started making calls to absentee voters in Montana now at http://my.barackobama.com/callMT

Right now, we need your help to carry our momentum forward in Montana -- and with absentee ballots waiting to be filled out in homes from Billings to Kalispell, now's the perfect time to get involved.

You can make an especially big impact over the phone, because every single person you contact could vote for Barack today. And you'll feel the impact of your work immediately as the folks you talk to decide to mail in their ballots right away.

Even if you have never made a call for Barack before, you'll be able to make a difference just by logging in and calling a few voters at http://my.barackobama.com/callMT

Thanks, Gabe Cohen, Montana State Director, Obama for America

P.S. -- You can add even more to our campaign here by joining us in Montana in the coming weeks. Between now and election day -- and especially next weekend, May 17-18 -- seasoned veterans and first-time volunteers alike are traveling to neighborhoods all across Montana to talk to voters in person about why they support Barack.

This is the last contest in the country, and our last chance to make a difference for Barack during the primary season, so I hope you'll sign up to come lend a hand.

Might be a kick to travel up to Billings or Bozeman next weekend and knock on some Montana doors for Obama.

Meditations in Green, May 4-10, 2008

Green is the color of insanity. Not sure why, but that’s what it said in the handout distributed today at the Children's Mental Health Awareness Week luncheon in Cheyenne.

In the 1800s, the color green was used to brand people who were labeled "insane." The children’s mental health community decided to continue using the color green, but with a different focus. Green signifies new life, new growth and new beginnings.

We wore green ribbons. Green balloons flanked the entrance to the luncheon. Green flowers graced the tables. Most of us – or our children – have struggled with mental illness. I never related green to my own depression – or vice versa. My son had teen bouts with drugs and alcohol and spent a year in a treatment center. My teen daughter battles depression and has also done time in a treatment center. My wife Chris and I used to wonder "why us?" – until we met all kinds of people with the same problems. Mental health problems are as ubiquitous as health problems. Families are just as likely to experience depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia as they are diabetes and cancer. Thing is, you can talk about your skin cancer, but it’s hard to openly discuss how hard it is living inside your own skin.

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal spoke at the luncheon. Life is difficult and complicated in the 21st century, he said, even in the least populous state in the union. Growing up outside post-war Thermopolis was idyllic, even with seven siblings and the limited budget of a farm family. People took care of one another. Ministers and teachers and the local sheriff could step into bad situations and make a difference. But there was at least one bad thing about the good old days -- people didn't discuss their deranged Uncle Bill or the kid in sixth grade who rocked back and forth all day. These days, we talk about the mentally ill amongst us, and we take strides to assist them. We have the dragon on the run, he said, but we can't beat the dragon until we all start working together. That was a message for all the nonprofits and government entities in the room. Share your resources and pull in the same direction. This is one of our toughest tasks. Too often we guard our territory at the expense of those who need help.

I work in the arts world, but volunteer as a board member for UPLIFT of Wyoming (sponsor of the luncheon) and serve on the Governor's Mental Health Council. Arts organizations fall prey to the same territoriality. None of us are the better for it.

So, here's some background on this huge issue:

The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health again declares the first full week in May, May 4-10, 2008 as National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week. The National Federation would like to invite all of its local chapters and statewide organizations to use this week to promote awareness about children’s mental health. Join the national office in sending the following messages:

Mental Health is essential to overall health and well being; serious emotional and mental health disorders in children and youth are real and treatable; children and youth with mental health challenges and their families deserve access to services and supports that are family driven, youth guided and culturally appropriate; stigma associated with mental illness should no longer exist.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For my header, I borrowed the title of Stephen Wright's excellent 1983 novel, "Meditations in Green," once out of print but recently reissued by Vintage Contemporaries. It has a lot to say about sanity and insanity as it relates to drug abuse, the Vietnam War, and over-the-top human behavior. One of my favorite authors, Don DeLillo, described the book this way: "Precisely that brutal hallucination we desperately wanted to end."

The Beats return to Wyoming and Colorado

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922, the year before my father, Tom Shay, arrived on the planet. They couldn’t have been less alike, although they might have shared an interesting conversation about Catholicism (said Kerouac: "I’m not a beatnik, I’m a Catholic") during one of Jack’s forays to Denver, my father’s hometown. Who knows? Maybe they ran into each other during Jack’s first trip to Denver in the summer of 1947. My father a college student on the G.I. Bill, rolling around downtown with his buddies, making up for lost time. Jack bumping into Tom at some watering hole and saying, "Excuse me, pal, but I’m on the road and in a hurry." My father replying: "What’s the rush, future famous writer?"

Kerouac was always in a hurry, flinging himself from place to place. He documented everything, a writer always taking notes as the world flew by. He sojourned to most states in the West, even lived in Denver for a time with his mother, sister and brother-in-law. A good boy, Jack was, always trying to take care of his mother but usually hitting her up for cash. He was a reckless and irresponsible young man. He treated his women badly, drank too much, and jumped from job to job. My father would not have approved. Kerouac’s life during the formative years of his writing career is explored in the book, "Jack Kerouac’s American Journey: The Real-Life Odyssey of On the Road" (Thunder's Mouth Press) by Paul Maher Jr. I’m reading it now, and it traces the writer’s physical journey and his development as a writer.

Kerouac left us with all this great writing. And he documented an era in American letters that is now legendary. The Beats. So famous now that we don’t even need their first names: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs. You can find them all in the canon of university English departments. And then there’s the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, which celebrates The Beat Era with a conference each summer.

Who would have though that Denver would be a way station on the Beatnik Highway? The Queen City of the Plains, an overgrown cowtown, just a distant smudge on the horizon when viewed from Greenwich Village or from North Beach? But it was Neal Cassady’s town, which was what drew the writers, smitten with this wild son of a drunk who grew up on Larimer Street’s skid row. Cassady was kind of a symbol of Denver’s wild side, the town that started as a gold camp (without the gold) and then a raucous pioneer town with a heady supply of bars and brothels. During the 1940s and '50s, the city had a lively jazz scene.

The Beat history of Colorado and Wyoming is being explored this summer when the Wyoming Humanities Council presents "On the Road: 50 Years of the Beatniks." It includes a book discussion series focusing on Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. There also will be a poetry slam tour of Casper, Cheyenne and Lusk conducted by UW poet and professor Craig Arnold, and a bus trip on June 22 to visit beat locales in Denver. Host sites also will screen B movies from the era. Jenny Ingram at the WCH points out that "the beatniks belong to the history of our region. Thirty pages into ‘On the Road,’ Jack Kerouac visits Cheyenne Frontier Days." In the book, CFD gets a different name. Says Montana Slim: "Hells Bells! It’s Wild West Week!"

The Humanities Council's summer programs are free and open to the public. They are sponsored by the We the People initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more info about the schedule, contact Ingram at jingram@uwyo.edu or visit www.uwyo.edu/humanities.

The New Deal lives on, 75 years later

"The legacy of the New Deal is evident today not just in buildings, roads, bridges and trails across the United States. It can still be seen in the ongoing existence of unemployment insurance, insured bank deposits, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Authority.

"The spirit of the New Deal also lives on in the social programs that we consider important to our society -- those that care for the elderly and the poor, and offer a safety net for even the most productive of our citizens who sometimes fall on hard times."

This comes from Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's introductory letter for the program distributed at the 75th anniversary New Deal celebration Saturday, May 3, at Guernsey State Park. It's ironic that these are some of the programs that the Republicans have tried to dismantle since they were enacted. Social Security privatizations anyone? John McCain still has that on his agenda.

FDR recognized that difficult times demanded bold solutions. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a program that put men back to work building roads, bridges, and buildings, paying them $30 a month for their hard work. Of that, the CCC men had to send $25 home to their families. Wyoming had 19 CCC camps, two of them at Camp Guernsey in Platte County. Many of the structures built by the CCC around the reservoir are still standing and part of Guernsey State Park.

The federal government had many programs putting people back to work during the Great Depression. The Works Progress Adminstration employed artists composing guides to each state, painting murals in post offices, and staging plays. Such well-known American writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Nelson Algren, Studs Terkel and James Baldwin were active in the Federal Writers Program. Idaho's renowned writer, Vardis Fisher, was writer and editor for the state guide, still recognized as best-written of all the guides. Fisher fought to finish and release the Idaho guide first, even though the WPA honchos insisted the Washington, D.C., book be first.

Not all writers were excited about government work. Ernest Hemingway, for one, another writer who ended up spending a lot of time in Idaho -- eternity, too. Other writers and artist and performers turned up their noses at the WPA, but many already had a career and means of their own. It's possible they wanted to avoid some of the controversies engendered by some of the plays and films produced by WPA creative types. They often focused on the poor and downtrodden, and aimed the laser of satire at big business. Critics contended that people accepting taxpayer funds should not be biting the hands that fed it. Sound familiar?

It all comes down to your feelings about the role of the federal government. Should it step in when the country is going to hell in a handcart? Yes, I say, as do both Democratic Party candidates for the presidency. No, says John McCain, who wants a market-based health care system, which is what we have now and is failing so miserably.

Governor Freudenthal obviously believes in government's active role. Not only is that evident from his words about the New Deal, but by the fact he's supporting Sen. Barack Obama. He'll be speaking on behalf of Obama May 10 in Montana. I, for one, am happy that he's come out of the closet politically and is ready to stand up for the Democrats. Yes, Wyoming is a Republican-dominated state and most of its residents like the careful balancing act that Freudenthal does with his politics as homegrown free-thinker, hunter and wearer of fine cowboy boots. But, when your country is in trouble, you have to act. As FDR did with his many New Deal programs.

For more about the Gov's support of Obama, go to the May 3 Casper Star-Tribune article at http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2008/05/03/news/wyoming/bc0fc0ad1716cfb88725743e0000ffd1.txt

Tickets still available to Dem bash in Mont.

The Associated Press reports this:

Tickets to the Democratic Party's annual Harry S. Truman Dinner next week in Billings remain available, but if you buy one, don't expect a meal.

The party says tickets to the dinner featuring remarks by former President Clinton and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal are sold out. Bleacher seats remain available, however. The price is $40.

The event May 10 will be in the gymnasium at Montana State University-Billings. Yellowstone County Democratic Party Chairman Ray Tracy says the gym holds about 3,700 people.

Clinton's appearance is part of the presidential campaign by wife Hillary Clinton. Freudenthal will speak on behalf of her rival, Barack Obama.

New stories due from Proulx in September

Jenny Shank reports at New West that Annie Proulx's new book of stories of people who inhabit "pioneer country" (a.k.a. "Wyoming") will be out in September. "Fine Just the Way it Is" is Annie's third story collection set in Wyoming. The first was "Close Range," which included "Brokeback Mountain," which now is a book and a movie unto itself. The first edition of that book was illustrated (in color) by Denver watercolor artist William Matthews. It now sells for a pretty penny. The second collection was "Bad Dirt." Prior to these flurries of stories, Annie was best known as winner of the Pulitzer Prize for "Shipping News," set in Newfoundland. She lives in the Platte River Valley near Saratoga, Wyoming.

If you don't have time to sit down and read "Close Range," there's a terrific audiobook. Three actors are featured and take turns reading. One of the best driving-across-vast-distances-listening-to-fiction experiences you can have.

Jenny picked up the tip on the new Proulx book from the Buzz Girl blog ("a publishing insider gets the skinny on tomorrow's bestsellers") at http://bookpagebuzz.blogspot.com/2008/03/scribner-summer-2008.html. Buzz Girl originally had the release date in June but then amended that for us readers anxious for the new book.

To be in D.C. in the springtime

One of the great things about D.C. is that there is always something going on. When you work there, it's old hat, maybe even annoying -- maybe you don't even notice the latest demonstration or rally. But to us rubes from the hinterlands, it's wildly entertaining. Anything's better than sitting on the general store bench watching yet another tumbling tumbleweed blow by.

When I was visiting the Capitol this week, Dick Cheney and his entourage blew by. I was just minding my own business, sauntering along the sidewalk past a demonstration of disabled Americans in motorized wheelchairs, when I came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the U.S. Capitol vehicle entrance. A crowd of people I took for tourists lined the sidewalk, waiting for something. A half-dozen cops milled about. I was on the cell phone, trying to straighten out a situation at home (the cattle had stampeded again!) and I thought that the cops were stopping us so the wheelchair-bound protesters could pass by.

Just as I was ringing off, a posse of official Harleys started up with a rattling roar, and a trio of Capitol Cop cars started to roll down the driveway. Then all the sirens came on, and a fleet of black limos and SUVs pulled out of the bowels of the Capitol Building and rolled down the drive. They moved fast, but the tourists lining the street had their cameras out, wildly snapping photos. I asked the guy nearest to me if this was the president's motorcade. "No, it's the vice president." I stepped away from the curb, as if burned by the cinders of hellfire. The Prince of Darkness was passing by. I suppose I should have bowed my head and uttered a prayer to St. Michael to protect me from the fiend. But I stood gawking along with my fellow gawkers. One black SUV had its window open and inside was a soldier in black cradling an automatic weapon. Now that's firepower!

The motorcade passed in a flash, although we could hear the sirens for another five minutes. I thought to myself that the Veep's pals in the oil and gas business would be mighty proud of their boy on this day. That V.I.P. parade was burning some prodigious amounts of fuel. And they must do this every day that Congress is in session, as the Veep is president of the Senate, standing by the break a tie on the Republican side. What sort of nefarious deeds had he been up to on this day, I wondered.

The rest of my afternoon was uneventful. I walked back to my hotel via the National Mall. I stopped for a few minutes on a bench by the National Gallery of Art fountains. I occasionally ate my lunches here when I worked in D.C. Always cooler here in the summer, with the trees and the mist blowing off the fountains. Nobody ever bothers you, unless it's some tourists looking for a bystander to take a group photo.

I visited the World War II Memorial for the first time. It's strangely bland, especially in comparison to the legendary Vietnam Wall and the stark soldier statues at the Korean War Memorial. The more controversial the war, the more invigorating the monument. Not sure if that's true. If it is, the Iraq War Memorial slated for the Mall some time in the next 20 years will be a doozy. I always linger by the Vietnam Memorial (shown above). I'm not a Vietnam veteran, but a product of those times. Something haunting about the black granite wall that will never leave me.

I recall the turmoil surrounding the memorial's design. "A black gash of shame," one critic called it. But it was promoted by Vets and had enough clout on Capitol Hill to weather the storm. The day I was there, a steady stream of tourists walked the path that flanks the wall. One young kid was doing a rubbing of one of the 58,000 names. Maybe he was a grandson or a relative, or maybe doing it for a class assignment. A group of Chinese tourists filed by. Couples and families. Some of the men looked old enough to be vets, but one can't be sure. The Wall draws all kinds. Some, obviously, have never been here. Like the guy who lives in this very white house....

Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

It's great to be back in Wyoming after four days inside the D.C. Beltway. I kept looking for political insiders while I was there, and I found a few, but more about that later....

Yes, it's the fifth anniversary of Mission Accomplished Day. It seems like only yesterday that a costumed George W. Bush announced from the deck of an aircraft carrier that the Iraq War was over. We looked on in fascination as the president made his landmark speech on May 1, 2003, against the unfurled banner that was the source of our country's pride.

Alas, the announcing and the bannering and the jubilation were premature. The Iraq War rages on and the casualties keep piling up.

Wonder where Dubya will celebrate Mission Accomplished Day?

Wyoming delegation: Support G.I. Bill!

Fifth-seven Senators and 241 House members have thus far signed on as co-sponsors for Sen. James Webb’s 21st Century G.I. Bill for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

On the Senate list, I see the names of both senators from Montana, one senator from Nebraska (Republican) and one from Colorado (Democrat).

Neither of the two senators from Wyoming have signed on. Their names are Sen. Mike Enzi of Gillette and Sen. John Barrasso of Casper. Both are Republicans. Call or e-mail them and ask them why they hate the troops. Our esteemed Republican Representative, lame duck Barbara Cubin, is not on the list of House supporters. Rep. Cubin, why do you hate the troops? Call her and find out.

Both Democratic presidential candidates have signed on as co-sponsors. No sign of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, Vietnam veteran and former POW.

According to Sen. Webb’s web site

...more than two hundred veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from across the country will converge on Capitol Hill Tuesday, April 29, to join Senator Webb and members of Congress advocating a "21st Century GI Bill" for our newest generation of veterans. The group will call for immediate legislative action on the "Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act."

"We need to move expeditiously to get this vital piece of legislation passed this year for our returning Iraq and Afghanistan service members," said Webb. "After six and a half years of service, our nation's men and women in uniform deserve a GI Bill that rewards their service and invests in their future. The educational benefits in this bill are crucial to a service member's readjustment to civilian life and as a cost of war that should receive the same priority that funding the war has received the last five years."

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act is designed to offer the brave men and women who have served honorably since September 11, 2001 a level of educational benefits on par with those provided to veterans of the World War II era. The legislation will give our returning troops the tools to succeed after military service, strengthen our economy in the face of increasing global competition, and make military service more attractive as we work to rebuild our military.

As luck would have it, I’ll be on Capitol Hill Tuesday on another errand, which includes lunch with a variety of Senators and Representatives who support the arts. Perhaps we can invite the veterans to lunch with us, and they can tell us why the 21st Century G.I. Bill is a good idea, one that needs overwhelming support from both sides of the aisle.

For more, go to http://webb.senate.gov/.

"The war is over. Halliburton won!"

That's from a pickup truck's bumper sticker spied by author Alexandra Fuller on a jaunt across Wyoming. It's part of a column the Wilson-based writer wrote for the New York Times Op-Ed pages. In it, she blasts the "untouchables" that run the oil and gas industry in Wyoming.

And a powerful oil lobby reminds us with Orwellian regularity that we owe everything to oil and gas taxes, bullying those who disagree. (In February, a committee of the Wyoming Legislature rejected a spending increase for the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources after institute scientists dared to raise concerns about water produced in coal-bed methane wells.)

Yes, it's true. The energy extractors run the state, even run roughshod over it. Our Oilmen-in-Chief, Bush & Cheney, have made it easy for them. The Halliburtons of the world are poking holes in every last part of Wyoming they can get their snouts into. When citizens raise their voices and say something such as "Not So Fast," the oil lobby questions the patriotism of the critics. This is a dicey business in rural stretches of the state, where the critics are not your average namby-pamby enviromentalist but ranchers and housewives and hunters and even those who work in the oil patch but value our outdoor spaces. They could even be veterans of Bush's oil wars who have come home to find that the war is being waged in their hometowns, places such as Pinedale and Rawlins and Wright.

Lately, executives have been telling increasingly unhappy communities that domestic drilling is our moral duty, an alternative to sending more soldiers to war. They imply that anything less than full support for the oil companies is un-American.

Alexandra points out that the industry has a lousy track record on worker safety, topping the "national death toll on the job" statistics with 16.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. Not surprisingly, Alexandra's upcoming book, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, has for its focus a young man from Evanston who was killed in an oil field accident. The book has already garnered some favorable reviews. Alexandra hits the road May 8 for her book tour. First Wyoming stop is Evanston on Friday, May 16. She'll conduct an author’s talk and book signing at the Uinta County Library, 307 Main St., with a 5:30 p.m. social hour followed by Alexandra’s talk and signing. There will be a dinner at 7 p.m. for ticket holders. For more info, contact Jan Maggard at jmaggard@uintalibrary.org.

It would be preferable if an actual discussion ensued during the tour. That's a lot to hope for in these times, when opponents usually start each "discussion" yelling and the volume and vitriol goes up from there. But it could happen. In her op-ed piece, Alexandra notes that author and UW writer-in-residence Terry Tempest Williams has taken her students on the road to conduct what she calls "weather reports" in small communities.

Addressing packed rooms, Ms. Williams turns the microphone over to the people of Wyoming — a stoical populace whose habitual stance against something they don’t like is a tight lip. Astonishingly, they have opened up, voicing their concerns over the rapidity and scale of the oil and gas development. "One day, I fear I will wake up and all that will be left of Wyoming is a hole in the ground," one resident of the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem said.

Oil executives have pushed back. One oilman, State Senator Kit Jennings, took the microphone in Casper and declared that Ms. Williams had demonized the oil companies. He rejected her contention in a local newspaper article that the energy boom had helped drive up the use of crystal methamphetamine in the region and announced that he had demanded that she be fired from the university for her criticism of the industry.

Oil and gas are accustomed to dominating the debate. But Ms. Williams’s forums have created an opportunity for grass-roots rebuttal. Residents, who have so far been cowed by the enormous tax contributions that energy companies make to the state’s coffers, are upholding values not counted in dollars.

According to one participant at the "weather report" in Casper, Jennings ended up inviting Ms. Williams for a tour of the Jonah Field. No word yet on whether she's taken the senator up on his invitation.

It's noteworthy when two writers can garner this much attention and controversy for giving voice to their views -- and helping others to have theirs.

Nick Carter cranking up Senate campaign

Nick Carter sent out e-mails recently asking for donations and volunteers. He's the Democratic Party candidate for Republican John Barrasso's Senate seat. He's from Gillette, as is the case with Wyoming's other Republican senator, Mike Enzi. Enzi has not officially announced his run for re-election.

Here are some excerpts from Nick's e-mail appeal:

The people of Wyoming need an advocate in the U.S. Senate. We can not afford any more rubber stamp, party-line-no-matter-what politics from our U.S. Senator.

What if you could have an advocate in the U.S. Senate? An advocate working on the problems and solutions important to you and your family?

You can. I will be that advocate for you and all the citizens of our great state - with your help.

As your advocate in the U.S. Senate, I will:
* Work to provide health care for all citizens at an affordable price
* Bring the Iraq War to an honorable end, get our troops out of harm's way
and rein in the enormous cost to us, our children and grandchildren
* Work to bring down the price of gas, utilities and groceries
* Make Wyoming the leader in current energy and new, cleaner sources

As an attorney in Gillette, I have been an advocate for many, many Wyoming citizens over the past 17 years. A United States Senator should be the ultimate advocate for all the people of Wyoming. I will be that advocate with your help.

Your donation of any size, whatever you can afford, will allow me to run an effective, competitive campaign for the U.S. Senate. I want donations from Wyoming people, like you, to combat the effects of the big donations from pharmaceutical, insurance and other PACs who lavish money on my opponent.

Please take two minutes to CLICK HERE and make a secure contribution to my campaign.

(I also need your help as a volunteer for my campaign. You can volunteer here.)

The candidate makes some sound proposals. I wish his statement about Iraq was stronger. We should get out NOW, which would get our troops out of harm's way and rein in costs. All those billions could be spent at home to cover health care for all, development of clean energy sources, student loans, etc. Events have proved that the "Get out of Iraq now" crowd was correct all along.

Cheyenne curbside recycling a step closer

Can you find Earth Day cards among this spring's Mother's Day and "Happy Graduation" cards? I should have checked our local grocery store when I was there last night buying emergency supplies of Ben & Jerry's. Earth Day cards are a great idea for no other reason than they could be sent to Republican relatives. Nay, you say, even Republicans are earth-friendly in the 21st century. John McCain has an environmental platform. Poppycock, say I, recalling how Our Current President has spent his time. When he's not waging war on Iraqis and clearing brush on his Crawford ranch, he's waging war on the environment. Lately he's mumbled something about climate change actually existing, but we are so used to him talking out of both sides of his mouth that we don't pay attention any more.

On the local scene, the City of Cheyenne is one step closer to curbside recycling. The City Council's Finance Committee voted unanimously yesterday to buy a truck (from Canada) outfitted for recycling. Later this spring, the full council will be voting on buying the truck and approving the $1.4 million curbside recycling program. There's already a pilot program in the Sun Valley neighborhood that has been wildly successful. The city's been picking up 10 tons of recyclables from the area every other week. According to this morning Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, that means that about one-third of the trash generated in Sun Valley stays out of the landfill, which is so close to reaching capacity that some of our trash is being trucked to a landfill near Ault, Colo. Even recycling naysayers have to be concerned about that.

City officials say that the big blue recycling bins will remain at three locations around town. I visit the ones at my local Albertson's parking lot once a week. I'm always impressed by how many people of all ages are there, recycling their Diet Coke cans, Bud bottles and copies of the daily paper. Most of the time, the bins are full before the trucks get around to picking up the stuff. But that's progress.

Celebrate Earth Day by doing something earth friendly. That could be replacing your light bulbs, riding your bike to work, or donating money to Democrats running for Congress and the presidency.

Big square Wyoming sends election greetings to small-town Wyoming, Pa.

They will be voting in the primary tomorrow in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. The State of Wyoming allegedly got its name from this coal-mining region of the northeastern part of the state. I was thinking of this place (where I’ve never been) as I was making calls to Pennsylvania this weekend in behalf of Barack Obama. When I told people I was calling from Wyoming, I expected them to ask: "The big square state or the small Pa. town and/or county?" But nobody did. Maybe they were tired of the calls. One man said he was sick and couldn’t talk. An elderly woman was on her way out, possibly for Passover but I didn’t ask. I was calling numbers in Philadelphia, so maybe these city dwellers hadn't heard of this valley made famous by the 1809 poem, "Gertrude of Wyoming," by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell.

This poem is really long and flowery, as befitting its time. Campbell was a contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge but not nearly as well known. For good reason, as it turns out. From "Gertrude of Wyoming:"

Delightful Wyoming! beneath thy skies,
The happy shepherd swains had nought to do
But feed their flocks on green declivities,
Or skim perchance thy lake with light canoe,
From morn till evening's sweeter pastimes grew,
With timbrel, when beneath the forests brown,
Thy lovely maidens would the dance renew;
And aye those sunny mountains half-way down
Would echo flageolet from some romantic town.

Then, where of Indian hills the daylight takes
His leave, how might you the flamingo see
Disporting like a meteor on the lakes--
And playful squirrel on his nut-grown tree:
And every sound of life was full of glee,
From merry mock-bird's song, or hum of men;
While hearkening, fearing naught their revelry,
The wild deer arch'd his neck from glades, and then,
Unhunted, sought his woods and wilderness again.

And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime
Heard, but in transatlantic story rung,
For here the exile met from every clime,
And spoke in friendship every distant tongue:
Men from the blood of warring Europe sprung
Were but divided by the running brook;
And happy where no Rhenish trumpet sung,
On plains no sieging mine's volcano shook,
The blue-eyed German changed his sword to pruning-hook.

The poem goes on like this for another hundred stanzas or so. How’d you like to memorize that? Because of the rhyme, it would be easier to commit to memory than "Howl." But not nearly as interesting. I’m not sure if Campbell had ever stepped foot in Pennsylvania. Perhaps he’d hooked up with Coleridge and they huffed on the hookah together. Flamingoes in western Pa.? Shepherd swains tending their flocks while lovely maidens dance? And scarce had Wyoming of war or crime? Killing Indians doesn’t count, I guess. I would venture that in the late 18th century, just surviving from day to day would have been a challenge. Shepherds would be fighting off wolves and the maidens would be fighting off the shepherds. You’d be lucky just to survive childhood and the regular plagues of cholera and smallpox. If you were in the valley on July 3, 1778, Loyalist forces and their Iroquois allies driven from New York after the surrender of Saratoga killed more than 300 "Rebels" at the Battle of Wyoming. The Iroquois then hunted down the survivors. They tortured some 30-40 prisoners to death, according to the wikipedia entry on the subject.

Settlers in this part of fledgling America were probably too busy to be flamingo-watching.

Author and critic William Hazlitt wrote at the time that "Mr. Campbell excels chiefly in sentiment and imagery. The story moves slow, and is mechanically conducted, and rather resembles a Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with a number of locks in it, than one of those rivers that sweep in their majestic course, broad and full, over Transatlantic plains, and lose themselves in rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices."

All that aside, how will the residents of Wyoming, Pa., vote on Tuesday? Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in the neighborhood recently. Sen. Obama spoke today in Scranton, best known as the home of the Dunder-Mifflin crew on "The Office." Hillary was spotted nearby.

A new poll by Quinnipiac University showed Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Obama by 51 percent to 44 percent, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points. A seven-point spread will not make much difference in delegate count. Sen. Obama will be the nominee because Mrs. Clinton cannot win enough delegates at this point. We in WYOMING USA are sure of this.

McCain: Happy days are here again

Anderson Cooper Voiceover: “Senator McCain, are Americans better off than they were 8 years ago?” [CNN Republican Primary Debate, 1/30/2008]

John McCain: “I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off - because we have had a pretty good prosperous time…” [CNN Republican Primary Debate, 1/30/2008]

The Democratic National Committee has some fun with McCain's elitist comments in this TV ad set to air beginning Tuesday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFDc4M_PMN

Thanks to Crooks & Liars for the head's up.